Between the Lines: The Terror War at home.
Morning, and welcome to Between the Lines. I apologize for the lateness of this column, since I've been using a new medication, and it tends to knock me out.
First off, this is NOT helping my paranoia. This is becoming so standard that people don't bat an eye at the virtual shutdown of a major American city. Boston has become the prototype for this kind of crap. Any time there is an easily planned and executed attack, not only do they immediately demand that there's a wide conspiracy, but the entire city must be shut down. Had the bomber escaped the scene would have been far more dramatic, with the entire city combing for the "Suspect".
So the lesson for bombers appears to be, DON'T suicide bomb or stick around. If you want to create the maximum amount of chaos in the American streets, leave some wiggle room for American paranoia to run wild as we hunt desperately for the perpetrators. Hell, the 9/11 plotters got us going for almost 16 years. The most dangerous thing to the US right now is not a bomber, but our response to it.
The Navy is apparently having a major problem with their new state of the art, super cool, mega awesome stealth destroyers ... Apparently they leak. Not only that, but the systems on the thing are so interconnected that such a leak... causes the whole ship to fall apart.
Excuse me if I'm wrong, but this strikes me as an extreme problem on a combat warship. Maybe I'm reading too many damage control manuals, etc... but the idea of a shutdown in one system causing the whole thing to collapse was touched on by a writer right here, quite recently. The fact this kind of cascade failure is happening on a ship that's been BUILT is mindboggling to me.
And Crying "Racist" into the wide world has zero repercussions Of course, this leaves out numerous issues. Including the fact that both the Navy and the Sailors account leave out numerous issues.
1st off, if the racism actually happened, why didn't the sailor feel comfortable going up the chain of command and having the issue dealt with? A ship at sea is like a sovereign nation, and instead of going through channels, the sailor felt instead that the best path was to go to social media. As a result the Navy doesn't feel the need to prosecute for a false account, and yet does feel the need to insist on remedial racism training for the command.
Honestly, here's what I think happened, and this is all speculation. There had been REAL racist incidents, and the sailor felt that it wasn't getting any damn attention. He exaggerated what had probably already happened, because he saw himself as the victim not getting any attention for the real discrimination. The captain is now in a really crappy situation, having to deal with attention placed on his command, but not for a legitimate reason. As a result the best and most diplomatic path forward is to instill some mandatory racism training for everybody, and punish the sailor for the crime, but quietly and outside of the justice system. (What is known as "Captains Mast" in the Navy, or "Article 15" in the Army. I'm willing to bet there was one of those "Off the Books" conversations where the Sailor was told what to say, and what he cannot disclose.)
And that's my rather depressing take on some of the news of the day. Sorry to ramble about the stupidity of the DOD once again, but once you understand how the system works, you just can't go back to believing the spin.
Comments
Cascading failures
One would think that we'd have learned from those behemoth console entertainment centers so popular in the fifties and sixties.
You know, the ones with the TV, radio tuner, turntable and mini bar... wait, no, there was no mini bar.
But I lost count of the number of people I knew who spent a wad on those things and complained that, one component would go on the fritz and the others would soon follow. Then all you had was a big heavy cabinet in your living room that served no purpose.
Or maybe that's where the mini bar came in.
Meddle not in the affairs of Dragons - For thou art crunchy and good with ketchup
Sounds about right. I think my neighbors had one of the last
when I was growing up as a kid. The disconnect between the designer and end user is incredibly obvious in both cases...
I do not pretend I know what I do not know.
Protest Chatter
Morning DMW. In another case of reading the tea leaves, I ran across this:
Not sure what to make of this. It's good to know that protest forces are getting ready to hit the streets.
Full story here:
https://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2017/12/brace-for-impact-by-bloggersrus....
"They'll say we're disturbing the peace, but there is no peace. What really bothers them is that we are disturbing the war." Howard Zinn
Well, in that case I'll start reading...
as much as I can about national guard call ups, etc...
Political shenanigans on all sides are riling up forces, and it won't be pretty if they get unleashed. I'm hoping that only slightly calmer voices prevail, and turn this energy in an upward direction rather than the standard partisan bullshit.
I do not pretend I know what I do not know.
Precisely
I have no idea what the spark will be that sets off the next "Occupy" type protest or what the Security State's reaction will be. It could be a domestic, economic, international or military issue.
Here's hoping the organizers learned a few lessons from Occupy and DAPL.
