Category Archives: War and Military

The First AI War

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This could be the first AI war. My experience with AI is it’s a confirmation bias machine.

This isn’t about being right, it’s about seeing responses that satisfy people that they are correct. But all AI is doing, still, is telling people what they want to hear. It’s just doing a better job of it! AI is not “getting better.” It is getting better at making you think it’s getting better. This is about accepting conclusions, not about drawing correct conclusions.

Never accept the first response. Challenge it and it gives you different answers, even apologizing for its first, incorrect answer. You keep doing that until you get an answer you like. But it’s the answer YOU like. If you challenged it again you’d get another, different response. You have to be well-disciplined in avoiding confirmation bias to recognize this is what’s happening.

Superior Advice From The God-Machine

I think that could be what they did. Trump and his people are well-disciplined in hearing what they want to hear. They thought they were getting superior advice from the God Machine, when all they were really doing what getting fed the justifications and strategies and tactics their twisted fascist brains wanted to get. No president agreed to attack Iran until there was a God-Machine telling him he was so great & strong so it would certainly succeed.

Iran Failure Shows What The ‘Deep State’ Was FOR

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Understanding things like the Strait of Hormuz and guiding policymakers on how to work with countries like Iran is what the Deep State was about.

The Strait of Hormuz is narrow and the Iranian side is mountainous, with cliffs at the shore.

Something like 25% of all oil, 20% of liquefied natural gas and 30% of urea and phosphate fertilizers passes through the Strait.

Iran could always have closed the Strait at any time. A single Iranian in a speedboat with a shoulder-launched missile can fired at a supertanker. Missiles could be fired from those cliffs or mountains. There is no level of naval escort or minesweeping or air power that ensure this cannot happen without invading. But invading and clearing the Iranian side would be a long, tough operation requiring a major invasion force.

But Iran has kept the Strait open, until now, because it needed the trade that went through and because closing it would trigger a massive military response. Trump took these reasons away and Iran responded by closing the Strait to any shipping from and to “the Enemy Bloc” – the United States & Israel and their allies, and others providing support for this war on Iran. And now the only way the Strait can be reopened is a major invasion — or by giving Iran what it wants. And Iran isn’t ready to even say what it wants.

The Deep State

The US government, its military and diplomatic corps had, over the decades, built up a “bureaucracy” of experts and diplomats and military strategists who studied and understood that and worked with that and helped policymakers plan around this understanding. Trump called these experts and institutions the “Deep State” and has worked to dismantle it all since retaking office.

Understanding things like the Strait of Hormuz and guiding policymakers on how to work with countries like Iran is what the Deep State was about. It is was government is. It is experts who know things and say, “If you to this, then here are the probable results.” They analyze problems and proposals and say, “History and data tell us the best approach to X is Y.”

The Deep State also existed to look at problems like healthcare, occupational safety, pollution, financial regulation, climate, seat belts, drugs, etc, and suggested the best approaches to developing policies, regulations and laws, diplomacy and all kinds of other things government does.

The Deep State advised that vaccines prevent serious epidemics. They advised that burning fossil fuels and releasing carbon into the air would eventually cause an extremely threatening climate crisis. The Deep State advised not to make war on Iran because they will close the Strait of Hormuz and throw the world into possible depression.

And that’s WHY they were eliminated from government. Because the experts said don’t let corporations pollute, don’t let the finance industry commit fraud and stop the oil companies from putting carbon into the air. Etc. So those industries and the billionaires who profit from them paid politicians to get rid of those experts.

Regulations Are Written In Blood

They say every regulation is written in blood because they come from the lessons learned when terrible mistakes are made, and try to prevent those terrible things from happening again. The Deep State’s understandings and protections and advice took decades to build. It only took a few months to destroy. It’s not coming back any time soon.

There will be blood.

