Men Not To Be Trifled With, Gone Nuclear

Posted by LK on 4/07/10 • Categorized as Blog, Conflict, Featured, Foreign Policy, Military, Psychology

genghis-khan-bust

LK here. This morning I was apoplectically perturbed by the administration’s unsolicited and unilateral announcement of the limits within which we’d use nuclear weapons. I began to compose a column that so closely resembled one from this past December, originally titled “Men Not To Be Trifled With”, that, with a few revisions and additions, it could be posted anew. Here it is, fresh as a radioactive daisy.

Last night I got together with Sun Tzu, Genghis Khan, Alexander the Great, Napoleon, and George Patton for pizza, beer, and a little poker.

We got to talking about the war in Afghanistan, as well as yesterday’s announcement by the administration limiting the types of provocations that would trigger our use of nuclear weapons.

The more I talked to them, the more puzzled their faces became, so, figuring I wasn’t doing justice to the subject matter, I gave them 30 minutes on my laptop to check out the Times, the WSJ, and a variety of European and Asian news sources.

As they huddled around the screen, quiet chuckles gave way to guffaws of a magnitude unique to world class conquerors and military strategists.

Then, in a gesture of uncharacteristic kindness, they assured me that my presentation wasn’t the cause of their amusement.

They did, however, paternally sit me down and ask if, for starters, I could pass along the following to the appropriate, gullible, and naive chumps (their descriptions were actually far more colorful and far less restrained):

1. You can’t fight an effective war against an undefined enemy. No uniforms, no national allegiance, no lust for life, no go.

2. You can’t bribe a native populace to cooperate with you unless you’re prepared to put them on the payroll for life.

3. You don’t declare your troop strength, unless it’s purposeful misinformation.

4. You also don’t declare your invasion date.

5. Nor do you declare your withdrawal date, and then reveal your cluelessness by fudging the previously declared date on the weekend talk shows.

6. Drug dealers make lousy allies.

7. You don’t declare or limit a strategic reaction in advance of the action that provokes it.

I told them that a few days ago I had written “And the big O decides to commit money we don’t have, and blood we don’t need to spill, to a war in a country that isn’t a country at all, as far as its own inhabitants are concerned. Aside from Kabul and the surrounding region, what we call Afghanistan is tribes and warlords spread out on a land mass whose borders are figments of our imagination, not their reality.”

They said “not bad little brother, not bad.” I wasn’t sure if they were placating me or not. When we play poker, they can pretty much bluff me out of the room.

Then they repeated their request that I pass their comments along to the proper authorities. These are men one refuses at one’s own peril.

And so, given the 6 degrees of separation/connection that can doubtlessly get the above to the paragons of the Pentagon, I’m going public in order to get the ball rolling.

If you’ve got any connections, use them. Thanks.