"They'll say we're disturbing the peace, but there is no peace. What really bothers them is that we are disturbing the war." Howard Zinn
If they have... we won't hear about it here.
On the internet, I mean.
Every time I log in to any of the Corporate Sites it feels like:
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQFKtI6gn9Y]
I do not pretend I know what I do not know.
FWIW Tulsi
Suupporte #DAPL and others point to that type of broad based coalition as the 8 ly was we make a soft landing from a collapse.
A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.
If politicians want to jump in front of the parade...
and claim they always were for something, by all means let them.
It's when they do, then immediately try to turn the parade into a rally for their next election, that I consider them less than useless.
I do not pretend I know what I do not know.
Speaking of leaking destroyers.
Paul Craig Roberts argues that the Russian military is superior to the US military.
https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2017/10/28/one-day-tomorrow-wont-arrive/
In some respects yes, but sheer numbers not so. The US could saturate Syria with cruise missiles and the Russian defense system would be simply overwhelmed.
During the Russian take over of Crimea Obama sent the latest missile cruiser into the Black Sea and the Russians were able to totally shut down its electronics along with the Aegis system. Supposedly the Russians are expert at counter electronic warfare which is alot cheaper than new weapons systems.
Russia only has about 35 fighter jets/bombers in Syria. Started using recently long range bombers and cruise missiles. But experts said very accurate and efficiently run given the number of sorties.
And the F-35 ...
We seem to rapidly be approaching...
the point at which Arthur Clarke's Story "Superiority" is downright prophetic.
I do not pretend I know what I do not know.
Numbers vs. Technology
I'm no aviation expert, but I recall an argument that a military expert made to the effect that he would rather have (something like) 200 F-18 Hornets than one F-35.
"They'll say we're disturbing the peace, but there is no peace. What really bothers them is that we are disturbing the war." Howard Zinn
It's a cost vs return issue...
As it is the US military is becoming excessively specialized against threats that are are very specific. IMHO, we're still planning for a 1980's war against Russia. The thought process then, IIRC, was that we can't match the Russians in numbers, so every one of ours has to be able to beat 5 of theirs. (Similar thought process to the creation of the Constitution class Super Frigates after the revolution.)
Problem is that we plan for extremely specific and narrow missions, whereas it's well known that no plan ever can take into account the chaotic and disorderly battlefield. The lie that we can control everything ends up with the oxymoron of "Smart" weapons that kill the wrong target over 75% of the time.
Of course, it will sadly take the US losing a war before we realize that a device that can be neutralized with a hundredfold cheaper device results in a net loss for our side, even if it takes hundreds of theirs to take down one of ours.
I do not pretend I know what I do not know.
Thanks for the work.
In other news
A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.
The most dangerous info is below the fold
Turkey's buying arms from Russia.
Which means that NATO contract isn't going to an American firm...
Which means that Russia Just stole American money... (To the twisted logic of our War Hawks)
Which means that there's another lobbyist who's gonna be pushing HARD for war.
I do not pretend I know what I do not know.
Why don't people ever ask about the constant surveillance
that they are inflicting on us and how it doesn't ever catch an attack before it happens? This after all is the reason that they've told us we needed to give up our rights for. This was the second thing I thought about this morning when I read the headline on the suicide bomber. The first one was what are they trying to cover up now?
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
What kind of explosive 'suicide bomber; device was it?
Sending hugs and the hope the negative effects of the meds will diminish over time and work well for you.
Just started reading this essay but, (before I read more and forget, lol) following your first link: an explosive device strapped to someone failed to cause life-threatening injuries to either himself or someone evidently standing right next to him?
This sounds rather like the 'Shoe Bomber', painfully injuring only himself and causing pretty much everyone not in the hyper-wealthy range to have to pointlessly remove their shoes as well as being X-rayed/searched at airports as part of an exercise in 'normalizing' acceptance of there being absolutely no rights, privacy or dignity allowed by TPTB for the 'Disposable Classes' - and as far as I'm concerned, the smell is that of yet another FBI/agency 'sting' where, as we know, susceptible people are encouraged and enabled by the agency supplying weapons which often may be imitation or not capable of causing much damage, except perhaps to the victim of the sting, who is often mentally ill or mentally challenged and not capable of such an act without weapons being supplied and generally a good bit of coaxing along. That and the extreme and intended-as-panic-inducing reaction carefully spread over the city raises a potentially further-civil-rights-crushing-excuse False Flag for me...
It ain't paranoia when they've shown that they use this sort of thing to get 'ya.
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.