Okay, random-ey randomness for today brought me to a discussion over on Mostly Cajun, All American and Opinionated, regarding the heroic last stand at the Alamo by a group of about 180 Texas Volunteers who fought to the last man against Santa Anna and Mexican oppression.
I do not want to minimize the sacrifice of those men. Most of us today would never even consider something to be worth dying over, and many men would see no problem with compromising their morality and their principles as long as it kept them from being slaughtered. The men in the Alamo were real, true men, who willingly died over what they thought was right.
That being said, I find a massive amount of fault in the concept of “dying for your country.” I could not put it better than the late, great George S. Patton, who stated bluntly that “No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. The way that you win a war is by making the other poor bastard die for his country.”
The same great man also stated that “fixed fortifications are a monument to the stupidity of man.”
And Fixed fortifications are exactly what the men at the Alamo fought and died for – and their deaths were exactly because of their decision to fight within a fixed fortification.
Consider this. David Crockett became famous for his early-in-life exploits with the Tennesee Volutneers, fighting Indians with a rag-tag group of other white volunteers and allied Indian Tribes. During his time as a Tennessee Volunteer, Mr. Crockett fought countless guerilla style campaigns and helped to win the war against the Indians. He knew the value of guerilla tactics. He understood the concepts of striking hard and fading away before your enemy could strike back. He knew that facing a superior force head-on was futile, and that a paltry number of men, appropriately trained and brutally motivated, could bring entire armies to their knees by attacking supply infrastructure and leaving the regular army alone.
So there is no excuse for his decision to hole up behind some adobe bricks and wait for Santa Anna to surround him and his crew, leaving them no escape but surrender, victory, or death. You cannot limit your options like that and call it a tactically sound maneuver, and fighting from within a fixed fortification does just exactly that. It was monumentally stupid, and I say that despite the fact that I have the utmost respect for David Crockett and his men. I understand that I am criticizing the national heroes of Texas, and that that is offensive as hell – but I cannot help but wonder what 184 dedicated, dangerous men like those men at the Alamo could have done if they’d shed themselves of their cannon, traveled light and fast and with the goal of making Santa Anna’s life as miserable as possible for as long as they could. I’ll bet that they could have delayed him longer than they did behind the walls of the Alamo, and I’ll bet there would have been a damn sight more of them available to help Houston at the final battle (if that battle even happened at all – an unfed army cannot fight).
Showing posts with label History. Show all posts
Showing posts with label History. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
Monday, February 28, 2011
Same Tired Thinking, Same Old Results
I remember so clearly learning about the World Wars in history class, and how each of them brought about “revolutions” to the old paradigm of how to fight a war. It occurs to me that these paradigms are being set and broken every day, up to and including the present day, but more on that in a minute.
One of the things that stuck with me was the fact that the “old school” officers in the armed forces tended to reject the paradigm shifts, while the young turks were off re-writing the ways wars were fought and won.
For instance:
At the beginning of WWI, wars had been fought in trenches and fixed, reinforced emplacements for over 60 years. The American Civil war brought about he first birth of trench warfare in the American experience, and throughout WWI, the paradigm of setting up fixed emplacements, and fighting and dying over 50 feet between these emplacements, ruled the day.
Also apparent was the overwhelming superiority of the iron battleships of the day. The “superweapons” of their time, they were judged by metrics of how many tons they displaced, and how big the bore on their guns were, and they were literally invincible.
WWII changed both paradigms, and quite violently so for those that hadn’t gotten the lesson. At the close of WWI, the French had developed the “Maginot Line”, a system of hardened, fixed fortifications that was designed to prevent any future German attack from entering France. They slept peacefully behind it’s bristling façade for nearly two decades, with the confidence that it was unbreachable. They hadn’t gotten the memo that fixed fortifications are a monument to the stupidity of men, in the words of Patton, and were beyond shocked when the Maginot Line was taken out of play, not by a stunning defeat, but because the Germans changed the paradigm, and instead of squaring off against fixed fortifications at the time and place of their opponent’s choosing, they simply drove their mechanized military machine right around it without Maginot even firing a shot.
The paradigm of the battleship was rocked to it’s core sometime around the same time, as it became clear that big, lumbering battleships were nothing more than big, lumbering targets for attacks from the air as torpedo and dive bombers proved time and again during the war. Their massive guns became useless against a swarm of mosquitoes, each of which had the power to single-handedly send the massive floating fortification to the bottom of the ocean.
Both of these paradigm shifts were missed by key people at key times at the beginning of the war, and the result was catastrophic to those unprepared. The British, for instance, felt secure with their massive battleship “Hood” and several others. They were proven wrong. The Japanese loved their battle ships, but many of them never even fired a shot in anger before they were sunk by lowly torpedo bombers.
