Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
With all the batshit crazy Republican candidates on the ballot around the country next week you might have missed this batshit crazy Democratic candidate in Texas. Kesha Rogers is running against incumbent Republican Pete Olson in Texas' 22nd Congressional District. And she's a nutcase extraordinaire:
Kesha Rogers is keeping busy. Not only is she taking on Republican U.S. Rep. Pete Olson in a heavily conservative district this fall; she's busy waging a war against the British Empire."That is the number one challenge and enemy we are up against right now," Rogers says. "Imperial Britain... has been the dominant force behind the destruction of sovereign nation states."
For those of us who like to keep an eye on the political looneys, that last bit should be a clue that we're talking about a Lyndon Larouche follower here.
As a devotee of Lyndon LaRouche, the man she calls "the world's leading economic forecaster," Rogers believes America is in an epic struggle against the financial forces of London. She also denies global warming, compares health care reform proposals to Hitler's Tiergarten 4 medical killing program and calls for the impeachment of President Barack Obama.
Unlike the Republican party, which has embraced the crazy of Sharron Angle, Carl Paladino, Michelle Bachmann and many others, the Democratic Party of Texas passed a referendum officially disclaiming their candidate and telling Democrats not to vote for her.
Politics
Comments
My favorite crazy candidate of the year is Queen Noble.
Posted by: FishyFred | October 26, 2010 11:05 AM
As I was clicking the "read on" link, I thought "this must be a LaRouchie." And sure enough, I was right. That lot have been saying since 1978 (at least) that the entire drug trade was controlled by the Queen, for the sole purpose of destroying America. Not, you know, to make money, as so many actual drug-dealers were deceived into thinking.
Posted by: Raging Bee | October 26, 2010 11:08 AM
I'm guessing Olsen isn't spending a lot this cycle.
Posted by: MikeMa | October 26, 2010 11:14 AM
Imperial Britain! Why, somebody ought to throw a tea party!
Posted by: rob | October 26, 2010 11:29 AM
"Imperial Britain... has been the dominant force behind the destruction of sovereign nation states."
That was the 18th and 19th Centuries, you guys were supposed to take over the gig for the 20th and 21st.
Posted by: Matty | October 26, 2010 11:36 AM
If you ever come to the conclusion that you've made a terrible mistake you can be welcomed back into the bosom of Mother Britain with only some trivial reparations... :-)
Posted by: David Durant | October 26, 2010 11:41 AM
My parents live in TX-22. They were plagued by that POS Tom Delay for years and now Pete Olsen is barely better (at least he's less corrupt). Unfortunately for them, that district is almost assuredly going to be red forever. It's gone to the Dems once in my memory, and that's because Delay got kicked out and the Republican's ran someone who had no business being an elected official...which means they'd be a perfect Tea Party candidate now.
Posted by: Bouj | October 26, 2010 11:48 AM
You have to give this to the people spreading Windsorite conspiracy theories- at least they've latched onto an actually existant group with an actual legacy of abused power. (Offer void for "The Queen is a Reptite" proponents and the dude in this nsfw comic.)
Posted by: Nentuaby | October 26, 2010 11:52 AM
the difference between the parties, in a nutshell. they are crazy people in any movement. the republicans have let them take over. the democrats, deeply flawed as they are, have not.
Posted by: andrew | October 26, 2010 11:56 AM
Bouj @ 7:
My morning newspaper reported that Mr. Delay's trial is starting in Austin.
Posted by: Michael Heath | October 26, 2010 11:59 AM
They'd make us start spelling "tire", "color" and "center" funny.
I can't believe she's been officially denounced by her own party. Why can't the Republicans do that? Ugh.
Posted by: Michael Suttkus, II | October 26, 2010 12:02 PM
I find it amusing that you cite wanting to have Obama impeached as evidence of her craziness, though I recognize that your own reasons are very different, and I agree with you but not her.
Posted by: xebecs | October 26, 2010 12:03 PM
What's the LaRouchie's deal? I see their tables on the street here in Montreal, and they usually advertise looking like a left-wing political group, critical of power structures in the States, that kind of thing.
I bought their journal once and couldn't make sense of it, even to describe it to other people.
Is this a generational thing? Would it be more obvious if I were over 30?
