Resident Scholars of the A.P.I.
Shock and Awe - Terrorism American - Style
March 21st. was the third anniversary of the Shock and Awe blitzkrieg bombardment of Baghad. The war on Iraq, to date, continues to play; a demonstration of American might on the world's stage.
American-styled Shock and Awe originated as part of the Rapid Dominance strategy developed by the Pentagon's National Defense University. Harlan K. Ullman and James P. Wade authored the 1996 advisory report entitled, "Shock and Awe".
The authors define Shock and Awe as "the effect which Rapid Donimance seeks to impose on its adversaries". They expand their explanation with, "The intent here is to impose a regime of Shock and Awe through nearly incomprehensible levels of massive destruction directed at influencing society at large through very selective, utterly brutal and ruthless, and rapid application of force to imtimidate all venues."
Guernica, London.......
The military goal of such devastating American assualts is for the surviving victims to be rendered into a zombie-like state, lacking will, and totally helpless.
"I'm a war president. I make decisions here, in the Oval Office, with war on my mind." - President George W. Bush
Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Dresden, and Baghdad...
I was sickened in late March of 2003: sick at heart, sick to my stomach, and sick to the bottom of my soul. How could my country do something so terrible? I am sick, still, of all the unnecessary suffering, killing, and dying.
During the first 24 hours of Shock and Awe 3,000 bombs and cruise missles rained down on Baghdad. "The earth is literally shaking in Baghdad....The sky is totally lit." - Reuters. During the first three hours of the burning of Baghdad, bombs exploded every ten seconds.
"US Unleashes Blitz on Baghdad," March 22, 2003 - Reuters. The Baghdad morgue was overrun with dead bodies and had to pile some in outbuildings. Hundreds of civilians died. Many of the dead were women and small children. It is harder for them to run away. What a horrible way to die. Our tax dollars sure did a job on them!
Many Americans were proud of the Shock and Awe war crime committed against a smaller, weaker country. They were excited by the explosive, burning, "Overwhelming Force" leveled against innocent people. They thumped their chests, waved their bloody flags, and chanted USA! USA! (Sieg Heil! Sieg Heil!)
Then, the mindless madness went into profit mode. Shock and Awe video games, golf equiptment, bowling balls, and an insecticide sat on retailer's shelves. Country Crooner, Toby Keith added his two cents worth of bad taste bigotry with the release of "Shock'n Y'All". What a cute title for an album in face of the fact that little kids were burned to death during Shock and Awe in Baghdad!
Terror is a synonym of both "shock" and "awe".
"Shock and Awe", the American-style of terror.
.............Kitchen Window Woman............
*Note - My absolute favorite Baghdad blitzkreig byproduct is the Shock and Awe condom. What was someone thinking? ...burning rubber? .....is that Shock and Awe you've got on that thing, honey? I guess Americans will do just about anything for money - drop bombs to kill people and then name a contraceptive sheath to celebrate the event....Geez
posted by Kitchen Window Woman at 5:24 PM
15 Comments:
I deleted the post entitled, "Trillions in Debt" because I got tangled up between this post and that one resulting in this post, "Shock and Awe" being pblished under "Trillions".
"Shock and Awe" is much more important to me and is part of a series so I deleted the other to get this one into position. I did copy it and the comments that were left as well and may repost it in the future. KWW
I didn't know there was a Shock and Awe condom. Makes sense, though. Too bad so many of the civilians in Iraq didn't get a chance to use protection before they got...shocked.
How would you like to look out your window and see cars blowing up all over the place?
Sure, let's not go to war against those who want to kill us, just to see what happens, eh?
B.S., bomb the living crapola out of those wacko bastards living in the 8th century.
This is a war against Islam because they want to take over the world, as they've said. Iran has been a danger for decades, as was Saddam.
It's now coming out in translations of Saddams papers just how connected he was to Osama Bin Laden and Zarqawi.