The new paradigm shift has occurred, and many are not ready to accept it. It hasn’t been tested in real battle yet, but the simulations all show the same thing – surface naval fleets have become a thing of the past. They’ve become an anachronism just like fixed fortifications and battle ships. Our aircraft carriers are massive, lumbering targets just waiting to be taken out by a new technology that can be had for a price comparable to the purchase of a new Mercedes Benz.
Research the “Millenium 2002” war games that were had in the Persian Gulf in 2002. I won’t belabor the details because I will assume that you are going to follow the link and read for yourself. I will simply summarize the salient points, which are:
A fleet of Cessna aircraft and small pleasure boats, converted to carry silkworm cruise missiles, managed to destroy 16 out of 24 ships in the US task force on day two of the two-week war games, including a Nimitz Class aircraft carrier, the largest warship on earth, in one massive, coordinated strike on the fleet. The estimated US Navy personnel losses was over 20,000 men and women.
Just so you know, the silkworm is the SCUD of cruise missiles. It sucks. It is cheaply bought, and easily obtained, and to convert a pleasure craft to carry one is about as easy as a bit of welding and wiring. If such rudimentary weapon could do such a thing, what about the most recent cruise missile developed by the Russians, designed to travel mach 3 and to not even be detectable by our missile defense systems before it has already struck the ship? What about the fact that the Russians specifically state that they developed the missile mainly to export it?
If that isn’t enough to convince you, then what about the Falkland Islands fiasco? How many crappy mirage fighters flown out of shitty Argentinian air bases does it take to sink a British warship (or three or four)? Apparently, just one. Oh, and the brits didn’t even know he was there because the exocet missile was deployed far outside of radar range.
Moms – don’t let your babys grow up to be in the Navy, unless it is to be a submariner. There are two kinds of naval vessels now that this new paradigm shift has occurred – submarines, and targets.
One of the things that stuck with me was the fact that the “old school” officers in the armed forces tended to reject the paradigm shifts, while the young turks were off re-writing the ways wars were fought and won.
For instance:
At the beginning of WWI, wars had been fought in trenches and fixed, reinforced emplacements for over 60 years. The American Civil war brought about he first birth of trench warfare in the American experience, and throughout WWI, the paradigm of setting up fixed emplacements, and fighting and dying over 50 feet between these emplacements, ruled the day.
Also apparent was the overwhelming superiority of the iron battleships of the day. The “superweapons” of their time, they were judged by metrics of how many tons they displaced, and how big the bore on their guns were, and they were literally invincible.
WWII changed both paradigms, and quite violently so for those that hadn’t gotten the lesson. At the close of WWI, the French had developed the “Maginot Line”, a system of hardened, fixed fortifications that was designed to prevent any future German attack from entering France. They slept peacefully behind it’s bristling façade for nearly two decades, with the confidence that it was unbreachable. They hadn’t gotten the memo that fixed fortifications are a monument to the stupidity of men, in the words of Patton, and were beyond shocked when the Maginot Line was taken out of play, not by a stunning defeat, but because the Germans changed the paradigm, and instead of squaring off against fixed fortifications at the time and place of their opponent’s choosing, they simply drove their mechanized military machine right around it without Maginot even firing a shot.
The paradigm of the battleship was rocked to it’s core sometime around the same time, as it became clear that big, lumbering battleships were nothing more than big, lumbering targets for attacks from the air as torpedo and dive bombers proved time and again during the war. Their massive guns became useless against a swarm of mosquitoes, each of which had the power to single-handedly send the massive floating fortification to the bottom of the ocean.
Both of these paradigm shifts were missed by key people at key times at the beginning of the war, and the result was catastrophic to those unprepared. The British, for instance, felt secure with their massive battleship “Hood” and several others. They were proven wrong. The Japanese loved their battle ships, but many of them never even fired a shot in anger before they were sunk by lowly torpedo bombers.
The new paradigm shift has occurred, and many are not ready to accept it. It hasn’t been tested in real battle yet, but the simulations all show the same thing – surface naval fleets have become a thing of the past. They’ve become an anachronism just like fixed fortifications and battle ships. Our aircraft carriers are massive, lumbering targets just waiting to be taken out by a new technology that can be had for a price comparable to the purchase of a new Mercedes Benz.
