New Rules of Engagement in Afghanistan

When the United States announced its new Rules of Engagement Policy regarding its Conflict in Afghanistan with the Taliban, we, in effect, learned what the old Rules of Engagement were.  It seem that the Obama Administration, in order to persuade the Taliban to go lightly on the Americans, since the Americans were planning on significantly ratcheting down their presence to a skeleton of what it had been, committed to the policy of Fighting Only When Attacked.  Basically it was “If you don’t screw with us, we won’t screw with you”; “live and let live”; “be smart enough to let a sleeping dog lie”.  Such a policy would allow for as much ‘peace’ as could be expected in a Nation where ‘war’ has become perhaps their biggest money making ‘Industry’.  You see, from the Taliban point of view, if the Americans stopped being such a nuisance then they could certainly be tolerated to stay, since they were no slackers in regards to paying their way.   The Americans were spending tons of money in the Country, much of it going to the Taliban as ‘protection money’ ( you see, there were ‘Security Companies’ that were contracted by Afghanistan Businesses, Municipalities and even by the American Armed Forces to ‘protect’ certain areas, roads, buildings, etc.  But these Security Companies merely channeled the lion’s share of the money to the Taliban to persuade them to keep their distance. ), and I would suppose even the Afghan Government, the nominal sworn enemies of the Taliban would divert funds to the Taliban so that they would come out and fight every once in a while, but nothing too severe.  You see, as soon as there is any true and lasting Peace in Afghanistan, America would simply pack up its Billion Dollar War Machine and go home.  After all, America is now sworn to never ever again to engage in ‘Nation Building’ but would be perfectly willing to stay forever as long as there is a Fight.   So if it is a Fight they want, then it is a Fight they’ll get… even if it has to be Stage Played.   Without War Afghanistan would only have the opium and heroin Trade to pay all its bills, and prices there have dipped since the American Pharmaceutical Companies have flooded the American Drug Markets with cheap ‘black market’ opioid pills (if not the work of the Board of Directors, we can well imagine that in any big Pill Factory that nobody can actually counts every single pill that the machines spit out, thousands each second, and if there ARE numbers, that such numbers can’t be played with.  I suppose in each big Pill Factory there must be at least 50 workers and Managers who have gone into business for themselves, carrying home a lunch pail or briefcase full of pills every day.  Oh, and then there could be the Conspiratorial Partnerships, where some middle level Production Manager teams up with a Shipping Clerk to ship complete crates of Pills to some ‘shell company’ address somewhere, while erasing any Paperwork Trail of the bogus transaction.   And then certain foreign Generic Factories probably don’t even have to hide it, except to be careful how they ship the pills in.  You can only imagine how many things that get shipped across the border which are basically hollow and can be filled with pills, and the drug dogs at America’s International Airports aren’t trained to go crazy about ‘prescription drugs’, and the Big Overnight Shipping Companies don’t even wait for Customs Inspections anyway and packages go almost directly from plane to delivery truck… yeah, I wonder how that works, but that’s another story), so with the bottom knocked out of the Opium Trade Afghanistan would go broke without the War.  So I suppose the tacit policy of both the Afghan Government and the Taliban was to fight just enough to keep America interested, involved and reliably reaching to pick up the check and pay the bill.  

 

Now, certainly, there must be Career Government People, Military Leaders and even some Politicians who see what’s going on.  And, yes, there are actually some people who react in repulsion to such a suggestion that the War is largely artificial.  For instance, a few years back when the Fight in Afghanistan was an International Affair, that is, when America was diplomatically ‘twisting arms’ of other Nations to join the Fight, well, there was a situation where the French sent in a few Battalions and they stayed a year, and were to be replaced by a Detachment of Italians.  Well, the Italians were pleased because apparently they were going to be in a Really Quiet Zone.  But the French, before leaving, told the Italians that such Tranquility was no Accident, but that it was relatively cheap to procure.  They wrote out a Name and a Phone Number and told the Italians what they could expect to pay for a Year’s Vacation.  Well, the Italians bulked as such a dishonorable suggestion and swore they wouldn’t give a lead lira for any favors.  The French shrugged their shoulders and left to go home to their Hero’s Parade.  It seems the Taliban were miffed enough at the Italians for their attitude, that they moved their forces around, and though the Region was strategically a nowhere land, it was suddenly the focal point of intense fighting.  So a great number of the Italians died for nothing else but Honor, and they didn’t even save any money.  To rebuild their shattered garrison it cost ten times what the Payoff would have been.   The Americans also reacted poorly in a similar situation when they ‘discovered’ or the Press found out that a Security Company was paying off the Taliban to allow the major supply route road to stay open.  You think the Press would know when to shut up.  So the American’s, knuckling under to He-Man Macho Political Pressure, had to fire the ‘corrupt’ Security Company and actually Fight to keep the Supply Road open.  Well the Road was hundreds of miles long, and suddenly the Taliban was contesting every inch of it.  And the American’s had to do all this Fighting while being strangled for Supplies (duh!).  I suppose hundreds of American’s died because back then the public was still taking the Press seriously.  Now, the Military would just have to call it all of bunch of Fake News and keep with the  Program that’s working just fine. Or maybe it was the case that the Military really  was appalled and decided to Fight instead of Pay.  Yes, it boggles the mind, but there are crazy people like that.  Italians aren’t the only people will to die for nothing better than Honor.

 

Oh, wait!  Remember General Petraeus and the Iraqi Surge.  Basically, the Key to his Strategy was to pay off the Sunni Tribes to stop fighting against the Americans.  He even armed them so they could offset the Shia Militias.  Now that is a Guy who would have had no qualms about paying the Taliban to keep the roads open.  I wonder how much he would have paid them to ‘take’ certain Provincial Towns so that the American’s could pretend to Win Battles taking them back again.  If Petraeus was no real hero, he certainly knew how to act like one.  A real John Wayne.   But was Petraeus uniquely cynical or are they ALL like that?  Interesting question.  But it’s not simply a question of being either Honorable or a Scoundrel, but also of either being either Smart or Stupid.  This is not Morally or Intellectually just a 2-dimensional Picture.      

 

Anyway, the New Engagement Policy will roll back the Old Engagement Policy and go back to the ‘Fight to Win’ Policy that was utilized back when Americans had upwards of 100,000 Troops in the Country, that they would admit to, and who know how many Foreign.  You have to wonder what the heck the American Generals are now thinking.  If America with its International Allies could not suppress the Taliban with such a huge super Army, how do they think they will do with just a tiny fraction of that number?  There are only 13,000 Troops in Country right now.  The Trump Administration has alienated any possible Allies.  You know, what Foreign Soldier from anywhere in the World would want to serve under the current American President, and no Nation’s Public would sit quietly and allow its Sons and Daughters to be taken up to fight under the command of the current American President.  Adolf Hitler during the mid-1930’s was more Internationally Popular than Donald Trump is today.   

