Journal Entries
How to win a war
Posted Mar 26, 2003
Looks like the Empire is just about ready to take the gloves off. We have convinced the population that war is necesary, and now we have Americans being bloodied on national news. Next the reports of civilian resistance, exiles returning from abroad to resist coalition forces, and the inevitable "guerrilla tactics." Just what Dubya needs to desensitize the American population to what will soon become a cauldron of civilian body parts as we allow the Iraqis to experience real war. Carpet bombing, artillery brought to bear on cities, and the incineration of population centers. All while the American public slowly gets accustomed to the idea of conquering as opposed to liberating. These are wicked times indeed.
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Latest reply: Mar 26, 2003
Look who's back, and no one noticed
Posted Mar 22, 2003
I got the computer up and running at the new house. There are four phone lines here, so it took a while to sort it out. Guess the former owner was running an internet (porn) site.
So the world is a different place now, we are officially invading Iraq (note: a violation of Article 15, the same article invoked to bring about the first Gulf War) and my buddy Robbie, with the 1st Marines, is safely guarding Cheney's coveted oil wells along with some Brits. Keep an eye out for my friend if any of you are out there and reading this. I want him back in one piece, even if he is brain washed by all this war propaganda. He'll understand later when we stop talking about Democracy in Iraq.
On the home front, my house is a disaster, but slowly taking shape. The dogs are thrilled with the yard, and one is becoming quite the swimmer in my new pool. I even have a separate room for my office now. A big change from the days in the loft at my old place. My new sectional will be here Sunday. And I now have a pool table in my house. All I need is a Budweiser Fridge and I am set. Summer is coming and all I hope is that the economy doesn't go to far South as this war progresses. I need to redo my garage, and that's gonna cost me.
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Latest reply: Mar 22, 2003
Back in the day
Posted Mar 2, 2003
Well kids, it's that time of night. Time to step in to the way back machine and remember a night not unlike tonight, only we were all a lot younger, and some of us much better looking.
I was in San Diego, in my senior year of high school. Staying at a Double Tree Inn with the team for a tournament down there, may have been states or sectionals. I think it was a Double Tree, maybe a Red Lion (my lack of clarity on the details will soon reveal itself). Anyway, it was a real hotel, and we had just won a game against somebody down there while playing a tournament. I had a terrible day myself, and was a little distraught, seeing I didn't really think I had a lot of career options beyond the major leagues.
So, we boys did what all boys at that age do. We went out and found both girls and alcohol and promptly returned to our hotel rooms to enjoy both.
My room was the center of the festivities, as I was rooming with Curt, better known as "Animal," for his complete lack of decorum in any situation. Animal was the man everyone wanted to party with, he could outtalk, joke, and drink anyone. So with about twenty people packed in our room, things were going well. I had found a little surfer chick who was digging me, and I was almost able to forget why I was there, and how I had not hit the strike zone in ten consecutive pitches at one point earlier that day.
Unbeknownst to me, disaster was looming. Animal was challenging anyone to a tequilla race in honor of his speedy baserunning. The challenge would be two bottles and one shot glass. First man to empry his bottle, first pouring the shot into the glass, no chugging, wins. I volunteered, my competitive nature getting the best of me. I remember getting through the bottle and being declared the winner. The rest of this tale has come to me in stories from people who were there who related them to me afterward.
First I threw up for a while in the toilet, but I was unable to stand or kneel adequately. So our catcher, Colin, threw me in the tub face first. There was some debate as to whether or not to turn the shower on, to clean me off, but it was nixed after the consensus determined I was susceptible to drowning. Instead they gave me water and attempted to force feed various snack foods into me, hoping to either soak up the alcohol or make the vomiting more interesting.
Later, I was able to regain some control over my body briefly and I staggered around the room demanding to see the surfer girl (who had fled much earlier) and then to go outside and try to work on my fastball. I also managed to throw up on both beds in the room during this interval. Animal eventually clearedd out the place leaving Colin, my catcher and guardian both on and off the field, to keep an eye on me.
I awoke at two a.m. or so, in bed with none other than Colin, who apparentlyhad been drunk enough to fall asleep with his head of my chest (fortunately we were both dressed, otherwise who knows). We immediately determined never to speak of it again and that it was time for a Denny's run.
Denny's is the place where all good drunks go to shape up, and there just happened to be one across from the hotel. We round up a group of four including Colin, Animal, Mike "Slacker", and myself. I ordered a club sandwich and a coke. When the meal arrived I wolfed down the first wedge and was working on the fries when I threw up on the plate, right at the table. I went to the restroom, and threw up there some more. At that point Mike took me back to the hotel, where we went up via the fire escape, to avoid detection by chaperones. On the way up I threw up over the side, and nearly hurtled myself down six stories, before Mike grabbed me by the neck and pulled me back. It is one of the few moments I remember. I don't recall Denny's itself, but I remember leaning over the railing, with a long trail of spit coming off me and looking down into the blackness. I remember that was the first time I ever thought about what it would be like to die.
My pitching career would come to an end in a motorcycle accident eight months later. I broke bones in three places in my left elbow and effectively shattered my hand. I was drunk then as well. Sitting in the X-ray room while they took pictures with a specialist in sports medicine poring over the results was the second time I though about what it would be like to die. Only I guess it was just little pieces that died because the rest of me is still here.
I don't think I'll drink quite so much in my next life, maybe I won't screw up quite as bad if my head's screwed on straight.
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Latest reply: Mar 2, 2003
The Invincible Military
Posted Mar 1, 2003
The U.S. has the largest expenditure for military purposes in the world, greater than the next dozen or so nations combined. It's military is the most technologically advanced and technology dependent. This is of overwhelming value in set battles on open fields against a similarly organized military force, as was evidenced in Desert Storm. Yet it was less effective in Afganistan, where resistance on the Eastern front is still strong, and where the Taliban has reestablished a foothold of sorts including a live radio broadcast. We prove unable to find Osama and control only Kabul with any authority.
