[Austin-ghetto-list] Re: Time to bomb the Saudis? Maybe.

[telebob x]

Well Roger…please do not put me merely “in the Bush camp”…. but do put me in 
the camp of those who do not believe that pacifist rhetoric or marching in a 
peace parade is going to help our situation.  Osama bin Laden wants us dead, 
including you, pal.  You may be willing to roll over for it, but I am not.

The difference between these guys and the Viet Nam conflict is huge…so don’t 
get the knee-jerk, ‘blame America first’ shirt on too fast.  Muhammed Ali 
once said…”No Viet Cong ever attacked me.” Well that is not true of Al 
Quaida.  They have attacked you and me, and they killed more people on 9/11 
than died at Normandy on D-Day.  That’s all the urging I need that you won’t 
be finding any peacenik tie-dye on my back.

Bush is a functional dolt. That doesn’t matter. His speech was still pretty 
good. We are talking about much bigger stuff here. Bush will come and go…but 
this conflict is going to persist …and if you think it is just about oil and 
infidels on holy sands…then you are wrong.  This is a religious war against 
modernity, and simply because you were/are unhappy with your country’s 
leadership doesn’t mean you can abandon your country.  Besides, the 
'terrorist network' would just as happily slit your throat as mine or George 
W’s.

I repeat this quote from the long tract I sent earlier…

““He will conquer who has learnt the artifice of deviation”
—Sun Tzu, The Art of War

Our response to asymmetric actions has usually been to react with defensive, 
hunkering-down, panic decisions; or in some cases to retaliate ineffectively 
  with air or cruise missile attacks, occasionally injuring non-combatants 
or  disgracing ourselves in the media. We continue to restrict ourselves to  
unrealistic rules of engagement, regardless of the situation. Deception,  
psychological operations, cyberwar, disinformation, “softwar,”8 are all
non-kinetic ingredients in the toolbox of fourth-generation warriors, that 
should, in turn, be used against them.

We must understand that strength is situational; it is based on
time, speed, location, and conditions. These intangibles are harder to
define and offer strength in different circumstances. The side that is
weaker in resources or complex command and control systems can balance that 
with superior cleverness, morale, offensive attitude, security, surprise, 
flexibility, and organizational design that fit the task at hand. We must 
preempt enemy asymmetric actions by attacking the flow of their operational 
cycle.

An adversary must plan, gain support, move, stage, attack, and regroup
during any operation or in pursuit of a cause.  We can cause him
to fail anywhere along this process prior to his attack phase.
It’s all a matter of gaining positional advantage, mentally or physically, 
over an opponent. Our adversaries have been adept at gaining positional 
advantage with asymmetrical action against our moral and organizational 
domain.  We can reverse this advantage by doing the same.

Asymmetrical targeting (deny, destroy, disrupt, dislocate, degrade) of
adversary moral and organizational domains, instead of our typical,
predictable, standard, conventional approach against physical strength
provides a faster, effective defeat. Indirectly preventing our enemy from 
gaining ascendancy over the local population, denying organizations the use 
of safe areas, disrupting cash-flow and other supplies, negating effective 
use of the media, exposing corruption, disgracing the leadership, breaking 
power relationships, will put adversaries on the defensive and force them 
off balance.

This requires initiative, momentum, out-of-the-box thinking, flexibility, 
and a winning mindset. Crimes against humanity, small wars, and probable 
mega-terrorist (biological, chemical, nuclear, information) disasters are 
threats worthy of our attention. We must turn the tide on these 
fourth-generation warriors using asymmetric actions with a preemptive 
strategy. It’s a matter of being the hunter or the prey.”


One telling phrase in there is “ a winning mindset “ and I do not think 
demonstrating against our government (before we have even responded) is 
going to be very helpful.  Please… even though we tend to forget it, our 
government is US. It is you and me. Maybe we should also remember Oklahoma 
City and the faces of Tim McVeigh’s enemy?

Yes the situation is deplorable. Perhaps we shouldn’t have been meddling in 
Afghanistan or Nicaragua, and no, we shouldn’t have a country that loves 
drugs so much that it makes the market for the products of the very people 
we are going to invade. But I can assure you Roger…if you were steering the 
boat, we wouldn’t be better off. Being “wise and compassionate” is something 
we can do perhaps when we are not having the shit kicked out of us.

Telebob





telebob@hotmail.com
00 506 224 4858 Costa Rica
512 440 1862 Austin, TX



>From: Roger Baker <rcbaker@infohiwy.net>
>Reply-To: rcbaker@eden.infohwy.com
>To: austin-ghetto-list@pairlist.net
>Subject: Re: [Austin-ghetto-list] Re: Time to bomb the Saudis? Maybe so.
>Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2001 14:44:33 -0500
>
>
> > So which side are you on Roger?  I think we all are going to have to 
>make
> > that decision soon enough. Eggs will be broken for sure, but there is no
> > guarantee we will get mayonnaise.  But we should be thinking about what 
>will
> > happen if some form of negative reinforcement is not brought on the
> > psychopaths who attacked us all.  It is not a world I wish to 
>contemplate
> > living in.
> >
> > As the guy said on Flight 93 when he and his friends went after the
> > hijackers..."let's roll."
> >
> > I do not want anyone to ever wonder which side of this issue I am on...
> >
> > Telebob
>
>
>Which side??????  Who wants to take sides when we got a president
>incapable of even writing his own speeches assigning which of two sides
>we can be on, in our latest military crusade against evil? The logic of
>Bush's current position would seem to being just as demanding toward the
>Saudis as toward Pakistan, but we all know why we aren't.
>
>Is Teleb then on the George Bush side? -- but against what?
>
>Good politics now means, IMNSHO, being for a wise compassionate foreign
>policy -- plus whatever valid and expertly advised protections make
>sense to reassure and protect the American public. I'll probably show up
>in peace marches, until they haul us all off to jail for being against
>using bombs to resolve religious disputes.  I ain't no saint and I write
>the script as I go along, but probably something along these lines. --
>Roger
>


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