Research the “Millenium 2002” war games that were had in the Persian Gulf in 2002. I won’t belabor the details because I will assume that you are going to follow the link and read for yourself. I will simply summarize the salient points, which are:
A fleet of Cessna aircraft and small pleasure boats, converted to carry silkworm cruise missiles, managed to destroy 16 out of 24 ships in the US task force on day two of the two-week war games, including a Nimitz Class aircraft carrier, the largest warship on earth, in one massive, coordinated strike on the fleet. The estimated US Navy personnel losses was over 20,000 men and women.
Just so you know, the silkworm is the SCUD of cruise missiles. It sucks. It is cheaply bought, and easily obtained, and to convert a pleasure craft to carry one is about as easy as a bit of welding and wiring. If such rudimentary weapon could do such a thing, what about the most recent cruise missile developed by the Russians, designed to travel mach 3 and to not even be detectable by our missile defense systems before it has already struck the ship? What about the fact that the Russians specifically state that they developed the missile mainly to export it?
If that isn’t enough to convince you, then what about the Falkland Islands fiasco? How many crappy mirage fighters flown out of shitty Argentinian air bases does it take to sink a British warship (or three or four)? Apparently, just one. Oh, and the brits didn’t even know he was there because the exocet missile was deployed far outside of radar range.
Moms – don’t let your babys grow up to be in the Navy, unless it is to be a submariner. There are two kinds of naval vessels now that this new paradigm shift has occurred – submarines, and targets.
Friday, January 21, 2011
Sick, Wrong, and Gore-ey
All of you know who Al Gore is right? He’s the environmentalist guy that lives in a house, by himself, that is big enough to fit four of my houses into, and uses 20 times the energy my house uses (oh yeah, and he has 4 houses like this, too); who jet-sets around the globe in a private jet; and who spends all his time telling us that using energy is evil and should not be done. So, yeah, that hypocrite.
Remember his claim to fame?
No, not inventing the internet. The other one. The Love Canal. How he was all about cleaning it up and saving the poor residents of Niagara from the evil corporations that used them as a cheap place to dump toxic chemicals? You remember? You know the story. It is an Erin-Brokovich like story, where the evil company was trying to save a few dollars by killing everyone that lived around it with toxic chemicals. Remember?
Did you know that that was all a lie? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_Canal
Pretty much everyone has the straight skinny on what really went down, but there above, is a link to a Wikipedia page that sums it up pretty well. If you don’t want to link, here is my condensed version.
Mmmmkay…
So there was this guy named Love who wanted to dig a canal through Niagara for some reason. He started it but didn’t finish it. In the 20’s, 30’s, 40’s, and 50’s, the government used the unfinished, dry canal as a place to dump chemicals and waste products from military/industrial sources (including waste from the Manhattan Project, sooooo, yeah, probably some pretty nasty stuff). In the late 40’s, and early 50’s, they started allowing other companies to dump there. A chemical company named Hooker got a permit to dump there, and created a clay-lined, haz-mat landfill per standard practice (this is still more or less the standard practice for these things, even today), and with government permission also dumped a bunch of stuff there. By the late 50’s, they were finished dumping there, and backfilled the landfill to essentially reclaim the site. It became a big field, with no leaks, and no problem. Oh, yeah, and also by this time, they were the sole user of the site, and had somehow by then also become the owner of the property.
The local government became avaricious in regards to the site. They wanted it to build a school or some shit. Hooker told them that it was unsafe to use the site for anything because of all the stuff, both known and unknown, that had been dumped there over the last 50 years. The school district, replete with their avarice, told them that they did not care, that they wanted the land, and would take it via eminent domain if necessary. After months of arguing with them and warning them that it was not a good idea to use the land for anything, the school district stood by their guns, so Hooker agreed to sell it to them for $1, with the caveat that the school district sign a piece of paper holding them harmless for damages caused by the school district messing with the property, and also strongly recommended that they not build on the land.
The school district built on the land anyway. In the process, they breached the integrity of the clay lining of the landfill, and a spill occurred. Bam. Love Canal is national news.
Now, here is the real gasper. Hooker was held liable for the mess. That’s right. Hooker. So let me lay it out for you in summary:
1.) Hooker was LEGALLY using a government dump site with permission from the government to do so.
2.) The government signed rights for the site over to Hooker, who continued to legally and safely dump there, per the permit that they had to do so. The dump site was contained and built to the standards necessary to contain such a dump site.
3.) The government demanded the property back to be used for development, which Hooker advised against strongly, and only allowed it to happen with their protest and after the government released them from liability for any spills.
4.) The government, not listening to Hooker, dug and breached the landfill, and created a horrible mess despite Hookers warning that just such a thing would surely happen if they didn’t listen to them.
