The Gladiators
Editors Note: B is taking some time off from destroying Libtards on Thomas Ricks blog to vent on a topic few men will dare touch. At the Foriegn Policy blog he’s been coming up with stuff like this:
Personally, I am glad that while I had to worry about leaders who were more worried about their careers and image than the mission or my men, I never had to deal with leaders who wanted to bone me.
The entire thread is in the comment section of this post and it is hysterical. Now he’s helping me out with another article (with pictures this time) so I’m kicking my next piece back a few days to let him rip. Enjoy and a Happy New Year to you all.
Baba T
What everyone knows, but no one will say, is that on one very basic level, war is super fun. Back in the day, when the Roman Empire had no existential threats, they had to come up with something to keep the idiots entertained. So they got a bunch of young guys together and had them fight in the arenas. They’d have all kinds of fun variations-a guy with a net and a trident fighting another guy with a shield and a sword, two guys tied leg-to-leg fighting two guys tied arm-to-arm, team vs. team, barbarian slaves, midgets, and animals, whatever.
The idiots loved it, the women went wild, the profits went through the roof! An arena in every city! Whole industries existed to support the sport-arms manufacturers, bookies, trainers, sports doctors, caterers, promoters…The gladiators? Well, I’m sure the ones who were bad at it didn’t last long enough to matter, and the good ones loved it, like any pro athlete loves his sport. It beat working in a salt mine in all kinds of ways.
Americans haven’t had any existential threats to worry about since the West was won. Even in WW2, the most plausible scenario our leadership could muster for a German attack on the mainland was that once the Wehrmacht got done with Russia and England, they’d land in Brazil and march 10,000 miles to the Rio Grande. Not very impressive. We’re higher primates, super-chimps evolved in an environment of constant danger, and now that’s all been taken away from us. We live in unprecedented safety. Between our cubicles, our commute and our couch, we are BORED.
Fortunately, the idiot entertainment industry has come a long way since then. Our gladiators wear ACUs and MARPAT and fight barbarians in their own cities, deserts and mountains. Their arenas are whole countries on the other side of the world. You don’t have to crowd into a smelly Coliseum with half a million other retards-you can get your entertainment broadcast onto your plasma screen. CNN, Fox News, movies, video games-they all feed off the new gladiatorial arena. Depending on how much juice you have, you can get varying degrees of input into what’s going on-go on a junket to Kabul or Baghdad, fly around in helicopters, have senior gladiators give you personal presentations, write sage articles and papers and see your recommendations implemented. Now THAT’S audience participation!
There are giant industries built on the sport. Everything from weapons to tourniquets sells better when the games are on. The giant FOB cities in the desert, the food and fuel, the armored vehicles (a new model every year)-all for the arena. Millions in revenue on bumper stickers alone! And let’s not forget the money waiting to be made in medical care. When a guy comes home from the arena, hundreds of hours of physical and mental care can be billed to Tricare or the VA over the next 40-60 years. Talk about job security.
Is your taste more refined, more feminine? Do you like less bloody, more heartwarming entertainment? Not to worry. Just like the Romans had musical intermissions with dancing clowns in their Coliseums, we have NGOs and other governmental agencies doing all kinds of feel-good stuff in our arenas. Teaching little girls to read, digging wells, whatever it takes to get you that warm and fuzzy glow. Sometimes, even the gladiators will put down their nets and tridents for a minute and pitch in! Awwww.
Human nature being what it is, even watching your team kicking barbarian ass gets boring after a while. That’s why the backers are always ready to oblige with some social experimentation, the modern-day equivalent of the arena handicap. Female gladiators, flamboyantly gay gladiators, reflective belts, restrictive ROEs, anything to break up the monotony and even up the odds a bit.
Nobody wants a party to end too soon, not with the arena booked and the money rolling in. This week, Bronze Age tribesmen with AKs vs. gladiators with JDAMs! Next week, watch as our heroes get split into small teams and embedded with barbarian auxiliaries!
