Stumbling towards the decline and fall of the USA

What (Walt hears you ask) is The United States Department of Defense's Office of Net Assessment (ONA), and why do we need (and pay for) one? Well sir... The ONA was created 51 years ago by Richard Nixon to serve as an "internal think tank" for the Pentagon. Aided by outside contractors, it's supposed to look into the future of the military -- kind of like a khaki crystal ball -- and produces report [prophecies? Ed.] on the results of its research.

"Do we really need this?" Walt hears you ask. The official answer is that it is important to have a good grasp of net assessment because it is an "important part of the language spoken by leaders in the higher levels of DOD" and officers who lack familiarity "will be at a disadvantage in communicating with the civilian leadership." Got it now?

No? Does it help for me to tell  you the Director of the ONA is one James H. Baker, who has held that position since 2015, serving under the Prez, then No. 45, and now Senile Joe? One of the "ourside organizations" who assist the ONA is the Rand Corporation. Understand now? We're talking Deep State here!

According to a report prepared for the Office of Net Assessment by the Rand Corporation, the future of the Paranoid States of America isn't so bright. "The Sources of Renewed National Dynamism" looks at the US competitive position as it faces a rising China, and finds that America is stumbling towards a decline from which few great powers ever recover. 

The US of A is diminishing in power on a relative basis geopolitically, militarily, financially, economically, and technologically. Competitive pressures from within include slowing productivity growth, an aging population, a polarized political system [No kidding? Ed.] and a "corrupted information environment". Does that mean (Walt wonders) that someone is lying to us? Who could it be?

These problems are exacerbated by an addiction to luxury, failure to keep pace with technology, an ossified bureaucracy, an overstretched military and "self-interested and warring elites." Again... who are they talking about? A clue may be found in Listen, Liberal, a brilliant but obscure book by Thomas Frank (Henry Holt & Co., 2016), which Walt recommends highly.

The title is misleading. It's not a rant by an Alex Jones type, but a stinging criticism by a certified liberal of the Democratic Party, the "professional elites" and the corporate and cultural elitism, which dominates liberal politics and is responsible for the ever-deepening rift between the rich and poor in America and elsewhere.

The ONA report concludes that unless Americans can unite to identify and fix the problems it outlines, the US of A risks falling into the same downward spiral that resulted in the fall of the Roman, Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian empires. 

Is it too late to reverse the decline? Is it too late to make America great again? You be the judge... on November 5th!

Excerpt from Listen Liberal (cited above): 

Popular attitudes toward the professions started to sour in the 1970s. "Technocracy" was the new term for describing the reign of professionalism, and its connotations were almost entirely negative.

Rule-by-expert, it began to seem, excluded rule-by-the people. It was dehumanizing and mechanical. In a technocracy, the important policy decisions were made in faraway offices that were insulated from the larger whirl of society. The people making the decisions identified far more with society's rulers than they did with the ruled, and their decisions often completely ignored public concerns.

Busing was one of the era's classic examples of failed technocratic overreach; another was the Vietnam War, a catastrophic intervention in which tens of thousands of working-classs Americans were sent to their deaths...largely because foreign-policy professionals in Washington were unwilling to listen to voices from outside their discipline, bearing uncomfortable views.

VIDEO: Pentagon to contract out military guard duties at the Capitol

The Congressional Budget Office, always on the alert for ways to reduce spending -- particularly when we don't know if there will be any budget at all -- read with interest documents from the United Nations confirming that countries volunteering uniformed personnel to peacekeeping operations are reimbursed by the UN at a standard rate, approved by the General Assembly last year, of $1428 per soldier per month.

The money doesn't actually go to the troops but to the governments of those countries. How much of the money actually finds its way into the soldiers' pockets is a mystery. But even if they got all of it, $1428 per month isn't a lot, is it. Compare that with the basic pay of an American soldier, sailor or airman. They probably get three or four times the salary of someone from, say, Chad. That thought, dear readers, engendered an idea in the tiny mind of someone at the CBO, who passed it on to the Pentagon.

Thus, in a brilliant cost-saving measure, the US military has decided to contract out non-combat duties to the armed forces of other countries. "Non-combat duties" include things like forming honour guards at places like the Capitol. "Other countries" includes the likes of the People's Republic of China. Effective today, the Chinese military will take over from American troops responsibilities for guarding the Capitol, the White House and other important sites.

