Don Rich's Open Salon Blog

Sino-American Relations: Of Dollars, Chickens & Bears

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 17:11:22 -0500

Wo xihuan zhongou ren. Zhongou ren hen keichi. Wo xihuan dao zhongou qu. Hui shuo yidian. Ni hao Helen Zhou ma (plaint?)?

It would seem that Sino-American relations are at an important crossroads because of the chicken coming home to roost in the interaction of the dollar as reserve currency of the world versus Chinese export led growth and the associated capital flow to finance the disequilibrium in the current account all in the shadow of the Russian Bear.

The CCP, since Premier Deng's Four Modernizations, has followed the pattern of other East Asian economies like Japan, South Korea, Formosa, Singapore, and to a lesser extent Indonesia and Malaysia in attempting to raise vast masses of the poor into an approximation of the American middle class by using its cheap currency relationship to the dollar in order to acquire economies of scale to export to the United States.

This is not dissimilar in character, if different in policy tool, to the United States using Hamilton's tariff in order to make Northern American industry competitive with that of the United Kingdom.

Eventually, given the scale of the United States, this was bound to create disturbances in the distribution of power in the international system (it also helped cause the American Civil War, something the CCP perhaps ought to remember as well, in Chinese terms not because of South-North but Coastal-Interior tension).

Even the rise of Japan in the post-WWII era via Export Led Growth, because of the scale factor, has altered the international balance of power in a latent sense and caused at times significant tension in the U.S.-Yamato relationship, although so far the open re-distribution of power in military terms has been very, very subtle, and primarily naval in character.

China, as Napoleon said, was bound to shake the world when it awoke from its mid to late Manchu slumber under the guns of first the Opium War, the Taiping rebellion, the defeat by Japan, and especially by the Boxer rebellion, all of which culminated in the death of the thousands year old imperial system in 1911.

Although it was perhaps unfortunate that the KMT did not win the Civil War, in the end, the post-Mao era has been overall a fairly impressive achievement, when one makes allowances for the political limitations posed by Chinese political culture.

It was certainly, even with the horrors of the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural revolutuion, on balance, an improvement over the anarchy of the 1920's, and especially the Japanese invasion of the 1930's.

Since it was Russian intelligence that helped cause such anarchy through the activities of GRU General Frunze, just as it was Stalin's idea to drag China into the punishing experience of the Korean War, hopefully, even with the Shanghai Treaty Cooperation Organization, the leadership of the CCP will think very carefully about any Russian inspired hints at overturning American "hegemony."

After all, although Americans were probably somewhat condesending in their missionary work, from the time of the onslaught of the West in the nineteenth century, the American policy tradition was the Open Door to China, dating to the 1880's.

The United States did participate in the Boxer expedition, but at least as much to restrain the Europeans, Russians and especially the Japanese from dismemebering China.

Similarly, the United States did not arm Uigher separarists in the 1940's (remember the demonstrations last year), nor did it try to keep Manchuria after WWII, nor did it repeatedly talk of pre-emptive nuclear strikes on China into the 1970's.

One would hope that the leadership of the CCP would on balance remember that the Russians fear Chinese ambitions in the portions of Siberia that were once Chinese, because of Russian demographic decline and the presence of natural resources there, and that the Japanese have the obvious fear of decline, and that on balance a strong Sino-American tie is in best interst of peace and stability in East Asia, and that there are proposals for monetary reform in terms of energy backing that could be helpful.

How NOT to go to Afghanistan: Hillary's Trip

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 16:11:34 -0500

(For MEB, always. I love you forever and ever. And for Harry Eckstein, and Culture)

The older and more mature I get, the latter of which is a clearly a work in progress I shall grant, I try to take the world as it is, and not as I wish it to be, especially in the realm of foreign policy, or, as we shall see, during domestic travel across sub-cultural barriers, which often teaches identical lessons to those traveling abroad, like Secretary Clinton this week in Afghanistan.

