The Afghanistan game plan: Shhhh, don't tell 'em

The problem with today’s war plans is that we tend to think that the opponents don’t have TV or something. Stupid. It’s not even really TV that’s the problem, it’s the idea that we can TELL EVERYONE what our plans are, and yet expect the opponents in battle to act as though they have no idea what we’re about to do.

Because winning at anything in life against someone else requires more than just the talents of the trade; you have to outwit your opponent as well. This is why in basketball the ‘pump fake’ is a weapon of choice, and why in football the ‘juke’ is effective — you’re not just beating your adversaries with the mechanics of the game, you’re f*cking with their minds to give yourself the advantage. War is the same. D-Day, anyone?

The whole concept of D-day was misdirection. The allies didn’t just send a memo to the Axis powers, saying “hey, 3 o’clock, behind the monkey bars. Be there,” and then everyone and their aunt showed up for a huge brawl. Quite the opposite, right? They sent out metric f*ck-tons of misinformation, that they were going to attack their battleship, that the french were coming, that the dog ate their homework, whatever they had to send to convince Germany that NO SUCH ATTACK ON THEIR OWN BEACHHEAD WAS COMING. Really, what would have been the outcome of that battle had Germany known in advance?

I like Obama for the most part. I don’t agree with everything he says & does, but I know I definitely disagree with his detractors (birthers? Just another word for moron. Rush Limbaugh? Just another word for… yeah OK, moron). But here’s one of those things, you’re trying to please everyone, and by doing so you doom the mission. If you tell me “Hey ‘bob, I’m going to fight you on the playground at 3pm, for two minutes, and after the 1^st minutes all my friends will go home, and then I’m going to turn my back on you, assume I won, and walk away,” then you know what I’ll do? Hide all MY friends around the corner until 3:01, take the beating for a minute or two, and then have you strung up and quartered, and send the pieces the feed village people. Sorry, capitalization was wrong, I meant Village People. Yeah, those guys. Tough finding work in this economy, man, I’m just looking out.

This is the same sort of mistake GWB made. It made sense when he did it, because he’s an actual moron, but to see someone with a legitimate education and an IQ to match?

Head-scratchingly dumb.

Some things, you do just need to keep secret.