Musings of a Dumb Ass

Musings of a Dumb Ass...... All wars historically have been fought with some sort of strategy based on a pattern or style of warfare. Prior to biblical times armies would simply meet somewhere and engage in hand to hand combat until one side or the other was bludgeoned into submission. The commander who was smart enought to take advantage of nature or local conditions was seen as a great tactician. Outside of that it was basically an exercise that hinged on the element of surprise in deciding the winner. Methods have been slow to change and technology has been the element that decided the victor in many cases. But simplicity is the most powerful constant and the hardest to recognize. The British were successful in having the most fearsome army on the planet with the Redcoats. They were an army of discipline and as such stayed with the game plan and conquered or controlled most of the world. As the misbehaving and unruly colonists in America became a problem and had to be dealt with, lo and behold the same military discipline that allowed them to run the world became a problem, the fearsome and powerful British Redcoats were dispatched to settle things down and as per their method of operation they grouped and marched in formation to straighten out those dumb Americans. But as they marched with strength in numbers as their power, to meet the enemy in yet another victory something happened not in their playbook. The Americans singularly stood behind the trees and shot their asses off as they passed by. The simplicity of such an act is awesome. From the British perspective one might call these early colonists insurgents or in some cases, even terrorists. We are in a simplistic world with a complicated technology driven situation and cannot use both powers accordingly. We equate winning with destroyed real estate and are amazed that a destroyed landscape does not result in a submissive populace. Total victory can only be achieved two ways. One way is to kill so many of the opposition that it is definable as a complete massacre so thouroughly that the losing side can see no way out other than possible death to all of their kind, or to win the hearts and minds of the ones being warred with. Since we equate winning with physical destruction of homes and property, we like the Brits and all those before them are unable to understand when we've lost even though we're doing whatever it was that previously made us winners. In our case, we've lost the war because first we couldn't identify the enemy, and second the hearts and minds of those we meant to conquer will never be ours simply because we cannot understand nor consider them and make no effort to do so. In our present direction, there is no winning for us........... Likewise for the Israeli's.....................