Gary Brecher - War Nerd
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Self-described war nerd Gary Brecher knows hes not alone, that theres a legion of fat, lonely Americans, stuck in stupid, paper-pushing desk jobs, who get off on reading about war because they hate their lives. But Brecher writes about war, too. War Nerd collects his most opinionated, enraging, enlightening, and entertaining pieces. Part war commentator, part angry humorist la Bill Hicks, Brecher inveighs against pieties of all stripes Liberian generals, Dick Cheney, U.N. peacekeepers, the neo-cons and the massive incompetence of military powers. A provocative free thinker, he finds much to admire in the most unlikely places, and not always for the most pacifistic reasons: the Tamil Tigers, the Lebanese Hezbollah, the Danes of 1,000 years ago, and so on, across the globe and through the centuries. Crude, scatological, un-P.C., yet deeply informed, Brecher provides a radically different, completely unvarnished perspective on the nature of warfare.
Gary Brecher: author's other books
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Gary Brecher
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Brecher John
Brecher Christian
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Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION
IM A WAR nerd. A backseat sergeant. I know what I am. All I have to do is look down at the keyboard and theres my hairy white gut slopping over it, and theres crumbs between the keys from the fake homemade soft n chewy big cookies in the vending machine downstairs. I mean, they made me pay for the last keyboard because I spilled Diet Coke all over it. Diet Coke, the most fattening drink in the world. Every Web pig in the world is swimming in it, farting off the side of the swivel chair, aroma-free carbonation farts, or at least you hope they are.So Im unhealthy. No shit, Sigmund. I live in Fresno, which is a death sentence already, and I do about fifteen hours a day at this desk. Six or seven entering civilian numbers for the paycheck and the rest surfing the war news.
War is the only good thing in my life. In fact, war is great. Youre not supposed to say that, but it is. You think so yourself. People used to admit that they loved war. Its worth remembering that, so you can tell the peaceniks theyre the freaks, not us.
Pick any tribe you want, and youll find their heroes were warriors. It wouldnt occur to them that there was any other kind of hero: hero and warrior are the same thing. Not even the peaceniks want to give back what war gave them: the house they live in, the streets they drive down. Think about the city you live in. Whose was it three hundred years ago? If you live in America, you live on land that was taken by conquest. I guess Im supposed to think that Gandhi is a hero. If you think that, stop smudging up my book. Youre in the wrong shelf.
Besides, war is fun. Thats another big lie, that war is nothing but tragedy for everybody. The Russians have a saying that has a little more truth to it: War is a mother to some and a stepmother to others. Ive talked to a few old guys who were in WWII and I noticed the older they got, the less they wanted to talk about their civilian lives. Not even the wife and kiddies meant that much to them compared to those few years in uniform.
And thats natural because war is and always has been how you show you really care. Say it with blood. You want that piece of land? Be ready to die for it. Better yet, as Patton would say, kill for it.
War is also the mother of invention. Peacetime clogs peoples brains worse than Thanksgiving dinner. War is like a 150-mm alarm clock right there in your bedroom. When the walls get blown out and the roof starts falling, people show what they can do. And they get braver, they get smarter, they go from nowhere to glory. Take U.S. Grant. Our finest war lifted him from town drunk to commanding officer of the Potomac, the finest force the world has ever seen.
It happens everywhere, every century. If the Mongols hadnt decided to make the whole world their back pasture, then Subotai, the greatest general who ever lived, wouldve wasted his life pulling sheep across creek beds. Thats peacetime: slopping around in the mud with the sheep. I just dont see how people think thats better than conquering the world.
And ladies, this is not some mens club here. Ever hear of Joan of Arc? She was all woman, baby, and she could smite with the best of em. If shed stayed at home to bake bread, you never wouldve heard of her.
So there are all kinds of reasons to learn about war. Like its just naturally the coolest thing humans have ever done or ever will do. Like its the truth behind all the vanilla preaching, like it shows what people can accomplish, what people can survivewhat people do when everything is on the line.
Its also as funny as Hell. I guess Im not supposed to say that either, but its true. Right now (January 12, 2008), you cant turn on the TV without seeing U.S. Navy footage of some Iranian speedboats doing a few waterskiing moves around an American frigate in the Persian Gulf. The soundtrack is some foreign accent saying, I am coming to blow you up!
If you dont know anything about war like most people dont, youre sitting there in Iowa with your knees knocking, sure that these Iranian Evinrudes are just about to come crashing into your living room. If youre a serious war nerd, you know better. Sure enough, its just come out that the scary foreign voice on that soundtrack didnt come from any of the Iranian Bayliners. It was a prank by this guy local sailors call Filipino Monkey, whos been harassing every tramp steamer to come through the gulf within the last fifteen years.
Thats the first level of comedy. If you know a little history, theres also the way this is like a bad sequel to the Tonkin Gulf Resolution back in 1964, when the U.S. Navy helped get us into Nam by saying it had been mugged by a North Vietnamese destroyer. Naturally, the Navy volunteered the U.S. Army to fix the situation by sacrificing sixty thousand GIs in an Asian land war.
And then theres the really scary part of the joke, which is that the U.S. Navy really could be in big trouble if the Iranians decide to use those speedboats in a low-tech swarm attack. You see, way back in 2002, we staged the Millennium Challenge War Games in the Persian Gulf. The American officer who was supposed to be playing the Iranians managed to sink two-thirds of the U.S. fleet with a swarm of cheap improvised weapons, including Cessnas and civilian motorboats.
Once youve learned to read a war the way Ill teach you, youll be able to watch footage like that, separate the bullshit from the serious threats, and enjoy the comedy of war, even while youre seeing the truth behind each sides propaganda.
So why get a life when youve got a war?
Part 1
THE AMERICAS
COLOMBIA:
A HUNDRED YEARS OF SLAUGHTERTUDE
AMERICA KEEPS GETTING deeper into the shit in Colombia. Were airlifting planeloads of cash on the Colombian army$1.5 billion is what the Defense Department admits, so you gotta assume its more like $10 billion, with the rest squeezed through the usual CIA laundries. Colombias gung ho president, Alvaro Uribe, says whatever Washington likes to hear; hes going to ratchet up the war against the rebels. Washington will give Colombia anything it wants, if only to annoy Hugo Chavez, whos right next door in Venezuela.The big rebel group, FARC (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarios de Colombia), has the same bring-it-on attitude. The rebels are always on the lookout for new ways to kill people. They even hired three ex-IRA guys to show em how to make remote-launched mortars, and learned so fast they damn near blasted el presidente right off the platform at his own inauguration.
So with everybody ready to party, seemed like a good time to give you a little briefing on Colombia, our new pal. But I have to warn you: Colombian history is as messy as a slaughterhouse floor in a blackout. So Ill give you a choice: the short version (for MTV victims with thirty-second attention spans) or the long version for serious military buffs.
First, the short version:
Colombian History and Culture in Three Easy Steps
Step 1: Rent Scarface.
Step 2: Fast-forward to that scene where Al Pacino and his friends try a coke deal with some Colombians. The Colombians want to take the money and keep the coke. They try to persuade Pacino to tell them where the money is by handcuffing him and his buddy to the wall, revvin up a chainsaw and sawing off his friends arms and legs till the whole room is so splattered with blood you cant see whos killing who anymore.
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