5.) after all of this, Hooker is held responsible (when it cant even be proven that the waste that was released was even Hooker’s waste to begin with – remember, the government dumped there for years, too). This AFTER it was established that dumping there was completely legal, done in a manner that was to the standards of the time and safe, and that the site was rememdiated and left in a condition where it would not leak if someone didn’t f^&* with it. The government f#$% with it, and now it is Hooker’s fault.
How does that work again? Why would anyone want to start a business in their country when you can operate legally for 50 years, then have everything you did get undone by government meddling, and then get blamed for it?
And you people want these people to have control over your healthcare? What the hell?
Remember his claim to fame?
No, not inventing the internet. The other one. The Love Canal. How he was all about cleaning it up and saving the poor residents of Niagara from the evil corporations that used them as a cheap place to dump toxic chemicals? You remember? You know the story. It is an Erin-Brokovich like story, where the evil company was trying to save a few dollars by killing everyone that lived around it with toxic chemicals. Remember?
Did you know that that was all a lie? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_Canal
Pretty much everyone has the straight skinny on what really went down, but there above, is a link to a Wikipedia page that sums it up pretty well. If you don’t want to link, here is my condensed version.
Mmmmkay…
So there was this guy named Love who wanted to dig a canal through Niagara for some reason. He started it but didn’t finish it. In the 20’s, 30’s, 40’s, and 50’s, the government used the unfinished, dry canal as a place to dump chemicals and waste products from military/industrial sources (including waste from the Manhattan Project, sooooo, yeah, probably some pretty nasty stuff). In the late 40’s, and early 50’s, they started allowing other companies to dump there. A chemical company named Hooker got a permit to dump there, and created a clay-lined, haz-mat landfill per standard practice (this is still more or less the standard practice for these things, even today), and with government permission also dumped a bunch of stuff there. By the late 50’s, they were finished dumping there, and backfilled the landfill to essentially reclaim the site. It became a big field, with no leaks, and no problem. Oh, yeah, and also by this time, they were the sole user of the site, and had somehow by then also become the owner of the property.
The local government became avaricious in regards to the site. They wanted it to build a school or some shit. Hooker told them that it was unsafe to use the site for anything because of all the stuff, both known and unknown, that had been dumped there over the last 50 years. The school district, replete with their avarice, told them that they did not care, that they wanted the land, and would take it via eminent domain if necessary. After months of arguing with them and warning them that it was not a good idea to use the land for anything, the school district stood by their guns, so Hooker agreed to sell it to them for $1, with the caveat that the school district sign a piece of paper holding them harmless for damages caused by the school district messing with the property, and also strongly recommended that they not build on the land.
The school district built on the land anyway. In the process, they breached the integrity of the clay lining of the landfill, and a spill occurred. Bam. Love Canal is national news.
Now, here is the real gasper. Hooker was held liable for the mess. That’s right. Hooker. So let me lay it out for you in summary:
1.) Hooker was LEGALLY using a government dump site with permission from the government to do so.
2.) The government signed rights for the site over to Hooker, who continued to legally and safely dump there, per the permit that they had to do so. The dump site was contained and built to the standards necessary to contain such a dump site.
3.) The government demanded the property back to be used for development, which Hooker advised against strongly, and only allowed it to happen with their protest and after the government released them from liability for any spills.
4.) The government, not listening to Hooker, dug and breached the landfill, and created a horrible mess despite Hookers warning that just such a thing would surely happen if they didn’t listen to them.
5.) after all of this, Hooker is held responsible (when it cant even be proven that the waste that was released was even Hooker’s waste to begin with – remember, the government dumped there for years, too). This AFTER it was established that dumping there was completely legal, done in a manner that was to the standards of the time and safe, and that the site was rememdiated and left in a condition where it would not leak if someone didn’t f^&* with it. The government f#$% with it, and now it is Hooker’s fault.
How does that work again? Why would anyone want to start a business in their country when you can operate legally for 50 years, then have everything you did get undone by government meddling, and then get blamed for it?
And you people want these people to have control over your healthcare? What the hell?
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Border Incursions Are Nothing New
In 1916, the United States of America was invaded by an ultra-violent Mexican killer and his crew bent on murder and savagery for their own benefit. The townspeople of Columbus would never be the same. We sent Black Jack Pershing after Pancho Villa, even invading Mexico in order to track him down. WWI distracted us from actually catching the bastard, but we followed him nearly to the border of Guatemala, and afterwards, he never messed with us again. My, how things change in 90 years.
In 2006, an area of the United States was invaded by Mexican criminals again. 3,500 acres, to be exact. And what was our response? Invading Mexico in order to chase down the criminal? A military blockade of the border in the area? Construction of an impassable fence with motion detection and automated fully-automatic phalanx guns on rotating turrets with interlocking fire?
