Asses of Asymmetry

The entire world is aghast following the revelation of suicides at the concentration camp and torture clinic at Guantanamo in U.S. Cuba. Aghast not at the suicides themselves, except perhaps a dazed sense of wonder that such an incident could have been forestalled at the fiendish institution for five years, but rather at how offended the fiends were by the prisoners' act and the fatuous, self serving condemnation of the pathetic victims by their tormenters. Instead of contrition for the brutal treatment and harsh conditions that led to the deaths, or the lack of discipline that allowed them, professional sadists in the employ of the Bush administration expressed outrage at the suicides, calling them an act of asymmetric warfare, intended to embarrass "coalition forces". Those darn detainees!

Asymmetric warfare? That DOES sound scary! The U.S. would NEVER do that! That is what rag headed criminals do when offered freedom and democracy by the greatest nation on Earth. The U.S. sent the best equipped elite fighting force the world has ever known to help the backward Iraqis enter the twenty first century by returning their country to stone age conditions. Instead of standing up and fighting like men, insurgents hide behind the burkas of their women in the hope that staggering civilian casualties will turn world opinion against modern knights in body armor crusading through the cradle of civilization. Little currency has been achieved by the fact that Sunni Ba'athists in Sadaam's military were wooed by American promises into ordering their troops to surrender rather than oppose U.S. forces invading Iraq, and are now being hunted like dogs as holdouts of the old regime.

Asymmetric warfare is the newly coined term for guerrilla war, waged successfully against the U.S. military most conspicuously in Viet Nam and coincidentally by American patriots at Lexington who, like the Vietnamese, were reluctant to be colonials. When Iraqi forces abandoned their outclassed soviet era tanks and melted into the population they were running away to fight another day rather than immolate themselves upon the unstoppable juggernaut of the U.S. military. That may have seemed like a dirty trick to soldiers indoctrinated with the nobility of a stand up fight against a uniformed enemy, but it was the only tactic available to second stringers besieged in their own country by the global behemoth of U.S. power. In May 2003, the pResident announced combat was over, the mission accomplished; corporate media crowed We can drive anywhere in Baghdad!! 

But can we park there?

Asymmetry is two sides out of balance. Much as the rulers of the free world curse insurgents for their resort to asymmetric warfare, the United States regularly depends upon asymmetric warfare for victory, won from such formidable adversaries as Panama or Grenada where application of overwhelming military force assured relatively pain free conquests of inoffensive people. The U.S. would never launch an attack on a modern industrial nation capable of defending itself, like France, or Russia, or even insignificant North Korea with its handful of thermonuclear weapons. No, that would be a little too symmetrical. It is a safer bet to invade backwards nations lacking modern military establishments and preferably previously weakened by decades of sanctions. It is the U.S. that is electing to wage asymmetric warfare in Iraq and elsewhere. If the U.S. cared about symmetry in warfare, tanks, planes, missiles, radar and computers could be sold to insurgents who would be more than happy to take a break from digging roadside mines to indulge in the stimulating high tech fun of virtual warfare.

As troublesome as asymmetric warfare may be for symmetry fanatics, asymmetry is the rule in many aspects of 21st century civilization. There is the asymmetry of the world's million superrich and it's 3 billion superpoor. The asymmetry of analysis based scientific inquiry and faith based fundamentalist ignorance fuels sectarian violence everywhere. Ignorance is the inevitable result of the asymmetry between knowledge and the information available to the public through the filter of corporate media. Environmental destruction is the result of asymmetry between overarching corporate greed and the utter defenselessness of natural ecosystems. There is executive asymmetry between the Bush administration's practice of spying on citizens, and its policy of classifying all information about its own activities. Legal asymmetry between the draconian new regulations promulgated by the neoCONs, including the infamous USA PATRIOT ACT, and the Rovian presidential preference for signing statements claiming exemption from applicable law undermines the rule of law. Democratic asymmetry exists between a congress who overwhelmingly want war and a people who overwhelmingly want war to end. There is scandalous asymmetry between the noble things leaders say and the ignoble things they do. Asymmetry is a lame excuse for asininity.

Yep, the United States sure puts the ASS in Asymmetry.

Reverend Doktor C. Sarian

Mid Coast Sub Church of Paranoia

Church of the SubGenius

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