It makes for nice sound bites to speak of "women's rights" in Afghanistan, but, as in speaking about "human rights" in China, such talk is culturally bound to the Western European tradition of which America is a part, and more importantly, usually counter-productive.

As to the title, Ms. Clinton made the headlines of the New York Times yesterday "demanding progress" from the Hamid Karzai regime.

In other words, she bossed around the "President" of the country.

Better yet, she emasculated him in public while her head was uncovered in the headline Times photo.

Not a smart move in Afghanistan; paging Secretary Clinton's P.R. people.

In fact, this was typical Zero-Common Sense Arrogant Left Liberal B.S., at best. There has been plenty of Zero-Common Sense Arrogant Right B.S. lately too, by the way.

Why?

In a country like Afghanistan, women never talk back to men, in public.

In private, that is, like everywhere else, a very, very different affair.

This is at a life and death minimum because whatever the formal power distribution between males and females in say, Afghanistan or Saudi Arabia, women in private wield, well, certain powers of withholding an enjoyable act, if only by not faking enjoying it.

In other words, if the Little Woman isn't happy, whether you are a metro-sexual in New York, or Genghis Khan in the Ulam Bator harem, the Little Woman always makes sure that the "Big" Man knows that there is a problem, until things are just right.

That is life, anywhere and everywhere.

Even Genghis Khan, with his Nine Hundred and Ninety Nine J.Z. Bitches, had that problem.

(That, by the way, is why I don't really want a harem that much.

One woman's crazy emotional B.S., I am sorry I am not being a supportive partner, is bad enough to deal with on a regular basis.

Can you imagine having even four wives, like the Muslims, or the Old Belief Mormons?

I would have a heart attack in a week dealing with that.)

In any event, in public in the Muslim world, for a woman to dress down a male while not being dressed up enough in terms of a Mild But Respectful Head Covering, is asking, let us say, screaming for trouble.

All men get enough of dressing down by the Little Woman in private, across the entire planet.

America already has plenty of trouble in Afghanistan.

What do we want next, a massacre of our garrisons, like happened to the British in 1842? The Russians eventually got to the same place.

When in Rome, make like a Roman is a basic real world fact of life, because (S)ocial Culture is Reality, like Harry Eckstein said, just as much as the (E)Money of Neoclassical Economics or the (P)Guns of Realism: ESP, from Burt Kendor Jr.

As to the unavoidable relationship of guns/political systems to culture and travel, I, for example, often wear my hair and clothes in the fashion of a Beatnick when I am researching intensely, like right now.

I currently look like a very ugly Tom Hanks in Castaway, minus Spaulding.

There are, in my defense, some logistical reasons for that, but still, I was raised to have more Common Sense Boy to look like a Beatnick in Certain Places in Alabama, in which the generalized deficit of Common Sense is now in the process of destroying the United States.

This "Beatnick" appearance does not, however, play well in Alabama, where I am temporarily living right now.

I knew this growing up here, and I know this now, and I so therefore I am getting a haircut this weekend Mama.

Why?

Well, guess what?

I have been questioned by the police of Hoover, Vestavia Hills, and Mountain Brook five times in less than one year while visiting and living in Alabama, although the officers here are usually very polite, except the Mountain Brook cop, but only when he found out the weird looking guy lived in Philadelphia.

That's o.k., officer. Seriously.

I looked too much like the Unabomber. That did not go over well in Mountain Brook when I grew up here, so I knew better.

Common Sense Boy!

The Mountain Brook cop at Otey's is very cool though, as was the Vestavia cop yesteraday, and each time, well, the Hoover thing was close, me demanding to be searched and throwing myself on the hood of the police car, and all without prompting, but I generally have avoided a Teachable Dealing with John Law Moment, like we all talked about last summer over a beer at the White House with Officer Crowley and Professor Gates.

(Remember MEB, When the Police Officer Comes, just shut up and give him the ID you should always have on you, the latter of which is why you always pay traffic tickets so you don't go to the Pokey, and during which you still by your silence thereby exercise your fifth amendment rights, and Dad learned the lesson forever.)

