I find this jingoistic talk about how a bunch of militia types don't stand a chance

[howard112211]

against the US military rather pointless.

There are several issues I see:

First of all, many militia types are actual combat veterans.

Second, no one is saying that they want to confront the US military head on, nor would they need to. I find it likely, that if there was an actual group of, lets say, one hundered determined combat veterans who decided that they wanted to cause mayham, they could actually do a hell of a lot of damage.

Third, if there was a large scale uprising, much of the fighting would take place in populated neighbourhoods. If the US military were to intervene, many of those who are hoping for protection by the US military would end up being collateral damage.

Furthermore, it is not really an army attacking the US military we should be worried about, but rather a "lone wolf" act of Timothy McVeigh style. He boasted a "kill ratio" of 168:1. No amount of military can stop such a thing from happening.

Then of course, you also have a lot of right wingers in the military. If shit really hit the fan, there is no guarantee that the military would not fracture into smaller opposing units.

I know it feels good for some to engage in fantasies how, given that a bunch of hicks with pitchforks started another civil war, the
US military would gloriously put a quick end to it with a few well targeted drone strikes. But at the end of the day, it appears that this is not much more then mental masturbation. What we should be much more worried about is that the hell raisers actually manage to get some lunatic like Todd Palin elected into an important office.

[elocs]

1. As recent wars have shown, the U.S. does not do well in urban warfare.

It's a very, very large country with lots of houses, lots of places to hide, and lots of people to help them hide and aid militias in other ways.

Also, we like our warfare to be like our sporting events where opposing teams wear uniforms so you can tell one side from the other. Our military does not do well when you cannot tell the cowboys from the Indians and in the U.S the situation would make Iraq and Afghanistan look like a walk in the park. It would be "Red Dawn" in spades.

[Fumesucker]

5. A very different situation than operating in Afghanistan or some other foreign country..

Our single biggest problem in Iraq and Afghanistan is that we utterly fail to understand the culture and mostly don't know the language(s) which means our humint is abysmal.

That would not be the case operating in the USA, we understand our own culture and language, or at least some of us do.

[howard112211]

6. Yes, but the standard method of dealing with hit-and-run type attacks,

namely blowing the village into which the attacker retreats to hell, is not applicable on US soil. Furthermore, Fort Hood has shown
us that the US military is quite vulnerable to such attacks.

If the teabaggers manage to provoke a response by the US military that causes innocent bystanders to be harmed, then they will "win", in the sense of presenting their act as legitimate to certain demographics.

[Fumesucker]

7. The "standard method" hasn't worked so well over there has it?

The militia movement disappeared for quite a while after Oklahoma City, if they pull any major attack again they will garner a hell of a lot of negative emotion from the public, just like they did then.

Very few of these folks are rocket surgeons, look at the last group that got arrested, the Hutaree militia.

[elocs]

10. My godson was in Afghanistan, the Korengal Valley where they are pulling out.

He said you couldn't tell a member of the Taliban from anyone else, that they would simply hide their weapons in the mountains and then just walk into the village.

In this country, with most people speaking the same language and being culturally similar I believe that would be to the advantage of the militia types who could more easily blend in.

How many, or how few people does it take to create a viable insurrection, one that cannot be easily or quickly stamped out? I'm not sure if I would be so quickly dismissive of militias or their sympathizers. They may not ultimately succeed, but they can cause a whole lot of trouble.

[Fumesucker]

14. You and I and your godson couldn't tell the Taliban from any other Afghan..

But I'll bet the Afghans know the sheep from the goats.

That was my original point, when you are an outsider everyone looks the same, you can't tell who is the good guy and who the bad, it's far more difficult to hide from someone who has grown up in the same culture and knows it intimately.

The Hutaree milita who were recently busted are fairly typical of these groups I think, they were easy meat when law enforcement finally focused on them.

[elocs]

29. So, if the soldiers there cannot tell who or who is not Taliban,

and the Afghans there will not help them because they do not want the Americans there, how does that help our troops get rid of the Taliban.

If being dismissive of any militia action in this country makes you feel better, then you should go with that.

[Fumesucker]

36. It doesn't get rid of the Taliban..

I think it's a fool's errand to even try to get rid of the Taliban in Afghanistan.