Visitors who are paying attention will observe such ceremonies as the Mounting of the Guard being performed with more precision and efficiency, and at much lower cost. Yes, we have video.



Note from Ed.: Oups! Looks like I posted this about six hours early. Hit "publish" instead of "save". It was supposed to appear tomorrow, April 1st. If you need me to explain why it makes a difference, never mind, just keep writing to your Congressthingy.

Woman pukes in Pentagon parking lot, panic ensues

Walt's Weekend Quiz... Of which of the following dangers is the average American most afraid? Is it that:

(a) Islamic terrorists will storm out of the local mosque and behead the star reporter for the Morning Fishwrap?

(b) The speculators who drove the price of gas first up, then down, will connive to make it go back up over four dollars a gallon?

(c) A black person will vomit on their sidewalk, causing them to catch Ebola and die?

Judging from yesterday's reaction to a "protein spill" in a parking lot at the Pentagon, the correct answer would seem to be (c). The headline kind of gave it away, didn't it.

In a nutshell -- and that's a good word for this nonsense -- a woman, who Walt guesses was black, although the media are too PC to say so -- got off a bus in front of the Pentagon and threw up. Within two minutes -- not from when the barf hit the ground but from when she stepped off the bus -- emergency responders were on the scene. A tent was erected over the puddle. Hazmat gear was donned. Samples were taken. And the poor woman was rushed off to a nearby hospital where she was quarantined until it was determined that, errr, she hadn't been to West Africa, indeed hadn't been out of the USA in years, and, errr, was probably just suffering from motion sickness.

Walt blames the lamestream media for whipping average `Merkans into a near-constant state of frenzy with scare stories about threats that are virtually non-existent. Admittedly, I don't have the statistical proof for this, but I'd guess you have a better chance of being hit by lightning or winning the Superball lottery than catching Ebola. But in the Paranoid States of America, the media tells us we should be afraid, and we are very very afraid!

"Total war against Islam" taught at Pentagon... no longer

Walt has been wondering what possessed the American soldiers who burned copies of the Qu'ran, had themselves photographed pissing on corpses, or went on a killing spree offing 16 (or so) Afghans. Is this any way to win the hearts and minds of those benighted Muslims? What were they thinking?!

Turns out the idea of waging "total war" against the Afghans and all Muslims has been put into the troops' robotic minds by the Pentagon! BBC News reports that the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was shocked and saddened to hear that the Joint Forces Staff College has been teaching that America’s enemy is Islam in general (not just terrorists) and suggesting that the USA might ultimately have to obliterate the Islamic holy cities of Mecca and Medina without regard for civilian deaths.

Gen. Martin Dempsey said the course was "totally objectionable" and "against our values", and has now been suspended. That's "suspended" like the Santorum and Gingrich campaigns, not "cancelled". Certain training materials at the FBI have also been rewritten for being similarly politically incorrect.

The military now says that the teaching in the course, led by Lt. Col. Matthew Dooley, was at odds with the government's repeated claims that the American war in Iraq and Afghanistan -- not forgetting Libya -- is against Islamic extremists. It's not a Christian crusade against Islam itself. As if Hussein Obama would be leading a Christian crusade!

Before we condemn Lt. Col. Dooley, let's hear a bit of what he was saying to his students. In a presentation last July at the Staff College, he said, "[The Muslims] hate everything you stand for and will never coexist with you, unless you submit."

He went on to say that, for the purposes of his theoretical war plan, the Geneva Conventions that set standards of armed conflict are "no longer relevant". "This," he added, " would leave open the option once again of taking war to a civilian population wherever necessary (the historical precedents of Dresden, Tokyo, Hiroshima, Nagasaki being applicable...)."

Lt. Col. Dooley's war plan suggested possible outcomes such as "Saudi Arabia threatened with starvation ... Islam reduced to cult status" and the Muslim holy cities of Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia "destroyed".

Pretty strong stuff. But wait a minute. Haven't we seen this movie before? Only with the characters reversed... Aren't the Muslims saying that we "Christians" are mounting a crusade, a holy war, against Islam? Aren't they calling on the faithful to wage jihad against us? Haven't they plotted to destroy our cities and holy places, just as they did in the Middle Ages? Is it not their wish...their prayer...to wipe the infidels (i.e. non-Muslims) off the face of the earth?

