So the USMC came to town about a week ago to practice urban warfare in our modern nation-building era. The plan was to practice deploying from helicopters in parking lots surrounded by big city buildings, patrolling and setting up roadblocks in urban environs clogged with "no-shoot" civilians, et cetera.
Instead, they've spent their week on necessary humanitarian aid, evacuating flood victims and building sandbag levees. It was needed, it was humanitarian, and it was, somewhat poignantly, a metaphor for our military's problems since those klieg lights first shone on SEALS slithering ashore on Somali beaches in 1992.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
I recommend "The Pentagon's New Map" by Thomas Barnett. He notes that most of the U.S. military activities now are "operations other than war" and take place in a large geographic blob that can be outlined on a map.
Thanks for jacking my blood pressure up a notch.
Post a Comment