This page has been archived and commenting is disabled.
A Conversation With the Boots on the Ground
I have spent many hours speaking at length with the generals who are running our wars in the Middle East, like David Petraeus (click here for “The Spotlight Moves to Petraeus” at http://www.madhedgefundtrader.com/june-28-2010-4.html ), and James E. Cartwright (click here for “My Briefing with the Joint Chiefs of Staff” at http://www.madhedgefundtrader.com/august-20-2010-3.html ). To get the boots on the ground view, I attended the graduation of a friend at the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California, the world’s preeminent language training facility.
As I circulated at the reception at the once top secret installation, I heard the same view repeated over and over in the many conversations swirling around me. While the US can handily beat armies, defeating an idea is impossible. With the planet’s fastest growing population, Muslims are expected to double from one to two billion by 2050, the terrorists can breed replacements faster than we can kill them. The US will have to maintain a military presence in the Middle East for another 100 years. The goal is not to win, but to keep the war at a low cost, slow burn, over there, and away from the US.
I have never met a more determined, disciplined, and motivated group of students. There were seven teachers for 16 students, some with PhD’s and all native Arabic speakers. Many students had already completed multiple tours in Iraq, and intrigued by the baffling culture and language, were determined to master it. The Defense Department calculates the cost of this 63 week, total emersion course at $200,000 per student.
They are taught not just language, but also the history, culture, and politics of the region as well. I found myself discussing at length the origins of the Sunni/Shiite split in the 7th century, the rise of the Mughals in India in the 16th century, and the fall of the Ottoman Empire after WWI, and this was with a 19 year old private! I doubt most Americans his age could find the Middle East on a map. Students graduated with near perfect scores. If you fail a class, you get sent to Iraq, unless you are in the Air Force, which kicks you out of the service completely.
As we feasted on humus and other Arab delicacies, I studied the pictures on the wall describing the early history of the DLI in WWII, and realized that I knew several of the participants. The school was founded in 1941 to train Japanese Americans in their own language to gain an intelligence advantage in the Pacific war. General “Vinegar Joe” Stillwell said their contribution shortened the war by two years. General Douglas McArthur believed that an army had never before gone to war with so much advance knowledge about its enemy. To this day, the school’s motto is “Yankee Samurai”.
My old friends at the Foreign correspondents’ Club of Japan will remember well the late Al Pinder. He spent the summer of 1941 photographing every Eastern facing beach in Japan, successfully smuggled them out hidden in a chest full of Japanese sex toys. He then spent the rest of the war working for the OSS in China. I know this because I shared a desk in Tokyo with Al for nearly ten years. His picture is there in all his youth, accepting the Japanese surrender in Korea with the first crop of DLI graduates.
To see the data, charts, and graphs that support this research piece, as well as more iconoclastic and out-of-consensus analysis, please visit me at www.madhedgefundtrader.com . There, you will find the conventional wisdom mercilessly flailed and tortured daily, and my last two years of research reports available for free. You can also listen to me on Hedge Fund Radio by clicking on “This Week on Hedge Fund Radio” in the upper right corner of my home page.
- advertisements -
Off topic, but click the "Home Buying Myths" link on the left menu of the site you listed (https://theflynngroup.net/Home_Page.html):
Myth #1: "I can't buy a house because I have bad credit or no credit."
Myth #2: "I can't buy a house because I don't have a down payment."
Myth #3: "I can't buy a house because I can't afford the payments."
F-ing classic.
A true Christ follower would see recall that when one is giving to not let the left hand know what the right is doing.
"So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full."
Doucheys indeedy.
Now that's funny! Douche extraordinaire!
Now when I was a boy
My daddy sat me on his knee
And he told me
He told me many things
And he said; son
There's a lot of
things in this world
You're gonna have no use for
ANd when you get blue
And you've lost all your dreams
There's nothin' like a campfire
And a can of beans
The US is outside its borders -
Well fuck me. It's all about physics. You see, nature abhors a vacuum. The more we expand our presence overseas, the greater the vacuum to be filled by others entering the US.
Best stick to cleaning our own side of the street.
Fascinating, just fascinating...
LMAO...another worthless contribution from the MHFT.
Fuck every one of you for junking me. I just stated the obvious which WB7 was doing. WTF is wrong with you people?
Sometimes it's better to wear it as a badge of honor.
The whole junking phenomena is fascinating as well.
More accurately - the terrorists can breed replacements faster than we are willing to kill them. Any number of "idea driven" wars have been won decisively - but Western Civilization has reached a point where it's existence is less valuable to it than a comfortable feeling in the moment.
Maybe we should just start focusing on killing pregnant muslim women with our drone strikes.
Hell, go to the source, right?
I'm guessing you would support such a thing, no?
Why would you think that? I'm pointing out a factual error in the statement. We most certainly possess the ability to kill muslims faster than they can recover. We choose not to - that is reality.
Things are not what they seem. This situation has layers of complexity and the powers that be are perfectly happy with the continutation of the game.