I'm not "dismissive" of domestic militia actions but I don't think they are any more of an existential threat to the US government or the population than are foreign terrorists, ie none.

[YOY]

2. I've seen them.

They're as a majority, not hardened veterans. Quite a few do have military training. No...not anywhere near the threat...and frankly if they infiltrated the US army to the point where they could cause major havoc...then I dare say basic training has failed.

No...they're just idiots in the woods playing soldier. Potentially dangerious...especially for local law enforcement, but not a viable military force? No.

[Frank Cannon]

4. Bunch of fat guys running around the woods drinking beer and firing guns

Pardon me if I'm not terrified.

[howard112211]

9. I'd guess the "real" ones are not seen on youtube.

[dmallind]

12. So being fat means they can't shoot?

Plant bombs? Booby traps? I see this silly reasoning all the time and it's about time somebody explained exactly what insurrection activity requires <10% body fat.

[Frank Cannon]

13. Oh, sure, they may go around blowing up schools and daycares and such

But an organized "rebellion" against the modern forces of the law would require some degree of physical fitness.

I'm sorry, but these fucktards don't scare me. Maybe because I've never known a hardcore right wing bully who wasn't, at heart, a fucking coward.

[YOY]

16. And that is in essence what they are. Bunch of wussies scared of their own shadows.

Basically scared of a world too big for them to change and far too macho to admit it and learn to cope like real men.

[dmallind]

17. But secret and insurrection style activities are shown to work against modern forces

In fact they are the only things that have been shown to work. Why is Afghanistan causing us so much problems? It's not because all the rebels are outrunning our troops. It's because they plant traps, execute ambushes, leave behind bombs, and then blend back in.

There is a huge gulf between being firghtened of such a possibility and thinking it impossible simply due to BMI of the participants. The two are not logically connected at all. An IED planted by an obese slob and one planted by a supreme athlete do the same job, and have the same likelihood of occurring here (which yes indeed is "very very low").

[Fumesucker]

22. It's much more difficult to "blend back in" in a situation..

Where the forces chasing you know the culture and the language intimately.

There is a huge and pervasive domestic spying apparatus in the USA, up until recently it was and is mostly focused on the drug war but if domestic terrorism becomes a major problem it wouldn't take long for that spying apparatus to get focused on militias.

[dmallind]

24. Oh sure - but Eric Rudolph managed for years too

Why? Because strange to say there are a lot of people with sympathy for far right Christian dominionist shenanigans who CAN keep their mouth shut. He was sheltered by sympathetic families in rural areas with none the wiser.

But back on the subthread topic with all the hyperventilating about obesity rates in the US wouldn't it be easier to blend in for those who are carrying a third grader's worth around their bellies than for dangerous-looking eagle-eyed whipcord-lithe gymnasts?

[Fumesucker]

28. But all Rudolph was doing was hiding at that time..

Once Rudolph's identity become known he didn't engage in any serious attacks, his last bombing was January 1998 and he was declared a suspect in February of that year..

And he was caught dumpster diving, which he wouldn't have been doing if he had all that much support.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Robert_Rudolph

[dmallind]

30. Hardly a victory for intel however that a known bomber eluded capture for years

Now imagine there are 1000 Rudolphs all hiding at the same time and popping up to do other deeds when they feel safe, emboldened by a mobilized support group. It took years to find 1 when he was on teh most wanted list.

[Fumesucker]

31. So if you have 1000 of them you'll be finding about one per day..

Assuming the same rate of capture..

If you have that rate of domestic terrorism though there will be far more people watching out for suspects, Tim McVeigh only stayed free for less than 90 minutes or so after the OKC bombing, hardly a sign of a criminal mastermind.

[arcadian]

48. Not only that, but each one of their attacks is a force generator.

And each iron fisted response from the government becomes a force generator. Every innocent family who's only connection to a Eric Rudolph type was that they knew him in High School, who's house is searched and family member's detained becomes a sympathizer and possible combatant.

[arcadian]

47. I disagree

Most US citizens don't know the terrain even a mile away from their own houses. To somebody who grew up in the burbs and who serves in the Army, rural America might as well be France. As far as domestic spying goes, it's a vacumm cleaner, picks up everything, to be anywhere near effective it needs to be finely polished and if somebody isn't already in the system, forget about it.

