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TechnoratiThe Air Force Above All
Dominating the Air, Space, and Cyberspace
When I first joined the Air Force, its mission statement was straightforward: to fly and fight. The recruiting slogan was upbeat: the Air Force was "a great way of life," and the ROTC program I enrolled in was the "gateway to a great way of life."
Mission statements and slogans are easy to poke fun at and shouldn't, perhaps, be taken too seriously. That said, the people who develop them do take them seriously, which is why they can't be ignored.
Consider the Air Force's new slogan: "Air Force -- Above All."
Okay, I admit it's catchy, even cute, if, that is, you can get past the "high ground" conceit and ignore the Germanic über alles overtones. Its literal meaning is obvious enough and it does fit with the Air Force's most basic precept, that mastery of the air means mastery of the ground. Yet today's Air Force seeks more than that. It wants to extend its "mastery" to space ("the new high ground") and even to cyberspace. This is yet another disturbing manifestation of our military's quest for "full spectrum dominance," achieved at debilitating cost to the American taxpayer -- and a potentially destabilizing one to the planet.
Striving to be "above all" everywhere is ambitious to the point of folly. By comparison, the slogans of the Air Force's sister services seem modest. The poor, embattled Army is simply "Army Strong." The Navy now promises to "Accelerate Your Life." Yawn. The Marines, always faithful, refuse to tinker with their slogan, which remains: "The Few. The Proud. The Marines." Meanwhile, the Air Force soars above such slavish adherence to tradition -- as well as any reasonable sense of boundaries or restraint.
The new slogan may also serve as a reminder to airmen to keep their service branch "above all" in their hearts and minds -- despite the fact that the Air Force is currently shedding 40,000 airmen as it tries to pay for a new generation of high-tech fighter jets. It most certainly is a measure of the service's determination to deny the use of space to powerful rivals, whether China, Russia -- or the U.S. Navy.
Perhaps the slogan even expresses a certain moral superiority -- as in an Air Force pilot's comment I once overheard that, when aloft, he felt "morally superior" to the little people scampering around on the ground below him. High ground, indeed.
Flying and Fighting, Everywhere!
So much for slogans. The Air Force's new mission statement begins -- and do bear with me for a moment --
The Mission of the United States Air Force is to deliver sovereign options for the defense of the United States of America and its global interests to fly and fight in air, space and cyberspace.
Flying and fighting in cyberspace sounds exciting -- think Neo in The Matrix. And flying and fighting in space -- which might yet come to pass -- is so Star Wars, especially if the "good" side of the Force is with you, which it must be if you're defending America.
But wait. The Air Force mission statement makes an instant, and anything but defensive u-turn, and promptly lays out a "vision" of "Global Vigilance, Reach and Power," which, it claims, "orbits around three core competencies: Developing Airmen, Technology-to-Warfighting and Integrating Operations." How a vision can orbit three cores I don't know -- and I once completed the "Space Operations Short Course" at the U.S. Air Force Academy. Nonetheless, this trinity of core competencies somehow enables six "capabilities," which are unapologetically offensive.
The first of the six is "air and space superiority" with which we "can dominate enemy operations in all dimensions: land, sea, air and space." Capability #2 turns out to be "global attack," enabling us to "attack anywhere, anytime and do so quickly and with greater precision than ever before." (In Bush-speak, we'll kill them there, so they don't kill us here.)
And when we attack, capability #4, "precision engagement," theoretically ensures that we put bombs on target, as we used to say in simpler times. Today's "precision" vision is more prolix: "the essence [of precision engagement] lies in the ability to apply selective force against specific targets because the nature and variety of future contingencies demand both precise and reliable use of military power with minimal risk and collateral damage."
I pity the recruits who have to recite that mouthful of gobbledygook. As bloodless and evasive as such prose may be, however, the mission statement doesn't pull punches about just what "above all" really means. It wields words like "attack," "force," "power," and, most revealingly, "dominate." They reflect what matters most in the new Air Force vision -- and by extension, of course, that of our country. And if you don't believe me, go to the Air Force website and click on the icons for "air dominance," "space dominance," and "cyber dominance."
Death at a Distance
Our capability to deliver damage and death across the globe -- at virtually no immediate risk to ourselves -- gives extra meaning to the words "above all." But with great power comes great responsibility, a tagline I learned as a teen from Spider-Man comic strips, but which is no less true for that. The problem is that our "global reach" often exceeds the grasp of our collective wisdom to employ "global power" responsibly.
Listen to the Air Force's own pitch for its "global reach" and "global power," and you know that today's service is indeed an imperial instrument focused on "power projection" and "dominance" (with nary a thought of how others may respond to being dominated). Worse yet, our "capabilities" have so detached us from delivering death that it's become remarkably close to a video-game-like exercise.
Twenty-five years ago, I watched a recruiting film that predicted the coming age of remote-control warfare. And where would the Air Force find its new "pilots," the narrator asked rhetorically? The film promptly cut to a 1980s video arcade, where young teens were blasting away with abandon in games like "Missile Command."
I remember the audience laughing, and it tickled my funny bone as well, but I'm not so amused anymore. For what was prophesied a generation ago has come true. Using unmanned drones, armed with missiles and "piloted" by joystick-wielding warriors, often thousands of miles away from the targets being attacked, the Air Force need not risk any aircrew in "battle." Our military speaks blithely, even with excitement, of "killing 'Bubba' from the skies"; but, in actuality, what that means is: from air bases tucked safely far behind the lines, whether in Qatar on the Arabian peninsula or outside of Las Vegas. (In this case, what happens in Vegas definitely does not stay in Vegas.)
I'm not suggesting that our Global Hawk, Predator, and Reaper (What a name!) pilots are anything less than dedicated to their assigned missions, including minimizing "collateral damage." Rather, the technology of unmanned aerial vehicles itself serves to detach them from their targets. Tracking the enemy, often with infrared sensors that show people as featureless blobs of heat-light, how can they not become human versions of the ruthless alien hunter that blasted its way through Arnold Schwarzenegger's unit in a movie coincidentally named Predator?