 

Then we must consider that the Taliban has only grown stronger.  It’s been 7 years since the last serious fighting, and that means that Taliban boys who were 9 years old back then are now 16.  In America these kids would be playing High School Foot Ball, and it would be a pretty good game.  And these Kids would need minimal Military Training to fight alongside their fathers.  Just think about who they are and where they come from.  The Taliban have been at War almost constantly since 1980.  Every night when they sit down to family dinner they hear stories about the glorious bravery of those who died, and the cunning cleverness of those who lived.  From mother’s milk on these kids have heard every detail of every Battle ever won or lost.  From the time they were three years old, every stick on the ground was a Toy and that Toy was some kind of Gun or Grenade Launcher.  These Kids will go up against American who go through an 8 Week Boot Camp, and then business as usual Field Training when they go out to their units.  That’s okay as Modern Developed Nation Armies go, but the Taliban Kids were born and raised to be Fighters.  And they have learned all the lessons of Modern American Warfare.  Hmmmm … unless the Americans have something new up their sleeves… well, Drones are relatively new and can be mighty pesky.  But Drone Technology now is too limited and spotty to weigh in significantly in any full scale battle campaign.  A Concept that would Work would be Artificial Intelligence Drones that would simply go out and identify and kill Taliban Fighters and do it night and day, around the clock.  They wouldn’t have to be very big either.  I don’t know why they make Drones so large.  They are virtually the same size as the planes they are replacing.  Well, Planes were designed big so they could carry human pilots and big heavy old ‘dumb’ bombs.  But with Artificial Intelligence Weapon’s Systems and Targeting, a killer drone wouldn’t have to be much larger than a seagull or an eagle.  You could even have one big Mother Drone (half the size of small single engine Cessna, so the “Big Mother Drone” would be kind of small too) circling high above which could refuel and rearm its Baby Drones.  The Baby Drones, with fixed wing, and not those noisy slow helicopter things that the Taliban could swat like flies, could identify a target from up high (or use Targeting Info from the Mother), cut power and go into a silent dive where it would buzz close enough to shoot one small caliber bullet into the head of its target (the accuracy of its aim assured by using the same Image Stabilization circuitry that steadies the video in almost every cheap camera sold today), then  the Baby Drone would rev back up and climb back up to ‘Mommy’ to dock and take on another load so it could make another pass.  You don’t need a 2500 lbs. drone carrying 250 lbs. missiles that price tag out at two and a half million dollars in order to kill somebody when a 20 cent 22 bullet from a $2000 Baby Drone could do the same thing.   It would kill somebody just as dead.   But so far I haven’t heard that the Americans are fielding any such Weapon’s Systems.   It seems that   Generals are generally slow and stupid when it comes to adopting Innovations.  Only during Major Total Wars where Nations are Fighting for their Survival do the Generals seem to allow themselves to be influenced by Technologies and that is only because they see themselves running out of bodies that they can through into the Battle (for instance, in World War I the British had prototype Tanks almost from the very start of the War but resisted the very idea of them, that is until they suffered so many losses that by 1917 they were entertaining the idea of bringing tanks onto the Battlefield to replace the men they no longer had, but then America came into the War with the promise that there would be thousands of new bodies to toss into the Mauls of Death, so the Tank was again put on the strategic backburner.)

 

Anyway, I wonder whether the American Generals genuinely realize what they are getting into.  Maybe they think that what fighting they have seen from the Taliban in these last few Slow Years has been everything they got, and so they suppose that it wouldn’t take much more to knock them over completely.  Maybe they don’t realize that Obama’s Engagement Rules actually served to encourage the Taliban to cut way back, and to hold most of their material and personnel assets in reserve in order to consolidate, rebuild and re-arm, probably for the eventuality that when America does leave, the Taliban can quickly pounce on Kabul Puppet Regime and return Afghanistan to the 2001 Status Quo.

 

America could be unloosing on itself an avalanche of the best insurgent fighters in the World today (a mix of salty old ‘unkillable’ Vets and zealous young athletes) who have behind them warehouses (or ‘warecaves’) full of new weapons, stockpiles of ammo, and enough high explosives to place an Improvised Explosive Device on every other square inch that America wishes to step on or near.  And it wasn’t some stupid Trump idea, either.  These are Career Generals we are talking about!  But, on the other hand, Trump did use his Presidential Powers to reshuffle the top levels of the Chain of Command at the Pentagon.  I suppose the Moron might have put the Block Heads in charge.  Maybe all the Big Thinking is being done by a guy called Mad Dog.

 

If I were a Ground Pounder in the American Services, I would be nervous right about now.  When you kiss your wives goodbye it’d probably be a good idea to tell them that it’s okay if they make plans without you.  And then with as much peace of mind as you can muster, jump up on your horse and ride off to your own Little Big Horn.   

Successful Negotiations with North Korea

Certain Presidents of the United States are continuously repeating the notion that Negotiations with North Korea have been “failing” for the last several decades and that it is time to take a new tact.

 

Well, we need to ask ourselves “What constitutes a Successful Negotiation?”  If we want Peace then we can say that Negotiations are “Successful” as long as Peace is maintained.   Well, the President said it himself, that nothing has changed for decades with North Korea.  Well, we have been At Peace that whole time, haven’t we?   And President Trump seems set on the Idea of ‘changing all that’.

 

Yes, I have heard that the President feels that our Negotiators have been humiliated because they have not gotten all that they have asked for.  Well, I can see that Political Appointees might be subject to ‘feelings’ such as ‘humiliation’, but seasoned professional diplomatic personnel are above such pettiness.  I suppose it is like Professional Pig Farmers not taking the Squeals personally.    

 

Besides, Trump is being a bit simplistic about the History of Negotiations with North Korea, even when taken on his own terms.   I can suspect that Trump ignores all his Official Briefings on the Subject, if he permits himself to be briefed at all, but opens his mind only to what he gets from FOX TV.   And what I don’t expect he would ever hear from FOX TV is that the Clinton Administration successfully negotiated a Treaty with North Korea which put an end to their program for uranium enrichment – they actually shut down their one and only reactor and it was indeed verified that they filled the entire installation with concrete.  But there was a change of Administrations from the Clinton to the Bush, and a new Republican Dominated Senate refused to abide by the Stipulations of the Treaty.  You see, the United States had agreed to build or have built several Oil Burning Power Plants and to supply the Oil.  Bush and his Senate, arguing only that the North Korean’s “couldn’t be trusted” were actually the ones to renege on the Treaty.  Yes, maybe details were found that North Korea was not complying with, but history apparently found them so insignificant as to forget what they were.  Besides, the Devil in many of these Treaties are the Small Details.  If you look hard enough you can always find some violations somewhere.   It is sort of like a 55mph speed limit on a Las Angeles freeway.  The Cops could really just pull over anybody, couldn’t they?   It reminds me of one of Iraq’s ‘Compliance Failures’ prior to Baby Bush’s Invasion.  A certain DD Form was not filed.  Iraq argued that they did not even use that DD Form (an American Department of Defense Form) but the Bush State Department, eager for War, was able to point down in Subparagraph aaa.211c on page 578 that such a DD Form was indeed specifically required.  “There!  We caught you!”

 

Of course, this suggests the notion that the American Diplomatic Corps is actively deceitful.  However, in my heart of heart, I only suspect deceit from the Political Appointees.  The Career Professional Diplomatic Corps is probably less likely to lie, cheat, deceive and play clever Lawyer Tricks with the Truth then are Politicians and their crony Appointees.   

 

Oh, and the Trump Administration may offer an instance were no Diplomats are involved at all, or not significantly involved.   You see, Trump has surrounded himself with the Military.  In all previous American Administrations there was a clear separation between the Departments of State, which dealt with the Diplomatic Relations among other Nations, and the Department of War, which was subsequently euphemized into being called the Department of “Defense” even though the great majority of American Military Adventures are not defensive at all.  But my main point here is that diplomats have been largely removed from the equation.   America relies on it Military People to Negotiate Peace.  But I do not see this Task as anything that would come easily to any American Military Man.  You see, America has too long a tradition of demanding Unconditional Surrenders.  You see, if you examine History you will find that Demanding Unconditional Surrenders prolongs Wars.  After all, how can you REALLY ask anybody to surrender and put down their arms unless they have Some Idea what they are Surrendering to?   An Unconditional Surrender essentially implies the understanding that the Victor can slaughter every man, rape and then kill every woman and child, bulldoze every building, and then salt the earth.  You know, sort of like Israel would like to do with Gaza.   Considering such a serious drawbacks, one could then wonder why the Idea of Unconditional Surrender became so dominantly popular among the Militarists.  Well, we need to ask ourselves “who gets to Negotiate ‘Conditioned’ Surrenders?”   It would be the Military Field Commanders who would make the deals in order to secure the Surrenders of a City here, an Enemy Commander there, or perhaps even an entire Nation.   For instance, when Napoleon Bonaparte was still just a General he had secured the subjugation of Italy not just on the Battlefield but through Negotiations arrived at largely on his own Terms.  The Italians laid down their Arms because Napoleon offered ‘Conditions’ they could live with.  But back in Paris the Politicians felt that Napoleon had failed to say “pretty please”.  

