Monday, March 16, 2009

More on combat fatigue and military strategy!

When I was working politically with the LaRouchemovement, and its youthmovement (LYM) five years ago, it was constantly claimed that LYM was fighting a war of ideas!  The LYM was seen, by themselves, as a "revolutionary youth movement" that was "in a a war for the future of mankind". 

The rhethoric of the youthmovement is the same today, which one easily can find out by looking at what it says by using google(Individual members off course already know this!). 

I.e. The work of LaRouche, hes movement and the LYM is describes as a war! Not a warlike situation, but a war!

A lot of things that the movement does are described with military terms. The LYM created a "war room" to coodinate the work of the youth nationally in the USA last year. The political activities are often described as "attacks" and "deployments", "offensives" and opposition to the movement as "treason".

LaRouchian rhethoric

This rhethoric about warfare that LYM uses comes directly from Lyndon LaRouche, who from the onset has used military metaphors to describe his political work. So it is still today. On the LaRouchepub webbpage an article by Jeff Steinberg was published on March 7 that is typical of the rhethoric:

"March 7—Lyndon LaRouche has issued a declaration of war against the British Empire and its Wall Street assets, who have laid siege to the Obama White House and are fully committed to the destruction of the United States, starting with the institution of the Presidency.

This latest assault against the U.S. Presidency, is, in every way, a reincarnation of the overtly pro-Mussolini and pro-Hitler American Liberty League of the 1930s. The current assault is being steered, on the homefront, by a Wall Street- and London-bankrolled right-wing apparatus, led by the American Enterprise Institute, the Heritage Foundation, the Cato Institute, political loudmouths like Newt Gingrich, Rush Limbaugh, and Rupert Murdoch, and lying propagandists like Amity Shlaes and Jim Powell.

LaRouche today elaborated on his war declaration: "We are going to be relentless in pointing out, that all of the people who are lined up against the President, today, from Wall Street and related environs, are actually fascists, in the tradition of the Mussolini-loving and Hitler-loving Liberty League of the 1930s.

"Now what we've got out here," LaRouche continued, "is a bunch of wimps in the U.S. population—and that includes a lot of our Members of Congress, and similar kinds of institutions. They don't know what the defense of the nation is any more. They've been involved in so many fake wars, they don't know what a real one is! And we're in a real war, to save the United States from this kind of subversion, which is coming out of London. And with the attacks focussed against the current President of the United States, we're going to defend that Presidency, and we're going to make everybody very miserable, who doesn't agree with us, that this Presidency is going to be defended. This is our institution, this is our Republic.

"It is a choice," LaRouche concluded. "You can defend the British Empire and be our enemy. Or you can defend the United States and be our friend.""

An LaRouchepac pressrelease from last year uses the same language:

"May 1, 2008 (LAPC)--The United States is in a war against the British Empire, a war over the future of our nation and the future of the planet. Under the onslaught of Anglo-Dutch Liberal geopolitics, war, pestilence, famine, and death are spreading across the globe. Nations are being destabilized, populations are being destroyed, civilization itself is dying. It is deliberate, it is genocidal, and it is the policy of the British Empire.

This is a war of ideas, a war over the ideas which will determine the nature of the political system which will dominate the planet in the wake of the worst financial collapse in history."

This is what I call the method of "constant warfare"... In order to make sure that the members of the organization works as hard as possible and sticks together as a unity, WITHOUT QUESTIONING HIS LEADERSHIP AND WITHOUT QUESTIONING HIS POLICIES OR IDEAS, LaRouche has shaped the organization in a way that resembles an army and that supposedly is in a constant, day to day war, for the good of mankind!

This method is not unique for LaRouche. Guerilla groops, cults, armies, political groops, etc has used the same methods.

What is unique is that LaRouche has combined this kind of dogma about "constant warfare" with laborintensive methods, and pseudopsychological, almost religious, ideas and motivations and actually has created an organization in which the members basicly for thirty years has worked 12 to 14 hours a day for seven, or six and a half, days a week! 

This off course has lowered the efficiency of the members MUCH, MUCH, MUCH during the years, but the strength is that the members continue to work like this year after year and that too many does so without questioning the LaRouchian axioms behind the labor intensive methods.

Myths for internal circulation

This policy of laborintensive work was crucial for me when I decided to leave the organization in 2003/2004. Laborintensive work is bad economics! Only lousy economists would use these methods! But is is even lousier military thinking!

To motivate the members to continue to work despite the well known fact that labor intensive work exhausts laborers and creates less and less output per year, the laborintensive measures have been combined with an almos religious idea that the LaRouchian followers have a mission "to save mankind" and with a military rhethoric where laborintensive work is justified by the allegation that the organization is at war!

The myth that "the LaRouchemovement is in war" justifies a lot of evil. It has been used to justify that members should not get kids, that members should work seven days or six and a half days a week to raise funds, that ideas or facts that are contrary to LaRouches should not be made public within the organization, that members should regard opponents as persons that bascily commit treason, that they should study the approved literature even more and without questioning it... etc, etc...

As far as I know the so called "boomers" in the US organization are still working politically, with fundraising and other things, for six and a half days or even some times seven days a week. The youth have reading days but if they are included they basicly have the same work scedule and often have even longer days when they work (or study) for the movement.