As our weapons technology weakens ground-level empathy and understanding, it simultaneously emboldens the Air Force to seek (deceptively) "clean" kills. It's well known, for example, that, in the opening days of the invasion of Iraq, in March 2003, the Bush administration tried to "decapitate" Saddam Hussein and his inner circle with precision weapons. (In fact, only Iraqi civilians were killed in these coordinated attacks aimed at the Iraqi leadership as the war began.)
Terrorist networks like Al Qaeda provide even fewer and more elusive "high-value" targets than do organized governments. Yet, when the U.S. succeeds with "decapitation" strikes against such networks, new heads often emerge, hydra-like, especially when "collateral damage" includes dead civilians -- and live avengers.
Control Fantasies in Space
The Air Force's vision of total domination used to stop at the stratosphere. Yet, according to its grandiose website, it now extends "to the shining stars and beyond." I hesitate to ask what lies beyond. God? Certainly, there's something unbounded, almost god-like, in the Air Force's space fantasy.
When it turns to space, the Air Force readily admits its desire to dominate all potential foes. As Peter B. Teets, a former Air Force undersecretary and director of the National Reconnaissance Office, declared back in 2002: "If we do not exploit space to the fullest advantage across every conceivable mode of war fighting, then someone else will -- and we allow this at our own peril."
There's nothing surprising about this "king of the hill" mentality. A decade ago, as a uniformed officer, I attended a space conference in Colorado Springs. Major topics of discussion included space weaponry already on the drawing board and being funded. Included were space-based directed energy weapons ("ten to twenty years away" was the prediction back then) and "Brilliant Pebbles," a constellation of thousands of miniature killer-satellites, proposed in the 1980s, that would be used to intercept ballistic missiles and which, fortunately, went unfielded, though not for want of lobbying to revive the project.
Much of the argument then -- undoubtedly abstruse to outsiders -- was about whether space represented a "revolution in military affairs" or a "strategic center of gravity." It turned out that it didn't matter. Either way, we clearly had to seize it and dominate it first, since space, as "the ultimate high ground," was going to be critical in future wars.
Several enthusiasts called for a new, separate, and independent space force, a fifth service, with its own unique doctrine -- an idea the Air Force has, so far, fought off valiantly. Among my notes from the occasion was a statement by General Howell M. Estes III, then Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Space Command, that the Air Force simply couldn't afford to lose the space mission -- not just to "the enemy," but to the dreaded U.S. Navy and U.S. Army, both of which were, he claimed, already exploiting space assets more skillfully than the Air Force.
Dominating space (and again the other services) certainly sounds seductive. Having worked in the Space Surveillance Center in Cheyenne Mountain, however, I can tell you that near-earth orbital space is already overcrowded with satellites and space junk -- and the delicate sensors on these satellites are highly vulnerable to space shrapnel traveling at 17,000 miles per hour. Explosive battles in space would degrade, rather than enhance, any existing advantage in space-based intelligence and communication the U.S. does have. Demilitarizing space is the only sensible strategy, yet it's the one that promises few lucrative contracts for aerospace firms and no new command billets for an Air Force seeking global (and supra-global) dominance.
Closing the Empathy Gap
As the Air Force flexes its earth, space, and cyber muscles, we rarely stop to think of the asymmetrical advantages enjoyed by the military -- the overwhelming advantage in firepower, mobility, and technology. This has created what can only be called an empathy gap.
Fortunately, Americans have never been on the receiving end of a sustained bombing campaign in this country. Two shocking days excepted -- December 7, 1941 at Pearl Harbor (where my uncle dodged aerial strafing at Schofield barracks), and September 11, 2001 in New York City and Washington -- the skies have always been friendly to us, even the repository of our hopes and dreams. When fighter jets scream overhead, our first thought isn't "death," it's display. We look up in curiosity or wonder; we don't panic and run for our lives. We expect the opening of a sporting event or aerial acrobatics, not the arrival of "precision guided munitions."
As a result, we have trouble realizing that our ability to soar "above all" and rain death from the skies generates resistance and revenge, rather than awe and retreat, or submission and rapprochement. We marvel that our enemies just don't get the message -- but our signals are mixed, and our receivers flawed.
Flying and fighting so far above it all has proven deceptive indeed. It leaves us with little idea of the new realities we are creating down below, and blind to the disturbing inequities and resentments generated by our global/galactic/cyber power.
It turns out that the higher you soar -- the more "above all" you perceive yourself to be -- the less likely it is that you'll understand the little people beneath you, and the more likely it is that those same "little people" will resent being dominated. And the solution to that problem lies not in dominating the stars or some other higher physical realm, but in looking within to a higher moral realm. "Above All" in moral courage -- now there's a slogan toward which I'd willingly soar.
William J. Astore, a retired lieutenant colonel (USAF), has taught at the Air Force Academy and the Naval Postgraduate School. He currently teaches at the Pennsylvania College of Technology. He is the author of Hindenburg: Icon of German Militarism (Potomac Press, 2005). He may be reached at wastore@pct.edu.
Copyright 2008 William Astore
61 Comments so far
Show All"I also think that if a third of what you say is true, some attorney would have found a course of action for you."
This is a very naive statement. Attorneys take cases they can win before the cost to pursuing the case buries them. Furthermore, if one is the target of COINTELPRO activities, the chance of successfully challenging the system is non-existent.
And those who commit these crimes depend to a world view such as your own, and beliefs that if a crime had really been committed, the ones violated could pursue it through the court system…
Even the ACLU states emphatically that they only consider the simplest cases due to limited resources. Simply put, crimes are being enacted against many, but very few of those violated have the resources and/or clout to seek restitution through the courts… and dishonesty, (even admitted dishonesty) by numbers of officials does not make for much hope.
We have made several attempts and we know the constraints of the system. Our case will be proven but not in a court of law, but in the listing of the crimes and their explication.