Posted by: Sivi | October 26, 2010 12:38 PM
Back in the 90s when I lived in Phoenix I came across a campaign tract put out by the Democratic opponent to the incumbent Republican. She also was a LaRouche devotee, quoting him in complete gospel.
It was, by far, the single most entertaining political tract I have ever read. I still have it somewhere.
If they had any power, or any chance at power, they would be scary. These wingnuts are just funny. I think there was a discussion here a while back saying right crazies are 'wingnuts' and left crazies are 'moonbats.' Despite claiming to be Democrats, I think LaRouchies count as wingnuts.
Posted by: Ted H. | October 26, 2010 12:46 PM
"Is this a generational thing? Would it be more obvious if I were over 30?"
I seriously doubt it. Thirty years ago, I saw copies of their newsletter, the Executive Intelligence Report, and judged the content absurd.
Posted by: Chris Winter | October 26, 2010 12:50 PM
Posted by: Herod the Freemason | October 26, 2010 1:04 PM
As is typically the case, there is very little accurate information here about either Kesha Rogers or Lyndon LaRouche. Fortunately, they both have websites:
http://www.kesharogers.com/
http://www.larouchepac.com/
Posted by: marisol | October 26, 2010 1:26 PM
marisol, #17:
Yeah, they're insane alright. I guess the information given on this thread on this blog is accurate enough.
Posted by: Chiroptera | October 26, 2010 1:43 PM
Anybody wants to bet she's a 9/11 truther?
Posted by: Asdf | October 26, 2010 2:09 PM
Asdf: that would count in her favor -- some of the 9/11 conspiracy theories are better grounded and more realistic than anything I've heard from the laRouchies.
Posted by: Raging Bee | October 26, 2010 2:19 PM
Is America becoming an insane asylum?
Posted by: Paen | October 26, 2010 2:55 PM
I once had a "conversation" with a LaRouchian on a street corner in Seattle. It started out fine, but took a sharp turn for crazy when this guy sincerely said that science education in America is all wrong, and they should stop teaching science with math. *gape* "How should science be taught then? Since math is a universal constant." "Poetry!"
I was a bit rude in my incredulity, and he became quite abusive. And since then I've never had any doubt that LaRouchians are completely nuts.
Posted by: JustaTech | October 26, 2010 3:02 PM
Sivi @13,
No. I'm 45 and your description of not being able to make enough sense to describe it other people seems pretty spot on.
I have to admit, though, the title "Executive Intelligence Report" sounds really damn good and authoritative. Wish I had copyright to that title.
Posted by: James Hanley | October 26, 2010 3:51 PM
I live in TX-22. Every friday, I see idiots out on a businesss street corner shilling for her.
It includes signs reading: "Save NASA, Impeach Obama", screeds on healthcare, and my personal favorite -- photos of Obama complete with photoshopped Hitler mustache.
I got a call from them a few weeks ago. I told them I found the signs in particular bad taste, and mentioned that no matter WHOSE face they'd done that to, it was a sign the candidate was crazy, and I don't vote for crazy.
Honestly, I'll probably just leave that race blank when I vote.
Posted by: Morat20 | October 26, 2010 4:01 PM
@11:
too late! you already do...
Sorry, I don't get it - you mean that the Democrat party are powerless to remove their fruitcake candidate from the election? How on earth did she get to be the Dem. candidate in the first place?
Posted by: davem | October 26, 2010 4:05 PM
@25 It mystifies me too but apparently in America the big political parties don't actually choose their candidates they slap their name on a state run public election called a primary then whoever wins that gets to use it and there is nothing the party organisation can do. Why they would do this is unclear but I think it gives them various advantages compared to smaller parties who have to select their own candidates.
Posted by: Matty | October 26, 2010 4:23 PM
Woo! Down with the Queen! Fifty-four Forty or Fight! Don't Tread on Me! Remember the Maine! Git 'er Duuuuuun!!!
Posted by: Imrryr | October 26, 2010 4:38 PM
Hopefully she will not suffer such a crushing defeat that the LaRouchies are too ashamed to put her again on a poster here in Germany. It was funny that they used her victory in the Democratic primary as argument why we should elect one of their candidates here.
Posted by: j.s.d. | October 26, 2010 4:48 PM
How do you guys choose pary candidates in the US? Do these crazies wait until there are only 2 other people in the room (their mother and senile grandmother) before taking a vote?
Or is there some quoto of crazies required for entertainment value?