Where is Santiago Matamoros (St. James the Moor-slayer) when we need him?

Which straw will be the last?

After more than 10 years of fighting, after the killing of Osama bin Laden, after the spending of billions of dollars, after the killing of thousands of Western invaders and thousands more Afghans, the US military is still in Afghanistan. So are troops from a handful of other countries still willing to hold the bully's coat.

What would it take to make the Americans leave Afghanistan? What would it take to convince the Obama government that the US is not wanted there? What would it take to show the Pentagon that they are fighting a war that is pointless, a war they cannot win?

Would Afghan rage over the burning of Qu'rans do it? How about the threat of reprisals for the massacre of women and children? Apparently those straws are not enough to break the back of the American camel.

Today, George Little, chief spokesthingy for the Pentagon -- fons et origio mali -- said the basic war strategy in Afghanistan will not change despite the mass killing of Afghan civilians, which he called "a deplorable but isolated incident". In other words, it wasn't part of the plan, but hey, shit happens.

Walt finds it significant that the Pentagon says the alleged killings were allegedly perpetrated by a US soldier whom the Pentagon won't name, even though he's in American custody.

The Unknown Soldier has been idenified, however, as a staff sergeant who has been in the military for 11 years. He is married with two children. He served three tours in Iraq and began his first deployment to Afghanistan in December. He is from Joint Base Lewis-McChord, WA, and was assigned to support a special operations unit of either Green Berets or Navy SEALs engaged in a "village stability operation" -- essentially a sanctioned, armed version of Neighbourhood Watch. Some neighbourhood. Some watch!

What the Pentagon is doing, you see, is stonewalling. Some Afghan officials and local villagers expressed doubt that a single soldier could have carried out all the killings and burned the bodies afterward. Some villagers also told officials there were multiple soldiers and heard shooting from different directions. But Lt. Col. Jimmie Cummings, another spokesman for the Coalition, insisted there was only one gunman.

So did Little Georgie Little, who told reporters there is "every indication" that the attack, was perpetrated by a single individual "acting on his own". [Is Lee Harvey Oswald really dead? Ed.] And Little refused to identify the soldier or provide other information about his unit, even though the information in my sixth paragraph has been known and published for more than 24 hours.

So it's deny, deny, deny...all the way. How much longer can this go on before the helicopter lands on the roof of the US embasssy to carry off the last Defenders of Democracy and Freedom?

Footnote: As I write this, the lamestream media are starting to talk of Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich having a change of heart as to American policy in Afghanistan. Maybe the mission needs to be re-evaluated, they're saying. Maybe it's time to withdraw, they're saying. Errr, didn't someone say that already? Oh yeah...it was Ron Paul who said it, ages ago, but he's not a serious candidate. Or so says the lamestream media.

Americans, we're watching you!

Dear American friends... Be afraid! Be very very afraid!!! This is a spy coin -- a super-hi-tech Canadian quarter which Canadian soldiers and airmen will smuggle into US government and armed forces meeting rooms to learn your military secrets and prepare for the invasion!

At least that was the rumour when these coins -- really commemorating the sacrifices of Canadian lives in foreign wars -- first appeared about four years ago.

The funny thing is, the US Department of Defense took the story seriously. We know this from classified documents recently obtained by AP under the Freedom of Information Act.

Pentagon officials question whether they should warn military officers in the U.S. Northern Command, who regularly met Canadian counterparts about classified subjects inside bug-free government meeting rooms known as secure compartmentalized information facilities, or "SKIFs". (If it didn't have an acronym it wouldn't be in the Pentagon, eh.)

"Isn't the Canadian piece something that should be briefed to Northcom since the Canadians sit in their SKIFs?" asked the "deputy director for counterintelligence oversight", in emails marked "Secret/NoForn."
"Good point," replied the Pentagon's acting director for counterintelligence. "It is possible that DSS (the U.S. Defence Security Service) sent their report to Northcom. Then again, I don't think it is an issue of the Canadians being the bad guys, but then again, who knows."

Indeed. Who knows? Such is the paranoia of the world's most powerful nation.