"It is difficult to debate with someone who believes there is a conspiracy behind everything. Of course I think Dick Cheney has far too much influence on Bush, but is the US government actually controlled by the (Tri-Lateral Commission, Skull and Bones, the Masons, etc. - "insert your favorite lunatic-fringe theory here")? I don't think so. But, it is impossible to prove a negative, so I guess you win."
I did not cite the above groups. Though some of these organizations have played a role in structuring or implementing some policies.
On the other hand, conspiracies by strategic, ad-hoc committees to commit genocide and regime change involving banking, corporate, diplomatic and military interests have been exposed.
One of those is the genocide that was launched in Indonesia in 1967 prior to its economic restructuring to bring about a supra-class and a slave class and to firmly entrap the country in debt and consolidate control of its natural resources.
"I have traveled extensively and seen how much of the rest of the world operates."
Then you are very dishonest.
"It is difficult to debate with someone who believes there is a conspiracy behind everything."
I have perceived (through numerous experiences) the totalitarian nature of the military/corporate order. And, the tremendous efforts that are ongoing to disguise this fact from the majority of its servants.
Certainly 9/11 is a near perfect example of this principle in murderous action. So, it is not so much I see a conspiracy behind everything (though a cogent policy landscape for controlling populations is quite easy to discern), it is that some of my indoctrination (inculcation) weakened and I could see without the blinders you still insist upon holding firmly in place.
The world is governed by a corporate military order. Its genocidal programs for maintaining power are in continuous expression. Look again.
And, there is no doubt that identifying 'threats' to the continuing dominance of this elite group such as progressive tendencies in individuals and aggregates of individuals is a preoccupation of the military order (and its clandestine services)… even in our high schools!
itsaNaziWorldOrder,
I have traveled extensively and seen how much of the rest of the world operates. Since I have only your word to go on in terms of the veracity of your posts, I will believe my own eyes instead. I also think that if a third of what you say is true, some attorney would have found a course of action for you.
It is difficult to debate with someone who believes there is a conspiracy behind everything. Of course I think Dick Cheney has far too much influence on Bush, but is the US government actually controlled by the (Tri-Lateral Commission, Skull and Bones, the Masons, etc. - "insert your favorite lunatic-fringe theory here")? I don't think so. But, it is impossible to prove a negative, so I guess you win.
But you know what, you don't convince me. I think you are in need of some serious help.
"Why are you here? If you have nothing but scorn for us, blame us for every evil in the world, (you are welcome to your delusions concerning 911), et al, then why don't you find some society more to your liking?"
I was born here. I have been a voice for sanity pretty much my entire life. I CAN claim victimhood since I have also been tortured, my money has been stolen, my place repeatedly entered, my property vandalized, my teeth broken, etc.
I first discovered that I was being targeted when I was only fourteen after attending an anti-war demonstration in Oakland in the sixties...
when I was told that over fifty students in my high school had been strong-armed into blaming me for a violent incident in which I had played no part and had no knowledge about until one of those forced to name me as the instigator emerged from the Dean's office and gasped her confusion about the affair to me.
Needless to say, I could not understand it at all. Since then, a number of similar events have been blamed upon me for which I was not only not at fault, I was not even in the vicinty. But, the slander machine goes wherever I go.
So, this is my home. I was born here. Other places I have been; India, Taiwan, Vietnam, Argentina, Chili, Germany, Italy, etc. are not independent of the corporate military structure that rules our society.
And, I have tried to locate elsewhere. And, I was brutally attacked by American forces. So, even though you may not want me here, apparently some people prefer I am not 'at large' 'stirring up the natives'.
But, I certainly do not blame the US for everything. Frankly, I don't even think the US is calling the shots. And about that I think I have been very clear. We inherited (or were designated) our structure from (by) the English. And since that time have been fundamental to policing established interests (generally by enacting genocidal policies) of the Euro empire.
"I think Bush is an idiot and am eternally grateful that he can't run again. I hope the pendulum is swinging back to the progressives and away from the neo-cons and am doing my best to help. But, at least we get the opportunity to change."
Anyone is thinks Bush is in control of anything is the real idiot. Maybe it is you who should leave for the sake of your own edification The empire is far more exposed in third world countries.
"By the way, I really liked the way you completely ignored the observation (in the post citing Argentina) that our government is not subservient to the military."
??!! What can I say in the face of such ignorance??!!
Of course your government is subservient to the military! And that must be made clear to you because until you realize this, nothing, absolutely nothing can be changed.
Finally, disgust with a type of social organization is appropriate if it violates the very requirements for life. And efforts to demonstrate how and why this is so to those deceived by it are appropriate for any who have a responsible or compassionate nature... which I do have.
itsaNaziWorldOrder,
Why are you here? If you have nothing but scorn for us, blame us for every evil in the world, (you are welcome to your delusions concerning 911), et al, then why don't you find some society more to your liking? We are a pluralistic country, meaning we are accepting of many different views, but if you are so unaccepting of us, why stay? If we did all those things to you which you say are commonplace, though I nor anyone I know has ever seen it or even heard rumors of it, why aren't you in Australia? Is it such a thrill to be able to claim victimhood at our hands? Palestine seems to be the universal center of victim-hood, why aren't you there? 99.999% of the people in this country never did a damn thing to you, yet you paint us all with the same brush. It's like listening to a Jewish settler talk about how all Palestinians are animals because he didn't like the personal hygeine of someone he was stuck next to at a roadblock.
I am not particularly proud of a lot of the things our government has done lately (or at times in the past). I think Bush is an idiot and am eternally grateful that he can't run again. I hope the pendulum is swinging back to the progressives and away from the neo-cons and am doing my best to help. But, at least we get the opportunity to change.
By the way, I really liked the way you completely ignored the observation (in the post citing Argentina) that our government is not subservient to the military. It is really easy to score debate points when you are totally unwilling to recognize if/when your opponent has any valid positions. Of course it's cheating, but I guess that doesn't really bother you.
