Dolschtoẞlegende - Stab in the Back Myth.
Wednesday, October 25, 2017
Dolschtoßlegende - Propagating Evil
How Hitler Manipulated Germany into Committing Genocide - WW2 > .
Dooming Gaddafi
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23-7-21 LIBYA | A Foreign Policy Disaster? - J K-L > .5:50 - Chapter 2 - The king of Libya
7:35 - Chapter 3 - Coup d'état
8:40 - Chapter 4 - Gadaffi
10:45 - Chapter 5 - Asserting control
12:00 - Chapter 6 - A rocky ride
15:20 - Chapter 7 - International influence
17:40 - Chapter 8 - Open terrorism
18:50 - Chapter 9 - Isolation
19:55 - Chapter 10 - 21st Century
21:05 - Chapter 11 - The Arab spring
22:20 - Chapter 12 - The final fall
23:05 - Chapter 13 - A failed state
Heritability of IQ →
The ongoing Libyan civil war starts in 2011, with the fall of Gaddafi's regime by a NATO coalition led by the United States, France and Great Britain (as well as the propaganda support of Qatar). What were the real motivations and causes that pushed the West to move against the government of the old Libyan dictator? Oil? Imperialism? Let's see what are the bases that have laid the groundwork for the conflict in Libya that, starting from the Arab Spring, would last until today, tearing a country into two distinct parts: the one led by Haftar with the National Transitional Council in Tobruk and that of the ex prime minister Al-Serraj, with the Government of National Accord in Tripoli.
Muammar Muhammad Abu Minyar al-Gaddafi (c. 1942 – 20 October 2011) was a Libyan revolutionary, politician and political theorist. He was the de facto leader of Libya, first as Revolutionary Chairman of the Libyan Arab Republic from 1969 to 1977 and then as the "Brotherly Leader" of the Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya from 1977 to 2011. He was initially ideologically committed to Arab nationalism and Arab socialism but later ruled according to his own Third International Theory.
Born near Sirte, Italian Libya, to a poor Bedouin family, Gaddafi became an Arab nationalist while at school in Sabha, later enrolling in the Royal Military Academy, Benghazi. Within the military, he founded a revolutionary group which deposed the Western-backed Senussi monarchy of Idris in a 1969 coup. Having taken power, Gaddafi converted Libya into a republic governed by his Revolutionary Command Council. Ruling by decree, he deported Libya's Italian population and ejected its Western military bases. Strengthening ties to Arab nationalist governments—particularly Gamal Abdel Nasser's Egypt—he unsuccessfully advocated pan-Arab political union. An Islamic modernist, he introduced sharia as the basis for the legal system and promoted "Islamic socialism". He nationalized the oil industry and used the increasing state revenues to bolster the military, fund foreign revolutionaries, as well as implement social programs emphasizing house-building, healthcare and education projects. In 1973, he initiated a "Popular Revolution" with the formation of Basic People's Congresses, presented as a system of direct democracy, but retained personal control over major decisions. He outlined his Third International Theory that year in The Green Book.
Gaddafi transformed Libya into a new socialist state called a Jamahiriya ("state of the masses") in 1977. He officially adopted a symbolic role in governance but remained head of both the military and the Revolutionary Committees responsible for policing and suppressing dissent. During the 1970s and 1980s, Libya's unsuccessful border conflicts with Egypt and Chad, support for foreign militants, and alleged responsibility for the Lockerbie bombing in Scotland left it increasingly isolated on the world stage. A particularly hostile relationship developed with the United States, United Kingdom and Israel, resulting in the 1986 U.S. bombing of Libya and United Nations–imposed economic sanctions. From 1999, Gaddafi shunned pan-Arabism and encouraged rapprochement with Western nations and pan-Africanism; he was Chairperson of the African Union from 2009 to 2010. Amid the 2011 Arab Spring, protests against widespread corruption and unemployment broke out in Eastern Libya. The situation descended into civil war, in which NATO intervened militarily on the side of the anti-Gaddafist National Transitional Council (NTC). The government was overthrown and Gaddafi retreated to Sirte, only to be captured and killed by NTC militants.
A highly divisive figure, Gaddafi dominated Libya's politics for four decades and was the subject of a pervasive cult of personality. He was decorated with various awards and praised for his anti-imperialist stance, support for Arab—and then African—unity, as well as for significant improvements that his government brought to the Libyan people's quality of life. Conversely, many Libyans strongly opposed Gaddafi's social and economic reforms; he was posthumously accused of sexual abuse. He was condemned by many as a dictator whose authoritarian administration systematically violated human rights and financed global terrorism.
