Another cry for help

Well my current readings posts seem to stir some response from the cesspool and I've read some good ones on those recommedations. I pillaged some great old books at a good price from the local mom and pop and have been knee deep in musty old hardbacks for a few days now. Good times. Here's a few of what I'm reading right now:

We the Living by Ayn Rand
The Russian Revolution by Alan Moorehead (1st edition)
Soviet Politics at Home and Abroad by Frederick Schuman (1st edition)
Some Hemingway, because I'm trendy like that.
The Sword of the Prophet by Serge Trifkovic
Shadows Linger by Glen Cook
and I'm starting back into Shelby Foote's The Civil War series.

It is out of sheer morbid fascination that I got into Rand's earlier stuff. I've had to deal with some rather rabid Terry Goodkind fans on wikipedia. Anyone who knows anything about Goodkind knows that he is not just the author of some terrible fantasy books but he is also a raving, lunatic, egomaniacal Objectivist. So I just had to get into what made these folks tick. The entire thing is so simple and contrived it makes your head hurt. So I'm reading Rand's "fictional autobiography". The entire thing, like most of her other work, is just a big long rant because she was on the wrong end of history and wants to make her displeasure into a legit philosophy. Cry harder you shallow, socially inept, displaced bourgeois cunt-rag. Leave metaphysics to people who know what the fuck they're talking about. Like Hunter Thompson. Wait, what?

I was thinking of renewing my old subscription to The Nation but I miss Hitchens' crazy drunk ass. Reading the rantings of a mean, alcoholic, rouge, Trotskyist, hawkish warmonger just takes me home. I've got to get some of his new stuff.

Imperial Turkey Day

Thanksgiving was good. I spent the evening with some other Marines, friends and their families. Good people, good food, good times.

With all this new talk of "Good big, go long or go home" in Iraq has got me to thinking again. I think the issue here is that people don't understand or are not willing to accept the fundemental reasons we are doing what we are doing. So many people have this idea of the great liberal democracy liberating people and destroying the "new facism". The reality is the United States is commited around the world now, and had been for over a century, to protect its interests abroad. You know what? There is nothing wrong with that. The Sunni jihadist groups, the Shi'a militias and militant political factions and the nationalistic ethnic groups in the Middle East are not the reason the US is commited in the Middle Ease, they are the antagonists to the real US goals there.

With this obvious imperial need to protect the most powerful nation in the world's political and economic interests there comes the requirement to wage that stuggle in an appropriate fashion. The goal of a pro-western, inclusive democracy in Iraq is noble and deserving of support. Democratic and secular market driven economies provide better for their people than any other current form of goverment on the planet. The truth lay in the numbers. The reality is once it becomes apparent that this course has failed than the means must take a back seat the the ends.

Points:

1.) The United States must form an alliance within the country of Iraq with the ethinic and religious groups that are most able and willing to do so. A Kurd/Sunni or a Kurd/Shitte coalition must be formed. The Kurds can be guarenteed a hearty share of the oil money and a firm nod of support towards more decentralized autonomous political control.

*The Shittes can be given money, guns, expanded powers to their militias and prime positions within a new functional autocratic regime in exchange for moving away from Iran and supporting the US in fighting Sunni jihadist groups and other insurgent actions. The other option is giving that same sort of support to Iraqi Sunni groups in exchange for a resumed suppression of the Shittes and their Iranian allies and a grassroots rejection of foreign jihadists such as al-Qaeda. Bottom line is someone has to get fucked, the Shi'a or the Sunni. Can't have it both ways.

2.) The United States must seperate the men with guns from their local loyalties and bring the entire effort in the Middle East together. Form several elite Afghan brigades and send them to Iraq to fight under US cadres. Form elite Kurdish and either Sunni or Shitte brigades and send them to Afghanistan under US cadres. Pay and equip these troops well, really well, and allow their religous convictions to play a role in their mission. A pan-Islamic struggle can work both ways. Seperate them from their local enviroment and give them a new paradigm. This can be done under the guise of a new coalition that is "taking responisbility for their own backyard" or some other bullshit. Expand the role of Kurdish brigades through out all of Iraq. Make the Kurds larger players as they have their shit together and their primary motivator is not religious.

3.) Use the Kurds to threaten Syria. Make it clear to the Syria goverment that Kurdish freedom fighters in Iraq will be given the support they need to send help and foster a resistence in the Syrain Kurdish population. Turkey's worries over this in their own country can be used to bring extra pressure against Damascus. Once the Syrians seal the border and get behind US policy in the Mid East a huge amount of foreign jihadists support will disapear.

4.) Money talks, pay off the Afghani generals. The only real counter weight to imams and mujahedin are the warloards. Warlords can be your friends, make it worth their effort. If they want to grow opium then let them grow opium.