War Isn’t Murder – Jesse Welles

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War isn’t murder, good men don’t die
Children don’t starve and all the women survive
“War isn’t murder, ” that’s what they say
When you’re fighting the Devil, murder’s okay
War isn’t murder, they’re called casualties
There ain’t a veteran with a good night’s sleep

Let’s talk about dead people
I mean a-dead people
The dead don’t feel honor
They don’t feel that brave
They don’t feel avenged
They’re lucky if they got graves

Call your dead mother, ask her when she died
It’s a deathly silence on the other line
The dead don’t talk, but the children don’t forget
So in 20 short years, you could live to regret that

War isn’t murder, there’s money at stake
Girl, even Kushner agrees it’s good real estate
War isn’t murder, ask Netanyahu
He’s got a song for that and a bomb for you
War isn’t murder, it’s an old desert faith
It’s a nation-state sanctioned, righteous hate

Let’s talk about dead people
I mean a-dead people
War isn’t murder, it’s the vengeance of God
If you can’t see the bodies, they don’t bloat when they rot
And the flies don’t swarm, and the children don’t cry
If war isn’t murder, good men don’t die
So in a short 20 years, when you vacation the Strip
Don’t think about the dead and have a nice trip

War isn’t murder, we should all give thanks
I saw it all in a movie, give it up for Tom Hanks
War isn’t murder, they don’t ship out the poor
And the bullets they fire aren’t part of the cure
War isn’t murder, land is a right
But the banks called dibs, it’s something you can’t fight

Let’s talk about dead people
I mean a-dead people
The dead don’t feel honor
They don’t feel that brave
They don’t feel avenged
They’re lucky if they got graves

War isn’t murder, ain’t a river of blood
Stretching all-through time and raining down in a flood
It’s a dark sacrifice, made on your behalf
So get down on your knees and thank the sweet Lord that
War isn’t murder

On The Word ‘Genocide’ By ‘The Left’ To Describe Israel’s Actions In Gaza

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My mother’s parents were Orthodox Jews, coming from Ukrainians who emigrated to the US (in a hurry) during prior eras of persecution. I also lost family members (one in the US in the 30s) to that stuff.

There is a human tendency to tribally identify an “us” and a “them,” and to whip people up against an “other” for political gain. Humans do that, not any specific branches/types/races of humans. We have seen this happen throughout human history.

In mid-20th century Europe incredible atrocities occurred. Horrific. It showed what humans can do under certain circumstances. People this happened to vowed, “Never Again!” as a lesson to watch for the signs of those circumstances and that horror recurring elsewhere.

For a while in Gaza there was a debate whether genocide was occurring or “only” ethnic cleansing as the Netanyahu government forced mass migration and then systematically destroyed the homes, hospitals, schools, mosques, government buildings and civil infrastructure left behind. There were very large numbers of civilian casualties. We don’t know the actual extent of what happened because journalists there to report information kept getting killed.

I don’t for a minute think “Jews” are doing what is happening in Gaza. That’s a ridiculous thing that ridiculous people might conclude. I blame the Trumpy Netanyahu right-wing government for using “othering” to create circumstances encouraging what occurred. (Evidence presented to international tribunals is rather conclusive on this.) And the Biden administration for enabling and arming it. The latter – US complicity – is what is driving some of “the left” to pay particular attention to this particular mass atrocity. (There was also lots of anger on “the left” at Russia’s atrocities in Ukraine.)

As you pointed out, “genocide” is a recent term. So its meaning could be limited to only refer to what happened in Europe in the mid-20th century. I don’t know if it has to happen on the scale of events that brought about the invention of the word before using that particular word elsewhere. The point, I think, was to give the world a way to be watchful for those human tendencies to do those kinds of things to each other. Others may disagree.

Civilian Casualties In Gaza

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News report: At least 15 people were killed and 60 were wounded in an Israeli airstrike on an ambulance convoy near a hospital in Gaza.

Israel says the ambulances contained Hamas fighters.

I wouldn’t be surprised if the ambulances were carrying Hamas fighters. But look at the numbers of dead and injured! All those dead were not 15 Hamas fighters inside the ambulances and not 60 Hamas fighters injured. Many of those were civilians who happened to be there. And that is one more obvious violation of international law, ignored by our own government, inciting anger around the world.

THIS is what’s happening. The (US-supplied) Israeli war machine might be targeting Hamas (obviously not always – they are killing too many reporters, destroying too many residential buildings, removing too many civilians from their homes for that to really be the case…) but they are killing and injuring and deporting lots and lots and lots of civilians. Because we all know the Trump-allied Netanyahu government is all about ethnically cleansing the “other.”

This war is happening in the context of decades of right-wing Israeli government apartheid treating Palestinians as subhuman. The whole world sees this in that context. This is happening in the context of decades of the whole world seeing US planes and bombs falling on non-whites all around the globe.

