Comments on: Simulating Urban Warfare

By: squeezie

squeezie — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 04:45:39 +0000

as somebody with no money, no job, and no firearms, I’m far more inspired by hp’s assertions. there are plenty out there who are gonna follow dudes who see the scenario like hp does. the worry is that the hps won’t necessarily help out the ones who follow them. evie seems to have a point; moving targets that shoot back, even if they’ve only got 2 months experience, are dangerous, especially if they shoot back at people who don’t have guns. I’m a lefty but I’ve never really believed in gun control; it doesn’t help anybody except the jarheads who are issued departmental weapons. GC sure as hell doesn’t remove the guns from the bad guys. the last point is that GC makes criminals of people, just like ideas like lowering speed limits makes criminals of people if they exceed the limit. I think the people we need to take guns away from are the law “enforcement” — er, sorry, the “public safety” crowd/

By: evie

evie — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 04:24:27 +0000

Hehe. Many of the sons and grandsons of those lifelong hunters are the young kids with 2 months training.

What’s going on in Iraq has nothing to do with how many insurgents there are or how equipped and trained the troops are – winning or losing Iraq is preplanned, and time will tell.

I believe China and the Russia have weapons and numbers of men comparable to the US. Even Ghengis Khan, considering the era, was pretty well armed.

I think that window of the troops being with the people is closing. It’s a new breed enlisting in the last few years.

By: hp

hp — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 02:01:28 +0000

Well evie, many of those men are veterans and lifelong hunters and woodsman with skills far superior to most any young kid with two months training.
After all, the Iraqi insurgents, all 50,000 of them seem to be holding out pretty well six years later.
Fifty thousand as compared to 20 million?
You do realize how big the US and Canada are?
There’s never been anything like the US, weapons and numbers of men with weapons in the history of the world.
Nothing even to remotely compare it to.
I do understand and agree with what your sons say, evie.
I’ve thought the very same thing for a couple of years now, but I also believe a majority of troops, such as your sons, would still be on “our side.”

By: evie

evie — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 00:40:33 +0000

Tom
I believe the planners knew exactly what they would face in Iraq/Afghanistan. They may be crazy but they’re not stupid.

The control apparatus is not b/c they fear us – but to track us so that everyone who owes the government or a corporate entity a dime can be squeezed to pay up.Watch lists and the war on terror are seemingly valid fronts to do nothing more than skip trace Bubba, Tyrone, and Jose for childsupport, student loans, back taxes, old bills for utilities, and various other types of debt collection, etc. etc. If they occasionally catch a really bad guy – more the better for political PR.

I see 2 types of citizens – those who play by the State rules and those who live under the radar.

I asked my sons (officers) 7 years ago if they believed US troops would fire on fellow citizens, in the event of a mass movement against the government – they said no way, and mid level officers would refuse to order it. I asked them again a week ago and they said the young coming in today probably would order and shoot w/o hesitation.

After Election 2000, I think the “left” quickly alienated those who could have become their biggest allies, had there been any genuine opposition leadership (not the old guards dusted off and put up front or the wannabe soon-to-be new guards).

hp – sitting in a tree stand waiting for an unarmed deer is not the same as facing down your own well-armed government forces. I imagine if the deer and elk were standing on 2 legs suited up and with hi-tech armament there would be no where near a million men and women in those woods.

By: hp

hp — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 23:53:53 +0000

evie, I think, in your words, it will take at least ‘one more generation’ before the masses simply surrender.
As it is now, and I’ve said this before, on opening day of deer season in Pennsylvania, there are a MILLION men and women in those woods with high powered rifles.
One state.
An amazing statistic no matter how you look at it.

By: Timber

Timber — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 18:42:53 +0000

This article points out an important reality that is often left out of these discussions: there is no shortage of people willing to participate in oppression, torture, even murder–even of their fellow citizens–in exchange for a piece of the police state’s pie. Will we still be saying “support the troops” when they’re in our own cities instead of some foreign nation?

By: bozhidar balkas

bozhidar balkas — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 18:24:42 +0000

tom,
u speak of “left”. what is Left to u? is there more than 6% of voters in US who r socialist;i.e, for medicare, free higher education, referenda, etc?
nader, to me, is a centrist socialist.
it seems to me that ab 50% of US pop is s’mwhat left or right of hitler/mussolini.
another 45% s’mwhat more left of franco/mussolini
and the remnant being socialist. thank u

By: Tom Burghardt

Tom Burghardt — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 16:49:19 +0000

Michael Kenny wrote:

“This is essentailly what William S. Lind has been saying for quite some time, but in English rather than in gobbledygook (”ameliorating the immiseration”!!!).”

Now, now Michael that was written in English! ;)

By: Tom Burghardt

Tom Burghardt — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 16:45:20 +0000

evie,

“Kaching kaching” is certainly an important consideration; if you’ve been reading my pieces over the last months, you’d know I believe this to be a prime motivating factor driving the profit-crazed “military-industrial-security complex.”

That said, the Pentagon–and their corporate “partners”–do actually think about the means of exercising control over “target” populations, including here in the “homeland.” The Iraq debacle certainly shook their confidence. The Iraqi people’s will to resist was the decisive factor that revealed the high-tech Achilles’ heel of Rumsfeld’s crazed fantasies of “dominating the battlespace.”

I tend to be an optimist and continue to hope–against all odds, perhaps–that the disastrous course society has taken can be reversed. They really do fear us; hence, the elaborate control apparatus: FBI “data mining,” “watch lists,” etc.

The militarists are “shuffling their papers” and preparing for the next war. Is the left?

By: Michael Kenny

Michael Kenny — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 15:53:22 +0000

This is essentailly what William S. Lind has been saying for quite some time, but in English rather than in gobbledygook (“ameliorating the immiseration”!!!). Mr Lind also points out, and guerilla wars from Indo-China to the present tend to prove him right, that in fourth generation warfare, the state party always loses. Either the state party gets kicked out or it “wins” a wholly phyrric victory by giving the insurgents most of what they want (Northern Ireland is a perfect example of the latter).

Thus, the more the US military wastes money on impossible pipedreams, the merrier! In the long term, the US will not have the financial resources to do any of this, probably not even within the US itself, and in the short term, it ties up resources that are then not available to finance the killing of Palestinian children.

By: evie

evie — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 14:25:43 +0000

“U.S. military’s obsession with building simulation models of urban landscapes and electronic mapping suites of real cities tell us a great deal about the masters’ preoccupation–and fear–with the direction things are heading.”

It’s not fear of the direction we’re heading. Average Joe Sheep, fat, dumb, and doped is not a threat to the “masters.” The “preoccupation” is first and foremost for one reason – $$$$. Contractors, foreign and domestic, big and small. Kaching kaching.