Wednesday, April 16, 2003

WELCOME TO THE RALPH PETERS FAN BLOG: It's so great, just the way he can passionately praise soldiers and passionately hate the defense industry:

As our soldiers and Marines continue to risk their lives clearing out pockets of fanatics, Washington's masters of spin have begun to twist the facts, lying about this war for advantage and profit.

Business as usual. Except that the Beltway parasites are spitting in the blood of heroes this time.

More:

Yet now we have begun to hear that the ground troops we saw fighting their way to Baghdad really didn't do that much, that they only served to herd Iraqi forces into kill zones where air power destroyed them.

Tell that to the Marines who fought from building to building in Nasiriyah. Tell it to the troopers of the 3rd of the 7th Cavalry who fought the longest uninterrupted series of engagements, in time and distance, in U.S. military history - while blowing sands reduced visibility to handgun range. Tell it to the soldiers and Marines who had to fight their way into, then pacify Baghdad, An Najaf, and Karbala.

You can't even take a surrender from 25,000 feet.

Yet no soldier or Marine would be foolish - or cynical - enough to insist that their service had won the war by itself. The Air Force, though, delivers such tremendous profits to the defense industry that its partisans will insist, despite all evidence to the contrary, that this war really did prove that ground forces are outdated and that air power trumps all.

The defense industry wants to sell $200 million aircraft, not inexpensive rifles, canteens and boots. The amounts of money at stake run from hundreds of billions of dollars in the near term to trillions in the out-years. G.I. Joe can defeat our na- tion's enemies, but he can't beat the forces of greed inside the Beltway.

Yes, military technology is a wonderful enabler. Give us more. But make it appropriate technology, not just what corporations want to sell. Demand a strict accounting and rigorous oversight. And don't succumb to the accountant's desire to free up funds by cutting the people our military sorely needs.

He's like the general in Akira, all beset by corrupt money-grubbing civilians who have wormed their way into power. That would make Rummy the short old guy with the crazy hair. I wonder who Tetsuo would be in this whole thing--Dubya? You know, random guy suddenly granted amazing powers? Maybe. Wait, so who's Kanada then? I have no idea. Al Gore? "DUUUBBYAAAAAA!" "AAAAAAAAAAAAALLL!"

UPDATE: Oh right, of course--it's Jacques Chirac. "DUUUUBBBYAAAAA!" "CHIRRRRAAAAAC!"

Repeat your jokes until you get them right, that's my motto.

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