Please feel free to go away, someplace else that doesn't have all us criminals in it. Someplace that won't pick on you so bad. Someplace where your delusions can reign free and then you won't have to worry about being supported by a society you hate so much.
Commondreams readers:
Shall this be the last word? I've stated my abject disagreement to the above.
Remember; your silence says that you agree.
"If you're silently reading this while living in a free country, then you should whole-heartedly thank every single military person you meet for those freedoms that you're not only taking for granted, but by your words or silence, are showing your scorn for."
1) My mother was murdered.
2) I was tortured.
3) The crimes we have suffered at the hands of this Nazi regime are so numerous and so extensive it would take a book to list them (which my husband is working on)!
Military agencies (in particular the Air Force) and secret services are responsible for perpetrating and facilitating these crimes.
I HAVE NO INTENTION OF KEEPING SILENT ESPECIALLY BEFORE SUCH IGNORANCE!!
And the crimes committed in my family and against me personally (including rape, surreptitious druggings, breakins, death threats, theft of funds, vandalism, slander campaigns, entrapment schemes, etc.) are not only not unique, they are commonplace in the US and around the world!!
If people in this country (and the world) are ever to awaken and truly become free, it will be because people like me who own no guns and have worked tirelessly to understand and share understanding, continue to speak the truth regardless of physical and financial assaults, setbacks or threats.
Shame on you!
It has been said that silence signifies consent.
Well, I for one am NOT going to be silent about the above post(s). The US armed forces are a necessary and vital part of what makes America the country that it is. Is either perfect? NO! But what I read here sickens me.
As you sit there in your free country and read this; and you're convinced that Bush, Cheney & Haliburton were instrumental in the actions of 9/11 and that our military was complacent in the horrific tragedy of that day and are worthy of nothing more than our continuous scorn; then sit there and do nothing.
If you disagree, then exercise your free speech and say, "I disagree", which I'm doing here and now.
If you're silently reading this while living in a free country, then you should whole-heartedly thank every single military person you meet for those freedoms that you're not only taking for granted, but by your words or silence, are showing your scorn for.
"They went into Afghanistan after 9/11 in a big way... I think our armed services deserve our support..."
I am sorry that anyone can say these things and not feel utter shame. 9/11 was an inside job involving many people in the US armed services.
After that mass murder of US citizens, 9/11 was used to ramp up genocidal policies and activities in Afghanistan (and then of course Iraq).
People, you really need to wake up! These are crimes, atrocities, outrageous acts of cruelty that have NO defensive justification!
And, it is amazing that there are people walking around who are apparently unaware of this?!
BTW, Al Qaeda means data base. It refers to the names in the CIA data base, those who were recruited into the Taliban... by paid CIA operatives (and Osama was one of these)!!!
"By deception, you will make war."
Armed forces exist not to save lives or defend communities. They exist to protect elitist interests (and extend them) and they do this by acts of violence (and the threat of violence) and deceptions to cover those acts of cruelty and criminality.
I personally know of NO case where the US armed services have been used to protect the interests of the American people. Though servicemen are told this is their function, it has never been and will never be… that is not the reason 'our' armed services were organized.
The Air Force have not had as big a role to play as during Gulf I. They went into Afghanistan after 9/11 in a big way, but the Army and Marines have done most of the work after that.
I think our armed services deserve our support and I am so sorry to see them abused by the Dufus in Chief at the White House. Maybe if he actually served instead of drinking beer in the Texas Air National Guard, he would have a better appreciation for those that actually do serve.
Clarification:
Nazi is NOT used as a term to express 'Aryan'. But, it is used to express a commitment to an 'elitist' (supremacist) model of thinking and governance in which the final outcome is policies that are genocidal for the majority.
Genocide too is NOT used in the limited sense of annihilation of a religious or racial group but in its broadest sense as defined by the UN.
Genocide pertains to all those activities taken individually or together that intentionally defeat the aspirations of individuals, peoples or groups of people including denial of resources (forced poverty), murder, etc.
Like it or not, the basic model of modern government (in which the US and its military organizations are major players) is controlled genocide.
The Air Force is a Nazi organization that is 'top down' driven. It is rule based with the 'policies' and 'rules' decided not by those who enact them and certainly not by the majority of its members.
The Air Force is certainly the antithesis of a democratic body and works to suppress democracy around the world and at home. Furthermore, the current administration likely has little at all to do with its policies.
I have also known many in the Air Force. I am quite sure that my words would not insult the former officers that I have known for they continue to take pleasure in their crimes (often of a clandestine nature) against others (individuals and communities) and indeed ridicule the masses for not having the wit to understand the totalitarian nature of present-day society and the role of the military in it!
itsaNaziWorldOrder May 9th, 2008 2:05 pm
"My interest is in your awakening, not your insults."
You are the one who started the insults and who wants to believe in incredible, sweeping generalizations without any shred of proof.
itsaNaziWorldOrder
"No, I am not. I am speaking of a totalitarian organization that ruthlessly supports crimes against humanity (and that has profoundly affected me personally) and supports and protects those who commit them… intentionally, systematically and effectively."
Let me see if I get your proposition correctly. There are no dissenting voices in the Air Force, they goose-step together one and all, Nazi Aryans in brotherhood? Is that the load of crap you are trying to sell?
Sorry, I am not buying and no rational person would. The top leadership of the Air Force is largely in league with the Bush administration, I will grant you that. But, I know far too many current and former airmen who's qualities as human beings, make your statements utter fabrications. You may, for some reason known only to yourself, want them to be true but you cant' make them true.
"I can sit here and trade insults with you just fine - I do have a sailor's vocabulary. If you want to start…."
My interest is in your awakening, not your insults.
"You are confusing an institution with tens-of-thousands of individuals with the mores/inculcation of a small percentage."
No, I am not. I am speaking of a totalitarian organization that ruthlessly supports crimes against humanity (and that has profoundly affected me personally) and supports and protects those who commit them... intentionally, systematically and effectively.