 

So America, spoiled by Easy Wars where they come in at the end of brutal conflicts between other Nations to finish off crippled and weakened foes (such as with both of the World Wars), or tiny little Nations whose Military Assets are dwarfed by America’s casual Military Might (such as Iraq and Serbia), has Normalized the Habit of insisting always on Unconditional Surrenders.  Generals are simply supposed to Fight to Win and to let the Politicians and State Department do all the Heavy Lifting were THINKING is concerned.  THAT has been part and parcel of American Military Culture now since the Civil War in the 1860’s, from the days of Ulysses S

. “Unconditional Surrender” Grant”.   So this inflexible American Military way of dealing with Conflicts not only prolongs and protracts Wars but makes Negotiations impossible as the Generals seem to insist upon Unconditional Preconditions even before the very first Talks can commence.   This is also how Israel has avoided Peace for so long.  Israel insists that the Palestinians refuse to Talk when actually they mean that Palestine refuses to Unconditionally Surrender;… that if the Palestinians want to be able to “talk” about how many men, women and children won’t be put to the sword; how many buildings won’t be bulldozed, and how much earth won’t be salted then they need to concede that Israel has the perfect right to do all that if it really wants to. 

 

Anyway, America needs to bring back its Professional Diplomatic Corps.  If Just Talking can stave off War, then Just Talking would be a wonderfully effective tactic, wouldn’t it?  Of course, here again, America, under Trump, has been stymied.   You see, the present Secretary of State, while more sensible than most of Trump’s cronies, is still seriously suffering from a career spent engaged in a self-deluding state of tunnel vision and wishful thinking.  He was CEO of a Big Corporation where things are not run on the Basis of Information Intelligence but on the basis of CEO hunches and guesses which are supported by a multilevel cadre of Yes Men and Butt Kissers.  That is how Capitalism Works.  They claim it to be very successful, but this is only because Capitalists of the same stripe largely monopolize ALL the Big Corporations, so they really simply don’t have any Intelligent Competition to compare to, or at least not in America where they control who gets funds from the Big Corporate Banks.   So, America now has a Spoiled Rich-Brat Hunch Artist as Secretary of State who has marginalized his Career Diplomats, and even Downsized his own State Department, guaranteeing that his own Power to Accomplish Anything would be eviscerated and marginal.    He effectively presided over the poisoning of the well he would be expected to drink from. 

 

So, looking objectively at it all, I would say that prospects for Peace are rather dismal if one were relying only upon America.  I suppose the World will have to cross its collective fingers and hope that North Korea, China, Russia and perhaps Europe can pull together enough influence to keep America from rashly jumping into a needless and perhaps catastrophic War.   But, even the World seems to be behaving irrationally here.  It seems that the World’s Solution is to implement a colossal framework of draconian Sanctions designed to totally strangle North Korea’s Economy and make them Totally Desperate.   Yes, Economic Sanctions worked in bringing Iran to the Peace Table, something that  the Trump Administration now so little appreciates.  But Iran has a huge Politically Active Business and Middle Class which even their Hard Liners need to recognize and placate on occasion.  And Iran actually does have Elections.  But with North Korea the World seems to want to commit a Genocidal Slaughter using Starvation, Disease and Civil Discord as their Weapons (three of the Horseman of the Apocalypse to save us from the fourth which is War, which would probably ride in anyway).   The World’s hope with these Sanctions is to be able to leverage the policies that come entirely from only One Man (“kill the Snake’s Body and the Head will die too”).  Or maybe the World hopes that there will be a Rebellion before everyone dies.  However, in the Real World, we know that one can Maintain Order simply be feeding the Order Maintainers.   For instance, if we look to some very unfortunate occurrences in History, we can discern a number of clues as to how the Nazis ran their repressive and murderous Concentration Camps.  They could not afford to commit a great many Military Personnel to maintaining these Camps, so they set up a Privilege System among the Inmates themselves.  The Privileged Inmates got fed only so long as they were able to maintain order.  So maintaining order is what they did.   Perhaps this could raise questions about all the Holocaust Survivors we heard and know about.  How was it that THEY survived when everyone else died?  And of course to know the Truth about it we have only the word of the Survivors – the “Truth” is whatever Story they decide on, isn’t it?   The Dead can’t argue, can they?   It is probably much like Battlefield Survivors, were the Courageous and the Heroic who exposed themselves to Enemy Fire and are Killed, but those who dodge and duck and manage to keep their heads down survive.  Heaven only knows what ‘Lone Survivors’ do, or don’t do, in order to stay alive, and we could expect that few would freely admit to deserting and waiting back in the Woods, tucked under a log, until all the firing stopped.    In such terrible and unfortunate circumstances we can almost certainly be sure that the Dead are much more noble than the Living, and so it is a shame that they were the ones who had to die.   It seems to be Evolution working in Reverse – the Survival of the Least Morally Fit.  But to get back on point, from a Regime as sophisticated and Worldly Wise and free of Sentimental Illusions as the North Korean Regime, we could expect that even a significant proportion of the Population could suffer and die while the Regime would still be able to struggle on.  And if the Regime is ever confronted by the situation where its Armed and Well Trained Army becomes desperate and can no longer be placated and relied upon, well, then What Would the Regime Lose by Going to Nuclear War?

 

Hmmmm.  I better keep thinking about all of this, because from where I see it now, I honestly don’t believe there is any hope.  It’s like every player on the Field is doing their utmost best to screw it all up.  Maybe it will be good for Wall Street – using Short Contracts they can effectively Sell High, right before the World Cataclysmic Apocalypse, and then Buy it all Back REALLY Low.  Not much will be left, of course, but at least they will be able to say they own Everything… oh wait, they already do.   As I said, it doesn’t seem to make any sense at all, does it?

Open Letter to North Korea’s Kim Jung On

 

Dear Chairman Kim,

I am an American and have heard of your determination to defend North Korea and that you believe that you are now in a state of War with the United States.   Given what you believe you know, of course all of your actions would seem to be warranted; however, I believe you are unaware of just how much the current President of the United States is being effectively contained.   Of course you know that President Trump has absolutely no experience with Politics or with Leadership.  Nobody under him is really loyal to him or even needs to be.   The worst that can happen to any of these Underlings is that they will lose their Job, and under this Current President, losing their Job is perhaps the Best Career move they could make.  You see, everyone hates the current President.  It is really no secret.   You yourself have described him perfectly and every official American in Washington D.C. begrudgingly agrees with you.   

 

But you worry that the current President can still give orders.  Well, that is true only up to a point.  The President has surrounded himself with Career Military Officers.  The President himself was only a Real Estate Developer in an Economy where the institutionalized Tax Structure and Bankruptcy Laws made it virtually impossible to fail, and even given that, every Real Estate Developer in America who started at the same time as Trump with one tenth the money, is now at least 10 times as Rich.   So you can easily imagine what his Career Military Officers must think of their President.    His present Chief of Staff, a Retired Field Marshal, is rumored to have 3 things always on his person – the first is a signed letter from a Doctor stating that President Trump is incompetent.  The second thing is a copy of the 25^th Amendment stating that an “incompetent” president can be summarily relived from  Duty, and the 3^rd thing is high pressure syringe stick that can blast a strong sedative into the President even through his suit jacket which could put him to sleep in seconds.    I feel that you should know this, so that if you have been hearing through your Unofficial Channels that the Institutionalized Career American Government is assuring your Existential Safety, then you can perhaps give yourself the comfort of believing them.  