The Genius General Lesson:

Don't look too much like the Unabomber in general, so you don;'t scare people, so get a haircut boys, or, in Hillary's case, don't dress the same in Afghanistan as in New York either, and especially, Don't Dress Down the Afghan President in Public, like he were Newt Gingrich, Without Some Mild but Respectful to Islamic Culture Head Protection, Especially When You are Perceived as a Pushy Woman!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

All the World's a Stage is good old COMMON SENSE advice, because under the surface, life everywhere is Kind of All the Same Anyway.

It is just expressed through different cultural forms, but the forms insist on R E S P E C T: P E R I O D! COMMON SENSE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Of course, as opposed to Alabama, if you act in a sub-culturally incorrect manner in Philadelphia, the police are more direct in the expression of their hostility to violations of cultural norms.

They beat you with phone books there, or mainy give you B.S. tickets in Malvern if you are a smart-ass who acts too differently, or especially more likely, and more painful, you get banned you from your favorite bars, because you are saying by violating sub-cultural norms,

"You are too good for the locals, or more likely, you are just really, really weird, and we don't like weird in Philly, or Alabama, or the the real COMMON SENSE TRUTH, NO ONE LIKES WEIRD ANYWHERE."

No one likes weird anywhere; it just depends on what weird in a given culture is.

Cultural Universalism is the delusion of the West.

Why?

Because, like Aristotle said more or less, no one likes the word Lone, because the next word might be: Gunman.

(Aristotle actually said: Man is a social animal by his nature. No man can be happy alone lest he be a wild beast or a god; but my translation makes the same point in contemporary terms. No one likes the Unabomber.)

Alabama is a traditonal kind of place, like Pennsylvania, or, in some ways, Afghanistan; like most places in fact on Earth except non-San Diego California, which is going to fall into the sea anyway, because I lived in CA for seven years, and they got know business telling anyone else what to do in la-la land, period, although I loved Claim Jumper, and sunsets, and Josh, and the Valley, and Bishop, and so much more too.

Actually, they are all great places really. I will miss two of them in this essay, Alabama and PA, in order to hopefully go to... . Fate.

People in Alabama and PA like things a certain way, like most places except ocean bait out CA way, because they first think that things are just fine the way they are, and second, because they are actually right.

Why?

This is because the Moron Left Liberals with their Barneyland view of the world and the Greedy Buck for the Moment Capitalists of the Right don't get the fact that Most People like Routine and Tradition, like Fiddler on the Roof: TRADITION!

Most people are proud of their football team in Alabama, or their fire company in PA with the bagpipe playing out of key in the best 9/11 memorial in Malven I have ever seen, because routine and especially Tradition are comforting in, and make bearable, the face of our inevitable death.

All people have cultures because of this, our mortality, to make life meaningful and bearable.

Even in prisons and crackhouses, there is a culture, which is why there is recidivism with both, because they get to know what they know too much.

This is just like the fact that the Moron Naive Arrogant Left Liberals or the Moron Naive Arrogant Right Neocons who think Democracy is going to Just Bust A Move don't get that the real meaning of Cultural Wisdom in foreign policy is to genearlly let other people's traditions live, even in Afghanistan with veils, even if you don't personally like them.

Actually, especially if you don't like them, because when you don't like someone's cultural traditions, it is a lot easier to put a bullet in their head to "modernize or improve" things, just like in Heart of Darkness or with my partial Creek ancestors.

The locals there in Afghanistan have their issues, but then, so do we here in Silicon Valley, or the "City," or Boston, or Birmingham, or Philly or Charm City in Baltimore, some of which are the supposed paragons of Left Liberal virtue, which I think actually lack what people in Alabama and Philly call: COMMON SENSE BOY! (Minus the Boy in Philly, same idea, different form)

For example, I bet they look at our girls from Afghanistan and say,

"America, your girls dress like whores, and your women act like them. Look at all the drugs you do. Look at all the trash on the television. Look at your divorce rate. Look at the extended family, almost all gone now, and all so you could do whatever you wanted to in the moment to make as much money as possible usually. You live dull materialistic shallow lives.