Hey, Naziworld shit-for-brains!
I can sit here and trade insults with you just fine - I do have a sailor's vocabulary. If you want to start....
You are confusing an institution with tens-of-thousands of individuals with the mores/inculcation of a small percentage.
The Air Force is a cross section of our society and yes there are some Nazis in it as well as bleeding heart liberals, Mormons, Montanans, gays, Communists, Jews, homophobes, Texans, poor-folk, rich-folk, and Kenyan-Americans.
There is probably some dumb SOB very much like you in it.
As an Air Force brat, I lived most of the first 18 years of my life on AFBs; my Dad was posted all over the world. Because he worked for AF Intelligence he went on plenty of TDY assignments.
I don't remember my Dad or the AF involved in positive and constructive community projects.
However, when I lived in W. Germany, it was the height of the Cold War. Later, in the Philippines, I do remember the whorehouses and bars that surrounded Clark AFB.
In fact, Angeles City (the brothels and bars) had no public library, public hospital, very few public schools, concert halls, museums etc. Much of the housing was built using garbage. Last, the political establishment was both malicious, deadly and corrupt.
In other words, a city of then one million people possessed very few amenities. It simply functioned to "satisfy" the desires of the US military. And the AFB did very little to alleviate the poverty, lack of public services, or shelter/food.
(By the way, the whore house districts were segregated. Blacks and Whites had their own districts.)
In addition, my Dad was involved in the Vietnam genocide. That's why we resided at Clark.
Daily, my school bus passed the sealed coffins piled high ready for shipment back to the US.
Some of us would visit the hospital. Its where the US and its allies' wounded and sick were flown in from the Southeast Asian War.
Some of my friends would visit in order to talk to patients. Some loved visiting the South Koreans. Many of the officers spoke English. They were proud of their leave-no -crops-unburned, farm-animals-unkilled, and no civilians-alive-policies they pursued.
Sort of like Sherman's March with the added innovation of mass murder of civilians. Who said the US elite don't learn from history?
And everday, when my school bus dropped me off, dozens of sex-workers would compete for our pocket change. Many of them were farm girls selected by the head of the household to be the family's breadwinner.
Peasant farm production couldn't keep up with population growth nor the unproductivity of the marginalized land they farmed.
When older, I realized that US military and naval bases were networked throughout the world. I lived on enough to know. (Other military brats I met came from many of these bases.)
I rarely observed (or heard about)the military bases of other nations being similarly allocated throughout the world -only the US had that distinction.
Why would the US possess this global network of military bases -many of them located in impoverished nations led by corrupt pro-US oligarchs. Oligarchs whom did not give a flying crap about those they exploited, tortured, imprisoned or disappeared.
After awhile, two plus two became an obvious four. Our bases backed these oligarchs and their supporters. These bases weren't planted in these countries to benefit the actual people who made up each country's vast majority.
PDF: IF the miliitary IS used to upgrade other societies to remove the CAUSE for war (poverty, despair, ancient grievances, hunger) I'm ALL for it. However, as ZINN points out, too often the RESOURCE of a strong, well-armed military is like a LURE a leader can't seem to ignore using for his own (along with his handlers) terms & agenda. The US has long been enamored with a Macho Might makes right attitude, and its actions substantiate that comment.
GAIL: Excellent posting.
ARVY: The photo makes me cry as it looks like my grandson. These children are so filled with light, HOW DARE any army assassinate them! I could just imagine, if the voice of heaven could speak to the disgusting neo cons, it might say, "What have you DONE in my name?!!!"
Any military veterans care to weigh in?
I'm one. I did six years of my life in service of this country. Never once was I called upon to machine gun any babies; rape any nuns; or overthrow any democratically elected governments.
I did learn skills to protect America from enemies, foreign and domestic. I did serve as an ambassidor overseas, representing the best of what America has to offer. I helped rebuild run down schools in Korea, I taught at a school in Japan, I did volunteer work in the Phillipines to help start a community college for teaching those who wouldn't have gotten an education.
If any veterans, people who actually served time in the military, care to comment, I'd like to hear what they have to say.
Peace can and is established through having enough deterrent capability to make your enemies think twice about attacking. It isn't just a slogan, it's one of the ways we help keep our country safe.
As much as I'd like to think that one day we'd wake up to a world where gumdrops and lollipops dance and love spreads through us all ~ it just isn't the way things are. There are people, groups and countries that want us dead. What stands between them and their determined goals?
The US military.
Most of what I read in this thread is just what our enemies want to hear, and everyone is entitled to their opinion, but I thought I'd inject just a brief moment of clarity in an otherwise cowardly and fearful discussion between fearful folks who have never been there and done that.
I would like to hear from some bonified veterans, and see if mine is the only opinion that thinks the military isn't all evil, corrupt and Hitleresque.
As far as a believable slogan for the USAF goes, we may not need to look far afield at all - Freedom Call's lyrics from the Farewell album:
"High on the wings of insanity"
What could be more appropriate?
"All I ask that you refrain from any "Nazi" comparisons."
There are too many examples of the Air Force engaging in Nazi operations.
And Argentina is nothing but a puppet state of the US and its Euro partners. I've been there and seen the operation first hand!
The Air Force is a Nazi operation if ever there were one! Frankly, if there were a fair court in this country, I would have had a number of their officers and collaborators already convicted of murder, and conspiracy to commit murder, torture and conspiracy to commit torture, cover-ups, etc.
What grade school are you living in?!?!!!
"....the solution to that problem lies not in dominating the stars or some other higher physical realm, but in looking within to a higher moral realm."
Instead of teaching military personnel to master the "air, water and ground" in an effort to destroy humanity, they might consider teaching them to master reverence for humanity; as we all breathe air, drink water and live off the fruits of the earth/ground.
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is the off-spring of a global military mentality that insists on turning human beings into killing machines.