5.) Restore the secret police in Iraq. Saddam was able to rule because his people feared him. If dissent is allowed to continue to fester in the open in Iraq it will never go away. Have the CIA train a new generation of Iraqi intelligence services and make sure their pockets are lined with crisp greenbacks. Once the people of Iraq know that Iraqi security services have the ability to disappear them they will either get disappeared or shut the fuck up.

6.) Make Musharraf a believer. Threaten to back India in Kashmir and wave those dollors. Threaten to start painting him as the US crony that he is to his own people and he will realise that his position, and his life, depends on the full support of the US. Special Forces need access to Pakistani territory. Cultivate connections within the Pakistani ISF and get ready to have a say in any coup against out mustached friend. Keep an eye on the nukes.

7.) When the EU and Co. complain make it clear that the only other option the American public is willing to accept is withdrawl. A Democratic President will get us out of Iraq and the rest of the world, wether it likes it or not, needs a stable Mid East almost as much as we do.

8.) I love stuffing.

Furries

In today's world of the People's Instant Megaphone of Mass Ignorance, Poor Ideas and Odd Infatuations (the PIMMIPIOI i.e. teh interweb) all sorts of rather strange folks can commune and celebrate their own little brand of weirdness with ease. This tool accomadates my own urges in a semi-anonymous fashion while allowing me to hypocritically ridicule others. Still, some where there has to be a line. That line is furries.

Sure some people have disgusting fetishes like scat, beastiality, extreme bondage, snuff, trannies, dwarfes and the like, but at least they are at least just that: disgusting. Furries on the other hand are just patheric, firmly planting themselves in the category of "Losers". I'm not sure if they were just over saturated with Thundercats at puberty or at some basic level they just can't come to terms with the fact they want to fuck animals.

The really sad part is the internet has allowed them to gather and reassure each other that this is a normal and healthy obsession. That, somehow, this is a natural form of sexual expression. They even have conventions. Like all groups of freaks and losers there is no better way to solidify their ranks than to rally against real or imagined oppression. They even have a term for it: fursecution. I kid you not. Anytime someone pokes their head in a says, "Wow, you guys are really pathetic. I mean damn," you can be assured that it will be greated by cries of "Fursecution!" and a rallying of the freakshow.

This group has spawned other attempts at adding a legit label to other splinter groups like the Otherkin. These lonesome basement dwellers take the entire furrie idea to the next level: they really are animals "on the inside". Purporting to posses the "spirits" of everything from the mundane coyote or fox to the mythical dragon, fairy (excuss me "fae") or elf. Citing clinical lycanthropy (being a delusional nutjob) they often also cite an elementry knowledge and/or poor understanding of shamanistic religions and totems as a documented precedent for this role play gone wrong.

I mean what the fuck?

Another WTI down

Well I just finished another WTI in the great desert of Arizona. That's what kicks ass about my job: not only do they make you do work you hate in a place that sucks but you do it within reach of the siren's call of independance and modern living. "Sure town is right there, sure we could take you there, but come on! This is the Marine Corps and despite the fact we having nothing going on right now this is "training". Train like you fight." Or whatever.

The other cool thing about being one of the retarded dependant children of the least efficent portion of the goverment is that there is a special class of people whose entire purpose in life is to tell you what to do and in what manner to do it while making them look as good as possible to the bigger fish in their sea. Officers. This last great goverment-sanctioned American aristocracy understands the need to treat its adult "war fighters" like troublesome adolescents in need of some extra supervision. "WTI is over? Got a few days to kill? Sure, have a great time Marines, you earned it! Just sign out with your "liberty buddy" if you want to walk 100 yards to go buy smokes or a bag of Doritos. You want to go out into town? Sure. Just make sure that you take four people, you all sign out, one of you stays sober and you're all back in your rooms by midnight. I hope that you all appreciate this opportunity we're giving you. Oorah?"

When you treat your Marines like children they will act like children. Fact. It's that whole pesky "Oh boy daddy isn't looking! I wonder what we can get away with now?" mentality. I have a massive list of things that pissed me off about this WTI but I'm in a less than acidic mood tonight so I'll skip most of them.

On the upside I did get to meet some really great new people out at WTI this time around as there where only four other Beaufort Marines from our unit there this time. We augmented the main body of the unit which is in Cherry Point so it was alot of new faces and I can now say that except for its geographical location and proximity to the HQ element I wouldn't mind working with the Cherry Point detachment at all. Good folks for the most part. I met a couple Lieutenants that I could tell were decent people underneath the yolk of their rank and one that was so bad she almost ruined that previous moment of Zen for me altogether. Shakespeare invented the word cunt with people like her in mind...and even if he didn't invent it than you still get the point: great word, heinous bitch. Maybe it was Edward de Vere.

Greg, Brian, please don't leave a comment detailing the orgins of the word cunt. Let me have this.