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PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   9527 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 29, 2025

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The beard issue is silly ;what's more concerning is Hegseth saying that rules of engagement are for pussies. He advocated for trump to pardon men like eddie gallagher and the blackwater operators at nisour square. At least for now the military is limited to blowing up narco boats and standing around federal buildings.

You know, I'm kind of down with Hegseth on the rules of engagement being for pussies. The us wouldn't have been driven out of Afghanistan if they decided to ethnically cleanse the whole place and start putting up housing like the Israelis do.

The us wouldn't have been driven out of Afghanistan if they decided to ethnically cleanse the whole place and start putting up housing like the Israelis do.

Why would Americans want to live there?

I’m curious if you know much about the Nisour square incident. If you do and you think those guys are guilty, I’d love to hear more.

I’m no expert on the military or counter insurgency. But I did watch a 3 hour interview with those guys on the Shawn Ryan show. It’s very obvious to me that they are innocent. Worse than that, it’s a case where a bunch of veterans were set up up by Uncle Sam in order to kill Blackwater and hurt Eric Prince.

I’ve only heard one side of the story, but they did not look mistaken about the facts nor did they come off as liars.

It seems a shame they’re still being used as examples here for trigger happy war criminals. Especially when we have so many legit cases to point to.

I’ve only heard one side of the story ... obvious ... innocent

You've been had.

the Nisour square incident

  • bomb went off by a meeting
  • the meeting was called off
  • 4 Blackwater trucks got ready to secure an evac route
  • they were ordered to standby in the Green Zone
  • they disobeyed orders and went to Nisour square
  • they disobeyed further orders to return to the Green Zone
  • in Nisour square, they were ordered to halt traffic for another team leaving the area
  • a civilian car approached
  • they shot 40 people in response to 1 car with 2 people inside approaching ... because they freely shot into traffic and at police while driving back to base
  • Paul Slough in particular shot most of these people, firing wildly into traffic, ignoring orders to cease fire, until a colleague pulled his gun on him
  • this in fact blocked the evac route, so the convoy they were on standby to maybe help, waited 30 minutes, blocked by blown up cars

It’s certainly possible that in been had.

But nothing here seem particularly damning. Your bullets just seem like the prosecutions cliff notes.

There's no evidence that they were fired at, although one vehicle did take damage from ricochet fragments of an M203 grenade fired by the convoy. They panicked and fired indiscriminately.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/24/opinions/blackwater-defendants-pardon-trump-opinion-oconnor

https://archive.ph/gFrF8

I really wish you and the person below you would just link to the part of the speech you are talking about.

We also don't fight with stupid rules of engagement. We untie the hands of our warfighters to intimidate, demoralize, hunt and kill the enemies of our country. No more politically correct and overbearing rules of engagement, just common sense, maximum lethality and authority for warfighters.

And lest you say this is being uncharitable to Hegseth, as yunyun33 noted, he is on record campaigning for war criminals to be pardoned. If you think it's unfair to hold soldiers accountable for murdering prisoners, I think it's fair to characterize you as being pro-war crimes.

Being hamstrung by dumb rules of engagement is a common complaint of GWOT veterans.

Jocko had a short solo episode in response to the Kirk shooting where he discussed this. He offered an example where his unit had received intel that a notorious bad guy was going to be at a certain time and place and wanted to take him out. They couldn’t do this on their own since the RoE demanded that someone display hostile intent. Basically if the guy didn’t pick up a weapon, then he wasn’t fair game. And he was leadership and not dumb, so he probably wouldn’t pick up a weapon.

They needed a declaration from higher ups, I think flag officers, that this man was to be considered hostile. With such a declaration they could engage him without him displaying any hostile intent. They ran it up the flagpole and were denied.

The Kirk link was that they accepted the decision, Americans abide rule of law, and that’s a good thing. It’s a bad thing that one guy on his own got to declare Kirk hostile and take him out.

Being hamstrung by dumb rules of engagement is a common complaint of GWOT veterans.

Imagine going half way around the world to someone else's home and complaining that you can't commit more war crimes against locals who never at any point asked you to be there.