Most American kids eventually lose their fathers on a day to day basis, and most of you are fat.

Your 'normal' is messed up way worse than our backwards clannish ways, so shut up, and put on a goddamn headscarf Hillary, and show R E S P E C T to our president, even if he is a thief.

All politicians are thieves as far as we can tell anway, like Langford in Birmingham or Street in Philly, or wherever you read about politics.

Give us a little R E S P E C T! And tell your soldiers to take of those "Warning: Infidel" shirts. We don't find that funny. (I have seen these shirts; how the command let that go is beyond me.)

Or ask the British and Russians what happens next."

I am getting a haircut this weekend Mama.

As to culture, and TRADITION!

Roll Tide! War Eagle, except when they play Alabama for me, Ms. Myra's and Dreamland and Golden Rule barbecue, the Veteran's Day Parade, the McWayne Center, Mardi Gras in Mobile, Perfect White Sands in Gulf Shore, the Bear, the Art Museum, Rojo's, Tannehill, Blackwell's, Otey's, Barber's Motorcyle Museum, Cheahah, Little River Canyon, the Sipsey Wilderness, Moundville, Hellen Keller, the Space Flight Center, Plant Odyssey Mama, and so much more all over the state, and then of course, the Elmwood graveyard, which is why the times we spend in patterned social activities with people we love, hate and both provide us comfort in the face of our ultimate death, in the TRADITIONS THAT MAKE US WHO WE ARE EVERYWHERE.

We like things the way they are here in the end, because they are pretty damn good. Y'all come down; lots of cool stuff to see, do and eat, just don't dress like the Unabomber, which is common sense most places.

I am getting a haircut this weekend Mama.

As to culture.

E A G L E S EAGLES! Pjhillies, sixers, Flyers, tasty cakes, cheese steaks, Mummers Parade, the Fourth in Philly, Maddies and McKinsey's and the Pig, Halloween in Malvern, the Upper Main Line YMCA, Jo Pop, Gitters and a ton of great bars in West Chester, Valley Forge, Gettysburg day trip, Longwood Gardens and Chanticleer and L, Library Park, the Malvern Sunmer Fair, Incredible Italian Food and the mothers who strongly prefer sons to have short hair, the incomparable Wawa, and so much more all over the state, and of course, St. Patrick's graveyard: so old the graves are in Philly, so much tradition, like in Alabama.

Go visit Philly, the people there are real cool, and lots to see, and they like things the way they are there; it provides comfort in the face of our eventual death, like it does anywhere else, even actually, in ocean bait territory, just like a spring day does at a Hopkins lacrosse game in B City, a really cool place too, because all of our sub-cultural diversity in America reflects the Wisdom and Common Federal Sense of the Founding Fathers.

The next time an American senior American official goes to Afghanistan, think R E S P E C T, especially if you wouldn't want to live there, or at least as likely, you just couldn't.

finis

Trying KSM etc for 9/11 is a Pointless Exerise & Alternative

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 19:11:21 -0500

The recent announcement that Khalid Sheikh Muhammed, a.k.a. KSM, and other "detainees, "9/11 suspects, freedom fighters, jihaddist loonies, or whatever you wish to call them, would be moved to New York to be tried was a classic example of a politically motivated pointless exericse.

To me, President Obama just threw a bone out to the ACLU types on the Left, which I can understand.

A man sometimes has got to do what a man thinks he has to do to survive in politics.

But why do I think that this a pointless exercise, at best?

KSM has been tortured repeatedly by the U.S. government's (USG) own admission, or rather, the U.S. government used "moderate physical pressure," or conducted SERE training on a non-U.S. national 186 times, or whatever you want to call it.

From an intelligence point of view, the detainees and KSM are very, very "cold (and wet) sources," (even if t(he)y might could be manipulated to collect intelligence from new detainees, what is the counter-intel risk on that likely to be compared to the possible benefit with hard core jihaddists like KSM et al ), who now clearly constitute an ongoing embarrassment to the foreign policy of the United States.

