I'm pretty confident about the categories. They can overlap some, but we're all one of the 3. I think this probably applies to most large bureaucratic institutions as well, which have come to dominate Western life.
I remember this campaign from when I was a boy. It could be a Mandela effect, but I recall there were two alternate tag lines: "You can do it..." and "Find your future..." ("...in the ARRRRMY").
I was only truly tempted to join up once, in the direct aftermath of 9/11. I sometimes wonder how that alternate-universe Mark's life would have branched out, what "future" we would've found.
But this zombie retread of the ad leaves me cold. Feels like just another skinwalker, wearing the pelt of what it killed. The ad about the girl with two moms is revolting, but feels more genuine to me.
CREED’s alleged behavior is reprehensible, it’s wrong to choke out women: and will give us exactly the guys we need, and frankly the gals who need us the most. Someone responsible has to take these poor souls in hand.
I have done my duty, and said what many think anyway.
One of the consequences of the Army becoming a longhouse is that it is not longer a great option for young men who need a strong father-type figure to square them away.
We can only do our best to not be delusional. It takes constant vigilance to avoid it as in this clown world it can be very adaptive. I don't think you're psychopathic, you seem to proficient at being able to understand other people's perspectives which requires empathy. I think most veterans are jaded. They no longer have an incentive to maintain self-deception, other than maybe to be proud of their accomplishments, but that's hard to do with GWOT. I've been watching Shawn Ryan interviews lately and watched him and Chris Van Zant coping with Iraq. They noted that Sadaam was a bad dude and did terrible things, including killing thousands. Well, the war resulted in over a million deaths, so I think that is a little self-deception. I don't begrudge them that, Sadaam was a bad dude, but if you can't fully accept that the benefits don't outweigh the costs then you can't prevent similar atrocities from happening in the future. I think the USG is facilitating atrocity in the slavlands right now by making the sides in that conflict more or less evenly matched. Is that not the worst case scenario for a war? Evenly matched opponents? I can't think of a better way to maximize carnage, misery, and death. Perhaps regime change in Russia is worth it to these people. I won't ever try to justify policy that will likely end with the destruction of trillions in capitol and another million+ deaths.
To look at OIF and toppling Saddam outside of the context of 9/11 is completely false, of course that tipped the scales fatally.
In the case of Saddam: prior to 98/99 he had kept and partially rejuvenated the industrial and technical base for Chem and bio - in 98 Clinton bombs him.
Then something very strange and very, very Arab chieftain happened -
1. He secretly destroyed it all
2. He didn't tell anyone, quite the opposite - he fronted that he still had WMD in particular Chemical as he wanted to keep his neighbors scared.
3. No one knew this except Saddam, Tariq Aziz, and Saddam's son in law - who had been killed in internal family politics before 2003, although he *may* have told the Americans in Jordan but not been believed.
4. As part of his massive, cast of thousands fake WMD deception Operation Saddam hides all this very actively from UN Inspectors. In the post 9/11 buildup to OIF in 2002 the UN Inspectors regime is consistently stymied, delayed, denied and satellite photos are made public of UN Inspectors at the gate of the sites being delayed or denied entry for inspection while truck convoys are seen running out the back. They are believed not unreasonably to be carrying WMD or evidence.
5. Saddam actually fooled the entire world including the Russians, all Middle Eastern Intelligence Agencies and the US Intelligence Agencies and the Media - and ME personally looking at the public evidence - that he has WMD. Also his own people.
Also his own Generals.
Also us, later.
6. It can be said in fairness that Saddam's Iraqi Operation Fake WMD [that Iraq had WMD] was one of the greatest deception Operations in History.
7. However Saddam does send a LTC, one Scott Ritter, UN Inspector with back channel message that he doesn't have the WMD anymore. Saddam greatly overestimates the influence of LTC's in the American System, in fairness it wouldn't occur to most countries to send peons as envoys to foreign lands, nor that the military in the actual American system are castrated, degraded slaves with less status than the White House cat or dog.