"Perhaps the slogan even expresses a certain moral superiority — as in an Air Force pilot's comment I once overheard that, when aloft, he felt "morally superior" to the little people scampering around on the ground below him. High ground, indeed."
I think maybe perhaps some of the females at the AF Academy in Colorado Springs might have some things to say about the AF being "morally superior" about anything.
Galen
"Kendpotter- If the US military, including the AIr Force was actually going to defend the US Constitution from 'all enemies foreign and DOMESTIC' they would have arrested, tried and executed Bush and his entire cabal for acts of high treason six years ago…"
You will get no argument from me except that "The Posse Comitatus Act" is supposed to prevent the military from exercising police powers during peace time. All I ask that you refrain from any "Nazi" comparisons. The armed forces are currently under the sway of some particularly nefarious civilians. Hopefully this situation will not last much longer. If you want to know what a truly bad military is like, take a look Argentina during the coup years.
Most of our modern weapons rely heavily on GPS; kill GPS=dead weapons.
When the Chinese did their first kill, of one of their own satellites, the US military command went beserk.
Most of these 'Buck Rogers' weapons become useless when the Chinese are able to kill the GPS satellites in orbit.
ANYBODY OUT THERE well-versed in the New Testament?
Straining my memory back to Catholic school days - (best forgotten, really) - I seem to recall Jesus supposedly said that he had come to set brother against brother.
kendpotter
What constitution? They don't need no stink'n constitution.
From what I understand, many in the USAF's officer core are Evangelical "Christian" fanatics; increasingly, their allegience is to that doctrine rather than to the constitution: a document many of them studiously ignore and make no attempt to understand.
It would be easy for such fanatics to expand their allegience to include a Rightwing religious zealot who happens to be President.
The present Bush regime has broken down many of the barriers that earlier separated the government (including the military) from evangelical religious indoctrination.
I, as a former fledgling, observed the condoned indoctination process at AFBs during the height of the Southeast Asian War.
As long as you believed in Christ as Our Savior, you could rightously commit any war crime as ordered by your commander.
The indoctination problem has risen exponentially under the present regime.
Ironically, these fanatics are actually idolators of the "free market" and the US Imperium. They would be the first to send a drone to wipe out that supreme "terrorist" commie, J. Christ if they were commanded to do so.
ubrew12 -
You make several very insightful points.
The peace people are now talking about demilitarizing space, while the whole focus of international law was treaty committments to prevent its militarization in the first place.
The use of drones as assassination devices is analagous to the neo-cons' creation of "enemy combatants" as a neither-fish-nor-fowl concept. Bombing the soil of a foreign nation is an act of war, unlawful per se unless a state of war has been first declared, for reasons that are themselves lawful. Outside the context of war, killing a person by any means (high tech or low) is premeditated murder. Yet now we are being propagandized to accept that use of drones to smite evildoers from above is neither war nor homicide, but instead something conceptually different and therefore acceptable.
The testosterone-laden, often religious gloss that goes into naming the latest weaponry gadgets is itself a pathology. Predator. Reaper. Rods from God. Hellfire. It reminds me of the brief controversy that flared years ago when the Navy named a mammoth Trident submarine armed with city buster nuclear missles the Corpus Christi.
And you're absolutely right about the TV ad campaigns. During the NCAA basketball semi-finals this spring, the Air Force ran a truly startling commercial that masqueraded as a recruiting pitch. The spot showed a communications satellite serenely circling the globe. Suddenly it vanished in an orange ball of flame and the screen briefly went blank. The voice over (an ominous baritone combination of HAL from 2001 A Space Odessey and the guy who did the infamous anti-Kerry wolves ad in 2004) intoned "What would happen if a foreign power were able to suddenly knock out your family's television, internet, and cell phone service instantly"? Up comes the Air Force logo, reassuring anxious viewers they need not fear for outer space and cyberspace is vigilantly defended by the US air command.
That advertisement had nothing to do with signing up new Air Force recruits, and everything to do with selling taxpayers on the need for more Star Wars gimmicks. And this comes from the guys who couldn't even protect the Pentagon command headquarters from attack in broad daylight by a highjacked civilian airliner.....
Bill from Saginaw
"Above All?" -- Your Money at Work in the "War Against Terror"
(Photo Credit: By Karim Kadim -- Associated Press Photo)
Ali Hussein is pulled from the rubble of his home after a U.S. airstrike in Baghdad's Sadr City. The 2-year-old died at a hospital.
Don't forget to "support your troops".
MWILDFIRE: That stage HAS been set. Asking myself why, I have determined it truly is a saga that mirrors the fabled fall of Satan. Certain types of persons are so enamored with power that they wish to be gods and in confronting the limits of their own mortality, strike against creator and Creation by trying to take as many down (as kill) as possible. What else can substantiate the world's largest death machine and its 'committed' warriors?
PUNDIT: Right on! Higher power, indeed... and in my view, the use of militarism under the GUISE of religion (religious delusion) constitutes a bona-fide version of the Anti-Christ.
"But with great power comes great responsibility, a tagline I learned as a teen from Spider-Man comic strips, but which is no less true for that."
Spiderman is a young adult comic, with some intelligence and subtlety. Unfortunately, it seems the Air Force is run by people who prefer Saturday morning cartoons--in which "good guys" kill "bad guys" and are heroes for it. There is a mentality on the part of many who lust for violence and want to kill other people, that easily silences any conscience they may have merely by defining the victim as "bad," as Other, as The Enemy. No complexity on the part of either the Good Guys--that's us, of course--or the Bad Guys, anyone who is currently resisting the American Empire. The Enemy will be defined by those at the top and the Good Guys need not worry about this. If the Bad Guys change suddenly, it's no more problem for them than it was for the people in Orwell's 1984 when suddenly we are at war with Eastasia and "we have always been at war with Eastasia" even though yesterday Eastasia was our ally and someone else our enemy. When people at this kindergarten level of moral development are given advanced weapons, the world has become a very dangerous place.