There is no more reason to hold them, other than if it is in our interest to try to punish them.

The immediate problem with punishing them for 9/11 is very simple.

The problem is that the Exclusionary Rule banning "fruits from the forbidden tree," or in KSM's case, a tree that was watered 186 times in SERE training for non-U.S. nationals by documented USG admission, applies in federal civilian courts with tremendous force.

Anything that could be touched by the interrogations is going to get blown out of federal court, which will generate an embarassing circus for USG, at best, because any decent attorney will try to link every single piece of evidence to the interrogations.

Litigating what stays in and what stays out of court, and even hearing the motion that federal misconduct demands, screams, one might say, a summary "not guilty," will take years including appeals, and in the meantime, will mainly serve to embarass the U.S. Armed Forces, the Intelligence Community, and quite possibly foreign governments we promised we would protect from embarassment as well.

That does not sound like it is in the U.S. interest, even though I sympathize with what was done, and Obama's political dilemma with the Left too.

As to what was done, personally, given the data extracted from KSM from his SERE training for non-U.S. nationals, part of me wouldn't really have minded too much if USG "watered" him one last time, put a .45 to his head to irrigate his malignant brain, had some NYPD cop or firefighter skull-fuck him, and then mailed his sorry corpse back to his family for burial in his hometown to send a message to the locals.

But then, going emotionally off the handle landed us in Afghanistan and Iraq, which was of course the point of the whole exercise.

Although part of me remembers that the Russians and Chinese do that sort of stuff with the Chechens and Uighers, and wonders if it seems to keep the peace with Muslim crazies ( not all Muslims, just the human cannon ones) better than Barney-land of prosecutions.

Newsflash: Muslim Human Cannons only care about one judge, and He Ain't in New York.

Actually, we might should have watered and Colt- .45 irrigated his family too; that sends a real Russian style message, but oh well, I digress, and of course, we are too nice and civilized to do things like that, so far.

We are the good guys, so we don't do things like that, especially when we want to, because when we want to, it means someone got our goat, and that is never a good thing.

But as to what seems a fundamentally bad idea for the trials, how, for goodness sakes, will one select an impartial jury in New York City?

Really?

Will we have only Muslim extremists on the jury?

In the end, it seems to me that KSM et al fall into a different category than your "usual (criminal) suspects," because they are unlawfully at war with the United States.

In essence, their strategy is that they are at war to the death with us, and commit criminal acts as a tactic of the weak.

They want to destroy us, not rob our convenience stores with a born to lose (for Allah) tattoo on their forehead, like in the movie Heat, and therefore, this is not a drill, no matter how much the Powers encourage these lunatics in a generic sense: "go fight that guy, not me the corrupt dictator who likes coke and whores in Qatar where Allah doesn't see anything and it's not gay if you don't get caught or seen by Allah, and certainly not me in Chechnya or ...."

(I hope I have not offended Muslims too much; we have our Christian Human Cannons here too.)

Do the math, and note, the Powers don't live in Barney-land either.

In any event, KSM et al do not wear insignias in combat zones.

They are therefore war criminals or spies, which historically speaking have been treated extra-judicially, because they are already outside the bound of the law, esecially if, as is definitely the case, the United States would face a hostile audience in the International Criminal Court.

When we caught these people in Afghanistan, we could have executed them summarily and been totally clean legally under the traditional interpretation of international law, the deviance from which has encouraged the blurring of combatant and non-combatant roles (which was perhaps the point of the Leftist jurisprudence in terms of "wars of national liberation" in the first place?).

Just picture the circus in the hypothetical Hague trial by contrast, if this is just a criminal matter, and the probable demands for prosecuting military officers, intelligence officials, and contractors: is that in the U.S. national interest?

I seriously, serioulsy doubt it.

