---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 27 Mar 2003 From: F Subject: Your Theories on Why "Coalition" Force are Bogged Down To: •••@••.••• Dear Mr. Moore, You certainly paint a frightful scenario. There are several problems with your theories, however. Rumsfeld went into this conflict fully aware of the fact that we did not have enough ground forces in theater. He told the generals and admirals that Colin Powell's doctrine of overwhelming force was passe' in our new age of high tech weaponry and "air delivery systems." In other words, air power would be the deciding element in any battle situation. Rummy was convinced that we didn't need to have as many ground forces as we did in previous wars. Also, Rummy told us that each day that passed before we attacked made Saddam stronger. And, if we didn't attack now, we'd have to go either during the summer heat or wait until Autumn. And that this waiting would wear down the fighting spirit of our troops (as if war is a better alternative to their spirits!). Powell had a coalition army of 600,000 to attack into tiny Kuwait with our supplies and support forces readily available. Rummy and Wolfy and Perly all overrode the military men and women in the Pentagon as to how to conduct this new war and now we've got a little over 250,000 "coalition" forces badly overextended with lines of communication stretching over 300 miles through harsh and hostile territory, Of those 250,000, three out of every four is in "combat support" not front-line combat trained. The Marines being the exception since they train every member to be a front-line combatant regardless of military occupational specialty. Nevertheless, this is new for the Marine Corps. Never in history have they served as an overland invasion force so far from the beaches. Not a good situation from an American military point of view. And just as badly, the Army is requiring huge supply convoys to carry the war forward. Strangely, just as Armstrong Custer and his 7th Calvary arrogantly advanced upon the natives around the Little Big Horn without concern, it may yet prove ironic that this invasion is being spear-headed by the same 7th Calvary, whose troops on TV were arrogant and unconcerned. Macho, macho man. I want to be a macho man! In other words, I'm sorry, but I don't buy into your theory that this is a deliberate plot by our leadership to gain support for the war. Having our troops getting their asses kicked by a bunch of irregular guerrillas would hardly be something Rummy and W would want to have to answer for. As for the tank battles, we've wiped out dozens of Iraqi tanks and vehicles. For the last two days, weather and Iraqi attacks on our rear supply lines have stopped (bogged down) the drive into Baghdad. I think it ludicrous to believe that our troops are sitting obediently quiet in the desert allowing for the Republican Guard (thank heavens they're not called the Democratic Guard!) tank divisions to mass their armor for a "surprise" attack, much less believe that Marine and Army combat forces would then standby and permit themselves to be attacked, overran and slaughtered all for the sake of generating "sympathy" back home for the war effort. I don't think so! It long has been apparent to me that conspiracy theories from the "left' can sometimes be just as strange and fanciful as those from the "right." As for "Shock and Awe" no one is accusing Rummy of holding back on the heavy ordnance. They have delivered their promised 3,000 cruise missiles and smart bombs. And they are still firing and dropping away! They are using the heavy bombs south of Baghdad against Republican Guard positions. Lockheed-Martin, GE, and Raytheon are certainly not complaining that we're using up too little of their munitions (see the Stock Market upsurge in investments in those companies). The problem with Shock and Awe is that it has failed to produce the expected results, those being the immediate surrender of Saddam's army and government. Mr. Moore you do understand that Shock and Awe is still an ongoing war strategy? We're bombing the hell out of Iraq every hour of every day! What I'm worried about is that as our troops become ever more worn down physically and psychologically, and as this war drags on and on, our leadership may be prepared to take shortcuts in "liberating" the people of Iraq, by going all out against the cities and leveling them despite world opinion. Desperate times call for desperate measures. Either bomb them out or starve them out. Yuck...very, very messy in the eyes of the world. Or perhaps, we may just decide the hell with it, let Saddam keep Baghdad, we've already got what we came for, "our" oil. As long as we control the oil fields in the North and South, Baghdad may just become a side issue, to be dealt with slowly, over time. Blair is already promising the Iraqi's a return to "oil for food." That Limey prick, why not exchange the oil for money and let the Iraqi's buy their own goddamned food? It somehow reminds me of the Dutch traders who gave the Manhattan tribe $24.00 worth of trinkets for the property that would eventually become New York City. Take the bean and rice sacks and be grateful you flea infested camel jockeys because it's either that or eat sand! .Peace, and keep on writing. F ------------------ Dear F, Thank you for your thoughtful and sincere reply. I am sure that many of our readers find much to agree with in your words. The fact that we are so close in our sentiments makes it all the more important for us to better understand the differences in our perspectives. In that spirit... You say that big-weapon testing is occurring already, thus removing that as part of my argument. That may be true. However I have a suspicion that they want to test those weapons on populations as well, partly as a a psy-war op against future potential enemies. That suspicion is too weak to prop up that part of my argument however. But if mass-bombing of civilians DOES end up occurring, then I do believe it will have been intended from the outset. I've