Blog 41 | The Libertarian Institute

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Watch This Antiwar Message from The Libertarian Institute!

by Jeremy R. Hammond | Oct 8, 2024 | Blog

Earlier this year, I was honored to become a Research Fellow at The Libertarian Institute, which of course opposes the US government’s criminal policies in international affairs. Keith Knight, the institute’s managing editor and host of the Don’t Tread on Anyone podcast, recently invited us all to share our views on being anti-war.

Watch the resulting excellent compilation of anti-war messages in the following video, “Why We Must Choose Peace Over War: An Urgent Plea for Humanity” (my contribution begins at about the 15:25 mark):

Richman Interviewed on “Ideas Having Sex”

by Sheldon Richman | Oct 8, 2024 | Blog, Libertarianism

Chris Kaufman interviewed me about my book What Social Animals Owe to Each Other on his podcast Ideas Having Sex. Listen here or on your podcast platform.

US Navy Follies: The Other Ghost Fleet

by Bill Buppert | Oct 7, 2024 | Blog

The US Navy and Marines have not conducted an amphibious assault on contested beach since Inchon in Korea (10-19 September 1950 although arguably the last major contested amphibious campaign in May of 1945 of Okinawa) and have practically abandoned surface maritime connectors from ship to shore in favor of helicopter lift and vertical envelopment. The recent debacle in Gaza with the shabby portable pier that lasted 20 days after delivering 8,800 tons of aid at a cost of 320 million dollars, now lost is a demonstration project that the US Navy has essentially lost its ship to shore capabilities.

The Navy is trying desperately to maintain a 31-ship amphibious fleet [10 amphibious ready groups (ARGs)] harnessed to a doctrine that is now defunct. To be clear; the US Navy conducts amphibious operations; the Marines conduct amphibious assaults.

American naval and marine forces have no capability conduct an amphibious operation/assault against a contested beach in a near-peer or peer environment.

And everyone reading this will know it not be capped at ten billion dollars.

A $5.79 billion award funds the detailed design and construction of three Flight II San Antonio-class amphibious warships – LPD-33, LPD-34 and LPD35. A second $3.8 bill award funds the advanced procurement and detailed design and construction for the future big deck amphib Helmand Province (LHA-10), according to the contract announcement.

https://news.usni.org/2024/09/24/ingalls-wins-9-6b-in-shipbuilding-contracts-for-4-amphibious-warhsips

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Anti-War Blog – Be Proud

by Kym Robinson | Oct 4, 2024 | Blog

Proud mother come and see what your soldier sons are doing, see them search crying children who no longer can walk the streets to go from home to school. They kidnap little boys, to torture or imprison. Maybe they shatter their arms and send them on their way. Cry for your soldier boys when they come home to you, ironed uniforms, medals and ribbons but gone are their child like eyes replaced by the killers gaze. Your soldier sons chose government over his own mum.

Proud father can you see your sons courage, as they fight civilians who throw stones and pick up the gun. They blow to pieces buildings in search of terrorists, only to find them under each body crushed by debris. The warrior serves his master, killing whoever he is asked to. This is called honour. Paid to serve, obediently violent. For many it’s a religion to conquer and kill, to be done with a smile on their face. For others its just his time to do what you, yourself did. You remember when you did this too Dad? You had a war or two, too. The calling for each generation, death, war and taxes.

Sisters and daughters look away from their screaming girls and women. The soldiers leave them bleeding, bayonet or bullet. Or the blood runs down their legs as warriors climb out from between them. Snipers spy from far away, watching mother and child. Pull of a trigger. One life over. Then another. Proud, brave and courageous the sniper, another terrorist stopped in the crib of youth. Or ten more made. The war must go on, policy is more sacred than life.

The occupiers ensure that they are imprisoned and controlled inside their homeland. Home is a ghetto, a camp for those who can not flee. So they must live with the fleas, like them and even fight as they would. Tall city blocks or suburban flats, jungles filled with trees or oceans of sandy dunes, the occupiers come as they please. The loyal soldiers believing they are right, bold with the dignity of might. God and Country are their drugs, it keeps them high enough to fight. The occupied are heathens, non-humans, the enemy. Even when it’s for their own good they must die and suffer.

Those cosy back at home, watching through news papers and screens, scrolling and fascinated while gorged on indifference or strong with a chickenhawks courage, is this in your name? Aroused by wars exciting colours, the blood and bruises and pretty explosions all so that the degenerate can orgasm by proxy. Or those who pretend to hate it, to oppose it while putting the hand out dependent on the warmachines welfare or to feed it’s mechanism with labour and bureaucratic senselessness. This is your religion, the sacrifice of innocents so that the god of state may see another day. Each death birth, the new life of policy came from a painful rape. Own it, be proud, this is the state.

Fast moving jets and hypersonic missiles, drones that can see from far away, satellite images and artificial intelligent machines doing what the gladius and musket once did. Hail Caesar, for the glory of Rome, Sieg Heil! for the Fatherland, Manifest destiny and Uncle Same, for the Emperor, Banzai!, It’s the Promised land! And God save the King or Queen or Non-binary other. To make heaven on earth, comrade! The reasons always there, conquer, kill, occupy, colonise, genocide.

