Category Archives: Military

UPDATED: Standing Armies Are Worse Than Useless (Israeli Major Gen. To US: Pot. Kettle. Black)

Ethics, Israel, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Just War, Middle East, Military

First up today, a think-tanker with the surname of Haas told CNN’s Don Lemon that Hamas kills Israelis and exploits Palestinians. No doubt. However, if given the option—something the dead are not afforded—would I rather be exploited by Hamas or killed by an Israeli bomb? I think you know the answer. (I was unable to locate the interview online.)

Next, this time on Fox News, a gentleman by the name of Adam Ereli, former U.S. ambassador to Bahrain, informed anchor Shepard Smith—and I paraphrase—that too much emphasis is being placed on Palestinian civilian casualties. Really? Are their lives forfeit for the sins of others?

This does not look good for Israel. My sense of this Gaza offensive is that a standing army such as Israel’s is unequipped to deal with guerrilla warfare. Standing armies are fat, lazy, imprecise and careless.

Not much has changed since I wrote, in 2012 (“Standing Armies Commandeered by Cowards”), the following about Israel’s previous futile confrontation with Hamas:

… The fight was started by Hamas. Hamas hides among unwitting civilians, who have no way of controlling its activities. This fact does not give Israel the right to kill innocent non-combatants, not even unintentionally.

Besides, murder is not “unintentional” when you know it is inevitable.

To make matters worse, Gazans are helpless—they are without siren systems to warn them of an impending attack, or bomb shelters in which to hide.

After its 2006 Lebanon fiasco, I proposed that Israel deploy the best of its special-operations units. Israeli commandos such as the “Sayeret Matkal” are trained in surgical strikes, including modern urban counterterrorism operations. “Sayeret” soldiers can trace and neutralize the source of an attack against Israeli civilians sans “collateral damage.”

Yes, what’s the matter with Israel’s Special Operations capabilities? Where are Israel’s precision Pac Men? Did the Israel Defense Forces rain bombs, willy-nilly, on the civilians at the Entebbe Airport—in Uganda, on July 4, 1976—where the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine held 100 hijacked Jews and Israelis hostage?

Not on your life.

Led by Lt. Col. Yonatan Netanyahu, Bibi Netanyau’s late great brother, 100 members of the “Sayeret” traversed 2,500 miles to rescue their brethren. They killed only those who needed killing.

It used to be that leaders like “Yoni” Netanyahu charged with their men into battle. Not anymore. Nowadays, celebrity, champagne-swilling generals give the order to chubby men in armored machines, who then bomb the anthills from above and afar. …

MORE.

UPDATE: Israeli Major Gen. To US: Pot. Kettle. Black. Retired Major General Amos Yadlin responded to the moralizing of CNN’s Wolf Blitzer brilliantly:

BLITZER: Should Israel, the IDF, be doing more to prevent civilian casualties?

YADLIN: The IDF are doing more than the Americans have done in Fallujah and more than the Americans have done in Germany in the second world war. We are the moralist army in the world. We have a code of conduct that we are allowed to attack only terrorists.

This too is true, but how much does it mean, and is it enough?

UPDATE II: Navy SEAL’s Bad Karma Continues (LIBERTARIAN LAW of Libel)

Ethics, Free Speech, Justice, libertarianism, Military

Deceased Navy SEAL Chris Kyle lived by the sword and died by the sword (BAB 02.03.13). “Or, in hippie speak: Kyle had bad karma”; he was “shot point-blank” by “another soldier who was recovering from post traumatic stress syndrome.”

In a book detailing his life as Uncle Sam’s assassin, Kyle libeled another Navy man, former Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura. It proved the wrong move. “Kyle’s estate,” reports The Daily Caller, “which is run by his widow Taya,” will be liable for “$500,000 for defamation and $1.3 million for unjust enrichment.”