This leads to the question of how effective our offensive will be against Iraq. Granted, the Iraqi resistance will be reduced in it's strength after twelve years of sanctions, and by a complete lack of air support. To the north and south of the country are hostile factions. Yet, even the U.S. itself is acknowledging that a successful invasion of the nation could take up to three months. Iraq seems intent on defending Baghdad to the bitter end, which will invite U.S. warplanes to level the city, killing any civilian population foolish enough to remain there. Memory will serve some of us that the U.S. managed to drop more bombs of the Vietnamese than they did on the Germans in WWII, and had a negligible affect on the Viet Cong to conduct military operations. Air superiority always looks good on paper, but it does not guarantee a win against a dedicated foe. The Serbians rolled over easily under the weight of bombs, but knew also they would quickly be welcomed back into the International community. Iraq is looking more and more like Texas East, and they probably are painfully aware of that fact. Resistance therefore is guaranteed to be greater. Ground troops, in the form of infantry, will be forced to take the city itself. Even after bombing people back to the stone age, a sizeable invasion force is required when a nation seeks to conquer and control populated territory. The English will be familiar with this concept, as such military requirements eventually cost them their empire.
This invites several logistical problems for our highly moderized military. We are currently at a strength of roughly one-half what our effective combat regulars was at the height of Vietnam. Modernization and diversification of assignments has caused the actual nuber of fighting troops to diminish, even as our total army size has increased. Our special forces units are already deployed at over a level of 2/3 in "advisory" missions around the globe. Junior officers, Captains and Lieutenants, in the current armed forces are receiving less combat oriented training than at any time in the history of the military, and junior officer attrition over the last ten years is almost double any time in history. This means the men leading our ground troops into combat are less equipped than ever to manage what is a already a numerically diminished fighting force. The volunteer army is a novel idea, but even volunteers are often reluctant to sign up for assignments that by definition involve being maimed or killed as a part of the job description. In close combat that requires individual initiative, such as urban warfare, these circumstances can have disastrous results. Refer to Somalia for an idea of what can happen on a small scale. A technologically superior force can be quickly be hamstrung but even the most disorderly and ill-armed mob. Imagine what happens when trained professionals of any caliber are pitted up against oneanother. Refer to Vietnam for an idea of what can happen then.
The Pentagon is well aware of our limitations and has several solutions. The initial stopgap is the use of reserve units in combat. The concept of being a reserve unit in itself does not lend those troops an equal footing in training or equipment to a full-time professional military unit. And when facing a defender who is fighting in a city he is likely to know and for the "perceived" freedom of his own nation, attacking units will be sorely tested even with an overwhelming level of aerial bombardment in support.
The Pentagon is also considering using professional military "for hire" units, such as those who gained fame in the Balkan conflicts. These units are international forces with their own agendas and often limited respect for rules of engagement. One, Dynacorp, was found to be trafficking in sex slaves during the Bosnian conflict, even after the UN forces had arrived on the scene. Such mercenary forces often have a negative affect when interacting with civilian populations of a conquered enemy. This could encourage strong negative response from the southern fundamentalist communities of Iraq, who are reluctant to trust the U.S. after being encouraged to revolt a decade ago only to be left holding the bag when allied forces failed to support their uprising.
In the north of Iraq lies the Kurdish question. Kurdistan is an unrecognized territory which contains an ethnically distinct population that crosses into Turkey as well. They are the former targets of Iraqi chemical weapons often refered to as Saddam's assault on his own people. The Kurdish experience under Turkish dominion has not gone much better. Their langauge in written and spoken form is outlawed and they have limited rights in Turkish society. Any attempt at democratizing Iraq will call into question the hippocracy just across the border. Also, there are rumors that Turkey is planning on using U.S. assurances of allowing the Turkish army to incur across the border to establish a "protection zone" will allow the Turks to reclaim the Northern oilfields they were deprived of by British cartographers after the British left the area in the middle of the last century. This would contradict the assertion made by the U.S. in regard to Iraq a decade ago, when liberating Kuwait after Iraq attempted to annex that nation claiming a prior sovereign interest.
Another key issue is escalation. In the event that the U.S. is accurate in their assessment that Iraq possesses wepons of a biological and chemical nature, they will be likely to use them in the darkest hours of their defensive operations. Most likely they would be used on their own soil to slow any incursion or disrupt supporting or supply units in the rear, but they have the potential to be deposited on civilian populations in Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Jordan, and potentially Israel. This will make a retaliation in kind a possibility that the U.S. and Israel both refuse to rule out. Nuclear retaliation has been mentioned in both nations. So an invasion to reduce proliferation has the potential to escalate to the point of an exchange of mass destructive firepower.
These issues should be something for us all to ponder as we recklessly cheer on our leaders as they hurtle us toward war. Fighting is a complicted and messy business and I have only scratched the surface of a few issues, Refugees, humanitarian relief, collateral damage, infrastructure reconstruction, increased likelyhood of anti-American action and sentiment, an escalation of asymetrical warfare domestically, so many things also need to be addressed before the public signs off on this fight.
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Latest reply: Mar 1, 2003
Queens of the Stone Age
Posted Feb 24, 2003
I am getting to old to keep good track of modern music, but how does Queens of the Stone Age fail to get best hard rock album? The whole album is genius. I am going to go put on some Zepplin now and try to play along, and maybe when I take my headphone off I'll find I've travelled back to the '70s when music was actually good.
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Latest reply: Feb 24, 2003
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Ssubnel...took his ball and went home
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