What about the gladiators? Well, they’ve got a whole society to shower them with warm approval. It takes a rare kind of commie to say he doesn’t support the troops. War is, on some level, fun. Once you get to a certain level, the training is fun, too-anybody who has ever spent a day pinging .308 match grade ammo off steel E-types from 600-800 meters away knows what I mean. Of course, the possibility of watching your guts spill out on the arena floor or ending up in a one leg, two leg, three leg, four scenario is always there, but it’s the nature of the game, and odds are pretty good you’ll come out of it OK. While you’re in, you get to serve with good guys, crazy and brave enough to play the game, and that camaraderie means a lot. On balance, it’s much better than being stuck in cubicle hell at Initech.
Once you’ve done your time in the arena, you can move up to senior management, and stack paper while being lauded by those who haven’t been there and done that. Even if you just get out after a couple of years as a lowly no-name, a bumper sticker or a hat pin ensures a “thank you for your service” and the occasional free beer. They’ll make movies about you, and invite you to the screening. Chicks will be impressed when you throw out your service on a date. And if all of that stuff doesn’t float your boat and you’ve got a hollow feeling-there must be something wrong with you. So, the next time someone thanks you for your service, thank them for watching and tell them to tune in same time next week!
Comments | 
Post Holiday Letdown or Hangover?
Well, you did put it out more panache than Eisenhower’s M-I warning. But, he did beat you to the punch.
and what happens to the ones who left a piece of themselves over there? Or the families where dad or mom or a brother or sister won’t be coming home?
Blowing shit up is cool. Getting blown up less so.
In an age of cartoon behavior and reality TV the image is the message. But reality is harsh and has a way of kicking one in the ass. I think a lot of people will be finding that reality in the not too distant future on a number of levels. The world has changed on our watch and not to our benefit.
It’s been 10 years and we have basically pissed it all away. I’m not really sure we’ve learned anything from the experience except how to spend money and consume, which seems to be the primary skill of most Westerners today.
Some day someone is going to have to rationally and calmly explain to the next generation how it all got so f’ed up and how we pissed it all away.
In March 1914, no one believed that the world would go crazy in August. In September 1929 the stock markets were on fire and everybody was getting rich and doing the Charleston. Today there is great unease and fear, but the schwerpunkt has not yet occurred.
The numbers are the numbers, and they don’t look good. The whole Arab Spring thingie is looking like Salafiville and our Pakistani frenemies are now by all reasonable yardsticks just plain enemies.
OWS and the Tea Party are simply two different manifestations with a system gone wrong.They are philosophically opposed but both oppose the status quo. The question is what next?
Having screwed up saving the world, how do we save ourselves and what is left of what is good?
Cynicism is too easy. Harder is to know what is right and fight on. In the meantime I’m going to keep on swinging. This ain’t no party. This ain’t no disco.
Not to worry-the cycle of creation and destruction means that something else will come along when the current order finally collapses under the weight of its own lies and systemic inertia. In the interim, gladiatorial skills will be in high demand.
As far as pissing things away-we started seriously firehosing piss in the 1930’s. Before the New Deal, we theoretically could have “Returned to Normalcy” and been the Shining City on the Hill. Instead, we built up the Soviets, linked arms with them to split the globe, then spent the next 50 years being frenemies (google Amtorg sometime.) Obviously, when we won global hegemony, we were completely unequipped to do anything productive with it, since the generation that could tell the difference between the Party Line and reality had passed on to the hereafter 30 years prior.
Geesh, and I thought I was cynical. No maybe cynical is the wrong word. Smart ass is better. This was a very long smart ass comment, with just enough truth to give it some bite.
Two observations. First, all of this, for better or worse or wiser or foolisher was a reaction to an attack. It would make a lot more sense if the author was an adherent of the “9-11 was an inside job” school.
Second, all of this has been said before or been observed about wars since a long time ago. You want war for entertainments sake, check out the young braves going off to raid and pillage for profit and glory in any number of primitive societies of years past.
This type of comment is very useful for impressing young females in bars. The jaded “been there, done that so I can see through it” attitude should really wow ‘em. In that sense, it is exactly the kind of thing described by the author in the post.
Not being prone to explaining by conspiracy what can be explained by stupidity, I don’t think 9/11 was an inside job. On the other hand, the 9/11 hijackers didn’t HALO in here, or hike in across the Mexican border. They came here legally, brought over on programs set up by the US government. Then when their visas ran out, the US government did not expend any effort on finding and deporting them. We brought the attack upon ourselves through importing people from a place where a terrorist ideology is the default.
