The Military-Industrial Complex Goes All Lord of the Flies

I want you all to remember a simpler time.

It's April 30, 1975. And we are on the roof of a US Embassy in Southeast Asia. A large number of tanks and heavy infantry are on the way. And you can bet your sweet ass that the US Embassy is on the top of the list of places they will be visiting. The Embassy has been evacuated. It's staff is on the USS Blue Ridge somewhere in the South China Sea. The last helicopters of Operation Frequent wind are on their way to pick up the last Americans at the Embassy: it's guards, the US Marines. They will board the helicopters and leave. Thus will end the American adventure in Vietnam.

Now, I realize that the Fall of Saigon wasn't really a simple time, but bare with me.

In Kabul, recently, we had a bit of a scandal at another US Embassy. The guards were going all Lord of the Flies on each other. Weird rituals. Hazing. Alcohol in, well, excess. Madness and insanity. Total fear and loathing.

Now, if that had happened in Vietnam we would have seen a number of Courts Martial. We would have seen some Marine ass get seriously chewed.

Of course, it didn't happen, because Marines, particularly those assigned to Embassy duties, would never have let it happen. This is because they are professionals. Even the wide eyed kids who join up have a remarkable respect for the dignity of the uniform and the abilities of their superiors to make their lives a living hell when they screw up.

The reason it happened in Kabul, of course, is that the Embassy guards are no longer US Marines. They work for a company called ArmorGroup, which is a subsidiary of our friends at Wackenhut.

Yes, we privatized Embassy security.

The most politically important and dignified form of military service has been outsourced to a lowest bid contractor.

When did this seem like a good idea. When did it seem sane and reasonable to replace professionals whose asses we essentially, well, own, for a bunch of guys we know nothing about.

We have embarrassed ourselves badly here. And we have done so because we keep thinking that the free market is going to save us. That it is ever redemptive.

The free market cannot replace a SEAL Team- no matter what Blackwater says. The free market cannot replace proper support facilities and personnel- no matter what Bechtel or Halliburton say. And it certainly cannot replace a Marine guard at an Embassy- no matter what some yahoo at Wackenhut says or some idiot at the State Department thinks.

Some things the military, and the government in general, just do better than private industry. Some things, you just can't replace with contractors. The free market isn't ever redemptive. And sometimes the invisible hand is picking your pocket.

In this case, it didn't pick our pocket so much as steal our dignity.

E.

A Reality Check for the Conspiracy Addled

This is an open letter to the every truther, birther, Bircher, Klansmen, tax resister, white separatist, Illuminati believer, neo-Nazi, survivalist and anyone who has ever used the words New World Order in a way that implies that they believe some sinister cabal is trying to make it happen;

The Government is not scared of your guns.

The only reason they are going to take them away from you is that you acquired them illegally. Or that the guns themselves are illegally converted to automatic or that you lack licenses for your machine guns. Or because you've used them to commit crimes.

Your guns are useless against military hardware.

Civilian weapons wielded by civilians are only a threat to local law enforcement. That is, before local law enforcement calls out the SWAT team. You could conceivably kill a police officer or two. Maybe a few BATF agents if you were given advanced notice and had heavy machine guns (say a .50 cal) and grenades.

You could never go toe to toe with even a single squad of Marines. You'd be butchered like pigs if you faced a tank or, hell, anything with more than 3/4 inch of armor plate. Even if you bought a .50 cal machine gun, any armored vehicle would be invulnerable to your fire.

You are untrained, under-equipped and have never heard a shot fired in anger. You have no discipline.

The best you could hope for in any standoff with Government forces is another Ruby Ridge or Waco. Do you remember what happened at those places? People just like you, better armed and better equipped than you, lost. They had a .50 cal at Waco. And grenades. And lots of automatic rifles. They had advanced notice of the raid. They'd fortified the building. They also died. All of them.

Even if your whacked out conspiracy theory is correct, you can't win.

This isn't World War Two; partisan groups are no longer effective.

Note; the Government defeated the Iraqi Insurgency. The Iraqi Insurgents were ex-military. Many were veterans of the Iran-Iraq War, of the Gulf War or had previously been Al Qaeda trained terrorists or Iranian Revolutionary Guardsmen. They were financed by billionaire Saudis and/or the Iranian Government. They had military grade hardware, rocket launchers, shit tons of explosives, heavy machine guns. Our troops were 10,000 miles from home fighting in a place they didn't know the language or culture. The war was intensely unpopular at home. Get the point.

The Iraqi Insurgents were better trained than you. Better armed. Better financed. Better disciplined. They were braver than you and more dedicated. They were veteran troops and there were alot more of them than there are of you. They had every advantage that you don't. They understood military tactics and asymmetrical warfare. And they lost after less than 6 years.

They lost even though we never sent enough men. Even though our troops were overworked. Even though we were fighting another war at the same time and we were still patrolling the Korean Border.

They were better soldiers than you in every way. And they lost. You don't even know what the phrase "asymmetrical war" means and you hope to win one?

And by the way, those Iraqi Insurgents didn't kill very many American soldiers. You realize that, right? More Americans died on Iwo Jima than during the whole Iraq War.

No one gives a shit about your guns because even if you knew what you were doing militarily (which you emphatically don't) the weapons you and your 10,000 closest friends have are pop guns compared to what even a single light infantry platoon of 30 men and one officer can bring to be bear on you.

Do you realize how many light infantry platoons are in the Army? Or the fact that American soldiers can call in artillery, helicopter gunships and jet bombers? That a single platoon can ask for tank support and get it?

This is because one Army radio is more powerful than the entire arsenal you, and everyone like you, has ever stockpiled.

The US Military is an army. It has resources, command and control, bombers, tanks, artillery. It has a nearly limitless supplies of food, medicine and ammo. Individual American soldiers have personal body armor that can stop rifle rounds. The US Military's lightest vehicle, the Humvee, can have its entire engine compartment blown to hell by an RPG round and not one of the occupants of the vehicle will be injured. The Military has their own hospitals, surgeons, paramedics, nurses, emergency vehicles.

The US Military can afford to send an entire helicopter each and every time a soldier is wounded.

The Military spends more money in a minute on weapons than people like you have spent in the last 20 years.

If you're whacked out conspiracy theory were true and the Military was used against you, the best you could hope for was a couple of years of insurgent action. By the end of which you would be dead, in prison or would have made some peace treaty and surrendered.

Please shut the hell up about the Government coming for your guns. You sound like idiots when you say that. And, I mean, more so than usual. Which for you is really saying something.

E.