Of course, it still is worrisome that so many Career Military Officers seem to be in complete charge of things.  The Career Diplomats and State Department People have been sidelined and so now all the “diplomatic” work is being done by Defense Department People and the President’s amateurish Political Appointees.  And the Military knows only one thing  -- as they say “a handyman that only has a Hammer thinks that every problem is a Nail”.   And so from these Militaristic “Diplomats” we hear of all these Preconditions to Talks about how North Korea must TOTALLY disarm before America will even come to the Table.   Of course, that is just silly (after all, America tolerated the Nuclearization of Everybody Else, and so why not you too?   Why should anybody suppose the consequences would be any worse?).  I am sure that more reasonable proposals are coming your way via the Unofficial Channels.   Unfortunately this may be pointing out an inherent weakness in Democracies, that it always seems More Popular with the Masses to ‘talk tough and threaten war’  when simply negotiating a Settlement would be easier and far less costly in both blood and treasure.   So all the REAL Talks must be done Unofficially.

But, given the current situation under the current American Administration, you cannot expect any break through with Negotiations.  For that you will need to be patient and bide your time until the Profession Career Government People can again return Government to some rational Order once a new President, from either Party, can come to power.   But in the meanwhile, you should rest easier with the assurances that nobody will obey any crazy orders from the current President and that if he does go ‘over a certain line’ he will be instantly bundled up and taken off to Walter Reed Hospital and placed in the Psychiatric Ward where he will not be able to do harm to a single living soul.

Government by Meritocracy Aided by Supercomputer AI

Technology changes everything.  I remember intellectual discussions 50 years ago where people would argue that Communism, specifically Planned Economies, couldn’t work.  Back then it was hard to argue the point because one realized that there would be too much important data that one would have to keep straight, and the legitimate concerns of multitudes of people would inevitably fall through the cracks.   But in the late 1980s when Computers started winning Chess Matches and we were hearing more about Super Computers, then it became reasonable to argue that Super Computers could help with all the essential data, but there were still concerns about what the heck the Super Computers were expected to do with it all.  Yes, I knew how Supercomputers were used to ‘Model’ various constructs, but the Models were always so dependent upon just the right set of assumption algorithms.   A planned economy could still go belly up simply because the programmed assumptions were off the mark, in the same way that Super Computers programmed to Model Weather Patterns and Hurricane Tracks were getting it wrong a great deal of the time.  But now we are being presented with the combination of Super Computers and Artificial Intelligence bolstered with Machine Learning capabilities. 

 

The Super Computers would handle the Data.  You could upload hard data on every recorded economic exchange, market data, weather data, consumer data, polling data, school and court records – if it is on a spreadsheet then it can go in as Hard Data.  You could also upload Soft Data such as Economic Projections from specific pundits,  Trade Publications and Scholastic Papers, News Editorials and Opinions, Social Media chatter,  fashion trends, Hit and Cancelled TV Shows, Movies and Media.  Then, with the capabilities of AI and Machine Learning (where you give an AI System a Goal to achieve and it constructs a Best Guess Methodology for pursuing that Goal by considering all known variables, but then, without further programming instruction inputs, it can refine and adapt its Methodology to achieve its directed Goal in an ever more efficient and elegant manner), then the System could ‘learn’, or rather,  ‘teach itself’ what it all Hard and Soft Date means and how to apply it to achieve its Set Goals (you can imagine how this would work – at super high speed the “System” would  endlessly create new Comprehensive Models of Reality using years old sources of Hard and Soft Data and the compare those Models’ “predictions” to subsequent  Events as they really occurred, rejecting inaccurate models and refining those models that were most successfully prophetic).  Once reliably predictive Models of Reality are created within the “System” one could have a high degree of trust that the System would Know What was Going On and know that if such and such an Action were implemented then there would be a Certain Resultant Effect.  Depending on the Set Goals of the System, providing that the Set Goals are not impossible demands, a Government and Economy directed by such a “System” would continuously trend in the direction of perfectly conforming to those Social Political and Economic Set Goals.

 

Obviously the Set Goals would be very important.  Just the requirement that they not be impossible would greatly constrict many of the envisioned possibilities that could be politically imagined.  And to be Possible would imply that the Goal must be Sustainable.  Right there we could eliminate any Set Goal that includes any notion of exponential Growth because any exponential expression, no matter how seemingly slight the positive exponent, such as an interest rate or rate of inflation or GDP (Gross Domestic Product), will eventually veer up in a curve toward Infinity which of course is impossible to ever reach.  We can see that even now.  In order to maintain a system of Capitalism based on lending money at exponential rates of interest, it is necessary to continuously increase the Money Supply at roughly the same exponential rate. 

 

Likewise, Set Goals should optimally be set so that Conditions do not hit Saturation Levels beyond which one would run into the Law of Diminishing Returns, in which steering inputs have less and less influence.  An example of this could be that as Fossil Fuels become more and more scarce, that it could possibly take more energy to extract and process them than they are intended to provide – effectively costing more than its worth.   So just in order for the “System” to maintain an optimum level of Control, resource demand must be way down from saturation levels and levels of diminishing returns, that is, the “System” should not just target Sustainability, but Sustainability within a healthy margin.

 

Of course we could expect many people to be disappointed with “Sustainability”.  Right now the World has several millions of people who are extremely wealthy and therefore control a huge proportion of the Earth’s Resources and we can understand well enough that they would be very happy with the present arrangement.  But the drawdown they put on the Earth’s Resources are unsustainable and any “System” that would impose Sustainability would certainly run afoul of this Most Affluent Economic Class.  It is unfortunate that not everybody would be delighted with a Plan that is ultimately necessary, because Unsustainability eventually would hit a very hard wall.   We can either turn away from that Wall while we have a chance, or slam right into it. 

 

But, yes, it would be nice if everybody could be Happy.  One factor I believe could be very significant in engendering a general ‘happiness’ and that would be in regards to increasing the Available Resource Per Person, not by trying to create or procure more Resources, but by allowing for a steady decrease in the Number of People.  For instance, if the planet had 12 Billion People, then, however resources were allotted, we could not imagine that a significant percentage of this mass of humanity would have much to be thankful for.  However, if the Planet’s Population was allowed to contract to about 200 Million, that is about 3% of what it is now, I could more easily imagine that the quotient of Available Resources Per Person would be high enough where we could all understand it in terms of being a General Condition of Prosperity, where not only basic needs would be met but where there would be plenty extra for artistic, creative and social flourishing.   And then with the Human Population cut way back, there would be not nearly the need to put so much land under the Plow and the grasslands and forests could be allowed to return, and all that increased greenery would suck a lot of the carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and promote more leaf-to-air evaporation which would increase the Cloud Cover which could reflect some of the Sun’s heat energy back up into space, as well as providing more rain which would serve as a Positive Feedback for even more forests, grasslands and greenery.  So less Population would be a Win Win for everybody that would be alive, as those who are never born really wouldn’t have a say in it.   But, yes, I can imagine how most women of childbearing age would wish to have a baby, or babies all their own.   I suppose the social solution for all these women yearning to be mothers would be to give up on the Nuclear Family and transition to female centric Communities where many women could live together and participate in the rearing of a few children.  Of course Men could visit, but it would be best for men to live apart.  You see, Men could be far better Role Models if their visits were kept brief, that is they could come wearing their best cloths, and dine with the Community and engage in some hours of Social Activity – Dancing and Music or whatever.  They could show themselves to their best advantage, and then go back to their own Male Oriented Quarters where they could again pick up on all of their casual nasty habits, and, most importantly, live well clear of feminine scruples, fussiness, and nagging.    And, of course, in the Women’s Community the few children would be the center of it all.  I suppose there would have to be studies made on how to prevent all these children from growing up absolutely spoiled rotten.   Or maybe “spoiled rotten” would become the new Personality Normal.  We’ll leave that to the Future. 