The GWOT failed because they failed at building alliances with locals and getting support. Not a single Afghan wanted to defend Kabul. The Afghan national army had zero motivation and nobody in Afghanistan believed in the occupation regime. Killing more Afghans would not have strengthened their enthusiasm for a corrupt regime.

Rather than killing more villagers they would have needed troops that spent years in villages building relations with locals and working on creating alliances with local figures. More gung ho recent arrivals from Texas who are trigger happy and want to go out and slaughter locals would have turned into a Vietnam scale fiasco.

I don’t think this is responding to anything I had posted.

In the example Jocko had shared the notorious bad guy was hated by locals. He was the kind of guy who would torture and kill your whole family if he suspected you were collaborating with coalition forces.

Er, I'm not a soldier, but at least to me that reads as a criticism of RoE which are badly designed, not of the concept of RoE generally. Otherwise, why specify that it's stupid RoE that you're jettisoning? Presumably there are "non-politically-correct" and "smart" RoE.

"Maximum lethality and authority" by definition trade off against other things (for example, avoiding war crimes).

But "maximum lethality" is part of a list describing (I think), Hegseth's preferred RoE, also including "common sense" and "authority for warfighters" (whoever they are). Incidentally, this confusion is why we need the Oxford comma, dammit - the oxford comma makes clear that "maximum lethality" is distinct from "authority for warfighters," while without a comma there is confusion about whether it's one list item or two.

But assuming that this is a three item list, I agree that "maximum" is a trade-off against something, but presumably it's restricted by "common sense" (whatever that is), and "authority for warfighters" (which I presume means deferring to what the individuals on the ground are seeing and reporting, but am not sure).

I still think you're likely over-selling this.

On the other hand, I continue to be a fat-ass civilian, so YMMV.

I composed this before Hegseth gave his "war crimes are badass" speech, though I'd argue it vindicates my remark about "warrior ethos" posturing. In practical terms, it is an ethos that glamorizes brutality as an expression of strength and doesn't appear to give much thought to the use of the military as a political tool beyond "kill people until they do what we say" (an approach which has a decidedly mixed record). Thus you end up getting arguments like "we failed in Vietnam/Iraq/Afghanistan because we weren't brutal enough" when the reality is that these efforts stumbled because the US didn't have a real plan for victory (and in the meantime we killed a lot of civilians). It's not quite a stab-in-the-back myth, but it's the same flavor of copium over the failure of pure force.

At least for now the military is limited to blowing up narco boats

*alleged narco boats

There are rules of engagement that are to ensure a country does not win the tactical battle and thereby lose the propaganda war (see Vietnam, and being currently attempted by Israel in Gaza).

And then there are rules of engagement that are simply ass-covering for the REMFs who ordered the operation to begin with (see Afghanistan, Iraq).

And finally, there are rules of engagement for powers who follow Machiavelli's advice to kings (see all sides of WWII, the Mongols under Ghenghis and Kublai Khan, and Rome at its peak).

War is a terrible thing. The modern ideal is that it is to be "civilized" by more humanitarian rules of engagement, but I'm not sure this is true. What I am sure is true is that the current blend of caregory 1 and 2 RoEs used by the US manages to be about the worst of all possible worlds.

It seems to me the attempt to civilize war leads to incomplete victory leading to renewed tensions years down the line.

I agree rules of engagement are for pussies. The United States should stop with this half ass shit. The US can destroy civilizations with the power of suns. If the US decides that you are deserving of its wrath there is no resistance, there is capitulation or everyone dies. Of course, the standard for such attention should be astronomically high.

Let's try a (maximally cynical) example out for size.

It is the year 2003, and you have been selected to lead Operation Get Iraqi Oil. Do you nuke the country into a glassy plain? I suspect that would make it harder to get Iraqi oil than staging an invasion and military occupation, but I'm curious what you think.

I would never lead that operation. But, if you are evil enough to think the US military should be used for such a thing I want you to shout from the rooftops "I am willing to kill every single Iraqi if that's what it takes to get the oil."

I think @zoink's point is that you shouldn't be handling Iraqi oil in the first place. If you aren't prepared to kill and destroy everyone there, you have no business getting involved.

In practice, I don't think this works - if pirates are intercepting 30% of American shipping from their base in heavily-populated Lebanon, you need some kind of response between 'let them' and 'kill everyone for 10 miles'.