[Fumesucker]

50. But there are military and law enforcement from all parts of the country..

And I know enough about law enforcement to know they do know their terrain quite well.

Domestic spying is effective enough to arrest over 800,000 people a year just for a common weed and has tens of millions of Americans every year volunteering their very bodily fluids for inspection to make sure they are sufficiently cowed.

[HillbillyBob]

45. No fat folks can set bombs, but can they run away fast enough

to be clear of the detonation?
Do not underestimate the damage they can do. Many can be your next door neighbor and you would not even know. For some reason some seem to think I am part of the movement or trusted. Over and over I have had strangers come up to me and tell me some scary ass stuff.

Like the little aunty type that opened her purse in a dominionist church one time and showed me an uzi, or some guy on the street will come up to me and start telling me how much ammo and how many heavy weapons he has in his basement hidden away this was in a tattoo shop.
I am hesitant to go to the police as I don't know names etc and have had my own run ins with LEO over stupid shit like being gay in nazibama and not fitting the stereo types of what fags look like, or when I had an old car I had that had rocknroll radio station bumper stickers on the paint that I could not get them off. Or being the victim of a crime and I get arrested and slammed into detention for 8 months when my apt was broken into and I was clobbered with a heavy aluminium skillet of my own.

I have been shot at for snooping on KKK meetings among other things. Im too old to do that kind of running anymore.

[DailyGrind51]

3. Are there any published stats on the number of combat vets comprising militias?

Most of these guys seem too out of shape to have gone through military training. They look like hardware store owners.

[howard112211]

8. I'd guess that none of them appear in any official stats.

One can only speculate.

[mikehiggins]

11. Possibly the first effective urban terrorist group has been the IRA

which was organised on military lines and, in fact, did achieve some of their stated aims. It isn't impossible. A major difference, of course, is that the Irish did have centuries of oppression in which to build up steam, rather than 400+ days. A stroke of a pen reestablishing "equal time" broadcasting would drastically change the political landscape in short order EXCEPT that this SCOTUS would probably overturn it like they did the 2000 election.

And one lesson these domestic terrorists are unlikely to learn from the IRA example is the value of keeping your big mouth shut. Most of these tea-baggers are whiners looking for an audience, and little more. When the equivalent of Sinn Fein shows up I'll start to worry.

[Fumesucker]

15. Keeping your mouth shut..

I agree, wingnuts in the US have some of the biggest mouths around, most of them are psychologically incapable of not spouting off their opinions at every opportunity.

[Dogmudgeon]

18. Blowing off steam

I have no fear that any such scenario will be required any time soon.

The teabaggers are blowing off steam in their own sweet way because they're ignorant of what revolution, "water(ing) the tree of Liberty", and the rest of their teen-dream rhetoric are all about.

The macho military essays are from select military people who are frustrated at them for abusing the idea of Patriotism. Military people have to walk that walk; it's not a game to them. So, even many of the conservatives in the military dislike all the "patriot" talk from such an obvious bunch of fools.

We liberals have our own dumb-ass spectacles, but in this generation, they're mainly in-house squabbles and involve no wrapping of hypocrisy in the American flag.

In order to have a REAL bloodbath, you need people who are diabolically committed to it, who are savvy enough to gain power. Any rightist with that kind of mind will find re-forming the GOP into an again-sane body to be much easier and much less of a personal risk. But those people have yet to emerge because they haven't determined how best to do it. They (probably) know they want the next iteration of Conservatism to be rational, deliberative, and able to command honest popular respect. The details are not so easily determined and will require several years of work.

All IMHO, of course, but I'm pretty confident of this.

--d!

[Fumesucker]

20. I think conservatism has gone too far down the rabbit hole to get back to sanity any time soon..

There is just so much conservative dogma that is distinctly non-rational that I see no way the movement can be brought back to anything approaching rationality without a truly major philosophical overhaul.

The first thing that would have to be done is shitcan Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck and that's remarkably unlikely, they're making too much money and their listeners are amazingly devoted.

[Dogmudgeon]

51. That's exactly my point

Unless there is a MAJOR rescue by the Press, Conservatism is facing a long period of marginalization, the way it did after the Red Scare. It took Bill Buckley to revive that corpse, and he needed 25 years to do it.

