"Military Intelligence" Still An Oxymoron

"President Obama is gearing up for his presidential campaign. He's creating a new series of ads. The first ad boasts "just last week my Secret Service created jobs for 11 Colombian women." – Conan O'Brien

 "Conservatives are now criticizing President Obama because as a child in Indonesia he sometimes ate dog meat. But on the plus side, Obama is now polling very well among cats." – Conan O'Brien

 "President Obama, in his memoir, talked about his childhood in Indonesia living with his stepfather. He said when he was 8 years old, his stepfather introduced him to a number of unusual meats, including dog. Our president ate dog. Not only that, according to the book, he also ate snake. And his mother was looking for tiger. He was eating through Noah's Ark." – Jimmy Kimmel

 "But the dog thing — maybe that is where the floppy ears come from." – Jimmy Kimmel

It was a quiet weekend, other than the bluster and whining coming from the old Axis of Evil countries: North Korea issuing dire warnings against South Korea and its policies, and to the world to please start taking them seriously...  Iran was whining this morning, complaining of another computer virus that made them take their oil refineries offline until they can contain the bug.  Myanmar really didn't have any announcements, other than inquiring if it has liberalized enough to unfreeze the old generals bank accounts... So far, the responses have been stifled laughter hidden behind a raised hand to our mouths, and a belated admission from Israel that it knew that Iran's president never said that it was Iran's duty to wipe Israel off the map. It was actually a mix-up in translation issued from the Iranian government, and Israel took the opportunity and ran with it...

A few days ago there was an article in the NY Times about the CIA wanting to use more drones in Yemen. This morning there is an article about what a hard time the new president of Yemen is having, what with all of the insurgents in the desert and old Saleh regime politicians and generals who tend to ignore his orders. Yemen is the new training center for military intelligence officers and CIA mercenaries, who are chomping at the bit to become legitimately recognized for the time they are putting into securing this country... But it looks like we may have to be multi-tasking again, as the head of Sudan is hell bent on warring with newly formed South Sudan, and plans to take over their oil fields soon.

Even though our political candidates keep talking about spending less, they really mean spending less in taking care of old people and educating children. No need to educate kids when all the learning they'll need they can get while volunteering in our military. Plus, you don't have to worry about your child turning Liberal, because the compassionate ones all end up getting killed in battle, somehow... Our military is blending with the intelligence services, soon you won't be able to tell them apart, except for the talking heads, who constantly snipe and snap at each other. The old director of the CIA, Leon Panetta, who came to love clandestine operations during his tenure, left to become Secretary of Defense, and today announced the creation of a new military intelligence unit, to join with the intelligence units of the army, navy, and marines. So, our new way to conduct warfare will come from using drones and units like Seal Team 6 for assassinations and abductions, using up over $750 billion per year.

The sniping is coming from directors of intelligence, both old and new, over whether we should continue to develop spy satellites, or contract out to private firms to get the information. most of that information has no use for cutting edge optics, which we use a fraction of the time to read vin numbers, or count the number of hairs on an ant's butt... We have gone about as far as we can go with the technology of spy satellites, and the jobs they do now can be handled a lot more cheaply by a drone, if not better. Optic resolution for map making can be bought from private companies, and we could concentrate on research and development on the purely spy stuff, since it came in so handy finding Osama bin Laden or bringing down the Berlin Wall...

So, there soon may not be much difference between our military, our intelligence agents, and the private mercenaries we hire, the line in-between becoming all blurred, all fueled by designer drugs and anti-depressants. And its a good indication that we will be withdrawing our troops in time from Afghanistan, before more than one lone soldier snaps like in Vietnam. In both cases we wore out our welcome a very long time ago. At least in Afghanistan we are trying to change our legacy by bribing them with a couple billion dollars for the next ten years. It'll buy a lot of luxury apartments in Dubai, that's for sure...