This is NOT about “Israel” or “Jews” doing these terrible things any more than Hamas represents Palestinians or Muslims. There is a reason half of the Israeli people were out in the streets demanding the removal of this government for months before this war started. There is a reason Hamas (and Netanyahu, in cahoots with Hamas) wouldn’t allow Palestinians to vote for responsible leadership. The reason is the actual PEOPLE would have gotten rid of the fascist extremists who had taken charge on both sides.

Check Yourself For Confirmation Bias

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I think we should all be aware that confirmation bias is a real thing.

The US has done terrible things. Bush’s invasion of Iraq was illegal aggressive warfare, with its “run up” of propaganda lies to justify what Bush did. Vietnam, wow … CIA overthrowing elected governments and installing horrific, murderous dictatorships.

And what we did with Russia after the Soviet Union fell led to Putin and the oligarchs running things.

So a lot of us trained ourselves to see through the propaganda lies that come from the DC/military/corporate-rule crowd. There really is no reason to trust anything they say

Now, remember when Russia had troops massed on Ukraine’s border, and many of us saw the US warnings about an impending invasion as the US engaging in another drumbeat for war? A lot of people were talking about this almost as if the US had troops there and was lying about it. Meanwhile Russia was assisting this view by saying they were only conducting exercises and would be pulling back soon, the US was lying to stir things up, etc, etc.

It turned out that was all wrong. Russia really was massing troops for an invasion of Ukraine.

So Be Careful

So let’s be careful and try to apply logic to what we’re seeing instead of looking for things that confirm our own US-centric view of the world. Past performance is not an indicator of future returns. Those were not US troops on Ukraine’s border and the warnings about impending invasion were correct, not US military/industrial propaganda this time. (For once.) This time it wasn’t about US politics or actions at all, even though we are so used to seeing things that way.

For all the past bad acts by Western countries, is it logical to think of NATO as “aggressive” or “expanding” when the countries joining are all applying to join? Is it logical to think of NATO as “threatening” Russia? NATO has not invaded any of these countries to force them in. It is an organization that exists for the member countries to protect each other from aggression by other countries.

And we all know that the West is not going to invade Russia. So where is the logic of thinking of NATO as threatening, or encircling, or expanding? Those are propaganda words, intending to evoke images in the brain instead of logic. Encircling? I mean, look at a map of Russia! Again, no one is going to be sending tanks into Russia. Get real.

Many of the countries -IN- NATO have done terrible things. NATO itself, as an organization, has not. Meanwhile today’s Russia is the kind of country we all despise and fear the US is becoming – a fascist, white nationalist kleptocracy subjecting its people to constant Fox-News-like nonsense distracting the public from reality and justifying how the few at the top are siphoning off all the wealth. Russia has been invading, bombing countries, Syria, Chechnya, Georgia, attacking civilians and destroying their cities. Not NATO.

I’m saying we should look at every situation fresh, and apply logic and reason. Fighting past battles can make us blind to what is happening.

Especially as US/Wall Street domination of the world recedes.

Afghanistan Was An “Afterthought.” Iraq’s Oil Was Always The Goal.

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There was never a plan to “win” in Afghanistan because Afghanistan was never the point.

From Day 1 of their time in office – before 9/11 – the Bushies wanted Iraq. They wanted the oil. They had meetings with oil companies, drawing up maps dividing up Iraq’s oil reserves.

Remember Haliburton?

Then 9/11 happened. Opportunity. They had to go into Afghanistan because of the “optics” but Iraq’s oil was always the target. Don’t forget that the Bushies convinced the public that Iraq attacked us on 9/11, and were going to attack us again with nukes and anthrax. Do you remember the fear?

The Republicans said that Saddam Hussein was behind 9/11, had weapons of mass destruction – including and especially nukes – and was going to give those weapons to terrorists or use those weapons on us SOON unless we act. “Dirty bombs” might go off at any moment. Smallpox might hit any day. We must go to war to save ourselves. Those Democrats are against the war – are against protecting ourselves.

The threat was so imminent that we must take the unprecedented step of having a war vote just before the elections.

Immediately after invading Afghanistan Bush shifted attention and resources to Iraq. From The Original Sin of the War in Afghanistan in the Atlantic, (Emphasis added, for emphasis.)

The Bush administration’s focus started shifting within weeks of the Taliban’s ouster, and plans for the Iraq invasion soon became all-consuming. Too light a troop presence in Afghanistan meant that security was never truly established; too little money actually delivered meant that the fledgling government was never able to prove its credibility to its own people; too little focus from U.S. policy makers meant that a highly centralized governing structure, imposed on a never-before-centralized nation, could not be prevented from degenerating into nepotism, ineffectiveness, and rampant corruption. Failure to provide enough troops, money, and focus on the front end resulted in exponentially more troops, money, and focus down the line.
By the time U.S. troops crossed into Iraq in 2003, Afghanistan was already an afterthought for the administration.