UPDATE I (7/30): Soldiers Against Due Process. Fox News, predictably, reports “Outrage After Jesse Ventura Wins Lawsuit Against Chris Kyle”:

Ben Smith, Kyle’s roommate during SEAL training, still disputes that his friend lied about the confrontation, which occurred at a memorial service for a SEAL who had been killed when he jumped on a grenade.
Smith said he’s having trouble “grasping” how the American judicial system could come up with a verdict like this, recalling that Kyle had told him about the confrontation with Ventura.
“He was running his mouth and saying some really vile stuff, saying we should lose more men, more heroes, more guys out there who were fighting the fight. Is that not almost treasonous? Like you’re anti-American, saying we should lose? [Chris] said ‘you say that again, I’m going to pop you in the — I’m going to get ya.’ And he did and he came over and did it,” said Smith. … Later on the show, the hosts expressed their own thoughts on the shocking ruling, questioning how Ventura could go after the widow of an American hero.

MORE.

UPDATE II: LIBERTARIAN LAW of Libel. There is the controversy over libel in libertarian circles. Most of us think that speech ought to be unfettered and that a person has no right in his reputation. I suppose I ought to have mentioned the libertarian law of libel, which I like a lot and support. Instead, I got carried away with my feelings about this much-worshiped killer.

GOP Should Grow A Brain, Join The Peace Train

Foreign Policy, Iraq, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Military, Neoconservatism, Old Right, Republicans, War

“GOP Should Grow A Brain, Join The Peace Train” is the current column, now on WND. An excerpt:

… Texas Gov. Rick Perry was not the only Republican warbot to pile on Sen. Rand Paul. “In the past three days alone, recapitulated Politico, Perry used a Washington Post op-ed to warn about the dangers of ‘isolationism’ and describe Paul as ‘curiously blind’ to growing threats in Iraq. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) accused the Kentucky senator on CNN of wanting a ‘withdrawal to fortress America.’ And former Vice President Dick Cheney declared … that ‘isolationism is crazy,’ while his daughter, Liz Cheney, said Paul ‘leaves something to be desired, in terms of national security policy.’

Like McMussolini, the vampiric father and daughter duo are a spent force, easily dismissed by a young turk. But can Rand stand up to the Joint Chiefs? Military movers and shakers are heavily vested in the sunk-cost fallacy—the irrational notion that more resources must be committed forthwith in Iraq (and elsewhere), so as to “redeem” the original misguided commitment of men, money and materiel to the mission. To that end, repeated ad nauseam is the refrain about our “brave men and women of the military,” whose sacrifice for Iraqi “freedoms” will be squandered unless more such sacrifices are made. The Skeptic’s Dictionary dispels this illogic: “To continue to invest in a hopeless project is irrational. Such behavior may be a pathetic attempt to delay having to face the consequences of one’s poor judgment. The irrationality is a way to save face, to appear to be knowledgeable, when in fact one is acting like an idiot.” Besides, it’s time the military heed its paymasters, The American People, a majority of whom “don’t want to send U.S. soldiers back into Iraq.”

… Read the complete column. “GOP Should Grow A Brain, Join The Peace Train” is now on WND.

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Some Americans Are Worth More Than Others

Free Markets, Labor, Military

You’ll be hard pressed to find anyone who will commiserate with your loss or dub it “dangerous and bad for the morale”—a risk to your family—in the event that you get the pink slip while serving nobly in the private economy, supplying fellow Americans with the services and products they need and desire.

On the other hand, the Pentagon “shrinks” the largest military in the world a smidgen—and the military-industrial-complex’s spokespeople fly into a rage.

Said Major Gen. Robert Scales: “It puts the soldier, the soldier’s family and the men under his command at risk.”

Seconded Sen. James Inhofe, the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee:

Once again [President Obama] is putting domestic politics ahead of the security of our nation. The Army captains and majors receiving pink slips while on the battlefield is just the latest example. My heart goes out to these men and women who are risking their lives and making great sacrifices, yet are now being told they are being separated from the Army and will have no job when they return home to their families.

Why should Army captains and majors be spared unemployment, a reality that faces American working in the market economy?

Militarism gone mad.