The unmarked graves beneath the cement dust or muddy fields, bits of meat rotting in the jungle heat, sand washes over the dried bones or thousands through chimneys, up in smoke. Body bags to be flown home, wrapped in flags, heroes return, necrophilic ceremonies for unknown soldiers, the forgotten fallen uncounted and unknown, was the war won? And who for? You, them, us or they? Did the dead feel better knowing it was a victory?

The living remain, broken bodies and minds. Innocents bludgeoned away. Mother and father see your son, as he stumbles home, no longer your boy, but a man? Limping or his mind in a fog, dependent on medicines. The drill sergeant to a therapist, he went for some cause, now he’s a lost cause. Is this glory? All the dying, all that killing, so politicians can continue to run? To make the nation great, again? To secure real estate? The hero returned. Proud? Is there enough money to be made to bury a baby in another unmarked grave? The killers always easy to bribe, the mourning mothers never could be.

Those who remain, is this the life? To live and suffer knowing that tomorrow another war, more invaders will come. The land polluted, bombs waiting to snatch life and limbs in the years after, cancer slithers through the veins, the remnants of the invaders yet to return and killers who live nearby. Neither friend or foe, just warriors fighting for an unending end. The innocent a prop, a baby wrapped in barbed wire, an innocent stripped like a tree, another crater a mothers heart and a fallen building a fathers heart, just collateral debris in the geography of war. None of which matters to the planners, the masters, the distant voyeurs who shrug, “that’s war.”

Wait until they drop the big one, all of them. Every single one. No more cities, no more countries, mutually assured victory. Life goes on, barely. That burning of the flesh, searing pain, brilliant light in the eyes, rushing winds and eternal dark is what pride feels like. All kids dead, no lives better or worse. To the planners, above all else they didn’t win. No one does. Their wisdom for victory, death and mayhem, that’s the end.

The Culture of Lying and Deceit in the US Army

by Bill Buppert | Oct 4, 2024 | Blog

It’s not just the Army and all the services practice this level of institutional cravenness and dishonesty. Deceit and covering up errors is a long time practice in the US uniformed armed forces.

The article is older but more true over time.

The gravest peril of the tacit acceptance of dishonesty, however, is the facilitation of hypocrisy in Army leaders. The Army as a profession speaks of values, integrity, and honor. The Army as an organization practices zero defects, pencil-whipping, and checking the box. Army leaders are situated between the two identities—parroting the talking points of the latest Army Profession Campaign while placating the Army bureaucracy or civilian overseers by telling them what they want to hear. As a result, Army leaders learn to talk of one world while living in another. A major described the current trend: It’s getting to the point where you’re almost rewarded for being somebody you’re not. That’s a dangerous situation especially now as we downsize. We’re creating an environment where everything is too rosy because everyone is afraid to paint the true picture. You just wonder where it will break, when it will fall apart.

https://press.armywarcollege.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1465&context=monographs

Now this research is even older but hints at this being a problem forever; the essay is from 1970.

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Manned Tanks: Stop Building These Things

by Bill Buppert | Oct 2, 2024 | Blog

Arguably one of the best manned tanks ever made, the refurbished M1 Abrams is not faring well in the Ukraine and it is estimated the UKR forces have lost 20 of the 31 tanks supplied to them. This is not only a result of inadequate training, immature doctrine and sloppy logistics but the happenstance of the hard knocks schoolroom in a 21st century near-peer fight in which the manned tank is simply not of any martial utility anymore when a salvo competition of cheaper munitions makes it a munitions sponge.

The article below insists that a lack of air cover doomed the tanks but I would suggest the Revolution in Military Affair (RMA) we are witnessing real-time in the RUS-UKR conflict is that in this war of inexpensive leakers, those trying to kill the tank just have to get lucky with their probability of kill or lobbing swarms of UAS and missile munitions at the tank or infantry fighting vehicle to gain a mission or catastrophic kill. Once these behemoths are identified on the battlefield, they will attract plenty of attention and eventually be turned into scrap by munitions that costs a fraction of the price of a tank.

My perennial readers are well aware of my dim view of the state of military technology in the West but the sparkling success of the FGM-148 Javelin, or Advanced Anti-Tank Weapon System-Medium and its ingenious design is a bright spot that continues to shine after nearly three decades in service.

The era of the manned tank is over.

The M1 Abrams, despite being one of the best tanks ever built, has proven ineffective in Ukraine. Designed for different combat environments, the Abrams tanks supplied to Ukraine have been decimated due to a combination of inadequate air cover and modern Russian tactics using drones and anti-tank missiles.

Combat in Ukraine has evolved significantly. Now, a static front has become more fluid, thanks to the innovative use of drones and anti-tank weapons. The Abrams MBT was designed for mobility but has been hit hard by anti-tank drones, missiles, and mines. The tanks in question were part of Ukraine’s 47th Brigade, facing stiff combat conditions in places like Avdiivka, one of the areas on the front where the Russians have had total military dominance over the Ukrainians.