I went back to college nine years after we invaded Afghanistan. You could see burkas and Salafi beards all over campus. The girl I was dating was on the Fulbright program and took English prep classes with the same Arab students, who never hesitated to voice their opinions of the US and the international situation (you can imagine what they had to say.) Our beloved government is STILL bringing these people here by the thousands. Why? Surely any economic benefit we gain from their presence is outweighed by the security costs associated with it? I mean, rather than hiring tens of thousands of semiliterates to harass me and Vietnamese grandmothers every time we go to the airport, just stop importing people from the Muslim world. They’ll understand-try going to Jedda to work or study if you’re an Israeli.
You know why we’ll keep paying their ticket to come here? Because the show must go on, my main man, that’s why. By having an elevated threat level, we provide employment to millions and entertainment and vicarious excitement to hundreds of millions.
As far as the pussy-getting power of a deployment and a cynical worldview-sadly, my days of chasing hoes in bars are behind me, so I can’t use the Force to full advantage. I guess I could turn it to my advantage in finding gainful employment, but you’ll notice I wrote the post under a pseudonym.
Your first paragraph is just a variation on the inside the job argument. So is your second for that matter. I think more likely that lack of vigilance can be attributed to laziness and bureaucratic inertia than a secret desire to foster conflict for entertainment.
You might have noticed that since 9-11 there hasn’t been an attack of the magnitude of 9-11 (that may change tomorrow. can’t predict the future of course). It could be that all those wild talking college students were just talking wild. An awful lot of college students do that.
I would guess that the main reason we allow foreign students to come here is the same as it has always been, they want to and will pay for the privilege. Also we get to keep an awful lot of the good ones after they graduate. I am not so sure we pay for their ticket. They seem mostly to pay themselves.
That “tired disillusioned veteran who tells it like it is” thing isn’t just good for picking up girls. It is quite useful in various political salons. It often plays there just as well as it does in bars.
The default ideology of a “place” is terrorism. Sounds great. Could be true I guess, though I rather doubt it. However, you should probably provide some kind of backup for it; for the “place” of course, not just for some young sore heads who live there.
If it’s obvious that something will happen unless I interfere, and I don’t due to laziness and bureaucratic inertia, I’m culpable. USG did nothing to prevent 9/11.
It could be that all those wild-talking college students are just talking. I certainly feel happy having our masters making that bet for all of us.
They get their attendance paid for by their governments, which are getting their money from us. They’d have to make a hell of an economic contribution to make up for the insane expense of the measures we take to “prevent terrorism.” When you factor in the cost of having those measure fail (as they eventually must,) I don’t see the numbers ever adding up. Nor is making them add up a goal consciously set or followed by our govt. Unless there was some point where the policy of deporting all Muslims who weren’t US citizens and ceasing to import new ones was seriously brought up and debated on its merits, and I missed it.
I didn’t realize I had to spell out what terrorism as a default ideology is shorthand for, as exemplified by Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Egypt, Pakistan, etc. Do you seriously want me to get down in the weeds there?
If you have any suggestions for political salons where I can peddle my reactionary neocolonialist hate-filled cliches for fun and profit, I’d love to hear them. You know, I’m all about leveraging my experiences to get a nice cushy job at a think tank or some other shop in the Beltway with some influence and no responsibility. Do you think I should hit up Obama’s crowd or the neocons first? Should I maybe tone my current line down a bit, go for the “mistakes were made, though on the whole our purpose was noble” line? Or maybe I could go the other way-”how dare we impose our cultural mores on those noble innocents in Iraq”. It just doesn’t seem like “y’all some sucka lames” would go over well. I’m open to suggestions-let me know what you think would get me an in. Newspaper articles, book deals, junkets-the sky is the limit.
First of all, it may have been obvious in retrospect that something was going to happen. At the time, it wasn’t obvious, but it was very suspicious and should have been checked out with more energy. To the extent that it wasn’t, the gov was culpable in that it was negligent. There was no mens rea there though. If there was no mens rea, your basic premise collapses. Now you may see mens rea. If you do I think you are prone to believing conspiracy theories.