But my statement is correct - if we wished to hammer the muslim world in a way that would end their love affair with sharia and their pursuit of the greater ummah forever we could certainly do so in short order. We CHOOSE not to.
The possibility exists but not using it is not a choice.
If it was a choice, it would be a long time since it would have been enacted.
The harsh lessons of 19th century colonization era and how not to forget not to remove the easiest to extort from the position to be extorted.
What a Asshole.
Indeed.
How is this piece informative? What information does it convey?
Just wondering... A mundane meeting and what?
I take it you don't have any friends or family fighting abroad. Or any kids who will be drafted to insure that the oil supply stays steady. So, let me spell it out for you.
First, the U.S. military recognizes that it has to stay in the ME for a very long time. Until we can suck all of the useful oil out. They say 100 years here. In reality, it's more like 50. So that means Obama's statements about bring the troops home is a lie. If you've been paying attention to the news, you'd realize that, and that we're still especially committed to Iraq even though supposedly the troops came home.
The second piece of useful info is that the published strategy of the U.S.. Namely, to keep the war focused there, in a slow burn, and not here. You don't see that published in any MSM articles. Perhaps there's an exception, but it certainly isn't the normal meme.
Third, there's a reference to the only successful U.S. strategy on foreign soil outside of Europe and Japan during the 20th Century. Namely, the U.S. activities in China. That campaign sought to win the "hearts-and-minds" of the local population in China during the war, and was hugely successful. While the Japanese ostensibly had control of much of the country, it only looked that way on a map. On the ground, the Japanese had the cities, but they did not have control of much of the countryside. Much of that was hostile, thanks to the OSS and the Navy Scouts and Raiders (forerunner of the modern Seals), and their teaching and coordinating guerilla operations there.
This approach was forgotten and abandoned completely by the U.S. Military until recently. And it seems to have been abandoned again in Afghanistan. I.e. we're going to lose there, and won't be there for 100 years.
What else? Oh yes. It's informative in that it's teaching the young military students about the real history of the ME. Something you know nothing about apparently. But consider this. If the Ottoman Empire (go look that one up) hadn't intervened in WWI, then the entire ME would still be under one single Empire today. In particular, the Oil assets would be under one single Empire. Instead, it's now fragmented after the Ottoman Empire imploded after losing WWI.
In short, a lot of history of the 20th Century would have changed or have been affected. Make up your own hypothetical there, but all have to end with one Empire controlling vast amounts of the worlds' energy supplies.
Hope that helps.
Damn, I thought I was a polyanna by thinking 7-10 more years of useful oil.
We're talking about the military here. There's probably about that available for the average citizen. But oil is the master resource, and non-military use will be cut first in order to maintain military advantage.
With 10 one-star votes I'm wondering if he should have written it in Arabic.
Fatwa, bitches.
Translation: We'll keep this unnecessary and completely USELESS war going so that our imperialist oligarchs and their cronies can keep milking the taxpayer dry for another 100 years on the pretext of this "war on terror".
Some more taxpayer money down the shitter. Seriously, who gives a fuck anymore?
Too bad these "Yankee Samurai"'s were missing in action when the US was stuffing their completely innocent US CITIZEN Japanese American brethren in prison camps on US soil.
I suggest you do some independent fact checking Mr. Madhedgefundtrader before blindly believing whatever the government propaganda machine tells you to believe
GG - Congradulations for your real clear way of seeing things ... again.
Amadinajan (sp?) was right. 9/11 was self-inflicted to fleece the sheeples and prop up the European colony in the Levant. While appearently successful in the short-run - no more SCUDs directed at you-know-who coming out of the western Iraqi desert for the time being, the impending blow-back financial and geopolitical looks to be a serious bitch.
Gee.. Do you think it ever crossed the minds of these clowns that we should bring EVERY single troop home and stop fighting this fake war on "terrorism" or "brown people" for Big Oil and Zionists??
Imagine the resources of our defense being put into the infrastructure of THIS country as it is crumbling before our very eyes. All the while fat lazy Americans sucks down this "terrorism" threat like a free pizza..
People need to WAKE UP !!
i am yet to be convinced that big oil is much of this problem. they make their cut with stunning alacrity and consistency no matter who runs the country. zionism and a combination of political cowardice and chickenhawk macho hubris (at the senior civilian level) seems to account for most if not all of it.
I would have to disagree.. The alliance between Big Oil and Zionism is a match made in Heaven (Hell for the rest of us). I personally would lean towards Big Oil being the stronger of the two.. But that's just me.. And new information could change that notion.
mmm free pizza....
wake up to this dreck....
If you want real "boots on ground" perspective, read "The Places In Between" by Rory Stewart. I think the author makes a good point that in all of the conversations that he had as he walked across Afghanistan, the themes were consistently rooted in the Koran. Also, check the latest issue of Military History Quarterly. This is one article among several that put our current war(s) in context : http://www.historynet.com/creating-chaos-lawrence-of-arabia-and-the-1916-arab-revolt.htm