 

Oh, and by now most readers must have reached the inference that for the “System” to really be viable, it would have to be Globally implemented.  Just One Country could not solve all the World’s Problems if all other Nation were pulling in the opposite directions.  Of course now it would be politically impossible to envision a Unified World, but perhaps in a Generation or two the People of Planet Earth will come to develop a more Cosmopolitan and less Nationalistic Point of View, and begin to understand that Economic Competitiveness is just the World Fighting Against Itself, where One Group succeeds by holding the others down or even by doing deliberate harm to them.  It shouldn’t be long before the Peoples of the World develop a Vision that embraces the Virtue of Cooperation.   Then the “System” could be implemented Globally.

 

In a previous blog I had mentioned having a Meritocracy, that is, a Government composed of People.  But what would we even need them for if we were effectively automating Government with an Automated “System”?   Well, somebody has to interface with the “System” and monitor it if for no other reason than to assure the People that the “System” does not suddenly go “SkyNet” on us.   And you can imagine that a great many people’s natural political leanings would have them complaining about how the “System” was being wasteful and giving everybody else everything but screwing over their own particular set of self-interests.   It would be the role of People in Government to respond to such criticisms.   Indeed, not just chronic complainers would be asking questions but I would anticipate that the Universities and the Press would be curious to know why and how the “System” was making its decisions.

 

You know, it would probably be no easy task for People in Government to answer for the Doings of the “System”.   You see, the “System” is in effect Thinking Inductively and making generalizations using billions of data particulars in its logical-rational-practical process for decision making.  Even if you asked the “System” to explain itself, could anybody be expected to understand the Answer?

 

Well, that is why you need a Meritocracy.  You would need really the Best and Brightest across many Intellectual Disciplines – Economics, Sociology, Education, Psychology, Criminology, History, Agricultural and Animal Sciences, Medicine, Health Care, Disease Control, and especially Public Relations.  They could be organized into Departments which could again be subdivided and compartmentalized with Specialized Experts scattered about with the hope that no matter how obscure some problem, concern, or enigma, that somebody within the Meritocracy could be expected to get a handle on it and be able to somehow conceptualize a coherent explanation for it. 

 

In order to facilitate communication between Men and Machine, the “System” could be fed a detailed assessment of each Official’s scholastic background – every book and paper they ever read and everything they ever wrote.    So when the “System” would be asked a Question, it could be specified that the Answer should be specifically tailored to the understanding of a Specific Department or Set of Individuals.  Of course, I could allow for the “System” augmenting its Answer with ‘Suggested Reading’ recommendations for certain individuals whom the “System” believes most capable of understanding its “Answer” but whom the “System” anticipates could still use a bit more ‘background info’ before heorshe could fully grasp of the concepts being discussed.    

 

Of course, much of the activity in each Department would be solely to satisfy their own curiosity, and undertaken for the reason of conscientiously monitoring the “System” and to forestall being taken by surprise by It.  And frankly I believe that most of this ‘Specialized Detail’ would bore the General Public.  Yes, the Meritocracy should be ‘transparent and forthcoming’ to the People who have to live with the “System”, and specific information should be allowed to those who ask for it (particularly those who are studying for the next cycle of Civil Service Tests which would be the Gateway into becoming part of the Meritocracy).  But burying the General Public in millions of pages of scientific gibberish would perhaps obscure more than it could reveal.  It puts me in mind of how Lawyers will create a Contract that is 68 pages of legal gibberish in microscopically fine print simply so they can hide one predatory clause that is easier to sign up to if it remains unread.  Too much information can often serve only to cloud what is essential.

 

Just as the Departments were created as an interface between the Meritocracy and the “System” so the Meritocracy would have to have a similar Office for interacting and communicating with the Public.  We could call it the Office of Public Accountability, the OPA.  The OPA would be a Synthesizing Level above the Departments and so it would need liaisons between the Departments whose jobs would be in trying to discern the Big Picture Processes that the “System” is implementing.   You see, while the divisions between the Departments make perfect organizational sense, still, in the Real World there are no hard and fast border lines separating things – Economics affects Society affects Criminal Behavior affects Media Trends, etc.   So the OPA would have to review, reflect and determine whether there is anything that we can Humanly Understand about the “System” Operations that is useful or important and could be of interest to the General Public.   In this sense the role of the OPA is largely that of Public Relations.   The Job wouldn’t be easy.  The OPA would have the difficult task of distilling all the specialized techno-talk and expert-speak of the Departments into something that any normally educated member of the General Public could grasp.   Some kind of balance would need to be struck between the extremes of overwhelming the Public with specialized obscurity, and offering so little explanation as to appear vague and uncertain.

 

One concern I have regarding a Computerized AI Supercomputer System is that its Super Efficiency would come at the price of a Super Complexity.  The World’s Population would depend upon it for the Distribution of All Necessary Goods and Services.  But what if the lights went out?  What if a very intense Solar Flare where to have the intensity of a Nuclear Bomb’s Electromagnetic Pulse and fry all the circuits?   Humanity would be helpless.  So this is another reason to cut way down on Population.   Is we continued then, as now, to concentrate hundreds of millions of people together in urban concrete jungles hundreds of miles away from cultivatable land and irrigation water, and the “System” were to shut down, the results would be unthinkably catastrophic.   So the Population must be kept within viable limits calculated to be able to survive a “System” breakdown, and  that Population should be spread out in areas that could, in the event of an emergency, be quickly converted to agricultural use.   One of the most important roles of the Meritocracy would have to be in regards to Contingency Planning and Preparation,  that is, if the “System” goes down there would have to be a “To Do” List for each and every person, so that actual people could step in and take over in the Distribution of Necessary Goods and Services.    

Democracy Not Worth the Revolutionary Zeal That Pushes It

I recently blogged concerning America’s Korean Crisis that America had gone on an insane rampage after the collapse of the Soviet Union to eradicated any political or ideological opposition anywhere on the Globe.  I think I should expand on that idea.  You see, to many Americans that way of describing it may appear overly harsh, for, after all, America was only trying to further the cause of Democracy.

 

Yes, exactly.  That seems to be the problem.  The World has many problems that it needs to deal with.  For instance, there are 7 Billion People Plus and they should all be getting at least two healthy meals a day, and they should all have nice cozy little places to live, and Community Life should be enlivening and joyful, or what else is Life worth living for?  These are the Essential Priorities we should be focusing on.  America, as one of the Leading Powers in the World could do much to further efforts to achieve these Life Sufficiency Goals, but instead much of America’s  Psychic Energy is tied up in pressing forward an 18^th Century Revolution – Democracy.

 

But Americans believe in it.  Well, yes, of course they would .  But if we go back in History I challenge anybody to point out any catastrophically disastrous Revolution that had been pressed forward by fanatical zealots who DID NOT believe in what they were doing.  Of course the Fanatics believe in it!  That’s the Problem!  Well, I guess the real problem is that they don’t see themselves as Fanatics.  You see, fanatics who only live and talk among each other lose their perspective and start to see themselves as normal people.

 

But to be fair we should take the time to examine whether the Fanatics’ Zeal is justified in its Results, that is, if Democracy was a demonstrably Good Thing, then the Zeal would be warranted , right? 

Well, I wish I could think of something good to say.  There are things like Industrial and Economic Development that people point to as the Fruits of Democracy, but if we look around closely enough then we find that the Non Democratic Regimes may actually be doing better in some of these developmental perimeters.   Mostly when I look at Democracy, I see the drawbacks. 