The fact that the Air Force doesn't hesitate to use a Nazi motto is also troubling. Some here have alluded to reports that the Air Force Academy is being run by Christofascist evangelicals enamored of the notion of a final and complete war. Remember the Jim Jones cult in Guyana that committed mass suicide, with mothers placing poison in the mouths of their babies and children and then themselves, and laying down to die...400 of them? Or the Heaven's Gate cult in California whose members had themselves castrated, and then when a comet passed by, committed suicide in their beds, each with bus change handy, so that their souls could catch a lift on the comet? My point is that a firmly held belief can cause humans to act in ways that are directly antithetical to their own survival and their genetic survival (castration, killing their own children). It can trump our most basic instincts. So when you have a large group believing that a final war is coming in which much of the Earth will be destroyed, but then Jesus will show up and reward those who recited the proper litany with eternal life without the need to die first, while everyone else is hideously punished...and that the ultimate enemy is the Antichrist, who will be an appealing man who talks of peace and solving problems cooperatively...when you take that belief system and inculcate it in a body of people allowed to work with the world's deadliest weapons...and then when you use technology to completely isolate these people from the ugly little dissonant realities of what they're doing (the sight of the Bad Guy you just blew up being a screaming Iraqi mother clutching the torn body of her child)...you have the stage set for a tragedy of epic proportions. We desperately need adults to take over. This is why I'm supporting Obama even though his policies don't appear to differ greatly from Clinton's his words have the ring of adult maturity and resonableness, while she speaks in the cartoon language of the Republicans.
The US Air Force has morphed into the neo Praetorian Guards for der Bushler und der faderland...Ve need liebensraum
What was once old is now new again; same old slogans now reconstituted...Army of One is really UberMan Pepsi in a new bottle :(
A slogan change for the Air Force was well overdue, being as the last one was "No one comes close." They should have been working round the clock on a new one after September 11th, 2001.
How about the motto " The Air Force-a Higher Power" ?
The future, if it exists, will not be based upon uber alles slogans, self-concepts or personal or group goals.
The future rests only in one place, the realization that the human monkey is defined correctly only as an integral of earth's ecology.
The dominator society is a threat to all lives, the last to go may be the one who holds the position of greatest dominance, but the fallacies upon which the social and personal philosophies of dominance rest are profound, absolutely defining and completely unsustainable.
Ultimately, these concepts and the technologies that are born in support and furtherance of them must be redefined in light of human and natural realities.
Uber alles will ultimately be replaced with respect for all... or the alles will fail and that which is uber will fall...
http://allinharmony.com
I feel like the author has been reading my mind. I find something deeply disturbing about the modern and increasing reliance on Predator drones to ride herd over the various peoples we want to terrorize (oops, I mean encourage) into a pro-American point-of-view. I believe these drones have been used to assassinate people who, in some cases, aren't really Al-Qaida but just freedom-fighters interested in their own countries future, who pose NO threat to the U.S. (a recent murder in Somalia comes to mind). Murdering them from 3000 feet in the air is dehumanizing, not just to them, but to us as well. The Air Force is recognized as being increasingly religious and fundamentalist, which my experience has taught me just makes them MORE likely to accept the dehumanizing remote assassination of another human being, and to claim the assassination has NO relevance to their OWN humanity (its hard for the 'blessed by God' to see themselves in that light). The military has ordered up MORE of these drones to police the skies above Baghdad and Iraq, and kill any Iraqis (oops, I mean terrorists) engaged in hostile action (in what used to be their home town).
I do, however, see these assets as a natural drift in warfare. We just have to be very careful about how they're used: they should be used on America's enemies, and that definition should be given a very rigorous meaning. When you're assassinating Somalians who may have a relationship to Al-Qaida (plus the 10 people around him), your dehumanization is so complete, its worrisome. We must also understand that the Predators success has not gone unnoticed. In time, Americans will also have to live under these drones, and face occasional assassination by others. That ALSO is a natural drift in warfare. We have an opportunity here, now, to keep the human factor alive in this new type of warfare. If we miss that opportunity, I can guarantee you there are people out there that would have no compulsion about using these weapons wherever they can be used.
Finally, the Air Force has lately been buying propaganda-time (oops, I mean advertising time) on the major networks. In these ads, they defend their use of the drones, their militarization of space, etc. Clearly, their intent is to present these developments as 'normal' for our Air Force to the public in general. Its propaganda, and our tax dollars are funding it. That's what I object to the most. This is not 'be all that you can be', which is a recruitment ad. The target of these Air Force ads is not for potential recruits, but the rest of us who cut the Air Force a check every year. The Air Force is telling us that THESE are the things it needs to do with that check, and its conditioning us into accepting them as normal. But, they are NOT normal, they are highly controversial and need to be discussed, not propagandized (like everything else about the Bush administration).
The author is regretably deranged, perhaps from years of military service. Or is this article a pause for reflection, a sentimentality that comes with advancing age?
Total madness - I suggest a football game, those in the Air Force who's lives are enhanced by an endless stream of revenue and those of us who have gone without. A nice "mano a mano" shoving match to see who deserves the bigger share of the pie. This is as reasonable as the blather of an old fool, who celebrates a world of violence, with cautionary advice on how to kill effectively. F. u.!
Aye, elmysterio,
I was thinking mainly of the video games imagery. Plus, how easy it would be for our present evil government to hide the truth - of the true nature of current battle games, of the truth about the enemy, or of real military goals, etc. (Do you trust that warmongers like the ones currently in power would not manipulate the fighters?)
Would Ender have felt remorse, if he had 'merely' destroyed the invading fleet? That was, after all, what he expected to do.
I don't know what individual servicemen feel after bombing their 'targets,' but what if they succeeded at a secret goal of genocide?
They do weather too.
