Disappeared News

by Larry Geller

Of course, the tragedy at Ft. Hood last week dominated not only the mainstream news but also echoed and re-echoed in the twittersphere and elsewhere in online media. The problem with following tweets wherever they may go is that while many stops along the way are useless (“OMG I can’t believe it!”) some lead to new insights. Not all of these are any more encouraging that the Ft. Hood incident itself.

I can’t document the tortuous trail, but I was willing to let Twitter take me where it might, click by click. After a few clicks I found myself reading “Carlisle Barracks reacts to the Ft. Hood tragedy, reminds community members to take care of each other” and the logo of the US Army War College. Yes, Virginia, there is such a place. Ok, clicking on, and I found myself confronting this chilling quotation from the US Army War College Quarterly:

There will be no peace. At any given moment for the rest of our lifetimes, there will be multiple conflicts in mutating forms around the globe. Violent conflict will dominate the headlines, but cultural and economic struggles will be steadier and ultimately more decisive. The de facto role of the US armed forces will be to keep the world safe for our economy and open to our cultural assault. To those ends, we will do a fair amount of killing. [quoted in this Information Clearing House article]

The original is dated 1997 and credited: “Major (P) Ralph Peters is assigned to the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence, where he is responsible for future warfare.”

I decided to stop clicking for the time being. This is not where I want to go today.

Permalink posted by Larry @ 11/08/2009 12:22:00 PM