!War is over?
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agk's diary
28 May 2023 @ 16:35 UTC
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written on GPD Win 1
after church while it rains and birds sing
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Friends in my country's military branches tell me
the effects of peace China brokered over the last
two months---between Saudi and Iran, in Yemen, in
Syria, and peace's stabilizing influence in Iraq.
Navy sailors are coming home in large numbers from
the region's land bases with post-traumatic stress
from on-base sexual assault, hearing shots at a
distance, & other hazards of base life. It's hard
to exploit Saudi-Iran peace. 3 US administrations,
over more than 15 years wanted out, to "pivot."
The new chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,
highest-ranking military post in my country and
president's military advisor, is an Air Force guy.
The chairman who resigned opposed escalation in
Ukraine and held the correct position China has
no near-term plan to invade Taiwan.
Like my congressman, the new guy doesn't care my
country lacks industrial capacity to win near-peer
conflict, as Russia showed in Ukraine. They want
WWII, this time farce not tragedy. They want Euro-
pean land war, war in the Pacific, a bomb, sweet
rebuilding contracts.
Navy's brand new medic training no longer assumes
same-day treatment in Germany for wounded sailors.
Now they're told they may be all their guy'll get
for a week, an assumption that points to the South
Pacific and contested airspace.
War's over where my country bombed, droned, starv-
ed, assassinated, occupied, grifted, and lost for
30 years. China wants peace to do business there,
beginning with rebuilding. The world's worst human-
itarian disaster, in Yemen, can end.
Papua New Guinea planned to meet my county's presi-
dent about a new submarine base or something this
month. The meeting day was declared a national hol-
iday in PNG. My Prez skipped to endorse domestic
austerity in this year's debt ceiling circus.
PNG won't soon forget the insult. Other regional
players know what it means. Maybe war won't come to
the Pacific, ocean of peace. There'll be fat contr-
acts & sweetheart deals but purely speculative vio-
lence because now everybody knows Patriot missile
batteries, aircraft carrier groups, and F-35 jets
won't survive drone swarms or hypersonic gliders.