Born near Sirte, Italian Libya, to a poor Bedouin family, Gaddafi became an Arab nationalist while at school in Sabha, later enrolling in the Royal Military Academy, Benghazi. Within the military, he founded a revolutionary group which deposed the Western-backed Senussi monarchy of Idris in a 1969 coup. Having taken power, Gaddafi converted Libya into a republic governed by his Revolutionary Command Council. Ruling by decree, he deported Libya's Italian population and ejected its Western military bases. Strengthening ties to Arab nationalist governments—particularly Gamal Abdel Nasser's Egypt—he unsuccessfully advocated pan-Arab political union. An Islamic modernist, he introduced sharia as the basis for the legal system and promoted "Islamic socialism". He nationalized the oil industry and used the increasing state revenues to bolster the military, fund foreign revolutionaries, as well as implement social programs emphasizing house-building, healthcare and education projects. In 1973, he initiated a "Popular Revolution" with the formation of Basic People's Congresses, presented as a system of direct democracy, but retained personal control over major decisions. He outlined his Third International Theory that year in The Green Book.
Gaddafi transformed Libya into a new socialist state called a Jamahiriya ("state of the masses") in 1977. He officially adopted a symbolic role in governance but remained head of both the military and the Revolutionary Committees responsible for policing and suppressing dissent. During the 1970s and 1980s, Libya's unsuccessful border conflicts with Egypt and Chad, support for foreign militants, and alleged responsibility for the Lockerbie bombing in Scotland left it increasingly isolated on the world stage. A particularly hostile relationship developed with the United States, United Kingdom and Israel, resulting in the 1986 U.S. bombing of Libya and United Nations–imposed economic sanctions. From 1999, Gaddafi shunned pan-Arabism and encouraged rapprochement with Western nations and pan-Africanism; he was Chairperson of the African Union from 2009 to 2010. Amid the 2011 Arab Spring, protests against widespread corruption and unemployment broke out in Eastern Libya. The situation descended into civil war, in which NATO intervened militarily on the side of the anti-Gaddafist National Transitional Council (NTC). The government was overthrown and Gaddafi retreated to Sirte, only to be captured and killed by NTC militants.
A highly divisive figure, Gaddafi dominated Libya's politics for four decades and was the subject of a pervasive cult of personality. He was decorated with various awards and praised for his anti-imperialist stance, support for Arab—and then African—unity, as well as for significant improvements that his government brought to the Libyan people's quality of life. Conversely, many Libyans strongly opposed Gaddafi's social and economic reforms; he was posthumously accused of sexual abuse. He was condemned by many as a dictator whose authoritarian administration systematically violated human rights and financed global terrorism.
Douhet - The Command of the Air (1921)
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Douhet & First Person to Drop a Bomb From an Aeroplane - HH > . Douhet > .Countdown to War: Italy: Mussolini's Fascists Prepare for WW2 - Waro > .
22-12-11 Is strategic bombing of infrastructure ever effective - Perun > .
2022 - Special Douhetesque Blunder ..
In 1921 Douhet completed a hugely influential treatise on strategic bombing titled The Command of the Air (Il dominio dell'aria) and retired from military service soon after. Except for a few months as the head of aviation in Mussolini's government in 1922, Douhet spent much of the rest of his life [died 1930] theorizing about the impact of military air power.
In his book Douhet argued that air power was revolutionary because it operated in the third dimension. Aircraft could fly over surface forces, relegating them to secondary importance. The vastness of the sky made defense almost impossible, so the essence of air power was the offensive. The only defense was a good offense. The air force that could achieve command of the air by bombing the enemy air arm into extinction would doom its enemy to perpetual bombardment. Command of the air meant victory.
Douhet believed in the morale effects of bombing. Air power could break a people's will by destroying a country's "vital centers". Armies became superfluous because aircraft could overfly them and attack these centers of the government, military and industry with impunity, a principle later called "The bomber will always get through". Targeting was central to this strategy and he believed that air commanders would prove themselves by their choice of targets. These would vary from situation to situation, but Douhet identified the five basic target types as: industry, transport infrastructure, communications, government and "the will of the people".
The last category was particularly important to Douhet, who believed in the principle of total war.
The chief strategy laid out in his writings, the Douhet model, is pivotal in debates regarding the use of air power and bombing campaigns. The Douhet model rests on the belief that in a conflict, the infliction of high costs from aerial bombing can shatter civilian morale. This would unravel the social basis of resistance, and pressure citizens into asking their governments to surrender. The logic of this model is that exposing large portions of civilian populations to the terror of destruction or the shortage of consumer goods would damage civilian morale into submission. By smothering the enemy's civilian centers with bombs, Douhet argued the war would become so terrible that the common people would rise against their government, overthrow it with revolution, then sue for peace.