"Weather modification will become a part of domestic and international security and could be done unilaterally... It could have offensive and defensive applications and even be used for deterrence purposes. The ability to generate precipitation, fog, and storms on earth or to modify space weather, ... and the production of artificial weather all are a part of an integrated set of technologies which can provide substantial increase in US, or degraded capability in an adversary, to achieve global awareness, reach, and power. (US Air Force, emphasis added. Air University of the US Air Force, AF 2025 Final Report, http://www.au.af.mil/au/2025/ emphasis added)"
The document, titled "Owning the Weather" was removed from the DOD web site shortly before Katrina in 2005.
ascott: Anybody here thinking: "Ender's Game"?
An astute observation... But that being said, a couple minor differences... Ender thought that he was still doing "training exercises" where as he was really killing the 'enemy'... also, after he had completed his 'xenocide', he was overcome with guilt and remorse.
Do you think that the US Servicemen feel remorse after bombing the crap out of something/someone?
Anybody here thinking: "Ender's Game"?
"The problem is that our "global reach" often exceeds the grasp of our collective wisdom to employ "global power" responsibly."
Our geed-driven, neocon agenda of "global reach" far exceeds any intention of employing whatever collective wisdom this country may generate. Wisdom has taken a back-seat to greed, which is why our empire is collapsing before our eyes.
This "above all" society functions in an external pattern, leaving its "collective" eyes to view life through the lens of images that are presented to us through a somewhat sophisticated and DEFINATELY manipulative mass media. In essence, we define our lives as they tell us we should; and in so doing, we have given them our wisdom along with our souls.
"Nobody falls as hard as a high flyer."
Siouxrose- And don't forget the DARPA 'Rods from God' space based weapons platform, that will in effect drop a tungsten carbide shaft at orbital velocities from Low Earth Orbit.
Now there's 'Air Force Above All!' for you...
I believe it was one of Tomdispatch's well-informed recent articles that explained in quite clear terms that modern warfare has disproportionately impacted citizens. If the aim of all these weapons is so-called "precision" attacks, then how DARE they cause so much "collateral" damage? The issue Tom and other journalists who have noted this criminal discrepancy relates is that there is NO such thing as precision! Although an equivalent civil war has broken out in Iraq, Seymour Hersh and other HONEST reporters have made it clear that thousands upon thousands have been KILLED in the air war complement to ground force containment via aggression.
The inhuman distance between the "professional" aiming his video-game-like apparatus and the MURDER of civilians should be universally taken as a war crime and PRE-EMPTED before such "games" are allowed (on the part of any nation, particularly the one that claims a Divine right towards exceptionalism) to begin!
The US seems to have a pathological need to dominate everything...
Kendpotter- If the US military, including the AIr Force was actually going to defend the US Constitution from 'all enemies foreign and DOMESTIC' they would have arrested, tried and executed Bush and his entire cabal for acts of high treason six years ago...
Galen
"The US Air Force is now no different than the Nazi Luftwaffe."
There is a crucial difference. Military people in this country swear oaths to uphold, protect, and defend the Constitution.
Nazi soldiers swore personal fealty to Adolph Hitler.
To John F. Butterfield: I had the same thought when I read that part of the article--As an Air Force veteran, (40 years ago during the Vietnam war) I am apalled at what this service has become. From the Christo-fascist indoctrination at the Air Force Acadamy and Pentagon command, to their desire for "full spectrum dominance" it is more disgusting than Herman Goering's Luftwaffe.
I should have understood the paradox of an organization whose largest part (the "Strategic Air Command") had as its motto "Peace is our Profession". At least back then they tried to look constructive,today they have no such pretense.
That "Army of One" slogan... applies to a flag-draped coffin.
~GALEN~ at 1.05pm, has brought up the most important point. Scary too.
Uber alles, uber alles, where have I heard that before?
[it now extends "to the shining stars and beyond."]
A glimpse of what the beyond might entail? Unfortunately it's real. But don't worry, the project ended in 1995. Wonder what else they're cooking up, eh?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stargate_Project
I'm reminded of a short-lived series on Sci-Fi called Space Above and Beyond.
"Missile Command"
For those who aren't familiar with this video game, you had charge of several ground-based missile sites, defending half a dozen cities (and the missile sites) from missiles coming down from top of screen.
The ironic part of highlighting this game is that you eventually lost, no matter how well you played.
The missiles kept coming, kept coming, until all your cities were obliterated (what a fun word!).
There was no winning in Missile Command. You could earn a high score, yet everybody you were trying so hard to protect was dead. Whoopee!
The Air Force's vision of total domination used to stop at the stratosphere.
That is incorrect. Since the 1950s, the Air Force has been responsible for developing space surveillance (e.g. the VELA Program) and of course ICBMs. And if I recall, there were more Air Force pilots in the Gemini/Apollo Programs than from the other military and civilian arms.
The Air Force started into remote "command and control" via the internet in the early 1990s, so this article is really a generation out of date: The Air Force already does this stuff and has so for a long time.
IF there is a future, what will it make of the people of the United States? What did they do with their incredible good fortune (to have been able to steal a nearly unspoiled continent from its inhabitants), how did they live, what is their legacy?
How will we be remembered? As bringers of "Freedom", or as the inventors of strategic and nuclear bombing? (read James Carrol's "House of War")
Into the Air, go the Junior Birdmen
Watch them fly, into the Sky!
I think the above is their anthem song. -grin-
Please remember that the AIR FORCE ACADEMY is now staffed heavily with Pro-Armageddon Christians who -want- to bring about 'The Rapture' and 'End Of Days'.
The US Air Force is now no different than the Nazi Luftwaffe.
Except, this time, the fascists have the nukes.
Slogans have always been amusing at best. I can remember the Army slogan Fun, Travel, Adventure F.T.A.
For those of us in the Army at the time it turned into F*** The Army. Now, at last I heard it was An Army of One. Couldn't quite figure out that one, an Army is not one, it's many, following orders.
Now this "Above All" When you look at actually how many people in the air force actually get off the ground, I can't quite understand this one either.
The Military has to really get some better writers.
Maybe "Death and Destruction From Above" would be a more suitable slogan.