So far it is mostly wild college talk. Tell me, do you advocate refusing student visas based on the country of origin and if so which ones?
You contend that foreign govs pay the way for foreign students. Have any figures that show the % whose govs pay the bill vs. those whose parents do or who pay for it themselves? And if the govs get money from us, how much is the result of commercial transaction and how much is plain old aid? Money derived from commercial transaction should be eliminated from consideration since we got something for it, otherwise we would not have paid.
The security measures that are so expensive are almost wholly directed at something other than foreign college students. If we were to kick out every one from countries you consider objectionable, we would still be spending about as much as we do now. Your numbers don’t work.
You want to deport Muslims who aren’t US citizens, fine, we can debate that. Are you prepared to argue the point that the primary reason for objecting to their presence is their religious beliefs rather than what they have done? That may be a bit of a slippery slope.
Yes, consider me a dullard, but you will have to spell out why the default ideology of Kuwait, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, the countries, is terrorism; rather than that being the ideology of some of there sore headed young men. I will grant you that in the case of Pakistan though.
You are on a political salon and your reward is attention. Money is nothing compared to that. I’m paying attention and so are many others I’m sure.
Looking back at the 90’s, I can think of one attempt to take down the WTC and a couple more plots to create mass casualty situations, including nail bombs in the Atlantic Ave subway station where both my mother and I transferred trains every morning. Not sure about mens rea-if I figure that a possible natural outcome of policies in place will be useful for my political and economic ends and do nothing to change those policies, is that mens rea? What if I am just a small part of a large, diffuse government run on opaque committee-based decision-making processes? We can’t exactly go and polygraph the thousands (tens of thousands) of senior and mid-ranking governmental employees who took part in that organizational ball-dropping (heh) for mens rea, so it’s kind of pointless to speculate. I will point out, though, that whatever the motivation, USG hardly suffered as a result-quite the opposite.
I advocate (or would advocate, if I thought anyone capable of implementing was willing to listen) a zero-immigration policy towards all Arab and most Muslim countries. If we need to move information, we have the Internet for that, and if we need to move goods, there are established protocols for transferring those on neutral ground. How big was the Turkish and Arab diaspora in Christian Europe when the Ottomans posed a major threat? Those guys managed to maintain a thriving trade without creating a fifth column. How come we can’t?
Slippery slope? Current policies have resulted in the deaths of 3,000 Americans as the result of terrorism, 5,000 as the result of counterterrorism (insofar as the retarded enterprise of invading Muslim countries and attempting to design and build functional democracies by committee is counterterrorism,) who knows how many Americans maimed and Muslims killed or injured. Continuing to do the same thing isn’t just getting on a slippery slope, it’s sledding down the thing. As far as Muslims’ objections-like I said, when Israelis can go on vacation in Jedda, Muslims will have some grounds for complaint. Until then, I think that deciding who gets to live in a country and who doesn’t is a basic function of sovereignity.
No figures for who foots the bills for exchange students, just anecdotal evidence. We aid their governments, money is fungible, so ultimately we pay no matter who the proximal sponsor is. Regardless, the people are the water in which the guerrilla-fish swims. If you drain the swamp, you won’t have to spend money on nets and fishing poles. Not to mention the fact that we won’t have to pay to bring democracy overseas-massive savings all around.
Saudi’s official ideology is Wahhabi Islam. According to the Telegraph, “a poll of Saudi professionals conducted soon afterwards (9/11), suggested that 95 per cent favoured Osama bin Laden’s cause.” Kuwaitis likewise mostly think we suck (http://www.gallup.com/poll/26728/kuwaiti-impressions-us-soured-since-2001.aspx). As for Egypt, its most prominent ideologue is Yusuf Qaradawi. Most of the people living in those countries believe that the US sucks and that terror attacks against it are, if not a good thing, at least not a very, very bad thing. Even secular, modern Turkey has a significant proportion of people who think like this-I know, I bicycled across the place and speak the language. Why bring them here? What benefits could possibly be so great as to outweigh the obvious potential catastrophic consequences? And yet there obviously are some benefits, to someone, since USG hasn’t even seriously considered the alternative.
