Wednesday, March 10, 2021

Unconventional Warfare: Hearts And Minds

 


















I post the above axiom for all the budding Chés and Ho Chi Minhs out there who want to be  G-strategists without understanding the first principles.

And the first principle is you'd better learn how to be a private before you think you're going to be a general.

And the first job of being a private is going to be shooting at the other side's privates. (Before anyone mentions it, yes, that sentence can be taken a couple of ways, and I applaud either one.) On the topic of shooting at private soldiers, I defer to the expertise of no less a practitioner than Sam Watkins:

"I always shot at privates. It was they who did the shooting and killing, and if I could kill or wound a private, why, my chances were so much the better. I always looked upon officers as harmless personages." 

Nota bene Sam said "shoot". Not "persuade". Not "frighten". Not "tenderly woo and court, with soft words and gentle caresses".










The time to be worried about blowing sunshine up the skirts of the vacuously unconvinced and uncommitted is rapidly drawing to a close, and there aren't going to be many chances for do-overs.

And, exactly as Sam Watkins noted to himself mentally in 1861, it's a zero-sum game: every one less of them is one less of them, forever, which improves your odds by that much, going forward. The recidivism of communists, left to their own devices, is 100%. Commies gonna commie. The recidivism of corpses is 0%. Do the math. 

If, at this stage in the late-game death throes of the republic, anyone(s) can't wrap their heads around wanting liberty rather than slavery, I really don't give two wet farts about their hearts and minds. Except as a potential impact area and bullet sponge.

On that concept, you have only two remaining choices:

Get right, or get left.

Some will argue that we shouldn't be so drastic. "We need to try X, and Y, and Z. For the children." (As if we haven't already gone through the alphabet three or ten times in the last 60-80 years already, and been finally and totally painted into a corner, and out of other options, beyond any shadow of a doubt, just this year.) Allow me to summarize that argument:










Hate Mildly amused to spoil things for the budding Mayor Vaughns of BlueAnon out there, but in this remake, he gets taken on the trip with Brody, Quint, and Hooper, and they use him as bait. Not so much to catch the shark - though it helps a wee bit - as much as to laugh and enjoy the sight of him bitten off in pieces, screaming the whole time, because he had it coming.

Even the GOPe and RINO diehards are starting to grasp this coming turn of events.

Conduct your future efforts accordingly.

16 comments:

wtcreaux said...

"Oderint dum metuant" comes to mind

Matt Bracken said...

I recommend this AmPart comment discussion for various situations and potential resolutions.

TDG TUESDAY: ANTIFA ROADBLOCK

https://www.americanpartisan.org/2021/03/tdg-tuesday-antifa-roadblock/


Charlie said...

The gopE and rinos could not grasp their ass with both hands.

If you are referring to them retiring enmasse I think that is more them seeing a chance to bail out now and still be able to graft a bit after leaving office.

MrKelly said...

And never ever drop thousands and thousands of drywscrews or roofing nails on the dc beltway every morning at 4am. That would be bad. Govment parasites need to get to work.

Survivormann99 said...

Aesop, Sam Watkins was full of crap. Rather than being "harmless personages," history is filled with examples of soldiers folding under pressure when their officer was killed. The higher the officer, the greater the impact on an army.

The confusion that reigns after an officer is killed can be several times what it might be if a common soldier is killed. It often "kicks the stuffing" out of a unit's willingness to continue the fight. There are plenty of examples of armies folding, or almost folding, because a leader was rumored to be dead, whether the rumor was true or not.

Wyomarine said...

We live in a culture of lazy idiots, it's not just the US, but Europe too. A very few see reality, the rest are standing around waiting for someone else to change the channel for them. They don't have the fortitude to do it themselves, or fearful someone will say something derogatory to them and they'll be shamed.
I don't think the white western world has it in them to save themselves.

Old NFO said...

And the RINOs are 'retiring'... quickly...

Aesop said...

@Survivorman99,

And yet.
Sam made it out the other end, so his sentiments are not entirely without merit.

And the casualty rate among officers and NCOs in the 82d and 101st AB Divs on D-Day, and the divisions that hit Omaha Beach, ran to something like 90% by the end of the first week, and yet they achieved all their objectives, and then some.

This isn't going to be a fight against a Supreme Leader.
The problem is that the rot goes all the way down to the privates, and they're going to have to be not just defeated, but obliterated.

That elephant is going to have to be eaten one bite at a time, until the last morsel and molecule is but a memory.

That's why every bit matters, and why this is going to last a lot longer than most realize, or wish to. This enemy has got to be treated not like the Nazis, but like Carthage.

Nothing less will do.

Michael Powers said...

in a street fight, take out the loudmouth, in combat, leaders

Aesop said...

Nope.
You shoot the LT, the Sgt takes over.
You shoot the Sgt, the corporal takes over.
You shoot the corporal, the fire team leader takes over.
You shoot the fire team leader, the senior man present takes over.
And they're still coming after you.

You shoot a private, and two to four guys have to carry him, the medic's busy, and they're either stuck in place pulling security for a medevac, slowed up carrying the wounded, or divided if they push on. And all his buddies are demoralized while he's screaming for help.

I get a better effect with one shot than you will with four.

Shooting leaders only works for militaries that are centrally-led hierarchical organizations.
Which the U.S. military has not really been, in any war we've fought.
The American m.o. is what it was on June 5th, 1944: LGOPs. Little Groups Of Paratroopers.
Any insurgency worth its sale will be so as well.

Which makes fighting a war via One Shot Paddy not only do-able, but quite possibly fun.

Survivormann99 said...

