The Conservative Cave
Current Events => The DUmpster => Topic started by: SSG Snuggle Bunny on May 31, 2011, 05:32:36 PM
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War is an art. It's not about looking at different colored squares with funny symbols moving around on pretty maps.
It is an art that requires a deep, abiding study of history. You have to appreciate the history of logistics, the statistics known as operational research, the dynamics of various personalities, the geopolitical precursors, the conduct of operations, etc etc etc
And that is from a strictly dispassionate, apolitical, non-ideological, non-moralizing standpoint.
Never mind the role of civics and constitutional government as it pertains particularly to the US.
So leave it to DUmbasses to fail in epically epic proportions.
Donnachaidh (1000+ posts) Tue May-31-11 04:31 PM
Original message
The New Face of War
http://www.counterpunch.org/hallinan05272011.html
The assassination of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden did more than knock off America's Public Enemy Number One, it formalized a new kind of warfare, where sovereignty is irrelevant, armies tangential, and decisions are secret. It is, in the words of counterinsurgency expert John Nagl, "an astounding change in the nature of warfare."
It is also one that requires a vast intelligence apparatus, one that now constitute almost a fourth arm of government that most Americans are almost completely unaware of. Yet, according to the Washington Post, this empire includes some 1,271 government agencies and 1,931 private companies in more than 10, 000 locations across the country, with a budget last year of at least $80.1 billion.
"At the heart of this new warfare," notes the Financial Times," is high-tech cooperation between intelligence agencies and the military" that blurs the traditional borders between civilians and the armed forces. And it fits with the U.S.'s penchant for waging war with robots and covert Special Forces.
But, by definition, the secrecy at the core of the "new warfare" removes decisions about war and peace from the public realm and relegates them to secure rooms in the White House or clandestine bases in the Hindu Kush. When the Blackhawk helicopters slipped through Pakistani airspace, they did more than execute one of America's greatest bugbears, they essentially said another country's sovereignty was no longer relevant and consigned Congress to the role of spectator.
More at the link --
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x1203976
Apparently these nimrods never heard of the OSS, the genesis of today's CIA...and Special Forces (to include UDT/SEALs etc). Not only was secrecy a major part of OSS operations but they actually conducted missions to kill, sabotage and harass the enemies of the US at every turn. They did it with a lot less oversight as well. They also worked hand-in-glove with the uniformed services and when they operated on their own they understood they operated outside the laws of land warfare and their agents could be summarily executed. They operated in any nation where Axis interests existed; including nations with whom the US was not at war. Their funding was buried in the Pentagon's massive war time budget away from the eyes of the Axis and political dissenters. Congress didn't need to be consulted and their operations did not need to be debated in the pages of the New York Times because congress--the representatives of the public--had already blessed-off when they gave the president the powers to wage war; much the same way they did September 18, 2001.
All of this at the behest of St. Roosevelt, who--by the way--was trying to contend with the worse financial and economic crisis in American history. Yet, DUmbasses seldom claim cutting the US war time budget in the 1940s was the key to ending the Depression as they claim cutting the GWoT budget will alleviate the current Recession.
The fact of the matter is: liberals refuse to deal with facts. Even the OP's article is based on little more than truncated quotes to serve as little more than placeholders for facts before the pre-drawn conclusion is unveiled.
The conclusion is obvious: either liberals are too ignorant themselves or too dependent upon your ignorance to be entrusted with power.
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"At the heart of this new warfare," notes the Financial Times," is high-tech cooperation between intelligence agencies and the military"
Yet the Dems have more than once crippled this facet of warfare.