I am flattered (no sarcasm) that you are paying me attention. On the other hand, I could have written a post of equal length on anything about Afghanistan-say, the hidden ethnography (the Dumdor people supposedly have little tails, and the Pashtuns might be one of the ten lost tribes of Israel,) and I’m pretty sure Tim would have published it, and you would have read it. I do not project this article to have any more of an impact on my personal fortunes than it will on US foreign policy. Can you assume that the article was written in good faith, that it represents opinions that are entirely mine developed over a decade, lots of reading and arguing, and a few trips overseas, and that it’s not some contrived pose for external benefit? Of course, on the Internet no one knows you’re a dog, but you’ll notice I’ve refrained from speculating on any external motivations you might have for your opinions.
B:
Your first paragraph is a nice elucidation of a conspiracy theory, especially the part about “opaque committee-based decision-making processes”.
Let us concentrate for a moment on something you seem to advocate, deporting all Muslims who aren’t US citizens. You evaded my direct question about this. I will ask it again. Are you prepared to argue the point that the primary reason for objecting to their presence is their religious beliefs rather than what they have done? Are you prepared to advocate deporting them because of their religion rather than what they have done? I am interested in your answer.
We aid some governments. I doubt Saudi Arabia and Kuwait get much aid, so for at least those countries, we don’t foot the bill.
Well, you have presented some evidence that immediately after 9-11 public opinion was against us in various Arab countries. Ok but what has emanated from those countries besides sore headed young men? All those countries have made police state crackdowns on AQ activity within their borders. So we have sore headed young men going off adventuring on the one hand, and govs cracking down on AQ terrs in their countries on the other. I’d say the evidence is mixed.
Now as far as your why bring them here question, that is good old fashioned American Know-Nothingism, which has a long history. That question has been asked about every identifiable immigrant group or group of strangers that has come here, from the Irish to the Italians to the Chinese to etc, etc, etc. And we don’t generally bring them here, they want to come for the same reason that all the others have come. They figure their lives will be better if they do.
I do think you wrote the article in good faith. I just think your idea is a foolish one and is basically a conspiracy theory. Your last sentence is interesting. It can be almost read as an implied threat: if I don’t yield, you will make some guesses about my motivations, my external motivations, whatever that means.
But anyway, the most important thing you have raised is your apparent belief in the validity of judging people and taking legal action against them based upon their religious beliefs. That is a very big thing. Please answer the questions I posed to you above.
Opaque, diffuse and committee-based decision-making is just how USG operates. I mean, duh. Who is in a position to be held personally responsible for dropping the ball for 9/11, or for the banking crisis and failure of the stimuli, or for the failure of the efforts to set up a stable puppet-state in Afghanistan? Nobody. That’s not a bug, it’s a feature. The committee is a decision-making mechanism designed to disperse responsibility, and it’s at the heart of our government.
I thought I answered your question, but let me spell it out. Yes, absolutely, I feel that our government has the right and responsibility to deport non-citizens for belonging to a threat demographic as opposed to having actually done anything. Living here is not a right for non-citizens, and it is in the interest of citizens to have threats to their well-being and associated expenses minimized at the expense of non-citizens.
What has emanated from Saudi, Kuwait, Yemen, etc., except for “sore headed young men,” i.e., terrorists? Well, nothing good. See my points above. Yes, their governments generally prefer their terrorists go somewhere else to do their thing-exactly the reason I don’t want immigration from those countries here.
As an immigrant, I am quite familiar with the gamut of reasons for which people immigrate to the US. My question was the motivation of USG for bringing this particular demographic here. If you haven’t noticed, we’re not settling the West, building the railroads or in general engaged in national enterprises requiring an influx of labor from abroad. If we were, I would think the responsible thing to do would be to procure that labor from places not full of people who think suicide bombing is OK, their civilization is in an existential struggle with the West, etc.
Anyway, you avoid the question of why USG brings these guys here by going “they come on their own.” Come on, man, don’t “assault my teligence,” as a team sergeant I knew used to say. For someone to come to the US legally, a flurry of paperwork needs to be generated and signed off on by USG. When this happens tens and hundreds of thousands of times, it’s evidence of a policy, and asking about the motivation behind that policy is fair game.