*** Foreign lands don't quite have the same relationship with their military's.**
8. It's noted that Saddam and Tariq Aziz both said Saddam had become fatalistic about being overthrown, he realized the USA was going to topple him no matter what...this is probably true.
9. As part of his Tough Guy overreaching, fatalistic going for broke Saddam's intelligence services met prior to 9/11 with Al Qaeda. This flirtation went no further as far as we can tell, and certainly we find no evidence of Iraqi involvement or foreknowledge of 9/11. But why not hint that 'maybe we did, maybe we didn't.'
This was actually done including by Saddam's evasive answer to Dan Rather 'everyone has the right of self defense', which was on the eve of the war Saddam's answer to Dan Rather's question 'Did Iraq have anything to do with 9/11?'
10. Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11 and had indeed gotten rid of the WMD.
11. Iraq ALSO via Saddam flirted with AQ prior to 9/11, hinted that they were maybe involved, maybe not, had long standing ties to terrorist groups [mind you, they also killed Abu Nidal in Iraq just before invasion], Iraq ALSO mounted an enormous Deception with a cast of thousands that they were hiding something HUGE about their WMD and INDEED they were....that they had secretly destroyed the WMD and wanted to pretend they still had them to frighten off neighbors.
Yes, all this is what happened.
12. You would have to go to the Middle East and Iraq, Salah Ah Din province and deal with the Iraqi 'leadership' to believe that this bizarre tale is even possible.
You have to go and meet these jokers to begin to grasp how twisted their words and logic are, but it makes sense to THEM.
So I remain Jaded, but I don't for a moment believe that we or anyone living besides Saddam and Tariq Aziz knew, KNEW that the WMD was gone, or that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11 and only a meeting or 2 with AQ.
That all resonates, but it doesn't account for the fact that the Project for a New American Century signatories (including Rumsfeld and Cheney) expressed interest in regime change in Iraq prior to 9/11. It is also my understanding that Rumsfeld called for the IC to develop a narrative connecting Iraq to 9/11 within 24 hours. Fortunately for them all of the things you've indicated here made is possible to generate a plausible narrative. I still very much doubt that it would've been put together and we would have gone to war without a substantial contribution of motivated reasoning.
I saw the reference to Lorenzo's essays in your other substack and started on them - thank you. Holding by #7. They are a bit rambling. As they say, he needs an editor.
So far the most intetesting idea I found in those essays is why people mistake wokeness for Marxism, while it's obviously not. His answer (at least in my interpretation) is that while not the same, they are morphologically similar.
Now, can you please spell out what *you* find interesting / relevant in those essays? Because I am not sure I understand how you connect them to your ideas.
Yeah, I didn't do a great job of connecting the dots. What I like from Warby is his introduction to the concept of efficient self-deception. People often consider self-deception as a universally negative thing, but I think it is critical to realize that it is highly beneficial in the short run in late stage bureaucracy. McConkey's Biological Realism provides a similarly useful framework by talking of PCBM traits. Helen is a pro novelist so I'm sure that when they put the book together it will be solid. Does that make sense? Please keep asking questions if not, I feel like I'm onto something here but that it is drawing on a lot of priors that I have that I know aren't widely shared.
For me the idea of self-deception as the effective method of others-deception had long ago become part of my set of indisputable facts. I encountered it for the first time at least 10 years ago, probably more. I don't even remember where for the first time.