The next go-round will probably require an even larger overhaul, since Buckley kept too much of the old cultural Conservatism. But with so many irrational hatreds dying, it may not be possible to go back.

There will be new forms of Fascism in the future, and one may emerge to dominate; it just won't come with a cigar in its mouth, a crocodile tear on its cheek, and a tight black dress for the rabble's eyes and a 14-year-old's sense of humor for its ears.

--d!

[OneTenthofOnePercent]

19. There is one major equalizing factor...

In other countries that our Armed forces operates, the use of heavy armament is more readily utilized.

I'm highly skeptical that the military would use JDAMS, mortars, bombs, cruise missiles, drones, battleships, tanks, and fighter jets against local militias. These are the technologies that make our military the most powerful in the world. It's just not effective without destroying US infrastructure or having significant collateral damage. The US killing innocent US civilians... that'll go over well, eh?

The US would have to fight the domestic terrorists on the ground, conventionally.
Plus, the fact that the terrorists are domestic opens up a whole new can of worms.
In recent history, our forces have not been too exemplary when it comes to urban warfare without the use of heavy armament.

The US would go to great lengths to avoid any armed confrontation with domestic terrorists.
No doubt the Armed Forces would win, but victory would not be worth the price (politically & patriotically).

[Fumesucker]

21. These days our law enforcement is as heavily armed as many armies were in the past..

SWAT teams specialize in urban warfare and practically every police force of any size has such a team nowadays, not to mention the entire alphabet soup of federal law enforcement.

Note that the military was not called in for the Hutaree militia raid recently.

[lunatica]

23. Jingoism is extreme patriotism and hatred against

anyone not of one's country. Teabaggers are a good example of jingoists, not the rest of us. Uber nationalistic Americans who hate all things non American as they choose to define it.

And there will be no large scale uprising coming from a tiny minority of extremists. I think you're the one who is having a fantasy.

[Odin2005]

25. Any civil unreast will mainly be in the form of pockets of guerrila insuregency.

US Civil War style civil wars don't happen any more, it's all guerrilla warfare now days.

[retread]

26. Nice try with the pejorative "jingoistic". Maybe you could use a Thesaurus or even

a Dictionary next time. Leading with this misuse pollutes your entire argument.



"Jingoism is defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as "extreme patriotism in the form of aggressive foreign policy".<1> In practice, it refers to the advocation of the use of threats or actual force against other countries in order to safeguard what they perceive as their country's national interests, and colloquially to excessive bias in judging one's own country as superior to others - an extreme type of nationalism.

The term originated in Britain, expressing a pugnacious attitude towards Russia in the 1870s. During the 19th century in the United States, journalists called this attitude spread-eagleism. "Jingoism" did not enter the U.S. vernacular until near the turn of the 20th century. This nationalistic belligerence was intensified by the sinking of the battleship USS Maine in Havana harbor that led to the Spanish-American War of 1898."

[TexasObserver]

27. You're proving you don't know a thing about military engagements.

If you think that the sad sacks of shit who make up the tea baggers are veterans with combat experience, you are really deluding yourself. This ain't Red Dawn, and you aren't Patrick Swayze.

You sure have all the RW talking points down.

[howard112211]

38. Right wing talking points? There are none in my OP,

Where did I say that I agree with the teabaggers or endorse rebellion against the US government?

[kentuck]

32. What type of people would vote Todd Palin into office?

the right-wing military, militia types?

Probably.

[BeFree]

33. Military branches

Ya got your troops, and then you got your intelligence branches.
And rarely do the two ever get together.

[cliffordu]

34. couple of points:

The Military would have to stand in line to kill those fuckers if they really tried to overthrow the government - Combat vets I now think these idiots are traitors and nothing else, and would love to slap one silly.

The military trains 24/7. They are to a man young, strong and motivated.

Most of the teabagging gun nuts are fat old men my age.

I am a vet, and would NOT like to have to defend a position against a squad from the 1st Marines. Or assault a position held by that squad.

I figure that there MIGHT be one little incident maybe a hundred dead - When the rest of the baggers realize there will be no help from the rest of the population and that the county sherriff and his swat team are all the combat they're going to see, and that they will NOT be treated like anything other than common criminals, well, that'll be that.

