Question: What does a Conservative Militarist do when he's losing a war?
Answer: He starts another one.

According to the NY Times, the US military has fought several 'cross boarder clashes' with Syrian troops along Iraq's border with Syria. The article goes on to report that Bush has undiplomatically called the Syrians 'allies of convenience' with international terrorists, and for good measure lumped in Iran as well in that designation.

Look at the maps above. The US currently occupies Iraq and Afghanistan, at least in theory, though no American is safe in the 'countryside' of either place. Americans are seen as fat and ruthless torturers and pornographers standing with their boots on the necks of proud and ancient peoples. Resistance to American domination uses the porous borders of both Iraq and Afganistan to shuttle in supplies from 'safe' zones in bordering countries where the US is not operating. This is not new. It was the reason for the secret bombing of Cambodia in the '70's. Then as now the US is an institutional power that has to observe such things as national borders and sovereignty of other nations (at least in theory,) but the enemy of the US exists outside institutions.
Look at Afganisan. The US controls major cities and has tenuous agreements with the warlords that control the rest of the country. The US's main ally on a border is Pakistan. Pakistan is also the main ally of the Taliban and the Jihadists. Pakistan is ruled by a fairly nutty dictator, and REALLY DOES have WMD's, and REALLY HAS helped terrorists all over the world. In other words, all the false accusations Butch has made about the US's enemies turn out to be true about the US's friends. (And not just Pakistan, but also Saudi Arabia, Egypt, etc.)

Across the Northern border of Afghanistan lie the former Soviet countries of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan. There's been trouble in Uzbekistan, reports of an attempt to overthrow the government, violently put down. Of course, that could mean anything. The aggressing party could have been the government, the rebels, some US black operation, or one by the Russians. Anyway, the Uzbeks have asked the US to leave, and actually sent troops to deny the US access to an air base the US has been using there. (The base was moved or is moving to a site in Kyrgyzstan.)

Rice, (with that nails-on-chalkboard really-bad-liar voice she uses) is bopping around central Asia trying to scare up some support for the US. She must have brought a candy jar of some sort, because she's not going to get far on charm. And I doubt she can convince the Central Asians that relative peace and stability will come while the Americans are still there. I assume that war on a border makes these countries nervous. On the other hand, war on a border can be the route to a lot of money, if a government is corrupt. I suppose she's feeling them out on how their cooperation can be bought or compelled. It may be harder than she thinks, and the candy jar may empty out quickly, considereing that any nation that starts cooperating with the US should expect things to start blowing up soon after.


Sun Tsu, in _The Art of War_ , says that one should not attack one's enemy unless there is some place one wants the enemy to retreat into. It sounds like common sense, but many American conservatives have a Patton fetish and take the opposite view that 'I am here to kill the enemy, so let's get on with it.'

It occurs to me the two views are products of their times. The Chinese Sage wrote in a time when professional armies with roughly equal capabilities were fighting all over China. An army repersented a huge investment, and gave its 'owner' prestige. So they were resistent to just grinding their armies away against each other.
The US Army, on the other hand, has not faced an 'equal' army since WWII and Korea. The US Army is in the same place as the British Army was in 1898 when it went to war against the Boers in South Africa. The British had won many wars, but had not faced an enemy that WORE SHOES in fifty years. They were an Imperial Army, used to winning easily against spear-weilding Zulus.

Similarly, the US Army has not faced an enemy in battle with a real Air Force, a real Navy, real satelites, and the current generation of other weapons since the 1940's. It's the equivalent of having fought barefooted tribesmen for 60 years. It is no wonder that the military is migrating more and more into police-like roles, since no actual military presents itself as a plausible enemy.

If the War on Terror hadn't come along, Conservative American Militarists would have invented it. Perhaps they did. After all, who trained Osama bin Laden? Who financed him and the Islamic Jihad in its formative years? The good ol' USA, that's who.

But just as the Brits faced the Boers with absurdly high confidence, American Militarists think they can start and win wars with every nation that borders a nation they already can't control.

It was bad enough when Butch was only trying to start a war with Iran. Iran is between Iraq and Afghanistan, and in theory the US would have the Iranians fighting a two-front war. The critical fact to know about Iran is that something like 70% of the population is young and unemployed. (That's an exageration, but it makes the point.) In the past, Iran dealt with this situation by going to war with Iraq. It would probably work just as well to fight the US in Iraq.

What would happen then? Well, the US is well nigh unbeatbale in stand-up war between armies, but weak as long-term occupiers. Supply lines are too long, and the American attention span is too short. At least that is the impression the US makes on more rooted and grounded peoples. So if the Iranians are smart, their institutional government would disappear into the woodwork, and the occupying forces would be left to negotiate with the Mullahs themselves. Meanwhile, the resistance would become generalized, with constant bombing and terrorism and sectarian civil war from Pakistan to Palestine.

But Butch is going further, picking fights with Syria. The New York Times has weighed in with an article about how corrupt the government of Syria is, already helping to frame Syria up for the ol' regime change argument. This would put the US in a two-front war in Iraq, and a one-front in Afghanistan. Actually, in Iraq the US would be fighting the Iranians, the Syrians, the Islamists, the Bathists, the Shia, and the local militias. (And the Truth.)

Could the US ago to war with Syria and not Iran? Perhaps. But while US attention is focused on the Syrians, I would expect increased activity across all the other borders, especially that with Iran... spreading war would be difficult to avoid.

Could the US not attempt to invade any additional countries? Butch is weak, and getting weaker. He's a one-trick pony, and his trick is starting wars. He may WELL start another war in time for 'patriotism' to peak in conjunction with the 2006 elections. I believe Americans are weary of war, and that such a 'Wag the Bush' trick would backfire, but that won't stop them from doing it.

It's all about the money, imho. Just as in Viet Nam, the people pushing us further and further into war are those who are making the money on it. And those who make the money do so whether their side wins or loses. Congress just passed a new military spending bill that amounts to over $2000 for every American with a job. Obviously, that money will be borrowed from the Japanese and Chinese, who own the mortgage on America. Where will it go? It will go to thousands of little defense contractors in thousands of American towns, most of them dues-paying Republicans. It will create new jobs dreaming up new ways to take away people's freedom without having to get close to them. Jobs for Conservative Militarists.