The M1 Abrams was designed to fight a different kind of war. Initially meant to stop a ground invasion of Western Europe by the Soviet Red Army, the tanks were quickly repurposed to fighting in the desert. The tank is older and not well-suited for fighting in an environment like Ukraine.

Without comprehensive air cover, the M1 Abrams tank is useless. And that is precisely how Ukraine was using the tank – without sufficient air cover. The Abrams became susceptible to the drone swarms Russia was deploying against Ukraine’s armor. The drones in question are capable of striking at these tanks from angles where tank armor is less effective (such as at the top of the tank or in the rear).

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/ukraines-m1-abrams-tank-dilemma-nightmare-212730

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Lead-bottom: McHale’s Navy Comes of Age in the 21st Century

by Bill Buppert | Sep 27, 2024 | Blog

USNS Washington Chambers (T-AKE-11) 2020

The US Navy continues to go the way of the Royal Navy from a storied force in history to a surface fleet plagued with problems and seemingly incapable of getting anything right as we have documented in these pages at the Institute. The Ford carrier that can’t reliably launch and retrieve aircraft, the Little Crappy Ship fiasco and the ungainly and ugly Zumwalt class destroyer.

Furthermore, the fleet is aging. As ships become older, they become more expensive and difficult to maintain. Ships are being tied in up in compounded maintenance delays, taking numerous ships off the line. Copious maintenance delays for the surface fleet resulted in less than 68 percent surface fleet ships deemed “mission-capable,” last year. Submarines face a similar situation, with just 63 percent of attack submarines available in the last year, further shrinking the true size of our Navy.

https://www.aei.org/foreign-and-defense-policy/americas-incredible-shrinking-navy/

In addition to the effectiveness of the U.S. Navy from these problems, these breakdowns, extended refits, and maintenance issues are costing taxpayers billions of dollars.

It is a problem that has been years in the making and likely will take years to resolve. As Rollcall.com reported in 2019, the warnings from government watchdog groups have signaled the problem but lawmakers and service officials have done little to address it.

“Indeed, for at least the past 15 years, the Navy has only once declined to accept a ship because of defects, despite regularly having cause to do so,” the 2019 report warned. “Quality control will become more critical than ever in the years ahead.”

We’re seeing that already, as numerous programs are also running late. The U.S. Navy is not only at its smallest size since before the First World War, it hasn’t been this unprepared for a conflict since the late 19th century. Back then, there weren’t really any major adversaries that had their eyes on America. The same isn’t true today.

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/navy-looks-its-serious-sinking-decline-212644

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Interview: Biden’s Faux Ceasefire Efforts Facilitate Israel’s Genocide

by Jeremy R. Hammond | Sep 26, 2024 | Blog

I recently had the pleasure of speaking again with Johnny Vedmore on his show on TNT News, which he informed me would sadly be his final episode. (I’ll have more to say about this turn of events, which relates to censorship and the systemic threat to independent journalism, in a future post.)

In my first appearance on his show back in August, we discussed the need to end the US government’s longstanding policy of supporting Israel’s crimes against the Palestinians and how the criminal Zionist regime must eventually fall.

This time, we again focused on Israel, essentially following up on our previous conversation. My interview begins at about the 35-minute mark in the video below:

Interview Summary

Specific topics we discussed include:

How Israel’s genocide in Gaza is continuing with US support notwithstanding the deceitful propaganda narrative emanating from the Biden administration that it has been working tirelessly for a ceasefire, which false narrative itself serves to facilitate this ongoing crime against humanity.
How Israel must have somehow interrupted the supply chain of pagers and walkie-talkies to be able to plant explosives in its back-to-back operations to kill or injure Hezbollah members in Lebanon, and why those operations violate international law.
Why I don’t believe (and hope I’m not wrong) that Israel will be able to launch a major military invasion of Lebanon such as we saw in 1982 and 2006.
How Israeli Prime Minister until the 10/7 attacks had maintained a strategy of utilizing Hamas as a strategic ally to block any movement toward peace negotiations with the Palestinians.
How Netanyahu has been deliberately sabotaging ceasefire negotiations with Hamas while the Biden administration runs cover for him with its aforementioned false narrative.
Why Netanyahu needs to prolong Israel’s military operation in Gaza for his own political survival, and how any regime that might replace him would probably carry on his extremist agenda because Israeli society itself has become increasingly extreme in its support of criminal violence against the Palestinians.
How the intelligence failure occurred prior to the 10/7 attacks that enabled it to proceed for so long that day in the absence of an effective response by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), in which Israeli civilians were killed by their own armed forces.
How the choice American voters are faced with this presidential election is between one genocide supporter or another.

Obstacle to Peace

If you really want to understand the true nature of the Israel-Palestine conflict and the US government’s role in it, as opposed to the fictional Zionist propaganda narratives that we are incessantly bombarded with by the government and mainstream media, you cannot do better than my book Obstacle to Peace. Don’t take my word for it! Scott Horton has described it as “the definitive scholarly account of the American role in the entire disaster.”

You can cut out the middle man and support my work by purchasing a signed hardcover or paperback copy directly from me here.

Cross-posted from JeremyRHammond.com.