 

First of all, we know that Democracy is not a unifier of a People but a divider.   Democracy is inherently factional.  During the French Revolution its first Revolutionary body, the National Assembly did not go 5 minutes before it started dividing into Left and Right (from where we get the political terms Left and Right).   In the American system, the Constitution does not even mention political parties let alone give them a foundational role in Government Operations, and it had been the intent of President Washington  (who had been presided over the Constitutional Convention) that there  should be no Parties and that somehow Democracy was to operate as some vague Unity, but the ink the Constitution was written in was not even dry before factions had already created Party conflicts (implicitly documented well enough in the Federalist Papers).  So division is inherent in democracy.  What did Lincoln say about houses divided against themselves?  They can’t stand.  Oh, and now that I think about, it was Democracy that brought on the Great American Civil War.  Despotic Europe had outlawed Slavery and Serfdom with hardly a street scuffle.  

 

One huge corollary to the Factional Problem with Democracy is that Factions often develop along Ethnic, Religious or Sectarian Lines.   In such cases the differences are not even Political.  In many cases it is about which Ethnic or Sectarian Group gets to control the Nation’s Purse Strings.  More on that later.   

 

So now we need to talk about Corruption.  The tendency in a Democracy is for the Newly Elected Officials to toss out any vestige of the old administration and replace the entire staff with cronies and supporters (the old saying was “Out with the Old Rascals and in with the New Rascals”), which is extremely wasteful and disruptive.  You see, in many cases this means that bureaucrats that had gathered years of experience in performing day to day government functions are replaced by supporters that have zero experience, and this cycle would repeat every couple of years. Government would always be stuck on the low front side of the Learning Curve (Government by a kind of Perpetual Trump Administration).  I heard a story about one such Crony Supporter who was shown his new desk and he asked bewilderedly “What am I supposed to do now?”  His Precinct Boss laughed, puffed his cigar, and said “You get paid every Friday”.   Well, in America, with its Civil Service Reform Act of 1883, this most blatant and destructive form of corruption was obviated (although Republicans now wish to do away with the Civil Service in order to “Stream Line” Government), but when America zealously pushes Democracy on its little Nation Building Client States, there are no efforts made to assure that some form of Civil Service Regulation is included in the blueprints.   So in most New Democracies, striving to be elected into Public Service is not about Serving at all.  The way Democracy is structured simply makes it appear as a huge enticing Cash Cow.  In some of these desperate little Countries the only Industry IS Government.  Such Democracies can almost be defined as legitimized corruption where from top to bottom everyone is Corrupt and On the Take.   That is what they ‘Ran’ for, and, as they say, “To the Victor goes the Spoils”.  

 

Next we have the matter of whether Democracy really represents the People.  Yes, theoretically.  But theoretically communism works too.  What we have in practice are Political Machines which pick the Candidates of their own choosing and funds them to be their specified Puppets, and that is when the System is WORKING.  Democracy is subject to rogue populist candidates, and while Machine Politics is considered bad, the populist politicians are typically much worse.

 

Now we should take a close look at the disproportional influence of Special Interests.   Of special note is the fact that recently the American Supreme Court allowed that Political Contributions are Protected along the same lines as Free Speech, effectively legalizing what used to be called Bribery.  Maybe the Lawyers have created some legal distinction between Bribery and Campaign Contributions, but it IS giving money to Politicians so that they will do what you tell them to, isn’t it?  And then there is the Problem with simply what Special Interests ARE, when you look at them structurally.  A Special Interest is an OLD established segment of the Economy that has been around long enough to be Rich as God.  There is no such thing as a NEW Special Interest.   New Technologies and Innovations are typically strapped for money, with all their available resources going into Research and Development.  Only the Old Entrenched Dinosaurs have huge bags of money available for Bribing Politicians (since it is legal now, I suppose it is no longer insulting to say it like that).  So because Democracy gives an inordinate de facto degree of influence to Special Interests, we should conclude that Democracies are crippled when it comes to being able to adapt and innovate to a Changing World.  Such a Paralyzing Structural Inertia might have been okay back in 1787 but with the World facing a great many Crises  (Global Climate Change, Peak Oil and Depletion of Fossil Fuels and what to do when the gas tank runs dry, Mass Unemployment because of AI and Robotics, Over Population and Food Scarcity, just to name a few).  In the face of such urgent demands the World Governments are going to have to be Inherently and Intrinsically Light on their Feet, and that AIN’T Democracy.  Democracy’s “Checks and Balances” might as well be “Shackles and Chains”.

 

Then we can see one huge glaring fault with Democracy and that is that the people get to vote!  The idea of Universal Suffrage, where everyone gets to vote, is historically a recent phenomenon.  Most earlier systems had property qualifications of one form or another which, if they served any really significant purpose, helped to assure that the Qualified Voters had a better Education than the Street Mob.  Of course Democracy in the more Optimistic 19^th and early 20^th Centuries saw the importance of Education and pushed hard for Universal Quality Education as a necessary support for Democracy.  But THEN recently certain Political Parties found Data Trends showing that Their own Party’s Support was mostly from Less Educated People.  SO it logically follows that whenever THAT Political Party is in Power, supports for Education are squeezed and strangulated.  Funding Education is Tantamount to Voting for your Opposition.  Every Right Wing Oligarchy on Earth knows that they have the Stupid Vote.  So this is another reason Democracy is flawed – it inherently results in the decline of Public Education.  We can look at the Authoritarian Non-Democratic Regimes – they Love Education because the smarter their Technocrats, Scientists, and Work Force the better they like it.  North Korea would not have been able to build the H Bomb with Trump Voters. They’d have trouble keeping their car running.  It would be up on blocks under the shade tree.

 

Then there is the matter of intrinsic Voter Apathy.  The People who should vote don’t.  Unemployed people stay home.  People who in general are unhappy with their Governments are depressed.  Look it up – Clinical Depression.   These people are lethargic and would want to stay in bed if they could.  If they have to go to work at all they collapse behind their desks and don’t even get up to waste company time gossiping at the water cooler.  So, yes, these are not the people you meet standing in line for hours at their local polling stations.  But that does not mean that they shouldn’t be counted.   If Democracy was really Representative, as soon as more that 50% of the People stay home and NOT Vote then it should be a signal that Democracy itself has Lost the Election.  Peoples around the Globe should give up on Democracy – that Secular Religion that Came Up Empty .  We all need to envision some optimum form of Government.  We have good standardized testing now.  There is no reason why a Test-In Meritocracy would not work just fine.  After all, a Meritocracy would not have much of a hurdle to clear if it only had to be better than Democracy, now would it?     

Make Peace with North Korea by Giving them Hostages

Background:  America went on a murderous rampage of Regime Changes.  Reeling like a drunken imbecile after having won the Cold War, when the Soviet Union could no longer stand in its way, America was eager to sweep aside every last vestige of resistance to American Ideology and Political Dominance across the Globe.  To prep the American Public for War or Military Interventions or even just those O Dark Thirty Seal Team Six Assassinations, we hear over and over again that each Leader that gets in America’s way is “irrational, insane and not to be trusted” with the implication that such Leaders are begging to be assassinated.  It is often argued that by assassinating a Country’s Leader the People of that Country are being Liberated and so are actually deriving a huge benefit for which they should be grateful.  But then their Countries are relentlessly bombed – destroying power, water and food distribution infrastructures as well as perhaps unleashing the genie of old latent but still simmering impulses for Sectarian Civil War.  So often to ostensibly just remove the Leader, often hundreds of thousands of the Country’s People end up dead too.   If any other country besides America were in engaged in such atrocities it would be termed Mass Genocide.  But America has great Public Relations People.   Oh, by the way it seems like some kind of an ironic punishment from the Gods that Trump became the American President.  That will teach the Americans to call other people’s Leaders irrational, insane and not to be trusted.

 

Well, in regards to America’s Manifest Destiny for Regime Changes, now it seem to be North Korea’s turn in the crosshairs.    