This emphasis on the strategic offensive would blind Douhet to the possibilities of air defense or tactical support of armies. In his second edition of The Command of the Air he maintained such aviation was "useless, superfluous and harmful". He proposed an independent air force composed primarily of long-range load-carrying bombers. He believed interception of these bombers was unlikely, but allowed for a force of escort aircraft to ward off interceptors. Attacks would not require great accuracy. On a tactical level he advocated using three types of bombs in quick succession; explosives to destroy the target, incendiaries to ignite the damaged structures, and poison gas to keep firefighters and rescue crews away.
In many cases, he had hugely exaggerated the effects of bombing. His calculations for the amount of bombs and poison gas required to destroy a city were ludicrously optimistic. WW2 would prove many of his predictions to be wrong, particularly on the vulnerability of public morale to bombing.
In "Rivista Aeuronautica" in July 1928, he wrote that he believed that 300 tons of bombs over the most important cities would end a war in less than a month. During WW2 however, the Allies dropped over 2.5 million tons of bombs on Europe without decisive effect. [Though 2 nuclear devices induced Japan to surrender.]
Outside Italy, Douhet's reception was mixed. His theories were discussed and disseminated in France, Germany and America which were very receptive; In America, Billy Mitchell was a strong advocate. In Britain however, The Command of the Air was not required reading at the RAF Staff College.
A supporter of Mussolini, Douhet was appointed commissioner of aviation when the Fascists assumed power but he soon gave up this bureaucrat's job to continue writing, which he did up to his death from a heart attack in 1930. More than 70 years on, many of his predictions have failed to come true, but some of his concepts (gaining command of the air, terror bombing and attacking vital centers) continue to underpin air power theory to this day.
Douhet advocated a new strategic application for what he identified as the airplane’s superior capabilities in order to avoid the destructive stalemate of WW1 in future wars. Promising a quick and decisive end to war, The Command of The Air synthesized concepts, namely strategic bombing, an independent air force, the dominance of an offensive strategy, and breaking the will of the civilian population, among others, which contributed to the development of the modern air force. Though he was one of many who reflected on airpower’s rapid strategic development, Douhet “stated the case for airpower as no one else did—with all the stops out.”
https://www.classicsofstrategy.com/2015/09/the-command-of-the-air-by-giulio-douhet-19211927.html .
Classic Works in Strategy and Diplomacy ..
Classic Works in Strategy and Diplomacy .
https://www.classicsofstrategy.com/classicworks.html .
2022 - Special Douhetesque Blunder ..
General Giulio Douhet (30 May 1869 – 15 February 1930) was an Italian general and air power theorist. He was a key proponent of strategic bombing in aerial warfare. He was a contemporary of the 1920s air warfare advocates Walther Wever, Billy Mitchell and Hugh Trenchard.
In his book Douhet argued that air power was revolutionary because it operated in the third dimension. Aircraft could fly over surface forces, relegating them to secondary importance. The vastness of the sky made defense almost impossible, so the essence of air power was the offensive. The only defense was a good offense. The air force that could achieve command of the air by bombing the enemy air arm into extinction would doom its enemy to perpetual bombardment. Command of the air meant victory.
Douhet believed in the morale effects of bombing. Air power could break a people's will by destroying a country's "vital centers". Armies became superfluous because aircraft could overfly them and attack these centers of the government, military and industry with impunity, a principle later called "The bomber will always get through". Targeting was central to this strategy and he believed that air commanders would prove themselves by their choice of targets. These would vary from situation to situation, but Douhet identified the five basic target types as: industry, transport infrastructure, communications, government and "the will of the people".
The last category was particularly important to Douhet, who believed in the principle of total war.
The chief strategy laid out in his writings, the Douhet model, is pivotal in debates regarding the use of air power and bombing campaigns. The Douhet model rests on the belief that in a conflict, the infliction of high costs from aerial bombing can shatter civilian morale. This would unravel the social basis of resistance, and pressure citizens into asking their governments to surrender. The logic of this model is that exposing large portions of civilian populations to the terror of destruction or the shortage of consumer goods would damage civilian morale into submission. By smothering the enemy's civilian centers with bombs, Douhet argued the war would become so terrible that the common people would rise against their government, overthrow it with revolution, then sue for peace.
This emphasis on the strategic offensive would blind Douhet to the possibilities of air defense or tactical support of armies. In his second edition of The Command of the Air he maintained such aviation was "useless, superfluous and harmful". He proposed an independent air force composed primarily of long-range load-carrying bombers. He believed interception of these bombers was unlikely, but allowed for a force of escort aircraft to ward off interceptors. Attacks would not require great accuracy. On a tactical level he advocated using three types of bombs in quick succession; explosives to destroy the target, incendiaries to ignite the damaged structures, and poison gas to keep firefighters and rescue crews away.