The US has a lot of concerns where total annihilation would be wildly excessive and counterproductive. Obliterating Somalia because some enterprising fishermen decided to moonlight as pirates would be silly on top of appalling. It's a level of deranged collective punishment that would instantly turn the rest of the world against the US because nobody is sure when we're going to make an absurd demand at nukepoint. And it wouldn't even work, because the strategy immediately fails against any sort of decentralized opponent.

Doing nothing is comparatively reasonable, but still suboptimal, since having your shipping go unmolested is kind of a big deal.

Not super invested in this argument, but --

Obliterating Somalia because some enterprising fishermen decided to moonlight as pirates would be silly on top of appalling.

This only makes sense if you extend care to all humans equally as part of an internationalist humanitarian ethos. Many people don't, so they don't really care if 1 or 100 or 100,000 Somalians get killed in reaction to bothering us. If you ask them directly they would probably mumble something about how terrible it is because it's socially expected, but if you asked them to e.g. pay 5% higher taxes to Stop the Nuking of Somalians I doubt you would get much support.

It's a level of deranged collective punishment that would instantly turn the rest of the world against the US because nobody is sure when we're going to make an absurd demand at nukepoint.

Internationalist humanitarian true-believers are only (somewhat) common in U.S., Europe, and maybe Japan, countries so rich that luxury beliefs have become widespread. Most other nations' peoples still posses the tribal mindset I outlined above, and so to them the value of Somalian lives is approximately zero. Belgium and France might whine about it, but they increasingly irrelevant. Russia and China, who are relevant, would not care, though they would certainly cynically posture and feign outrage (just like the U.S. often does).

I don't really think maximum brutality is as beyond the pail as many (including myself) hope. There is a lot of room for American nastiness before Russia and China seem like more trustworthy and reliable allies, IMO.

Er, are you advocating that the US should only do nothing or destroy its enemies utterly? And if the standard for utter destruction is astronomically high, doesn't that imply that most of the time the US should do nothing?

It seems to me that the United States needs to be able to exercise a wide range of levels of military force in order to compel its enemies, including both the extremely high (destroying civilisations with the power of suns) and the moderate to low. As in Starship Troopers:

“Something still troubling you? Speak up. That’s what I’m here for, to answer your questions.”

“Uh, yes, sir. You said the sentry didn’t have any H-bomb. But he does have an H-bomb; that’s just the point. Well, at least we have, if we’re the sentry… and any sentry we’re up against is likely to have them, too. I don’t mean the sentry, I mean the side he’s on.”

“I understood you.”

“Well… you see, sir? If we can use an H-bomb—and, as you said, it’s no checker game; it’s real, it’s war and nobody is fooling around—isn’t it sort of ridiculous to go crawling around in the weeds, throwing knives and maybe getting yourself killed… and even losing the war… when you’ve got a real weapon you can use to win? What’s the point in a whole lot of men risking their lives with obsolete weapons when one professor type can do so much more just by pushing a button?”

Zim didn’t answer at once, which wasn’t like him at all. Then he said softly, “Are you happy in the Infantry, Hendrick? You can resign, you know.”

Hendrick muttered something; Zim said, “Speak up!”

“I’m not itching to resign, sir. I’m going to sweat out my term.”

“I see. Well, the question you asked is one that a sergeant isn’t really qualified to answer… and one that you shouldn’t ask me. You’re supposed to know the answer before you join up. Or you should. Did your school have a course in History and Moral Philosophy?”

“What? Sure—yes, sir.”

“Then you’ve heard the answer. But I’ll give you my own—unofficial—views on it. If you wanted to teach a baby a lesson, would you cut its head off?”

“Why… no, sir!”

“Of course not. You’d paddle it. There can be circumstances when it’s just as foolish to hit an enemy city with an H-bomb as it would be to spank a baby with an ax. War is not violence and killing, pure and simple; war is controlled violence, for a purpose. The purpose of war is to support your government’s decisions by force. The purpose is never to kill the enemy just to be killing him… but to make him do what you want him to do. Not killing… but controlled and purposeful violence. But it’s not your business or mine to decide the purpose of the control. It’s never a soldier’s business to decide when or where or how—or why—he fights; that belongs to the statesmen and the generals. The statesmen decide why and how much; the generals take it from there and tell us where and when and how. We supply the violence; other people—‘older and wiser heads,’ as they say—supply the control. Which is as it should be. That’s the best answer I can give you. If it doesn’t satisfy you, I’ll get you a chit to go talk to the regimental commander. If he can’t convince you—then go home and be a civilian! Because in that case you will certainly never make a soldier.”