 

To give ourselves some context here, the Americans insist that it is impossible to negotiate with the North Korean Leader Kim Jong-Un.   But, anyone who scratches their head and cares to remember will recall that America had already had a deal with North Korea, forged by the Clinton Administration but it fell apart when Republicans under the incoming Bush administration cut off agreed upon supplies of fuel oil to North Korea, claiming, again ironically, that “the North Koreans could not be trusted to hold up their end of the Deal”.  The North Koreans waited patiently for 3 years for the Bush Administration to come around to honoring the Clinton treaty, but finally gave up and revamped their Nuclear Program that they really had in fact completely shut down.   That is why we still hear that we can’t negotiate with North Korea because they don’t honor their agreements.   Even the Press says that, and they should know better.  Before the Press believes what any Politian tells them, wouldn’t it be easy enough to simply go back and check their AP files.  It was America that scuttled that Deal!   Now I am not complaining about “Fake” News…  just stupid, gullible, incomplete and intellectually lazy News.   Yes, I know that Reporters are not supposed to Comment, that they are just supposed to Report.  But no one is tying their hands regarding Who they Ask and What, are they?   For instance, if One Politician lies to you from one side of the Aisle, and then you get a Politician from the other side of the Aisle to comment and he also lies to you.   So what do you think your job is?  To just present Both Lies to the American People and leave it for them to sort out?  But it is often not that simple.  Often the Truth does not exist Between the Two Lies.  The Actual Truth may be off in a completely different direction altogether.  So perhaps your best choice would be to call up some brilliant and impartial University Professor, who has Tenure so nothing they say can get them Fired, and tell him or her what the Politicians told you and then ask whether he or she thinks it was all a complete pile of crap?  Now, THAT would be your Story – The Intelligent Contextualization of what the Scheming Corrupt Politicians are trying to pass off as the Truth.  The Press is the 4^th Estate.  Democracy depends on its 4^th Estate for the Truth.  And it is not doing its job if it just acts the Messenger Boy for the Political Class of Professional Liars.  But it seems that the Press gets a quote from the Rascal and a quote from the Scoundrel and goes to Print happy that it presents Both Sides.

 

Well, back to Korea.    The situation now with North Korea is different from all the rest of those prior Regime Change Scenarios.  You see, there is a problem with running the same Game Plan over and over again because eventually the other Teams learn your moves and compensates and adapts.  Eventually the Regimes sitting in line for annihilation would survey the Broad Map of Geo-Political Reality and discern an important fact, and that is that America refrains from bullying other Nuclear Powers.   Members of the Club can do whatever they want and the worse that happens to them is that they are hit with sanctions which in many cases do as much to hurt the Global Economy as to hurt the Sanctioned Country and so they often don’t last very long, being lifted for the convenience of everybody involved.   But while Sanctions might really pinch in the meanwhile, they fall far short of having your country bombed back into the Stone Age and being hunted down and assassinated.  So, yes, The Obvious Plan for any Country that sees itself in the Path of the Great American Steam Roller is to do their homework and figure out how to build what the Americans were able to build back in 1944, more than seventy years ago, especially when you can learn all of the basic principles just by watching YouTube tutorials (it wouldn’t surprise me if some California kid were to show up at his 8^th grade Science Fair with an A-Bomb).   Really, how hard can it be to be a Nuclear Power, especially if you are Korea, where even if the infrastructure for most other things is kind of shaky, the foundation and structure of their Centralized System of Education is monolithically flawless.   America might let 90% of its Intellectual Talent go to waste and fall through the cracks with its underfunded schools and complete absence of National Talent Scouting and Targeted Scholarships to put the Best and the Brightest where they can do the most public good, but you know that ain’t North Korea, where every kid in every classroom in every school is given close scrutiny to see if he or she has the kind of Potential that the Regime could cultivate and utilize. Considering all that, North Korea could probably pack a Stadium with Engineering Geniuses.   So of course North Korea could get the Bomb almost as soon as they thought they needed it, once the necessary materials could be procured.  Rockets too.  If America really did land a Man on the Moon in 1969 then we really can’t expect that anybody making a Rocket 50 years later would have much of a problem landing a Warhead in Minniapolis, could we?  And targeting could be a thousand times easier.  Back in the Sixties every populated inch on Earth was not pulsing and throbbing with Cell Phone and Wi-Fi signals (which create a well-defined Electro-Static Spectral Cloud over regions) , but now it is.  You don’t even need GPS when you can program your missile to just home in on a specific Electro Glow. 

 

So, what do we have so far?  America has been out on a continuous Rampage of Regime Changing ever since the Soviet Union collapsed and could no longer offer small non-Western nations its Protection.  But America is known to stop short when it comes to dealing with Nuclear Powers.  So North Korea became a Nuclear Power.  So America and North Korea are in a Mexican Standoff.

 

So, yes, North Korea being a Nuclear Power is a fait accompli – that’s French for a Fact that we have to learn to live with.    But now the problem is with hoping the Koreans never hit the launch button on a Loaded Round.  We all need to realize that it is not Crazy for the North Korean Regime to be understandably jumpy.  You see twice a year every year America conducts highly provocative Military Exercises which are indistinguishable to any outside observer from an actual Invasion Mobilization.  America cries that North Korean missile launches are provocative, but even while North Korea may have its Finger on the Nuclear Trigger, America still goes forward with its Invasion Mobilization Simulations that, again, look exactly like the Real Thing.  And the Americans call the North Korean Regime irrational and insane!  I don’t know why the American Press does not look deeper into this issue.  It seems almost certain that the American Press must be tightly muzzled… that America’s 4^th Estate has been neutered and marginalized.   The only other explanation is that the American Press are all dumb as stumps… hired because they were Journalism Majors!  Well, what is THAT anyway?  Maybe they should hire people who have Real Degrees.  You see, knowing about what you report on would give a unique perspective that one does not often find in the News.  And nobody is stopping the 4^th Estate from ringing up Harvard University’s Political Sciences Department Head and asking for his opinion.  If you know that you don’t know, and that Spokespeople could just be using you for ‘Pin the Tail On the Donkey’, then call somebody you trust to find out whether you are just being played or not.  And to me the Press is either being played in regards to the Korean Crisis, or they are complicit regarding the universally agreed upon line of Propaganda that is to fed the American Public.  Hey, I guess everyone has to make a living… selling out somehow somewhere, right?        

 

Anyway, the Americans and the South Koreans could have plenty of Military Exercises without provoking World War Three.  They could just stage them in America.  I would suggest Fort Drum New York for any exercise running from Spring through Fall.  The scenery is beautiful.  And the hills look almost exactly like the hills in North Korea. The Fort is outside a pretty town called Watertown.   A Big Exercise would be great for their Economy.  I think the South Korean visitors would love the place.  The North Korean spies would probably enjoy their stay also.  Oh, the Military would complain that they couldn’t bring over all 50,000 Troops that are ordinarily involved in these Mammoth Exercises, but I myself was in the Military and I have been through Exercises.  The Exercises are NOT for the Men, that is anybody from the Company Grade Officers down through the thousands of enlisted men.  To them it is just doing the same thing they have done a thousand times already in their scheduled Training.   Nothing changes just because it is a Big Exercise.  The Ones who benefit from Exercises are the General and Field Grade Officers from each country’s Organizations.   They get to Schmooze.  During the Exercise itself everyone gets to see each other’s Leadership styles, and during the Post Exercise Wind-Down and Out-Briefings Stages, the Days are Short and the Nights are long and the Officers from their different Countries get to party together and build camaraderie and a forge trusting  personal relationships.   So that if a War DOES happen, everyone REALLY knows who they are fighting with – that they recognize the Voice on the Radio that is asking for Reinforcements on their Left Flank.  So, anyway, for an Effective Exercise, you wouldn’t need more than a couple thousand people.  I suspect that the Big Exercises are for the Benefit of Private Contractors who somehow figured out a way of turning them into a Big Cash Cows.  Really, the Military should have a rule against fraternizing with those Predatory Military Contractors, because otherwise they Buddy Up (maybe the word is Suck Up)  to the Generals who then give those Money Grubbers anything they ask for just because they paid for a round of drinks (I’m serious!).           