That phrase "extra-judicial" treatment sounds ominous in terms of alternatives to the Hague, especially if you are the one getting the treatment, but then they should have thought about that first, or been better prepared to take on the U.S. Armed Forces, but also note, that spies are often just declared persona non grata if they have diplomatic immunity on an open cover assignment, or are traded out of the Cold, so to speak.

In other words, since terrorism as practiced by al Qaeda is an unlawful war against us with the tactic of attacking defenseless civilians without warning to maximize casualties and media coverage, which is demented, but very logical under their resource constraints, and whacked mentality, we should approach dealing with such a war in Clausewitzian terms too, as a continuation of policy by physical, possibly violent, means, but also, by doing just whatever it is in our interest to do.

Can we have some creativity here, please?

Killing, or trying, KSM et al right now to me does not seem to fit that bill of correct means to maximize U.S. ends in terms of interest, yet, on the killing side of things or the trial side of things.

In the case of KSM, because of the excessive publicity of the matter in terms of U.S. national interest, it seems to me that we should probably seek out a third party to take KSM and other detainees on the following condition(s).

Surely, this momemt offers an opportunity for the Powers to see that sicking your Muslim extremist problem on someone else is bound to blow up in everyone's faces, especially in the Arab Middle East and with Russia and China?

How about this probation offer in an undisclosed to press country:

If you stay there, get a job, find four nice Muslim wives, have a dog, and two cats, and 10.5 children in the suburbs with a white picket fence and leave us alone, and be quiet about the United States and the host country, we live, and let live.

On the other hand, should we find you associating with people we don't like, give interviews,or have a blog, and we can stipulate that in advance in terms of staying out of all political activity, blah, blah, blah with a mediator for disputes if you must, then you get a .50 caliber through the hip, and then another one a minute later through the head,(the flopping of that shooting pattern has been found to have deterrent value in Iraq and elsewhere), and then, you get a deep unmarked grave in the ocean.

Think of it as one strike and we violate you permanently.

But to put KSM et al on trial in New York seems to me to be a pointless exercise that will just be a circus damaging to U.S. prestige.

Shroomberg News: New Cadence Run at Paris Island

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 15:11:58 -0500

Shroomberg News: November 17, 2009 2:00 EST.

Gophers Rule!

This just in from our Marine Gophers: Hua! Semper Phi Gopherus!

Our Lean, Green Killing Machine Marine Corps Gophers tell us the Corps has adopted a new cadence run at Paris Island.

This apparently is because the Power Elite/Usual Suspects of the United States has finally gotten the point, which every other Power Elite on the planet has always understood, the point being that you need a real war, likes where lots of people die, and cities burn to the ground, just every now and then, in order to cull the unift, and more importantly to generate national unity, which of course serves to keep The Powers that Be/Usual Suspects in charge: unless they blow it, and then it is up against the wall mo-fos.

Basically, our Marine Corps Gophers say that human beings are stupidly egotistical, because everyone thinks they're special, so we need an enemy to prevent a civil war in domestic politics over basically trivial differences in opinion, in which of course a civil war might threaten the Powers that Be/Usual Suspects, and a civil war is of course what invariably eventually happens without a foreign war, because people take out their agressive tendencies on each other domestically, which inevitably gets out of hand, and all it took, was just a little economic bump in the road to get the point.

Our Space Exploration Gophers had no luck in getting the Power Elite Gophers to buy into the Aliens are Coming, Unite Gophers of the World, You have Nothing to Lose but Your Petty but Lethal Wars Plan, so they too are now in training.

Anyhoo, our Marine Corps Gophers, hua, semper phi, tell us that this is the new cadence run adopted last week:

Gunny: Why did the chicken cross the road?

(Recruits, in unison, on beat of four)

Recruits: Why did the chicken cross the road?

Gunny: To get to the other side

Recruits: To get to the other side

Gunny: Why we in Afghanistan?

Recruits: Why we in Afghanistan?

Gunny: We gone kill the Taliban

Recruits: We gone kill the Taliban

Gunny: Why did the chicken cross the road?