Its not just that it helps deceive others, it can also help you perform better. In the context of the military I think a great example is WWII. From what we knew about the Nazis they weren't any more evil than the progressives in the U.S. In fact, when a lot of people think about what makes Nazi ideology evil, they rightly think of eugenics. Well, they got that from the U.S. and people like supreme court justice Oliver Wendall Holmes. Also, Stalin wasn't any better and they ended up being our allies. Best not to think about any of that when you have a war to fight. Nazis are evil and they all deserve to die, and if we don't take them out, they'll destroy our way of life. Same thing with the Japanese. They attacked us with a sneak attack totally unprovoked. It doesn't help you to know that it was *probably* provoked. Anyway, the article I wrote about there being a spiritual crisis in the military is really just saying that foreign policy has been so egregiously contrary to the interests of the American people for the last 50 years that I can't even think of a narrative that a typical American could use to justify us even having a military at this point, especially with our leadership saying LGBTQ+ rights are the cornerstone of our foreign policy and DEI and climate change are the biggest challenges facing our country. China and Russia? Neither China nor Russia want a conventional war with the U.S. It isn't in anyone's interest. Fighting the GWOT never made sense to me, but I could see how it made sense to a typical American.
A simpler example of efficient self delusion might be the would-be pro athlete's conviction that they are the best, and absolutely will succeed if they train. Statistically... no, no they won't. Between tons of competition and just bad luck (getting injured) chances are they won't make it to the big leagues. However, if they don't go all in they definitely won't. So the efficient level of self deception is something like "I am pretty accurate about my relative skill levels so I know I have a chance, but I am going to believe it is almost a certainty so I get up and train every morning instead of saying 'fuck it', going back to bed, and becoming an accountant."
Even more universal might be the self deception that we aren't going to die and no one will remember us after a hundred years, and nothing we did will matter much. That's less fun to think about though :D
That summary of the leadership that you give is at the core of a lot of people's confusion over how to interpret the U.S. military.
I'm pretty confident about the categories. They can overlap some, but we're all one of the 3. I think this probably applies to most large bureaucratic institutions as well, which have come to dominate Western life.
I remember this campaign from when I was a boy. It could be a Mandela effect, but I recall there were two alternate tag lines: "You can do it..." and "Find your future..." ("...in the ARRRRMY").
I was only truly tempted to join up once, in the direct aftermath of 9/11. I sometimes wonder how that alternate-universe Mark's life would have branched out, what "future" we would've found.
But this zombie retread of the ad leaves me cold. Feels like just another skinwalker, wearing the pelt of what it killed. The ad about the girl with two moms is revolting, but feels more genuine to me.
A Duty falls to me. I am a creature of Duty.
CREED’s alleged behavior is reprehensible, it’s wrong to choke out women: and will give us exactly the guys we need, and frankly the gals who need us the most. Someone responsible has to take these poor souls in hand.
I have done my duty, and said what many think anyway.
🤣
One of the consequences of the Army becoming a longhouse is that it is not longer a great option for young men who need a strong father-type figure to square them away.
Good Deflection Sir.
I should self identify as Jaded here. I might be psychopathic.
I think disillusioned rules out delusional.
We can only do our best to not be delusional. It takes constant vigilance to avoid it as in this clown world it can be very adaptive. I don't think you're psychopathic, you seem to proficient at being able to understand other people's perspectives which requires empathy. I think most veterans are jaded. They no longer have an incentive to maintain self-deception, other than maybe to be proud of their accomplishments, but that's hard to do with GWOT. I've been watching Shawn Ryan interviews lately and watched him and Chris Van Zant coping with Iraq. They noted that Sadaam was a bad dude and did terrible things, including killing thousands. Well, the war resulted in over a million deaths, so I think that is a little self-deception. I don't begrudge them that, Sadaam was a bad dude, but if you can't fully accept that the benefits don't outweigh the costs then you can't prevent similar atrocities from happening in the future. I think the USG is facilitating atrocity in the slavlands right now by making the sides in that conflict more or less evenly matched. Is that not the worst case scenario for a war? Evenly matched opponents? I can't think of a better way to maximize carnage, misery, and death. Perhaps regime change in Russia is worth it to these people. I won't ever try to justify policy that will likely end with the destruction of trillions in capitol and another million+ deaths.
Saddam and 2003 are an odd case.
To look at OIF and toppling Saddam outside of the context of 9/11 is completely false, of course that tipped the scales fatally.