Related somewhat to the subject here:

It is fashionable to say to American readers that the American soldier was superior to his German counterpart in World War II because he could "think for himself," the idea being that the German soldier, was only good at taking orders, and would choke if his officer was killed. I have always tended to think that these sentiments were intended to provide a "feel good" moment for our side, a simple patting on the back for the American soldier. Maybe. I wasn't there.

Here are some interesting thoughts on the matter. http://www.ihr.org/other/bestsoldiers

Knightsofnee said...

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/no-more-thoughts-and-prayers-schumer-turns-gun-reform-legislation

John said...

Commies (clap) don't (clap) convert.

Franco did show they do compost.

Aesop said...

The German soldier was defeated handily by better American forces on Christmas Eve at Trenton in 1776, and again at Meuse-Argonne in the fall of 1918.

In a notable story, most of a company of American Sherman tanks was destroyed by one German 88 crew in the hedgerow country in June of 1944. The ones that survived rolled up to find the German officer and 88mm crew enjoying a last cigarette before captivity, and when asked why they stopped fighting, having obviously a weapon that could defeat our tanks all day long and twice on Sunday, they replied, "We ran out of ammunition."

They had better weapons, and better discipline. But American troops would probably have emplaced tank traps with boobytraps attached, and then scrounged up some wine bottles and gasoline, and held the road to the last man.

And if the officer had told them to sit and wait to surrender, they probably would have fragged him, and reported him KIA by enemy action.

The Germans didn't have that kind of drive or loyalty to the mission there.

That's the difference.

Americans have been looking, mostly unsuccessfully, for a peer adversary in combat for 250 years.
The only time it ever happened was from 1861-1865, and it was one of the bloodiest wars the planet has ever seen.
(And in most cases in that conflict, shooting the generals, on either side, would have improved the performance of the respective armies, on almost every occasion. Some Confederate sniper fortuitously putting a Minie ball through McLellan's running lights could probably have shortened the Civil War by a year.)

You'd think that would give TPTB some pause before egging on another such intramural conflict, but...

The Overgrown Hobbit said...

Quick note... Because I have not time for much more.

Would you be able to head over and talk to this statastician: https://yardsaleofthemind.wordpress.com/ to compare notes? You might find it helpful

Next: "Masks work".

Define "masks"
-->filthy fabric bacteria-sinks and yellow star/red scarf badges of allegiance with magic semi-permeable membranes? Behold! The Power of Cotton! Captain Underpants approves :-)

--> Plastic spit guards and N100 respirators?

Define "works"

Once you get that sorted, I hope you'll join me in encouraging folks to wear your safe, humane spit guards in places where you cannot keep a good distance from other people and NOT ELSEWHERE. Just like you'd say for those trying to get Red Flag laws passed and enforced to save grandma I mean the chillun's from the menace of Covid I mean gun violence. Baby. Bathwater.

More importantly here's something I've been working on trying to dig up, available at Market Ticker viz the virus being found in feces and in parasites therein: https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=241779

It explains the variable "crowd effect" --> subways are super spreaders, the shoulder-to-shoulder one time mass protest (despite almost no one wearing an effective mask) are not. Why the Skagit Chorale was a super-spreader event but no other choir event has been found since the lock down despite rebellious churches: The Chorale (I was privy to their Facebook page)were having a potluck and using their hands to share the food out. Why restaurants are and are not.

It explains the nursing home effect.

It explains why the anti-parasiticals are so effective in the early stages.

And it explains why you're seeing the local here-maybe-not-so-legally south of the border cohort dominating the really sick in your hospital.

The mask fight was always a diversion and we fell for it. Well, I did at first but not doing so later was not much help to anyone because I'm do damnably slow at figuring things out. And because even the good guys would rather scream at each other about killing grandma and selling out to the tyrants (Why not both!).

Wash your hands: https://tempestinateardrop.com/2020/09/16/wedsnesday-miscellany-a-covid-19-update-re-handwashing/

Aesop said...

I've already covered all that ground, and told you what would happen:

https://raconteurreport.blogspot.com/2020/04/why-masks-and-gloves-will-and-wont-ever.html

Can I make a mask that will decrease the spread of COVID? Yes. Out of anything.
Including paper towels, or watermelon rind and shoelaces.
Define works? Limits the spread of viral infectious material.
Are 100% of people smart enough to follow basic directions?
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

I've only been saying since this all started that the entire country was at the mercy of the Gilligans, as in all pandemics since ever.

Now everyone can see that for themselves. And some of them still don't get it.
Whatever.

People will do what they will. If they were smart, we wouldn't need seatbelts.
Everyone lives with the consequences of that reality.

We'll either vaccinate enough people to put this fire out, or else we'll keep having rebound blooms and killing more people until the penny drops with a sufficient number of citizens remaining. Or maybe even just kill everyone that we can, and then move on. The saddest thing about this virus is that it doesn't kill the stupid people outright, unlike, say, Ebola.

So if we end up killing a million, or even five million, all that will do is cut unemployment numbers, and thin out nursing homes.

My profession is as a lifeguard in the shallow end of the gene pool for the last quarter century, and I have guaranteed employment until I retire or die. Nothing else will decrease my eventual patient load other than a pandemic with a higher CFR than this piddly-ass virus, or a planetary extinction event.

All I've tried to do is give people enough mental ammunition to avoid paying me or my colleagues a visit any time soon.

Some pay attention.
Others...suture self.

My paychecks are exactly the same either way.

Ol' Remus' sage advice to "Avoid crowds." takes on a whole new meaning about now, though, doesn't it?