Recruits: Why did the chicken cross the road?

Gunny: To get to the other side

Recruits: To get to the other side

Gunny: This is my rifle (hold up M-4) this is my gun (point at crotch)

Recruits: This is my rifle this is my gun

Gunny: This is for killing this is for fun

Recruits: This is for killing this is for fun

Gunny: Why'd the Corps cross the sea?

Recruits: Why'd the Corps cross the sea?

Gunny: That's how we kill the enemy

Recruits: That's how we kill the enemy

Gunny: Why's the Corps in I-raq?

Recruits: Why's the Corps in I-raq?

Gunny: Put the oil in a Marine Corps sack

Recruits: Put the oil in a Marine Corps sack

Gunny: This is my rifle this is my life

Recruits: This is my rifle this is my life

Gunny: The Marine Corps owns my wife

Recruits: The Marine Corps owns my wife

Gunny: Why not drive a Cadillac?

Recruits: Why not drive a Cadillac?

Gunny: Instead I hump this Marine Corps sack

Recruits: Instead I hump this Marine Corps sack

Gunny: Why we kill the Muslims?

Recruits: Why we kill the Muslims?

Gunny: They used nuclear weapons

Recruits: They used nuclear weapons

Gunny: This is my rifle this is my gun

Recruits: This is my rifle this is my gun

Gunny: This is for killing this is for fun

Recruits: This is for killing this for fun

Gunny: Why we kill the Chinese?

Recruits: Why we kill the Chinese?

Gunny: They destroyed our economy

Recruit: They destroyed our economy

Gunny: Why we doin all this shit?

Recruits: Why we doin all this shit?

Gunny: Somebody's the man babe we're it

Recruits: Somebody's the man babe we're it.

We will keep a close eye on this developing story at Shroomberg News.

Semper Fi Gophers!

John Madden and the Advanced Theory of War: The Quarterback

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 15:11:30 -0500

Picture John Madden dressed as Patton, in camo with a pearl-handled revolver, and all three hundred maniacally agitated pounds pacing before a whiteboard.

Madden:

Now, this week, we talk about the single most important position on the Battlefield that is Football: the Quarterback is the General.

Remember viewers, War IS Football in the Advanced Madden Theory of War.

Just so you viewers know, All-Madden Team military historian Archer C. Jones drew this up on a napkin for me once, and I have been running with it ever since; no pun intended.

Now, I am in kind of a hurry because of the big war coming down the pike, so I need to get my final presentation ready, but real simply, here is Law One of the Quarterback is the General Position:

Law One: I don't like the Shotgun too much, or especially command post bunkers in secure locations for my quarterback.

Bunkers make the General Too much Like the Kicker.

Now, we need a very good Punter and Kicker in terms of Artillery, but, you know how it is to be a kicker.

Everyone stays away from you on the sideline, because you don't get your jersey dirty.

The Quarterback as the General of the Team has to get dirty, and even die sometimes.

I mean, that French Imperial Team, with Napoleon as Coach and GM, his generals got killed all the time, and they had a darn tootin record until that tough, tough loss on the road to the Bears in the Super Bowl of World Conquest.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Berezyna.jpg

Personally, I like my Quarterback the General to get up there with the guys, and get their hits and bullets too.

I mean, do you remember when Elway made that dive into the Packer defense.

http://www.fulcrumgallery.com/John-Elway-1998-Action-SB-XXXII-_252175.htm

I mean, Big John really showed he had heart that day, that he really had earned his ring.

And that Hannibal guy at Cannae, he really fought it out with the Romans with his Spanish and Gauls right in the middle of the line, so his Wide Recievers of the Light Cavalry, the Tight Ends and Fullbacks of the Heavy Calvary, and the Guards and Tackles of the Heavy Infantry all had the time to complete the envelopment of the Romans.

I mean, the Carthage Punicans won 50,000 to 10,000 that day.