In the case of Saddam: prior to 98/99 he had kept and partially rejuvenated the industrial and technical base for Chem and bio - in 98 Clinton bombs him.
Then something very strange and very, very Arab chieftain happened -
1. He secretly destroyed it all
2. He didn't tell anyone, quite the opposite - he fronted that he still had WMD in particular Chemical as he wanted to keep his neighbors scared.
3. No one knew this except Saddam, Tariq Aziz, and Saddam's son in law - who had been killed in internal family politics before 2003, although he *may* have told the Americans in Jordan but not been believed.
4. As part of his massive, cast of thousands fake WMD deception Operation Saddam hides all this very actively from UN Inspectors. In the post 9/11 buildup to OIF in 2002 the UN Inspectors regime is consistently stymied, delayed, denied and satellite photos are made public of UN Inspectors at the gate of the sites being delayed or denied entry for inspection while truck convoys are seen running out the back. They are believed not unreasonably to be carrying WMD or evidence.
5. Saddam actually fooled the entire world including the Russians, all Middle Eastern Intelligence Agencies and the US Intelligence Agencies and the Media - and ME personally looking at the public evidence - that he has WMD. Also his own people.
Also his own Generals.
Also us, later.
6. It can be said in fairness that Saddam's Iraqi Operation Fake WMD [that Iraq had WMD] was one of the greatest deception Operations in History.
7. However Saddam does send a LTC, one Scott Ritter, UN Inspector with back channel message that he doesn't have the WMD anymore. Saddam greatly overestimates the influence of LTC's in the American System, in fairness it wouldn't occur to most countries to send peons as envoys to foreign lands, nor that the military in the actual American system are castrated, degraded slaves with less status than the White House cat or dog.
*** Foreign lands don't quite have the same relationship with their military's.**
8. It's noted that Saddam and Tariq Aziz both said Saddam had become fatalistic about being overthrown, he realized the USA was going to topple him no matter what...this is probably true.
9. As part of his Tough Guy overreaching, fatalistic going for broke Saddam's intelligence services met prior to 9/11 with Al Qaeda. This flirtation went no further as far as we can tell, and certainly we find no evidence of Iraqi involvement or foreknowledge of 9/11. But why not hint that 'maybe we did, maybe we didn't.'
This was actually done including by Saddam's evasive answer to Dan Rather 'everyone has the right of self defense', which was on the eve of the war Saddam's answer to Dan Rather's question 'Did Iraq have anything to do with 9/11?'
10. Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11 and had indeed gotten rid of the WMD.
11. Iraq ALSO via Saddam flirted with AQ prior to 9/11, hinted that they were maybe involved, maybe not, had long standing ties to terrorist groups [mind you, they also killed Abu Nidal in Iraq just before invasion], Iraq ALSO mounted an enormous Deception with a cast of thousands that they were hiding something HUGE about their WMD and INDEED they were....that they had secretly destroyed the WMD and wanted to pretend they still had them to frighten off neighbors.
Yes, all this is what happened.
12. You would have to go to the Middle East and Iraq, Salah Ah Din province and deal with the Iraqi 'leadership' to believe that this bizarre tale is even possible.
You have to go and meet these jokers to begin to grasp how twisted their words and logic are, but it makes sense to THEM.
So I remain Jaded, but I don't for a moment believe that we or anyone living besides Saddam and Tariq Aziz knew, KNEW that the WMD was gone, or that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11 and only a meeting or 2 with AQ.
That all resonates, but it doesn't account for the fact that the Project for a New American Century signatories (including Rumsfeld and Cheney) expressed interest in regime change in Iraq prior to 9/11. It is also my understanding that Rumsfeld called for the IC to develop a narrative connecting Iraq to 9/11 within 24 hours. Fortunately for them all of the things you've indicated here made is possible to generate a plausible narrative. I still very much doubt that it would've been put together and we would have gone to war without a substantial contribution of motivated reasoning.