 

So, we were discussing the possibility that something or anything could spook the Korean’s into Launching.  So America really needs to think of a way to reassure North Koreans that they are indeed not intent upon Regime Change.         

 

So I thought and thought and thought.  And then I remembered about Louis the IVX, the Sun King of France.   Louis had a problem with his Nobility.  They all had Castles and so they could start their own private wars or disrupt commerce, and then run and hide in their Castles where they were relatively safe and untouchable unless Louis would wish to go to some great expense to mount an expedition to go and batter down their walls.  Also, a great deal of the time Louis was committed to fighting real Wars outside of France and was uncomfortable with deploying his Armies away from home, if the local Barons were going to take advantage of the local Power Vacuum by committing all kinds of acts of local mayhem, murder, rape and pillage.  So Louis got to thinking.  It was no longer the Dark Ages.  He now had gun powder and siege guns – huge cannons that could knock down castle walls.  So Louis drew up a plan for sending a combined Engineering Artillery Regiment with adequate Cavalry and Heavy Infantry support from one end of France to the other and knock down all those troublesome castles one by one.  Yes, it would be moderately expensive, but once taken care of he would never have to worry about it again.  However, even Louis knew that in some cases, for instance when the English would invade, that these same Castles could come in handy when he could expect to make strong Wartime Alliances with most of his French Nobility.  So Louis was not totally committed to this Program of Decastlefication, when several of the Nobles involved, having caught wind of Louis’s Plan (yes, Leakers even back then!) , rode through the Palace Gates of Versailles, WITH their families in tow.  Ostensively they were there to Negotiate for the retention of their Castles and they would stay there as long as it took to make a Deal.  But Louis and his Chief Minister of State instantly knew the substance of what was transpiring – that these Nobles were implicitly offering their Families as Hostages in exchange for the security of their Castles.   So of course Louis pretended to go along with the Cover Story of an indefinite series of Negotiations, and when other Nobles across France caught onto the scheme they also packed up their Families and off to Versailles they went.  Of course, Versailles treated all of these “hostages” as honored guests, free to come and go as they pleased, and of course there were numerous grand parties and balls provided for their amusement.  Versailles became the Talk of Europe and the Nobility from Everywhere and Anywhere were tripping over themselves to get an invitation to Versailles so that they could have as much fun as the Hostages.

 

When you look up Hostages on let’s say Wikipedia, there is a lot of discussion on Hostage Taking, but very little about Hostage Giving.  But going back to Ancient Times it was a tried and true measure for proving your sincerity in regards to a Peace Treaty or the intention to remain at Peace.  Often the word “hostage” would not be mentioned but the idea of it would be couched in offers such as “We have heard so much about the Great Learning in your Temples and Schools.  We would be honored if you could sponsor my Son in his Studies so that he could learn much of the Knowledge and Wisdom that your great country has to offer”.   That would make his Son a Hostage to Peace with that particular King.  Then there is the ploy of a King offering his favorite daughter to be married to a Prince of a rival Kingdom.  His Daughter would become a Hostage to Peace.

 

So what America needs to do is to insist upon Long Term and Open Ended Negotiations that will last as long as it takes and that they should be conducted right there in the North Korean Capital, or maybe right within the Kim Jong-un’s Palace Grounds.  The Hostages we would have to offer could not simply be throw-away people from America’s Middle and Working Classes, as we know how expendable the Government feels they must be. The Hostage Giving Plan would require some very high ranking diplomats (if you really wanted to Negotiate, but that really isn’t the point) from some of America’s finest families, and they would need to be accompanied by their families.  Also, America could use the Ploy of having a Student Exchange Program, where the Sons and Daughters of prominent American Families could go to study in North Korea (I hear they have a splendid Nuclear Physics Department).  Maybe an exchange of Faculty Members where some of America’s prominent Professors could do a stint in North Korea. You would think some Asian Studies, Sociology, Economics, Poli Sci or Agricultural Science Professors would jump at the chance.  

 

There is one objection we could anticipate from the North Koreans.  They would object to any secret confidential Diplomatic Pouches that Diplomats are traditionally entitled to and which are supposed to be inviolable to search and seizure.  Well, we can imagine how sensitive Kim Jong-un is to possible attempts by the CIA to assassinate him.  Everybody knows how the CIA tried to assassinate Fidel Castro with poison stored in a teeny weeny little pinky ring.  So it would be important to allow North Korea to do a complete search of anything that goes through the Palace Gates, or even that comes into their Country.  After all, the purpose of this whole Thing is to reassure them, and in doing so we should acknowledge that this may involve many cumbersome details.  This could also include North Korea vetting our People.  I would wonder how they could so this.  Could their Intelligence Agencies in America be so efficient as to be able to draw up comprehensive dossiers of individual America Citizens, so thorough as to stymie any CIA attempt to sneak in a ‘Ringer’?  Maybe.  But if North Korea has doubts, I could imagine that one would be assigned a ‘Best Friend’ for a while until observation and analysis could clear one as profiling like an ordinary guy, and not the type of person who would ever dream of walking up to the plastic smiles at the CIA Table at a Job Fair (gives me the creeps just thinking about it.  Doesn’t anybody watch the Bourne Identity movies?)  

 

Another one of the sticking points I would anticipate to implementing this Give Hostages for Peace Program is in finding any Important Americans willing to put up with what they would probably expect to be a boring and uncomfortable stay, considering all the Propaganda that describes North Korea as uniformly dismal (even when accompanied by photos showing happy attractive well-dressed young men and women scurrying about what looks like a Modern City).   Of course, these Hostages for Peace would be changed out periodically, but if the individual American Hostages for Peace really wanted to make the most of it personally, I would recommend staying at least a year or maybe two.  That would be time enough to learn some of the language and get to know Korean Culture.   You know, I do not suspect it would be that awfully bad.  I am sure Kim Jong-un would be a gracious host, for, after all, he would not wish to be too outdone by Louis the IVX, would he?  I can personally vouch for Korean Food – a lot of it is very good.  And the Korean People, even when they are not being coerced by a Dictator, are very friendly and their manners are impeccable.  Indeed, it would have to be the Americans I believe who would have to brush up on their table manners.  

 

But, yes, if we could find Americans who would willingly give a year or two of their Lives for Peace, we could have Peace with North Korea.  You see, America asks its Servicemen in the Military to give their Lives… their Complete Forever Lives… not just a year or two… for their Country.  I feel that their sacrifices are mostly taken for granted.  Every generation is asked for more Human Sacrifices to placate America’s Militaristic bloodlust Monster, and nothing ever changes.  The Economic Classes that provide the Troops get poorer and poorer while the cozy and protected Rich keep on getting richer.   When are the Rich and Powerful in America going to acknowledge the debt they owe for all those Lives snuffed out in the bloom of their youth to support the Freedom of Capitalistic Americans to play at Domestic Exploitation at Home and Global Domination Abroad?  You know, if there are any advantages to be had by living in a Free Nation, certainly it is the rich and the powerful who are the primary benefactors.   The rest of the people are Free to be poor, free to be miserable, free to go without Health Care.   So is it really asking too much to expect that some of America’s Leading Families finally make some token little sacrifice themselves and offer just a ‘year or two’ of their Lives for their Country, so that San Francisco doesn’t get Nuked, by taking an extended ‘vacation’ in North Korea, which poor people would jump if given the chance, if they realized the extent of Korean hospitality.  The Food’s great and the women are beautiful.  What’s not to like?