End of "movement"

Even if it costs a couple hundred - or thousand - lives, that's fine.

Nixon pretty much ended violent anti-war riots with the killings at Kent State, IIRC.....

[stevenleser]

37. I disagree, but I am not going to put strategy tips in an internet forum for the crazies to use

I'll DU-mail you

[cliffordu]

52. The crazies are prolly already aware of anything you can name.

I ain't worried.

[Dreamer Tatum]

35. It's all dry farts in the wind

the real message of those threads is that people want the militia types dead, period. I giggle at any suggestion to the contrary.

Let's review the most likely scenario:

It's most likely that another two or three extra-psycho militia types will do something horrible, like find another Murrah to bomb. This is far more likely than organized anti-government paramilitary activity.

In any case, any organized militia in the US can be defeated fairly neatly by strategically placed tables around urban centers. These tables would have coffee, donuts, back issues of Soldier of Fortune, and a couple of bibles.

[Jokerman]

39. Just shows that there can be "chest thumping" on both sides.

Not very productive for either side when it raises its ugly head.

[gulliver]

41. Chest thumping, true, but it could be productive.

One of the more compelling aspects of this whole set of arguments (gun rights, militias, lone terrorists, threats to leaders etc.) is that both sides have guns. It's productive to keep the right aware of that, IMO. It engenders respect, some healthy fear, and probably some mutual "I like your magazine" admiration.

[Javaman]

40. I'll wade into this...

"First of all, many militia types are actual combat veterans."

-but many many aren't vets who have no idea of unit cohesion. No idea about the concept of unified weaponry, small arms tactics or platoon level training. Just because there are a few vets, doesn't mean they 1) know how to lead 2) know unit tactics 3) people will listen to them.

-the one thing I have noticed about all of these moron militia's is that everyone in them wants to be the leader.

"Second, no one is saying that they want to confront the US military head on, nor would they need to. I find it likely, that if there was an actual group of, lets say, one hundered determined combat veterans who decided that they wanted to cause mayham, they could actually do a hell of a lot of damage."

-it's virtually impossible now to live off the radar. the hanetee militia and their subsequent round up, proved that. They all leave a train a mile long and a 100 feet wide. They aren't that bright. They had an "early warning system" set up and it failed miserably.

-The one thing the US has over the militias is something really simple. Dedication to a cause. These militia nuts love to believe they are dedicated, but they aren't. Once the poop hits the blades, they fall apart. This was proven by the other militias that quickly distanced themselves from the hanetee group when they were rounded up. The other militias couldn't profess their love for the US fast enough.

"Third, if there was a large scale uprising, much of the fighting would take place in populated neighbourhoods. If the US military were to intervene, many of those who are hoping for protection by the US military would end up being collateral damage."

-If there ever was a "large scale uprising" we would have much larger problems to deal with than a bunch of nuts running around trying to stake their personal fiefdom.

-If the US degraded to such a point where open armed struggle is taking place in suburbia, then that would mean 1) local police would have vanished 2) the National Guard would have been completely infiltrated with nuts and thus would make them completely ineffective 3) the US military (per order of Martial Law) would not have the ability to divide and conquer. 4) huge sections of the American population would have to be sympathetic to their cause (right now, that's certainly not happening)

"Furthermore, it is not really an army attacking the US military we should be worried about, but rather a "lone wolf" act of Timothy McVeigh style. He boasted a "kill ratio" of 168:1. No amount of military can stop such a thing from happening."

-This is vastly different that your original point. This is something completely different. And as "unique" as the media would like to play out the likes of little timmy, if you look back in US History, he's not all that unique. We have had our share of nuts. The only difference with little timmy is that he had access high explosives and knowledge on how to use them. Many people think they can blow things up, it's an entirely different matter in reality. Usually people don't use enough. And because they don't know what they are doing, blow themselves up.


"Then of course, you also have a lot of right wingers in the military. If shit really hit the fan, there is no guarantee that the military would not fracture into smaller opposing units."

-yes, there are many right wingers in the military, but they also aren't insurrectionists. They love our nation just as much as we do. And should not be labeled as "potential" terrorists.