Bush did EXACTLY the right thing, and history will prove it, just like it did with Reagan when he won the cold war against the wishes of the liberals.
Hey Libs... We Win, YOU LOSE!
ZEN YENTA...
It has been three horrible years for the people in Iraq. There was no protection because many were already written off as dead by this administration. It is justifiable, after all, to cause death and suffering when the intentions are supposedly for the good.
When I discoverd the condom thing I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. I laughed a lot!
OTTMANN...You pitiful, pathetic creature.
Some neocons don't realize that the United States funded Osama Bin Laden, and funded Saddam Hussein.
When I attack Janet Reno for Waco, I am called a right wing nut, when I attack George Bush for the national debt they call me a communist. So much for being a constitutionalist.
Ottmann is right... history will show that the correct course of action was taken.(Rather than name-calling, maybe you could address his points, KWW?) Just like dropping the atomic bombs in WWII or joining the war in Europe. War is a horrible thing... no one is arguing that KWW. But like a blood-letting surgery, sometimes war is necessary.
Jake is absolutely right... Saddam was on a U.S. leash at one time, in a convaluted scheme to attempt to stabilize the region. He got off that leash and slaughtered over 300,000 of his countrymen. So which is the greater crime, KWW? To allow that slaughter to continue, or to take out the regime responsible for it? (A real man shoots his own dog, when necessary.)
--"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself." - John Stuart Mill
PALADIN...You did not address the war college and the methods of Shock and Awe terrorism which is what I wrote about. You did not address the barbaric methods of death visited upon innocent civilians...or "collateral damage". You seem to justify, embrace, defend, and even cherish such terror and death yet are too cowardly to volunteer to deliver it personally. I hope that you encourage you children to enlist as soon as they are of age. There is sure to be another Preemptive war for the American Empire in some another country by then. You once mentioned that you weren't trained to fight...hmmm. The military trains you as a good many members of my family know from personal experience. I am trained to fight. So what is your excuse? you could even serve by driving a truck for Kellog, Brown and Root. My family and I have experience that you don't and that is why we are anti-war especially anti a war based on BULLSHIT.
I don't believe that blood-letting is used medically anymore...but it did kill our first president, George Washington.
Presidents Reagan and Bush Sr. were both aware of Saddams psycopathic cruelity and murder against his own people...Several thousand Kurdish villiages were subjected to chemical warfare with chemicals from US and German companies. Even after the genocide against the Kurds was made public globally, Bush Sr. gave Saddam a deal with tax payer gaurenteed 2 billion dollars worth of loans and credits. They knew and still gave him money! If he hadn't challenged Bush Sr. he would still be killing his own people with blessings from the GOP. Bob Dole said "Saddam is a man we can really do business with" after his vistit there just before Gulf War I.
Americans and the British have been making the Iraqi people miserable for 100 years...all because they want to control the oil. Years and thousands of innocent dead.
Ottmann is pathetic. He lusts for a religious war and wants to bomb anyone that isn't his kind. He's a sick man. Evangelical Christians want to take over the world, too. Should they be bombed?
One last thing...Dresden was GENOCIDE.
JAKE...There isn't much left of the Constitution..it has been ravaged. I didn't agree with the methods used at Waco and I am also very alarmed at the trillions of dollars of debt my children and grandchildren will face. Heck, George's wealthy friends are making huge profits on this war while the beleaguered middle class and the working poor are paying the bills in both blood and money.
Presidents Reagan and Bush Sr. were both aware of Saddams psycopathic cruelity and murder against his own people...Several thousand Kurdish villiages were subjected to chemical warfare with chemicals from US and German companies. Even after the genocide against the Kurds was made public globally, Bush Sr. gave Saddam a deal with tax payer gaurenteed 2 billion dollars worth of loans and credits.
Um, yep. What you said. Saddam is our [the U.S.'s] critter. Back in the day, he was cheerfully gassing the Kurds, all the while U.S. monies continued to be funnelled his way.