read Administration statements more than once that were designed to justify such action. ("...weapons of mass destruction hidden by Saddam near civilians...they must be taken out...collateral deaths will be Sadam's fault...no place in Baghdad safe...") You mix in motivations from different levels. For example you say, "I think it ludicrous to believe that our troops are sitting obediently quiet in the desert allowing for the Republican Guard...". We must agree, I think, that the troops in the desert have no say whatever in how they are deployed. Their opinion is not part of Washington's decision making process. This applies to the on-site generals almost as much as to the enlisted men. If we want to understand Washinton's overall strategy, we need to focus on the decision making process in Washington. You talk about the debate between Powell and Rumsfeld over strategy. It is important to keep in mind that whatever you know about that 'debate' you have learned from statements that were cleared for publication from the very top. Such debate cannot be taken as a 'peek into the elite decision making process'. Your heard it because they wanted you to hear it. The circulation of such 'debate rumors' serves various propaganda purposes, but any relation to actual tension around the White House conference table would be purely coincidental. As a result of these things you have heard, and the model that gave you of how decisions are made, you come to the conclusion... > What I'm worried about is that as our troops become ever more worn down physically and psychologically, and as this war drags on and on, our leadership may be prepared to take shortcuts in 'liberating' the people of Iraq, by going all out against the cities and leveling them despite world opinion. Desperate times call for desperate measures. In other words, what you have picked up from the mainstream media has prepared you to accept 'shortcuts' as being understandable and reasonable from the elite's perspective -- rather than being simply brutal aggression and slaughter. The propaganda has done its job. The propaganda plus the perception of a bogged down campaign. --- The central question we are debating is this: Why did the US not follow the same basic tactics it used in the Gulf War? Why not maximally eliminate all military opposition prior to any land invasion? Why invade while there are still operational Iraqi tank divisions? Presuming that population centers would be off limits, they could have easily hit all the other troop and equipment bunkers with their super bombs. They might not have scored 100%, but they could easily have prepared a much less hostile battlefield. Easily. Those tactics worked in the Gulf War, and they are totally obvious. Once the decision is made not to pursue that proven strategy, then the rest of our current scenario becomes an obvious likely outcome. Obvious to anyone in the top command certainly. From your perspective, the last thing Bush and his crew would want is US casualties. And they clearly warned us all about Shock, Awe, and unavoidable collateral damage. So why didn't they follow the obvious, proven, least-risk strategy?...the strategy they prepared us for, and which suits their new weaponry? Do you have an answer to this question? I think it calls for an answer. And I think the answer is obvious. It has to do with the global popular uprising against the war, and with the divisions between American and European leaders over the war. In such an opinion climate, imagine what would have happened if the only thing on TV was long-distance, no-US-casualty bombing. Those same images that hypnotized the world during the Gulf War would now enflame its anger. Those black- suited pilots strutting around, grinning over their 'target rich' sorties would now be seen for what they are and were -- the literal successors of the Waffen SS. Instead the media is filled with images of GI's on the battlefield, like old World War II movies. Quite unlike the Gulf War. We now have a different focus for our attention. Instead of remote push-button destruction, we are seeing what appears to be a semi-fair fight between well-equipped armies. The fight will escalate, but that's what happens, that's to be expected. We will end up at whatever stage of escalation the decision makers have mapped out from the beginning. They will get to where they wanted to go in the first place, but they will have significantly mitigated the public-relations damage they would have faced if they had just gone for it. A few casualties are of no significance in the overall balance. I believe this is a plausible and an obvious scenario. It matches what has been happening and it takes into account the full scope of the challenges facing the Administration. It is a line of thinking that cannot have escaped our elite planners. They may have some other plan in mind, but they certainly would have thought of this one, considered it. Suppose for a second that they did think things through in this way, and decided on their course of action based on that. Can you not see that they could not possibly have let anyone know who wasn't fully trusted to keep it secret? Can you see that they would have needed to put out all sorts of cover-explanations for what they were doing at each stage? The very 'debates' you noticed in the media? Not only that, but they would need to have stories for lower-level people in the military, diplomatic corps, and intelligence community -- pieces of the big picture selected to keep them doing their jobs... except those few who couldn't take the half-truths and resigned. What I'm trying to do here is make a point about conspiracies in general. We know that our leaders make decisions on the basis of geopolitics, global economics, oil, etc. Right? We also know that they talk publicly about freedom, democracy, justice, human rights, etc. Every time they want to do something for geopolitical reasons, which is always, they need to make up a public reason that makes sense in those other make-believe terms. Every