Lousy strategic thinking!

When I first heard that the US organizers regularly worked politically seven days a week (around 2000), I was stunned! I had just a few months earlier spent some weeks studying military logistics at the library at Försvarshögskolan in Stockholm, as a part of my work in the movement. And while doing that I read several articles and books which dealt with "Combat and war fatigue" and how to deal with that true replacement forces that makes it possible for the units to rest!

When I asked Jonathan about how the seven days week could be justified he said that "we are in war". When I asked members I met, like Stephen, Ulf and Hussein that runs the Swedish organization today, they said "we are in war." When I myself justified this insanity to outsiders or other members I said the same thing: "we are in war". 

This lasted until my consciousness told me to protest and I asked helga about it. 

And... Helga Zepp LaRouche said the same in 2003 when I asked her about the six and a half days week the boomers had. "We are in war. The civilization is collapsing and it al depends on us!" And who was I to question the orders of the supreme commander of the movement at this war, LaRouche: "Surely you know he is a competent leader, right!"

WRONG!

So let me restate it again! NO COMPETENT GENERAL OR MILITARY LEADER WOULD EVER LET HIS OR HER TROOPS FIGHT AS MUCH, WITHOUT REST OR DAYS OFF, AS LAROUCHE AND HELGA LETS THEIR TROOPS FIGHT!

It is possible to have the troops fighting for days after days, most hours of the day, without rest but then they ALWAYS (without ANY military exeption, become less efficient, even if extremely motivated, after about two to three weeks. This according to all military expertice of all ages! (Not even genocidialists like Stalin, Mao,  Hitler and Mussolini were mad enough to let their troops fight without rest!)

If the strategic situation is such that there is a need to let the troops fight constantly without rest it is possible to let them do so even though they become less efficient, but after 200 days (it is said) constantly at the battlefront, the effect is so damaging that the troops simply have to be replaced or there is danger of desertation. If religiously or morally motivated one can let the troops fight beyond the 200 days, but then the military effect is LOW. The effect would then be more one that has another purpose, to control the soldiers and (the citizens) as some kind of slaves!

Those interested can compare this to labor intensive work. Similar effects and periods of time are discussed by economists that writes about historical experiments with laborintensive work. That is why the confederate slaveowners either used a six days workweek or a seven days workweek, depending on which merthod they wanted to use. The six days workweek was for those that wanted the slaves to produce as much as possible, the seven days workweek had the purpose to control the slaves. But the last method was dangerous, since unmotivated people that work like that tends to make rebellions!

The hard FACTS!

I have written about it before! But now I want to present a few links on this topic, so you can read what REAL military experts say about this topic!

The fact is simply that if LaRouche is a kind of military commander and the LYM and the LaRouchemovement is at war, then the commander is a lousy one, or a tyrant!

And to the members of the movement in those areas of the world in which the movement works politically in somewhat fewer days, like in Sweden were members have families and kids and everything, I would say: WOULD YOU BE MAD ENOUGH TO LET A GENERAL THAT LETS HIS TROOPS FIGHT LIKE THIS IN ONE PART OF THE WORLD, AND THAT VIEWS THESE LABORINTENSIVE MEASURES AS ECONOMICALLY AND POLITICALLY VIABLE HAVE ANY INFLUENCE OVER WORLD POLITICS? If he could, LaRouche would let even the Swedes, Australians and more "lazy" parts of the movement work as hard as the US organization does!

To end. Lets see what the US military wrote after WW2 ( http://www-cgsc.army.mil/carl/eto/eto-091.pdf ):

"The relief of units from the line for short periods of rest and rehabilitation not only affords the individual with an opportunity to rest and thereby prevents mental and physical exhaustion but it fosters within the soldier's mind the idea that his leaders arc concerned about his welfare, and such relief is one of most importance for promoting the morale."



http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htatrit/articles/20061226.aspx

http://www.bordeninstitute.army.mil/published_volumes/war_psychiatry/war_psychiatry.html

http://www-cgsc.army.mil/carl/eto/eto-091.pdf   (sidan 10 nr 15!!)

http://www.history.army.mil/books/agf/AGF007/ch14.htm

http://www.defence.gov.au/ARMY/LWSC/docs/SP_312.pdf

http://www.brooksidepress.org/Products/OperationalMedicine/DATA/operationalmed/Manuals/fm2251/01FM2251.html

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/battle.htm

http://www.armchairgeneral.com/forums/showthread.php?p=1133607

http://books.google.com/books?id=xA34hGXAjlIC&pg=PA124&lpg=PA124&dq=relief+rest+soldiers+replacements&source=bl&ots=REs2BgU9gQ&sig=HW4DWnPLUHgFgDOii7gulGpwbbM&hl=en&ei=Oyu-SYrxO4XW-Aad2fXJBA&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=8&ct=result

PS

As can be proven, the civil rights movement in the USA and the resistance movements in Europe during the war also came to the conclusion that the members cant work constantly if they wanted to be efficient. There are plenty of stories about how leaders of the resistance movement in Europe had to FORCE their members to rest, in order to secure the operation. Martin Luther King also ordered activists around him to rest and take sundays off at many occasions! To be leader also means that one has to make sure that the members of the entity you lead rests regularly, even if they do not want to rest!



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