What followed was decades of … whatever that was. The presence of the Taliban meant the US kept sending billions to the corrupt Afghan government. We were supposedly building up the Afghan military and strengthening the government. But corruptly sending billions to corrupt officials was a powerful incentive to keep the Taliban out there.

Anyway … here we are.

PS: Congress Should Declare This Barbara Lee Day

Congress Should Declare This Barbara Lee Day

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Rep. Barbara Lee was the only vote against the Authorization to Use Military Force in Afghanistan.

Congress should do the right thing this time and declare today National Barbara Lee Day so her vote can be honored and remembered and the lessons learned be taught in schools (along with CRT).

It’s Intimidation, Not “Moderation”

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The Nation has a great piece by By Guy T. Saperstein and Joe Cirincione, titled, Americans Want Jobs, Not War. It describes how to talk about war spending in ways that move the public toward progressive positions. Please read it.

Dems “Afraid” of how they will “Appear”.

One early line stood out to me, “Democrats are afraid of appearing weak on defense.”

This line says so much about our national discourse. We are so used to hearing it. Democrats do things because they are afraid of how things they do and say will “appear.” They don’t want to “be seen as” holding certain positions that trigger a certain response.

Just how does that “appearance” reach the public? Through our nation’s information channels. Think about this. In a supposed democracy members of the country’s majority party are “afraid” of how they will be “made to appear” if they do not conform to certain positions.

It’s Intimidation

Let’s call this what it is: it is intimidation. They are intimidated.

Instead of providing the public with objective information to help citizens govern themselves in a democracy, our nation’s information channels are structured to enforce a system of allowable do’s and don’ts. The dominance of the right-wing/lobbyist intimidation machine is so pervasive that we no longer understand it could be different.

“Imagine If A Democrat Did That”

Every time a Democrat says, “I don’t want to be seen as” not being supportive of our troops we are acknowledging that we are living in an environment of intimidation. Every time Republicans do something and we all say, “Imagine if a Democrat had said/done this,” we are acknowledging an intimidation machine. But we are not saying the words. 

“If a Democrat did this” really means our information sources are intimidated into making a big bru-ha about anything a Democrat does and ignoring when a Republican does it because careers and reputations are destroyed. And therefore the targets of this are intimidated as well.

A “moderate” Democrat is simply a Democrat who gives an appropriate nod to being intimidated and therefore controlled by the corporate/right intimidation machine.

Who Are We To Object To What Putin Is Doing?

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There are people who say, “The US has been and is doing bad things all over the world. It interfered with Russia’s elections. It bombs people. It overthrows governments.” Etc.

The United States interferes with elections in other countries. It has overthrown governments in other countries, bombed and even nuked other countries, supported brutal regimes, etc. It has committed genocide against Native Americans, held slaves, enforced an apartheid, made people of color second-class citizens, fought unions and kept wages low, allowed terrible environmental destruction, tortured people … and done a lot of things we are all against.

In general that United States has done everything it can to keep We the People here and everywhere down and under the thumb of a wealthy few.

So who are we to object to what Putin has done and is doing?

Wait, Did WE Do That?

But is that United States that does those things OUR country? Did “we” do those things?

The instances of the US doing these kinds of things here and elsewhere have been when our democracy is undermined, corrupted, manipulated by anti-democracy moneyed interests for their own gain.

That isn’t “US.”

The United State is under the control of a wealthy few anti-democracy plutocrats who OPPOSE what the “We the People’ Constitution stands for. That is the bad version of the United States that progressives fight, now and historically.

Trump is the leader of THAT United States and he is aligned with Putin to make things even worse for We the People.

WE did not go to war in Iraq, we were against it. WE are not helping Israel suppress the Palestinians, we are against that. WE are not helping the Saudis bomb Yemen, we are against that. WE did not support apartheid, we fought it.

We the People of the United States have not decided we should do these things. We the people just want a better life and the freedom to make our decisions over how our government should operate – and every time that actually happens things get better for people, more equal, more just.

What Trump was and is doing — with Putin’s Russia by his side — is to further promote this very undermining of the “We the People” democracy that we fight for.