Apparently, someone told you that good ways to address an argument you disagree with are to attack its proponent’s character, or to pigeonhole it into a category associated with bad arguments and personages: “conspiracy theory,” “Know-Nothingism,” etc. They lied-these rhetorical maneuvers just make your position look weak. I would suggest trying to come up with counterarguments. It’s harder, but more productive.
As far as your personal motivations-you sound like a lifer defending the system that pays you a salary. Not that there’s necessarily anything wrong with that, or that it means your arguments are automatically wrong. I’m not trying to get you to yield, I’m trying to get you to come up with stronger, better-reasoned objections or alternate points of view.
Interesting that you think me a lifer of some kind. Not really apropos of anything but interesting.
Thank you though for your efforts to get me to make better arguments. I do acknowledge being somewhat slow.
I don’t believe I attacked your character. I attacked your idea. If your idea can be likened to bad ideas of the past, perhaps it is because you have a bad idea. It is not a rhetorical device, it is, I believe, merely a good comparison.
The response that “they come on their own” isn’t an avoidance of a question (if there was one), it is just a statement of fact. They make the decision to apply on their own, not as the result of a recruiting effort made by the gov. Obviously, allowing immigration at greater or lesser levels has been a policy of the Americans for hundreds of years. I figure one of the motivations is to give people the chance that my father and grandfather were given-to better their lives by becoming Americans. I am not “assaulting your telligence” merely questioning your interpretation of the facts. It tends to veer into conspiracy theory territory.
Now I know. You feel that it is desirable to take legal action against people who are in a particular demographic group, merely because they are members of that group, not for what they have done. You further feel that it is right and proper to use religious belief to define that group as a threat, again not for anything they have done. That is something very profound. That a person can be judged and acted against, merely because of what they believe, not for what they have done. That is a philosophical belief that seems at odds with simple notions of justice as espoused by a free people, the Americans. You are welcome to hold that belief, but I don’t respect it, not even a little bit.
1. Followed your thread on Ricks’ blog. You’ve put a lot more thought into the matter than anyone else I’ve read.
2. Two additional points. If you brought ‘em up, I missed them.
3. First, as a troop leader, had to discharge a couple of young Marines who were seduced by older homosexuals. Their predatory behavior has always been a law enforcement issue.
4. And, yeah, have preyed upon sweet young females -but not in the damn barracks. In my day and in the infantry, the only women around were Navy Nurses.
5. Second, as disciplinarian and reporting senior, imagine discrimination over sexual orientation will join racism as a counter to adverse fitreps and disciplinary actions.
6. It’s a fait acompli and whoever’s affected by it must suck it up and drive on.
7. War is superfun right up to the point where the lions get to chow down -or even bite off a small piece.
8. Mowing down hapless locals is where it’s at. Saluting aluminum coffins isn’t.
9. Need to think about your depiction of war as a recreational activity. Sour and cynical as it may be, the views of the movers and shakers downtown seem to be more so.
10. Thanks for a couple of entertaining reads!
V/R JWest
We all know from TV that homosexuals are magical friendly stylish creatures,like unicorns, and that they would never try to turn straight dudes out. And if they did, so what? Since when is helping a teenager discover new facets of his sexuality a bad thing? That kind of homophobic Crimethink can be very hazardous to one’s career progression.
What’s the view of the movers and shakers on war?
“Because the show must go on, my main man, that’s why…”
Did ya hear the one about the young Stud who asked the old Stud…?
No- how does it go?
Right answer! Good move…
Too many big words…approaching brain melt-down…quickly turning on the hockey game. Close call.
I liked it B. I get it.
Seems like a lot of folks make a living out of over-thinking and over-analyzing everything – especially things where lots of money is involved. And they get very defensive when they see that flow of money being jeopardized. Its all very simple really, as has been pointed out on this blog over and over again. But simple wouldn’t justify a room full of Masters/PhD types telling everyone what to do.
Facta Non Verba.
Hmm KISS
Great stuff. I have read this blog from Jbad to Mazar and Kabul and now in Detroit. In other words, in crappy places. This is at the top of the threads that have put a smile on my face. Very PJ O Rourke like. Again, good stuff
I love it, it is so true. I miss the arena
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