No one. No American; no Iraqi; not anyone "appreciates" having bombs dropped on them. Even if it's under the guise of "spreading democracy," "finding WMD," "countering terrorism" or whatever spin BushCo is using this week.
There's no better way to unite a people against an "enemy" than to attack them on their own soil. It worked for the terrorists with 911 and its working with the Iraqi people (and Muslims elsewhere) with our "Shock and Awe" methods. Our war will not win the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people.
"Shock" isn't followed by "awe." Instead it's followed by a thirst for revenge.
This is not how democracy is spread. Democracy must be driven by the the Iraqi people; it must be homegrown.
Further, it's worth noting that their idea of democracy isn't necessarily the same as ours. Witness the election of Hamas in Palestine. Just because they "vote" doesn't mean they will vote in a goverment that is friendly to "our interests."
To think that the Iraqi people, after seeing loved ones killed ostensibly by us, will immediately settle down, play nice and start reaching for the American Dream, isn't just naive...it's criminal.
PAT... What can I say? You have taken the ball and run with it! Attacking people on their own soil serving to unite people against an enemy, "Shock and Awe" being followed by "a thrist for revenge", the necessity for democracy to be "homegrown" not spread (like some kind of disease)and ideas of democracy being different have added depth and dimension to this most important topic. Your thoughtful points followed by the simple truth in your concluding paragraph (I love that paragraph) will hopefully help others to see the Iraq War with more clarity.
And you wrote all of it without the spelling errors and typos I mangaged to overlook before I published that comment!
Ottmann is of the "if it's brown mow it down" mentality, as bad as any Nazi that ever existed. Christ, with all of the trouble his mentality has caused, that it continues to exist on this Earth of ours is stunning. Stupidity like that really ought to be outlawed.
Nicely said KWW- and pretty much on target too.
The whole concept of total destruction as a winning concept is ludicrous in that those who survive the onslaught usually seek to mete revenge of their own, somehow, someway.
This is part of what we are seeing today in Iraq, as we are attacked by Iraqi insurgents and as we see Iraqi's attacking each other.
One commenter noted that "some won't fight for anything but their own safety." Isn't that in part the rationale sold to us for this war? To make each of us more safe?
Forget about those who only want to perpetuate war for their own religious beliefs- war and killing as part of a religious dogma seem so antithetical to me, i discard those presumptions out of hand.
Yes, there are, and have been wars worth fighting for. Iraq is not, and has never been, one of those.
Paladin:
If Saddam did kill 30,000 of his countrymen, then why is he only on trial for killing about 120? Seems that 30,000 would be a pretty open and shut case if it were true. Or do you think maybe the US doesn't want those charges brought up because they were complicit?
And those he is on trial for were killed because of treason, just like they would be in the good, old US of A, had they attempted to assassinate the president.
Go back and check the accusations, Brad... genocide is on Saddam's list.
Window Woman, I didn't directly address your points (but instead, furthered the conversation that your points started) because they were so ridiculous. Comparing our military strategy to terrorism is, at best, grammer-school logic.
Your comments regarding my use of the term "blood-letting surgery" clearly show the extent of your rhetoric (or rather, lack.) When you can only attack the words and not the message behind them, your argument is out of steam.
And I still think you owe Ottmann an apology. True to liberal form, you resort to name calling rather than continuing the debate.
Then, you pull out the "military experience" card on me! For the record, I salute and thank you for you and your family's service to our country. But because I didn't serve I'm not allowed to comment? More grammer-school logic.
By your own logic, I now ask: did you attend the War College? Are you "qualified" to comment on the military strategies utilized at the brigade and regimental level? Have you held a staff officer's position in a war room? It's a double-edged sword, no?
As Americans, we have the right to debate and question... and the service of brave men and women like yourself have protected that right. Don't dishonor your service now by saying that I have no rights because I haven't served. It's beneath you.
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