"I know it feels good for some to engage in fantasies how, given that a bunch of hicks with pitchforks started another civil war, the
US military would gloriously put a quick end to it with a few well targeted drone strikes. But at the end of the day, it appears that this is not much more then mental masturbation. What we should be much more worried about is that the hell raisers actually manage to get some lunatic like Todd Palin elected into an important office."

-todd palin will never ever be elected to anything. I can safely say with no problem.

-If you look back upon the original Civil War, they were using state army's. Not people with pitch forks and torches. They were organized armies with drafts. They know formation, drilling, and, for the most part, tactical training for the time.

-US soldiers are trained to stay in place during a fire fight. Everyone would like to believe that they are capable of staying and fighting, however, history has proven that when the shooting starts the well trained army stays.

-If you look upon our own history, the Revolutionary war, we were the farmers fighting the brits, if it weren't for the help of the French, we would have gotten our asses kicked. That is the plain and simple truth.

-It wasn't until we had a trained PAID army, that we began to stand toe to toe. Until that point, if it weren't for the French, we would be hailing the Queen of England today.

-The vast majority of the people living in the colonies were tories. It wasn't until, with the help of the French, we started winning battles, that public sentiment began to turn. But even up until then end of the war, many people were still Tory's and fled to Canada.

-People think that there are many militia types ready to take over. Nope. they make up a very small, tiny part of the right wing nuts. Also, those who would like to have a revolution, love to talk a big game, but when it comes down to it, rarely if ever, do they follow up on it. Why? Because like anyone else, they have a family, kids, responsibilities, etc. and when they realize what they have will be taken away from them via an ill conceived cause, they back down and come to their senses.

-Granted there are a great many things that I don't particularly care for in this nation, especially over the last 8 years, but given the fact that these morons are only now going crazy instead of getting mad during george w. morons* time, only proves my point further. They are just spoiled little bastards who are scrapping for something because they aren't getting their way now.

-Throwing tantrums isn't enough of a reason to start a civil war. And deep down, I believe these racist bigots know that.

[howard112211]

42. Hey. Thanks for the long reply.

[dbt]

44. Hey, thanks for the short reply

:hi:

[TexasObserver]

43. Thanks for rebutting the OP's ridiculous propaganda.

The notion that these miscreants could do more than brutalize unarmed neighbors until the real military shows up is laughable.

The only places most of these "militia men" are dangerous are (1) a restaurant on All You Can Eat Night or (2) if you get between them and the TV when Spike is showing a Rambo marathon.

[yellowcanine]

46. "many militia types are actual combat veterans." I would like to see the numbers on that. And

secondly, being a combat veteran is not the same as leading men into combat. And it appears to me that most of those militia types are rather old guys so if they have seen actual combat it was quite a while ago, meaning they are out of shape and out of practice, all of their little maneuvers in the woods not withstanding.

There will be no "large scale uprising" so any talk about street fighting is just talk.

Any McVeigh style attack will have a huge negative effect on militia organizing, just as it did in the 1990s.

The U.S. Military is too well trained to "fracture into smaller opposing units." It won't happen. Anyone who steps out of line will be face court martial, just like the birther dude.

[cherokeeprogressive]

49. "you will be swiftly and efficiently fragged, tagged, and bagged."

So the OP used the wrong word in "jingoistic". I think this is what the OP may have been referring to... some old guy threatening in an OP yesterday to "re-up" for a chance to "put one in the ten ring" of American citizens who don't feel the same as he does. I laughed my ass off while reading his post. Then I started reading the cheers he got for stating that wish and was appalled.

"Fuck it, I haven't worn a green suit for almost 40 years, but I just might re-up for a chance to put one in the ten ring of a few of you jackasses." Reading such hyperbolic bullshit still makes this Veteran laugh.

Randi Rhodes spent an hour yesterday ranting about Beckkk speaking in "code", and secretly inciting violence. Bill Clinton said we shouldn't demonize the government. This fucker though, the guy who posted this tripe yesterday, comes right out and says Americans would be swiftly and efficiently killed with fragmentary grenades and put in body bags for "going up against the US government". He finishes his little diatribe with a statement that he just might re-up for the chance to put a few rounds in the ten ring of some fellow Americans. And he gets over 170 recs.