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I heard that the US Military has finally released a "How To Fight An Insurgency" guide
They were talking about it. And I had to turn it off.
See, the manual says that you have to do things like "Not Piss People Off", "Not Kill Innocent People", and shit like that.
And that you have to be careful about this stuff, because it's paradoxical and non-intuitive.
The manual says everything that liberal bloggers have been saying about how this war should be fought. We have been right all along.
And it BAFFLES me that it's possible to NOT know these things. They're totally obvious. If you kill someone, then their family will be mad at you. That's not really THAT difficult a concept, is it? If people have jobs and a decent life and stuff, they'll be less likely to kill you. THIS is a paradoxical concept?
And I started to feel sick to my stomach as I began to really realize that this war has been fought by people who don't understand this.
And I began to feel guilty. For a number of reasons. One is that I'm an American, and I live in a representative democracy, and my representative democracy sent people who don't understand people to occupy a country. And that's my fault. Oh, maybe it's only 1/3,000,000th my fault, but if you figure that 100,000 people have died because of the war, as the Lancet figures, I'm still responsible for 1/30th of a death. Which is worth some guilt.
And another reason.
This shit is obvious to me. Apparently, I have a mindset that would have made this whole occupation less nasty and bloody and horrifying if people in charge of the occupation shared it.
And that means that I should be THERE.
I should have joined the military. I should have joined ROTC in college (although Brandeis didn't have one), and I should have become an officer, and I should have been in a position to help shape these policies so that we would have gone into the situation with this knowledge.
Or SOMETHING. I don't know. Maybe I was right not to join the military, maybe I wouldn't have been able to change things like that.
But. . . there has to be SOMETHING I could have done. How is it possible that ANYONE can't simply intuit almost all of the information that's in the new guide? I mean, the historical perspective is neat, and the classification of insurgency types is useful, but the "how to do it" section is all totally obvious.
See, the manual says that you have to do things like "Not Piss People Off", "Not Kill Innocent People", and shit like that.
And that you have to be careful about this stuff, because it's paradoxical and non-intuitive.
The manual says everything that liberal bloggers have been saying about how this war should be fought. We have been right all along.
And it BAFFLES me that it's possible to NOT know these things. They're totally obvious. If you kill someone, then their family will be mad at you. That's not really THAT difficult a concept, is it? If people have jobs and a decent life and stuff, they'll be less likely to kill you. THIS is a paradoxical concept?
And I started to feel sick to my stomach as I began to really realize that this war has been fought by people who don't understand this.
And I began to feel guilty. For a number of reasons. One is that I'm an American, and I live in a representative democracy, and my representative democracy sent people who don't understand people to occupy a country. And that's my fault. Oh, maybe it's only 1/3,000,000th my fault, but if you figure that 100,000 people have died because of the war, as the Lancet figures, I'm still responsible for 1/30th of a death. Which is worth some guilt.
And another reason.
This shit is obvious to me. Apparently, I have a mindset that would have made this whole occupation less nasty and bloody and horrifying if people in charge of the occupation shared it.
And that means that I should be THERE.
I should have joined the military. I should have joined ROTC in college (although Brandeis didn't have one), and I should have become an officer, and I should have been in a position to help shape these policies so that we would have gone into the situation with this knowledge.
Or SOMETHING. I don't know. Maybe I was right not to join the military, maybe I wouldn't have been able to change things like that.
But. . . there has to be SOMETHING I could have done. How is it possible that ANYONE can't simply intuit almost all of the information that's in the new guide? I mean, the historical perspective is neat, and the classification of insurgency types is useful, but the "how to do it" section is all totally obvious.
no subject
There was.
You voted against Bush. Quite frankly, right there that is something you did. It didn't work (more's the pity) but you did it.
You have also been speaking out against Bush, and that is another something. Again, it has not had any measureable effect, but you did it. And do it. And keep doing it.
There is a difference between, "Have I done everything I can be reasonably expected to do?" and "Have I done everything that is even remotely within my power to do?" and an even bigger difference bwteeen those two and, "If I had the power of prophecy, what could I have done to either prevent this or mitigate the worst of it?"
I bring up the last one because that's what you're asking yourself in the last several paragraphs, and it is a completely unfair question. You are not expected to have superpowers, no matter how much you want to have them. k?
There are a lot of us who wish this entire boondoggle never started in the first place, but there really are limits on what we are able to do about it. Curse this lack of superpowers...
No single person can move the world alone, but a single person can lead many people to do it together. This is a great strength, and right now it is also a crucial weakness because it's what's keeping the mess going.
no subject
When I think of people who are changing the world for the better, you are right at the top of the list.