Nope. We just recommended that American citizens stop going there to make sure no one gets hurt, and let the criminals have the land. Whether you want to admit it or not, we are now an occupied nation. Like a bit of poop in your drinking water, even a tiny bit is enough to consider the whole mess contaminated. Well, we’ve ceded 3,500 acres of American soils to criminals because…
…well, I’m not sure why. It wouldn’t be even a little difficult to fix the problem. Even a quick pretend distribution of land mines in the area with signs warning that they are there would stop the problem. I’ll bet that wouldn’t cost $50,000. What the hell is going on?
In 2006, an area of the United States was invaded by Mexican criminals again. 3,500 acres, to be exact. And what was our response? Invading Mexico in order to chase down the criminal? A military blockade of the border in the area? Construction of an impassable fence with motion detection and automated fully-automatic phalanx guns on rotating turrets with interlocking fire?
Nope. We just recommended that American citizens stop going there to make sure no one gets hurt, and let the criminals have the land. Whether you want to admit it or not, we are now an occupied nation. Like a bit of poop in your drinking water, even a tiny bit is enough to consider the whole mess contaminated. Well, we’ve ceded 3,500 acres of American soils to criminals because…
…well, I’m not sure why. It wouldn’t be even a little difficult to fix the problem. Even a quick pretend distribution of land mines in the area with signs warning that they are there would stop the problem. I’ll bet that wouldn’t cost $50,000. What the hell is going on?
History Doesn't Recognize Incrementalism
I’ve read so many articles, ad nauseum, about how the rebels in America had such a short fuse; how the things that they rebelled against were so trivial; how the revolution itself was just a rich man’s effort to get more money and avoid taxes; but the truth of the story is that all of these articles list one, or two – maybe even three – things that are what they refer to as the “root cause” of the revolution, whereas the true cause of the revolution goes all the way back to the reason that the colonials left their homelands in the first damned place hundreds of years before – they were tired as hell of the old world’s way of doing things, and wanted a place where they could live free by their own accord.
The tipping point wasn’t one or two writs of legislation; it was a long string of usurpations. Long, as in generations long. As in, the reason that the grandparents of our founding fathers left England in the first place. It wasn’t a few trivial things, like a 3% tax on tea, or the greed of a few wealthy tea merchants that caused the revolution any more than it was the assassination of Franz Ferdinand that caused WWI.
When you have a huge pile of tinder soaked in gasoline, it only takes one tiny spark to set the whole mess off. If it weren’t for Franz Ferdinand, WWI would have still happened – it was inevitable. The spark would simply have been something else. The same is true for the revolution.
Our current “masters” would do well to remember this. I hear the “you can slow boil a frog and it won’t even notice” thing being thrown about a lot as it relates to the concept of incrementalism, and its erosion of our essential liberties, but I always remember that the colonists were also slow-boiled over 150 years, and they eventually had enough. I think that there is going to be an uncanny valley event that occurs before too much longer. I think it will be a small, almost inconsequential thing that finally tips the populace over into outright confrontation and possibly even rebellion. I also think that the histories will get it wrong again, and write story after story about how the right-wing reactionary tea-baggers over-reacted to some tiny writ of legislation, just like the same histories are now saying that our founding fathers over-reacted to a 3% tax on tea. I don’t really care, because those of us that know the truth… well, we know the truth.
The tipping point wasn’t one or two writs of legislation; it was a long string of usurpations. Long, as in generations long. As in, the reason that the grandparents of our founding fathers left England in the first place. It wasn’t a few trivial things, like a 3% tax on tea, or the greed of a few wealthy tea merchants that caused the revolution any more than it was the assassination of Franz Ferdinand that caused WWI.
When you have a huge pile of tinder soaked in gasoline, it only takes one tiny spark to set the whole mess off. If it weren’t for Franz Ferdinand, WWI would have still happened – it was inevitable. The spark would simply have been something else. The same is true for the revolution.
Our current “masters” would do well to remember this. I hear the “you can slow boil a frog and it won’t even notice” thing being thrown about a lot as it relates to the concept of incrementalism, and its erosion of our essential liberties, but I always remember that the colonists were also slow-boiled over 150 years, and they eventually had enough. I think that there is going to be an uncanny valley event that occurs before too much longer. I think it will be a small, almost inconsequential thing that finally tips the populace over into outright confrontation and possibly even rebellion. I also think that the histories will get it wrong again, and write story after story about how the right-wing reactionary tea-baggers over-reacted to some tiny writ of legislation, just like the same histories are now saying that our founding fathers over-reacted to a 3% tax on tea. I don’t really care, because those of us that know the truth… well, we know the truth.
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