The vultures had a real Roman feast before Thanksigiving that August 2, 216 BC., kind of like letting the lineman eat the Turkey I like to show viewers on the Thanksgiving Day Game, and all because the Quarterback Hannibla was right up with the big lugs up in front.

Or think of Marengo, and Desaix taking the Quarterback Keeper on that last second charge with daylight running out through the Austrian lines, and into the Endzone of the Enemy Rear.

So what if Desaix caught a bullet in the head?

Did Elway shy from contact when he really wanted the Super Bowl Ring of World Domination?

We need more generals with bullets in the head, and less Shotgun Formations in Secure Locations.

It is way better for team morale, because the Guys Down in the Trenches know that Their General Should be Willing to Die for Them Too.

Law Two: I like my quarterback to call most of his own plays.

For example, Andy Reid in the playoffs, I mean, I love Andy as a former lineman and Heavy Infantry man, but in the playoffs, Reid has lost multiple championships because of his play calling.

If you are the Coach/Chief of Staff, or GM/President or the Owner/the Public, you either believe in your General Donovan or you don't, and that means he calls most of his own plays, unless he has to be pulled, like that Great GM Lincoln eventually had to pull McClellan for sitting out the second half of Antietam.

Like that guy Patton; he said to just keep going on and fight the Bears on the Neutral Stadium of Germany.

We will talk about the Road Team versus the Home Team Paradox of War later, but suffice it to say that the Bears have always been a very tough road game, with only one loss to the Mongols, and crushing defeats of Swedes, Poles, Lithuanians, Turks, French and Germans.

If you have a genuis like Patton, who sees a chance to take on the Bears in Central Europe...., because although the Bears are very tough at home, especially with that Twelfth Man known as General Winter, they are not a very good road team.

Ask the Afghan Lions or the Japanese Suns about that one, and listen carefully to your Quarterback about how to beat the Bears in the Super Bowl of World Conquest.

Anyway, I like giving my quarterback the ball, and giving him a pretty darn tootin free reign.

I mean, back in the day, I had Kenny "Snake" Stabler, and boy, he was a good old boy never meanin no harm, but what a pistol, in the bars at five o'clock in the morning before game day.

You could smell the booze at kickoff some times.

But you know what, he was like that guy Grant, who Lincoln put in pretty late in the Civil War Game, because like my old buddy Al Davis used to say, in the Football that is War, Kenny knew how to,

"Just Win Baby."

Like Grant.

I mean, after those tough games against that Great Confederate Team with Player-Coach Lee in the Wilderness, Spottsylvania and especially that awful blowout at Cold Harbor, Lincoln knew his job as GM was in big danger, because the Yankee owners and fans were getting very restless.

But Lincoln stuck with his Quarterback, because Grant did have a good plan, even if he drank too much sometimes.

At Appomattox, Player-Coach Lee didn't have enough gas left for one more end around flanking manuever, because Grant just kept pounding the ball up the middle like the Attrition Game Plan called for, because he knew he had just too deep a bench with that Yankee team for the Confederates to beat in the end, kind of like those Bear Bryant teams in the seventies.

Law Three: When to pull the QB that is the General of the Team.

Now, the General has every right in my book to try to execute a good game plan that he and the Coach of the Joint Chiefs of Staff have come up with, and a right to expect the GM to sign the right players and buy the right weapons and shoes and such, but there is one rule that the Quarterback cannot ever, ever violate: no criticizing the Coach/GM/and Owner, in public.

The GM and the owner are the boss; period.

All the players are counting on the Quarterback on the field to have a good relationship with management.

That MacArthur guy, for exanple, he should have asked for a closed door meeting if he was unhappy with the plan for that very tough Korean road game with the Chinese Dragons.

If he really didn't like the result, he should have either retired, or asked for a trade; but that GM Truman was dead spot on in pulling him from the game for insubordination.

And those are my first thoughts on the Quarterback that is the General of the Football that is War, Advanced Edition 2.5.

Next time, the Offensive Lineman as Heavy Infantry, and the Running Backs as Light Infantry. (We already know the Kicker and Punter are the Artillery)