The US Military Is Crazy as a Bedbug

**Dylan MacVillain** · 27th-October-2009

The US Military Is Crazy as a Bedbug
And characterized by vaguely sadomasochistic submissiveness. Article by Fred Reed.

...This hoopla is not of use in combat. The Taliban seem to be doing rather well. Do you suppose their commanders check their beds to be sure that a quarter will bounce from their blankets?
Now, what kind of kid wants to go for robot training at West Point or boat school at Annapolis? Statistically these kids are bright, gregarious, “motivated” (a favorite military word), athletic, perhaps Eagle Scouts. Psychologically they want (need?) to live under a regime of rigid conformity and obedience that would appear as absurd as it is if we were not accustomed seeing it among soldiers. That is, they are autoselected not to think for themselves or question decisions from above. They are exactly what universities exist not to produce...

...What they do not do particularly well is wage war. Why? Because they have in their minds a view of war that is partly that of offensive linemen – you close with the enemy and destroy him – and partly martial romanticism. They speak of duty, honor, country, bravery, fallen comrades, proving oneself. Military history is rife with silly pageantry, nobility of spirit, glorious charges, and impracticality. Having been trained to think rigidly, they do.

Before Agincourt, there were things the French might profitably have learned about long bows, but didn’t bother because chivalry didn’t concern itself with peasants. It was the glory of the thing, not whether they were committing suicide. English generals killed 20,000 young Brits in one day at the Somme; they hadn’t compared the ideas in their heads with then-current military reality (such as that infantry charges over long distances against massed machine guns, artillery, and barbed wire are not especially productive, unless you manufacture embalming fluid). Authoritarian group-think, love of ritual, romanticism, inattention: not a happy brew.

Further, military service encourages an often-catastrophic sense of masculine potency...the thrill is gonadal, appealing to something deep in the male psyche, a challenge flung at life. It is wonderful, but not a sound basis for judgement.

...A consequence is a tendency for militaries of the First World to gravely overestimate themselves, and thus underestimate their enemies. This is why they usually expect wars to be far shorter and cheaper than they turn out to be...

**Percy** · 28th-October-2009

Fred paints a pretty awful scenario that had elements of truth in it, but gets carried away with his own hyperbole.

I like the foorball anaolgy. I used to control a Combat Training Area where fighter aircraft practiced dogfights. American pilots, in pairs or 'four-ships' used to fly rigid pre-determined patterns for engagement. Against each other they were as successful as the pre-plan intended. Ie: they took it in turns to win. Against their own 'Aggressor Squadron' ( a special wing with planes in Russian markings and using Russian tactics, which were similar) they sometimes won and sometimes lost. But I never, in three years, saw an American pair or 'wing' win against RAF planes and pilots who made it up as they went along. It was a constant USAF complaint that the RAF 'didn't play fair'; didn't fly by the 'rules'.

As for rigid conformity, I recall a training exercise I undertook where I was faced with a scenario in which the only way a solution could be reached was to disobey the orders. That was the required and expected response for an RAF Officer. Thinking for oneself - and one's men - was an essential requirement.

Freds view of past eras is overly critical. The French 'Aristocracy' were no more 'Chivalry-bound' than the English when it came to weaponry. English peasants were obliged to practice with the Long bow which they had to make themselves. The French peasants were provided with cross bows and had no such practice obligation.

Where chivalry was thrown aside was at Agincourt where 4000 English faced 22,000 French and 'Genteel' considerations were abandoned. It was slaughter by Long bow. It was the English who abandoned the 'Chivalric' practice of taking 'senior' prisoners for ransom. They had no way of handling and holding so many wounded prisoner-aristocrats so they killed them all. The arrows stopped the French but it was knives that killed them. It was that element in the main that accounted for the terrible loss of life in that engagement. It was because the English army was so weak that they won in the way that they did.

WW1 was a mess largely because of the unstoppability of the Von Schliffen plan and the resultant 'digging-in'. The use of barbed wire and machine guns was entirely new and no-one had any idea how to beat them - until the Tank was invented.

Of course, if women had been incolved it would have been over in next to no time as women are conflict resolvers - according to women.

**shaazam** · 28th-October-2009

""That is, they are autoselected not to think for themselves or question decisions from above. They are exactly what universities exist not to produce...""

may universities of yore ! nowdays the universities are indocrination camps for feminitism - any objectivity is gainsaid by Duke lacrosse and Hofstra outrages