The Art Of War

While this History Channel documentary suffers from perfect hindsight as it always examines the battles after the fact, it is an interesting examination of Sun Tsu's The Art of War. 

The Band Played Waltzing Matilda

A Colossal Gamble

What Will War Do To Our Debt?It seems to me that our foreign policy is a colossal gamble. 

I recently shared an article on Facebook from the Economic Collapse blog. The article gave 17 reasons to be concerned about the economy—derivatives, the European crisis, bank runs, and so on. Each of these scenarios is possible, but none of them likely, or likely to be bad enough to cause economic collapse. 

But the article does not mention the biggest risk I see on our horizon, the coming war with Iran. 

The hubris of the ruling class is amazing. It is like an ancient Greek play. In such a play, the character flaws of the characters bring about their fall. Such plays often had a chorus that told the characters of their impending doom. The characters in the play were blind, deaf, and dumb.

Or maybe it is like a modern teen slasher movie. The pretty blonde makes her way toward the door. Her hand reaches for the door. "No!" we shout, "Do not open it!" She opens it. Her body is found later. 

"No, No, Obamney. Do not open that door."

But will Obamney listen? 

Here is one list of the potential landmines in our path to war. 

The United States will be drawn into war with Russia. Russian special forces are already stationed in Syria to guard a Russian navy port in the coastal city of Tartus. Russia is also massing troops along its southern border for deployment to Iran. This means that any U.S. attack on either Syria or Iraq will likely lead to direct engagements with Russian military forces.

The U.S. military will suffer much heavier casualties than anticipated. Syria’s anti-aircraft capability is robust, and Russia is boosting it further. Iran has both Chinese “Silkworm” and Russian made “Sunburn” anti-ship missiles in its arsenal. A single missile can sink a large warship. One war game simulation predicts that Iran will retaliate against any naval attack with massive missile launches against U.S. navy forces and kill up to 20,000 U.S. military personnel in just the first 24 hours of the conflict.

Iran and Syria will escalate proxy wars against the United States and U.S. allies, such as Israel. Count on attacks on Israel from both Lebanon and the Gaza Strip and on possible suicide bombings in the United Kingdom and perhaps even the United States.

Iran will deploy tens of thousands of mines to block the Strait of Hormuz, through which about 20% of the world’s oil supply flows. While there’s little question the United States has the military capability to clear the mines, military experts predict it could take months to do so. In the intervening months, oil prices will skyrocket.

Russia will block natural gas exports to Europe in an effort to drive a wedge between the United States and its European allies. About 25% of Europe’s natural gas supplies come from Russia. Coming on top of the euro crisis, a cutoff in Russian gas supplies could tip Europe into a depression. 

Is it worth the risk? 

US Arming Rebels

Russian M-35There was a somewhat humorous diplomatic incident last month. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced that the Russian Federation was supplying Syria with new attack helicopters. Not exactly what one would expect an America official to say that was trying to "reset" the United States relationship with Russia—especially as a State Department spokesman admitted that it was inaccurate. 

What Russia was doing, as the United States also does for its client states, was to have a program of repair and refurbishment for arms they had previously sold. There were no new arms being sold.

Of course Hillary Clinton is making a good argument that supplying Syria should not have been done as Syria, as any nation state will do, will use its military against its own citizens if those citizens are in armed rebellion. 

What is it I find humorous about this situation? After all, death from the sky is not funny. 

It seems that the United States is buying these same helicopters from Russia for use by the Afghan government against its own citizens who are also in revolt against their government. 

In addition, the NY Times reports that the United States government is supplying arms to the Syrian Opposition. So it is wrong for Russia to supply their allies, but right for the United States to do the same? While the article points out that the CIA is trying to keep arms from Al Qaida, they are arming the Moslem brotherhood. 

So we fight Moslem extremists in Afghanistan, but give them weapons in Syria. 

Only in America. 

Media Manipulation

There are many reasons for Media manipulation. I mentioned one in an older blog post-Good Television. Watching the Marshall McLuhan documentary I posted on Tuesday would be helpful to understand this aspect of media manipulation. 

But there are bold outright lies like the one I posted last week that was used against Romney. 

Here are a few more. 

You can not trust the media. And no, I am not saying you can trust the new media either. Do not watch just one kind of media, watch many and evaluate them.