time. This kind of thing has been going on for centuries. It has been a central part of imperialism -- the buffer between the sensibilities of the Western middle classes and the realities of conquest and exploitation, rape and pillage. Modern imperialism is as devastating and brutal as anything from the annals of Attila the Hun or Ghengis Khan. And yet the middle classes live in a fantasy world of 'human progress'. This is one of the Big Reality Disconnects, one of the big inspirations for The Matrix metaphor, With such a reality disconnect in effect, EVERYTHING the government does is a conspiracy. The role of the corporate global media is to spin their overall presentation (fiction and non-fiction material) so as to support the make-believe story of how and why things are happening. They say things like, "No weapons of mass destruction have been captured YET." They never refer to "ALLEGED weapons of mass destruction". This doesn't mean news readers are in on any conspiracy, but it does mean that top media executives have been briefed on how things need to be spun, and what kind of images can and cannot be shown. In such an environment, the only way to figure out what our leaders are really up to is to begin by dismissing WHATEVER they say in the media about their motivations. We must accept that everything they say is calculated public relations theater. We can take seriously their stated intentions to take certain actions, but we must look elsewhere than in their public statements to find out what their motivation might be. In other words, understanding how the world actually works is primarily a matter of research into conspiracies. In every case, there is a hidden agenda behind why things are happening. In every case. That's our starting point for any serious investigation. Because of this matrix-like reality split, it is easy to dig up evidence of conspiracies wherever you look. Those we call 'conspiracy theorists' get distracted by the details. They spend lots of time digging up still more evidence around some particular event. They delve deep into the stories of who did what to whom, who knew what when, who is linked to whom, etc. etc. Pretty soon they are so deep in a private world - even if an accurate one - that they are out of touch with the rest of us. I investigate by a different method. My method is simply to think of things from the point of view of ruling elites. If I were in their shoes, with their ethics, what would I be doing? What would my considerations be? What are the fundamental obstacles that stand in my way? What are my options for dealing with them? Some knowledge of history helps with this mode of investigation, because in that way you have some familiarity with the range of geopolitical and propaganda strategies that have been repeatedly followed through the centuries. In this sense there is little new under the sun. Rome and Britain, and past US actions, provide a spectrum of experiences that presages everything going on today, though on smaller scales. And of course following current events is of central importance. Actual events are the only thing we know are real. Out of that data one can hypothesize what elite strategy might be about. And out of that data one can prune down and refine ones understanding of that strategy, game plan, and agenda. In the same way Sherlock Holmes systematically homes in on the one consistent explanation for the crime. In our current situation, there is really very little question about what is really going on. It was all spelled out in a document which you can read about in the newslog archives... http://cyberjournal.org/cj/show_archives/?lists=newslog ... Date: Fri, 20 Sep 2002 Delivered-To: mailing list •••@••.••• Subject: secret blueprint for US global domination ... The blueprint, uncovered by the Sunday Herald, for the creation of a 'global Pax Americana' was drawn up for Dick Cheney (now vice- president), Donald Rumsfeld (defense secretary), Paul Wolfowitz (Rumsfeld's deputy), George W Bush's younger brother Jeb and Lewis Libby (Cheney's chief of staff). The document, entitled Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategies, Forces And Resources For A New Century, was written in September 2000 by the neo-conservative think- tank Project for the New American Century (PNAC) ... Along the same lines, focusing on 9/11, we have: Delivered-To: mailing list •••@••.••• Date: Sun, 29 Dec 2002 Subject: Bush: America needed "a new Pearl Harbor" ... Everything that has happened since the Florida election theft has been within the framework spelled out in these documents. The considerations in Iraq go far beyond whether or not a few troops get killed, or how many days it takes to capture Baghdad. Those are opening pawn moves in a chess game that extends beyond Iraq, beyond the Middle East. The public relations aspects of that game are equally important to the territory and oil gained. Elites have always needed the acquiescence of the sheep in order to maintain control. They screw us and we let them. For ten thousand years. That is their 'big secret', their 'big conspiracy' that is the "I got it!" that happens at the Skull & Crossbones initiation, or the Illumanti initiation, or whatever such gatherings might have been called down through the centuries... "We rule, learn to love it -- and don't mind the weeping women and children, they will always be with us. Be a wolf and not a sheep." That's their big secret. rkm -- ============================================================================ cyberjournal home page: http://cyberjournal.org "Zen of Global Transformation" home page: http://www.QuayLargo.com/Transformation/ QuayLargo discussion forum: http://www.QuayLargo.com/Transformation/ShowChat/?ScreenName=ShowThreads cj list archives: http://cyberjournal.org/cj/show_archives/?lists=cj newslog list archives: http://cyberjournal.org/cj/show_archives/?lists=newslog subscribe addresses for cj list: •••@••.••• •••@••.••• ============================================================================