The men and women serving in the military are becoming quite a drag on the neo-Jacobin plan for global freedom through military domination and cultural emasculation. Sure, American soldiers, sailors, airman and marines show up early, stay late and fight like hell. Yes, they follow orders from the great leaders appointed above them and somehow still make it work in the field.
But all those demands for expensive bulletproof vests and proper equipment are getting old. Soldiers are worried sick about being shot up with vaccine cocktails and shot down when they try to get health care afterward. Wounded soldiers cause media problems when they mention they are required to pay for their hospital meals or don’t have air conditioning. Today, soldiers must be constantly watched and lectured to prevent embarrassment — either fighting to keep their men alive or making the comments out loud that are on everyone’s mind. Trading citizenship (before or after death, your choice) for military duty to the state is working, but not nearly well enough to implement Global Domination Version 1.0.
The parents and families are no better. What are they thinking sending their sons, husbands, daughters and wives commercial military equipment and making the system look incompetent and callous? Bring Them Home Now and all the rest of the "don’t be hating" crowd make a good neoconservative wonder what ever happened to patriotism. I once thought liberty meant never needing to have a zampolit in every military unit. But neo-Jacobin liberty apparently won’t succeed without it.
Poor challenged neoconservatives, those central planners of global utopia. No offense to the average red-blooded volunteer American soldier, but it may be that you’re more trouble than you are worth in the eyes of the chickenhawk cadres who sent you to Iraq and Afghanistan to build heavily secured outposts of Pax Americana.
Apparently, moving to a draft in this age of 2.1 kids per American family would cause a political mushroom cloud directly over the White House, generating a shock wave that would flatten the Capital Building. Oops. Hold that thought! Staying on theme is the very model of a modern major neo-con, so what about mini-nukes in lieu of the draft? Small, five kiloton yield battlefield nuclear weapons would be great at blowing things up, like small Muslim cities, and perhaps later — after they become popular enough and the price comes down — small Midwestern American cities as well. The one pictured above was called Hornet, set off in 1955, and it was only 4 kilotons. And they will all be made in America, keeping the fat cats at United Defense and others purring like kittens. Damn, we could even name them after the leading neoconservatives at the Pentagon and National Review!
So mini-nukes it is! But there is a bit of a research and development delay, not to mention the thorny issues of domestic political viability and international treaties. While no fan of the neo-cons, I am intrigued by the problem before them. Therefore, I offer the following solutions to bridge the neo-con military manpower capabilities gap. I specialize in low-budget solutions, designed to capitalize on my client’s proven strengths.
While waiting for the mini-nukes to be fielded, one of the first things we need to do is improve control over the existing military, and this means officers and senior NCOs. The up or out promotion system is wonderful, but the maximum retirement caps should be readily waived to ensure that the most politically pliant officers can stay 30 or 40 years, even if utterly and strikingly incompetent. Simultaneously, early retirement is needed to encourage military members with limited political reliability to exit at the 12 to 15 year point.
One must learn from enemies, past and present, and the Soviet Union provides a great model. Did you know that you can have officers "officially tasked to … organize and conduct political work, participate in planning for combat and political training, cultivate loyalty to the … fatherland and … Party, and conduct propaganda among the soldiers on the successes of …[liberation imperialism] and hatred of enemies?" Yes, you can! We wouldn’t call them zampolit, of course. I have a team already working on the appropriate moniker. We are looking at Truth Corps, or maybe Liberty Brigade.
Beyond politicals, we need to put some pressure on the folks at home who are not with the program. Full spectrum dominance is required not only globally, but domestically as well. I recommend IRS audits for parents and others involved in activities contrary to State Patriotism, as well as names provided to all law enforcement and Homeland Defense agencies. It will be a new kind of neighborhood watch list. It’s easy, and will give the Homeland Defense Department something positive upon which to focus. Border security and getting hundreds of existing agency databases to talk to each other is proving far too difficult, but expanded watch lists in every agency — now that’s progress.
But we also need to get more of the kind of soldiers we want. Public schools everywhere are doing their part, by encouraging socialized activities over critical thinking. They also work hard to ensure individual submission to incompetence, teaching not only how to tolerate chickenshit and propaganda, but how to promote it. Still, heavy recruitment among urban youth and immigrants must be pursued with a vengeance. We can’t very well take children from those parents who have only had one or two, and who fervently hope their kid will live long enough to make significant contributions to social security and federalized health care. Indeed, these are also excellent ways to serve the state.
Recent legal and illegal immigrants make great recruitment targets — many are not signed up for social security and most actually believe they’ll be taken care of by their children. Plus, steady income offered by the military is attractive, especially if it’s all they’ll need to become citizens. Domestically grown urban recruits ought to be brought to the military en masse as well. Not only are the urban poor politically and economically weak, this targeted recruitment is just good gov-business, solving the problem of under-employed young men, public school failure (or success, depending on your perspective), and crime. Think of it as urban renewal with a patriotic flair. Lastly, we need to lower the age of service, starting at 17, with a plan later to recruit and train 16 year olds. If they can drive a car, they can drive a tank. Now, let me emphasize — this isn’t a draft, it is targeted recruiting, with affirmative action for the kind of people whose parents won’t ask too many questions or fight back.
We also need tougher and harsher training for our folks, more in line with Spartan style isolation from communities and indoctrination for organized state violence. As a great imperial nation, we must be able to tolerate a significant increase in the training death rate, as well as create more brutal soldiers. A kind of national crustiness and bad temper is required, and these death rate increases will be for you, Mr. Rumsfeld, one more metric to use to gauge our success (and Final Victory!) in the global war on terrorism.
It is also imperative that dying for the State be viewed as rewarding and profitable. It is nice that the House just passed an increase in the soldier’s death benefit from $6,000 to $12,000. But as my husband commented to me the other day, after taxes, you can’t even buy a Camaro for that money. If Saddam can pay a suicide bomber’s family $25,000 each, and he had a fourth rate economy, I not only suggest to you, but demand that a $100,000 tax-free death bonus be paid to the surviving family. This will not only help to quell outrage among many poorer and less politically powerful parents, wives and husbands, but makes the state appear generous and loving, like any good nanny.
And one more thing. I know George W. Bushmaster finds it extraordinarily difficult to attend soldiers’ funerals. Over 350 missed opportunities so far, but don’t worry, they’ll be many more. I think with proper staging and a photo op of the handoff of that super-size $100,000 check to carefully pre-selected tearfully grateful parents, even these events can become a powerful weapon in the war on terrorism.
I conclude my pitch to Wolfowitz, Feith, Perle, Rummy and Cheney with this. Using a mini-nuke to expand and defend the new American empire will no doubt reduce the need for, not to mention the existence of, real American soldiers. In fact, I believe it is as brilliant as any idea that’s ever emerged from a neo-con love-in. Maybe even more brilliant, if such brilliance could possibly be perceived by mere mortals. But I am here to tell you there are many other things we can do right now to address our military manpower shortage while killing more of our favorite subjects, er …enemies, … I mean terrorists!