In many cases, he had hugely exaggerated the effects of bombing. His calculations for the amount of bombs and poison gas required to destroy a city were ludicrously optimistic. WW2 would prove many of his predictions to be wrong, particularly on the vulnerability of public morale to bombing.
In "Rivista Aeuronautica" in July 1928, he wrote that he believed that 300 tons of bombs over the most important cities would end a war in less than a month. During WW2 however, the Allies dropped over 2.5 million tons of bombs on Europe without decisive effect. [Though 2 nuclear devices induced Japan to surrender.]
Outside Italy, Douhet's reception was mixed. His theories were discussed and disseminated in France, Germany and America which were very receptive; In America, Billy Mitchell was a strong advocate. In Britain however, The Command of the Air was not required reading at the RAF Staff College.
A supporter of Mussolini, Douhet was appointed commissioner of aviation when the Fascists assumed power but he soon gave up this bureaucrat's job to continue writing, which he did up to his death from a heart attack in 1930. More than 70 years on, many of his predictions have failed to come true, but some of his concepts (gaining command of the air, terror bombing and attacking vital centers) continue to underpin air power theory to this day.
https://www.classicsofstrategy.com/2015/09/the-command-of-the-air-by-giulio-douhet-19211927.html .
Classic Works in Strategy and Diplomacy ..
Classic Works in Strategy and Diplomacy .
https://www.classicsofstrategy.com/classicworks.html .
DPRK - Anti-Western Propaganda
Sour-cherry picking by one of the planet's most oppressive regimes ...
24-2-10 KOREA | A Final Separation? - Prof J K-L > .
24-5-18 [NK+XIR] Kim might want war - DW > .
24-2-9 Is North Korea Seeking Conflict With SK [XIR vs West]? - gtbt > .Societal Manipulation
Devouring vs Digesting
20th-century commentators attacked the social discrimination of ‘consumption’ language [devouring, digesting]. Janice Radway’s ‘Reading is Not Eating’ (1986), for example, exposed elitist attitudes towards readers of popular romance, showing how metaphors can structure contemporary prejudice. The opposition between digesting and devouring became an unfashionable one after the 1980s, laden with politically incorrect connotations.
This defensiveness about popular reading now coincides with another phenomenon: the fear that reading might lose its cultural potency completely. This is why the language of reading-as-devouring is rehabilitated, with its unprecedented positive spin. ‘Devouring’ is reclaimed because, at its base, it signifies interest. And in a world where Facebook, WhatsApp and Netflix compete for our attention, any interest in good old-fashioned reading is encouraged at all costs.
Ironically, however, the tendency to endorse any kind of reading as good reading fosters new assumptions about what good reading entails. ‘Devouring’ implies a certain tempo – it idealises the fast-paced reading experience. It also promotes a certain kind of writing, as the Guardian’s description of the Booker panel shows. If a book grips us, if it sucks us in like a Hollywood thriller, it’s doing its ‘job’. Any work that elicits a slower, more ruminative reading experience is cast as defective. Any reading strategy that resists or disrupts the linear drive of the page-turner is dismissed.
https://aeon.co/ideas/is-devouring-books-a-sign-of-superficiality-in-a-reader
This defensiveness about popular reading now coincides with another phenomenon: the fear that reading might lose its cultural potency completely. This is why the language of reading-as-devouring is rehabilitated, with its unprecedented positive spin. ‘Devouring’ is reclaimed because, at its base, it signifies interest. And in a world where Facebook, WhatsApp and Netflix compete for our attention, any interest in good old-fashioned reading is encouraged at all costs.
Ironically, however, the tendency to endorse any kind of reading as good reading fosters new assumptions about what good reading entails. ‘Devouring’ implies a certain tempo – it idealises the fast-paced reading experience. It also promotes a certain kind of writing, as the Guardian’s description of the Booker panel shows. If a book grips us, if it sucks us in like a Hollywood thriller, it’s doing its ‘job’. Any work that elicits a slower, more ruminative reading experience is cast as defective. Any reading strategy that resists or disrupts the linear drive of the page-turner is dismissed.
https://aeon.co/ideas/is-devouring-books-a-sign-of-superficiality-in-a-reader
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sī vīs pācem, parā bellum
igitur quī dēsīderat pācem praeparet bellum therefore, he who desires peace, let him prepare for war sī vīs pācem, parā bellum if you wan...