This is all true. Something on the maybe list - Saddam gone - went on the 2Do list. Saddam could not have made it easier, or more necessary.
I would have used nuclear weapons on 5-7 countries by late September. I would again if it happened again. They were terrified at the time we would.
They would.
We should have.
It’s not vengeance, it’s making the point.
War is a cruel teacher,
so pay attention.
You really have to meet these people to believe the levels of deception.
I saw the reference to Lorenzo's essays in your other substack and started on them - thank you. Holding by #7. They are a bit rambling. As they say, he needs an editor.
So far the most intetesting idea I found in those essays is why people mistake wokeness for Marxism, while it's obviously not. His answer (at least in my interpretation) is that while not the same, they are morphologically similar.
Now, can you please spell out what *you* find interesting / relevant in those essays? Because I am not sure I understand how you connect them to your ideas.
Yeah, I didn't do a great job of connecting the dots. What I like from Warby is his introduction to the concept of efficient self-deception. People often consider self-deception as a universally negative thing, but I think it is critical to realize that it is highly beneficial in the short run in late stage bureaucracy. McConkey's Biological Realism provides a similarly useful framework by talking of PCBM traits. Helen is a pro novelist so I'm sure that when they put the book together it will be solid. Does that make sense? Please keep asking questions if not, I feel like I'm onto something here but that it is drawing on a lot of priors that I have that I know aren't widely shared.
Ah, got it. Ty.
For me the idea of self-deception as the effective method of others-deception had long ago become part of my set of indisputable facts. I encountered it for the first time at least 10 years ago, probably more. I don't even remember where for the first time.
Its not just that it helps deceive others, it can also help you perform better. In the context of the military I think a great example is WWII. From what we knew about the Nazis they weren't any more evil than the progressives in the U.S. In fact, when a lot of people think about what makes Nazi ideology evil, they rightly think of eugenics. Well, they got that from the U.S. and people like supreme court justice Oliver Wendall Holmes. Also, Stalin wasn't any better and they ended up being our allies. Best not to think about any of that when you have a war to fight. Nazis are evil and they all deserve to die, and if we don't take them out, they'll destroy our way of life. Same thing with the Japanese. They attacked us with a sneak attack totally unprovoked. It doesn't help you to know that it was *probably* provoked. Anyway, the article I wrote about there being a spiritual crisis in the military is really just saying that foreign policy has been so egregiously contrary to the interests of the American people for the last 50 years that I can't even think of a narrative that a typical American could use to justify us even having a military at this point, especially with our leadership saying LGBTQ+ rights are the cornerstone of our foreign policy and DEI and climate change are the biggest challenges facing our country. China and Russia? Neither China nor Russia want a conventional war with the U.S. It isn't in anyone's interest. Fighting the GWOT never made sense to me, but I could see how it made sense to a typical American.
A simpler example of efficient self delusion might be the would-be pro athlete's conviction that they are the best, and absolutely will succeed if they train. Statistically... no, no they won't. Between tons of competition and just bad luck (getting injured) chances are they won't make it to the big leagues. However, if they don't go all in they definitely won't. So the efficient level of self deception is something like "I am pretty accurate about my relative skill levels so I know I have a chance, but I am going to believe it is almost a certainty so I get up and train every morning instead of saying 'fuck it', going back to bed, and becoming an accountant."
Even more universal might be the self deception that we aren't going to die and no one will remember us after a hundred years, and nothing we did will matter much. That's less fun to think about though :D
This is a great example showing when it is useful and rational.
Somewhere between the two examples you give is the self-delusion of small-business startups.
Now that they’ve lost the CREED demographic-which in truth they lost with COVAX, no one has more earned and justified distrust- wonder what’s next?
“Air Force-It’s a great way of life”
“The Navy- it’s not a job, it’s an adventure.”
“We do more (💩) before 9 O’Clock than most people do all day.”
“An Army of One.” - this one is rapidly becoming true.