Is any level of force short of complete annihilation 'half ass shit'? Do we need to either cut the baby's head off, or let the baby act out for as long as it likes?

Spanking is appropriate for a baby, community service is appropriate for a juvenile delinquent, and beheading is appropriate for a hardened, unrepentant public enemy.

Nobody thinks we should instantly behead babies or lunchtime rowdies, but many people think we should stop handing out spankings and community service to hardened, unrepentant public enemies.

Apparently zoink does.

As I indicated in my response to him, it's to illustrate a point in principle. Sure, the US military has often been used badly. The US military's record over the last thirty years is pretty darn embarrassing. The point I am making, citing Heinlein, is that past incompetence notwithstanding, it is both necessary and good for the US military to be able to deploy a wide range of levels of force, as appropriate for many different mission profiles.

I read @zoink's comment as calling for decisive action and full commitment. That does not require using maximum violence in all cases.

This is a more correct reading, but I was being bombastic and did reference nukes and killing "everyone". I completely deny the comparisons to disciplining children. The military breaks things until whatever the state wants to happen happens. Deploying the military should involve wailing and gnashing of teeth as we beg God for forgiveness for what we feel we must do.

Er, are you advocating that the US should only do nothing or destroy its enemies utterly? And if the standard for utter destruction is astronomically high, doesn't that imply that most of the time the US should do nothing?

Errr... um...errr.... ummm....uuuuur... Correct. Time for the midwit poly-psy majors playing games "inadvertently" getting half a million people killed, with no moral accountability to be out of work. Let your yes be yes and your no be no.

Do we need to either cut the baby's head off, or let the baby act out for as long as it likes?

I'm talking about military action not disciplining babies.

The point of the metaphor is to be illustrative of a principle.

To wit, the purpose of military action is to impose your will on another party. It is to threaten, induce, or compel another party to accept your will.

Frequently it is desirable to do so using the least amount of force possible. This is partly because it is frequently preferable to injure the enemy the least amount necessary; for instance, if one conflicts with an enemy with whom one has a trade relationship, one may not want to shatter their economy entirely, or if one is conquering a piece of territory, one probably wants to preserve that territory in as good condition as possible. It is also partly just because of expense on one's own side; if your goal can be achieved with a special forces operation, that is much more affordable than a full-scale invasion. One can get maximum value, so to speak, from one's own military by using the smallest amounts of force necessary to achieve one's goals.

If your military has only two settings, zero and one hundred, you lose a tremendous amount of ability to meaningfully compel one's rivals. If I'm a rival of the United States and I know that the only military force the United States will ever deploy is total nuclear annihilation, then I am free to do anything I like without fear of retaliation as long as I stay below the nuclear death threshold. According to your own words, the nuclear death threshold should be extraordinarily high, so in practice I can do whatever I like. The US has effectively disarmed itself.

It does not seem in American interests, to me, to disarm itself.

Look, the idea that the US has used its military force badly over the last thirty years is extremely defensible and probably common sense at this point. But you are overcorrecting to the point of total absurdity. Has the US military not been used well recently? Certainly. But I don't think the correct response to that is to rule out the possibility of using the US military to do anything.

I think that there exists a set of rules of engagement that are reasonable, that is not the set of rules of engagement that have been issued to American troops over the last 3 decades.

Generally the '10 heartbreaking images that will make you say fuck having borders & shit'ification of conflict has created a huge mess. People who have no ideas of the realities on the ground, difficulties of cracking the proverbial egg to make an omelette and willful blindness of another 15 ongoing conflicts will laserfocus on one or two frontiers. I wouldn't consider myself particularly a Zionist, but I do think the solution that maximizes longterm welfare for Palestinians & Israelis is more 'The Palestinians capitulate on death cultism, get rebuilt by a functional first world state' than anything else.

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