Posted by: Aster | October 26, 2010 4:52 PM
I'm also wondering how she got the nomination. If a nut like this were unopposed in my district, I would run.
Posted by: Ace of Sevens | October 26, 2010 5:18 PM
I've heard rumors (not sure of their source or credibility) that LaRouche and his organization are funded by the FBI or CIA as a leftover from the COINTELPRO days; the purpose being to attract, track and neutralize potentially harmful extremists. This theory makes sense, since most LaRouchies seem totally brainwashed and useless for any real criminal action. LaRouche himself insists he never knows where his next meal is coming from. He used to be a Communist, then became his present brand of wierd off-the-wall technocratic fascist. (Sometime in the '70s he handed copies of the Federalist Papers to his followers and told them to change their red diapers for red, white and blue.) These facts may or may not be connected (and the first may or may not be fact).
During the Bush Jr. years, LaRouchies were "agitating" to impeach Cheney. This may have been part of a strategy of preempting a liberal policy idea and making it look ridiculous. Just speculating here...
Posted by: Raging Bee | October 26, 2010 5:30 PM
Matty @26 is right. Whichever portion of the public shows up to vote in the primary is who selects the party's candidates. If the nutjobs show up in force, the nutjobs do the selecting. In some states the party has some ability to potentially force them off the ballot, but in most not.
Constitutionally, those issues are among the powers reserved to the states, because they're neither delegated to the federal government by the Constitution nor denied to the states by it.
Posted by: James Hanley | October 26, 2010 5:38 PM
It never ceases to amaze me to see how far what passes for political discussion has descended in this country in my time (I've been voting now for 41 years). Rather than examine what Ms. Rogers is saying, just about everyone here (the sole exception seems to be Marisol) is attacking her association with Mr. LaRouche rather than examining what she says in light of the current state of affairs in the United States.
Do you really know who these others posting the extreme remarks against free discourse are? For instance, "Raging Bee" looks to me like someone nursing a grudge or harboring a hidden agenda - look how many posts this person has made on this subject today.
For that matter, Ed, you are to be suspected yourself, after all, the banner at the top of your webpage is identical to the one at the top of the old LaRouche Youth Movement website - check it out yourself at http://wlym.com/tiki/tiki-index.php. How is it that you, with your taste of culture, get away with calling Ms. Rogers names? Remember, when you point at someone, three fingers point back at you. Wake up and smell the guano, sir, I think you've gotton some on you there.
Posted by: NotYourRegularReader | October 26, 2010 7:54 PM
Typically, here's how a LaRouchie gets on the ticket:
1: An election is being held which is considered a cakewalk for whoever will ultimately be the Republican nominee--either it's a well-established incumbent, or the most recent incumbent was a Democrat who was found sodomizing children with little Buddy Christ statues. Or it's being held in rural Texas, for that matter.
2: Since no serious Democrat wants the job of sacrificial lamb, there's usually some party hack who is willing to accept the party's endorsement, but doesn't bother running an actual primary campaign--he's got a nominal budget, but that's all going to be used to try and smear whoever the Republicans put up after the primaries are over with, just to weaken him for a future campaign.
3: The LaRouchies, at this point, swing into action, getting word out to the True Believers that they've got a chance. The campaign is low-key, without much media attention, but with a lot of effort. Depending on the state, this effort may even be abetted by Republicans cross-voting (since they know who THEIR candidate is, and love embarassing the Dems*)--note that some states require you to only vote in one set of primaries down the ballot, so this tactic doesn't apply there.
4: Since the Democratic Primary is being treated as a pro forma thing, few Dems show up at the polls, and the LaRouchies carry the day. Then the Dems have to scramble and get the egg off their faces.
*: I'm not claiming that Dems are above this sort of dirty politics, for the record--I've got a hunch that more than one Tea Party candidate got some crossover boost to get on the GOP ticket.
Posted by: Freemage | October 26, 2010 8:12 PM
NotYourRegularReader writes:
It makes me "suspect" because I use the same incredibly famous Rafael painting as someone else? I'll take idiotic bullshit for $1000, Alex.
It's called the First Amendment. Look it up sometime.
Posted by: Ed Brayton | October 26, 2010 8:38 PM
Notyourregularreader:
Ed posts from his linked report:
Why should I care or consider what a reality denier has to say? I appreciate Ed pointing out the nuts but Ms. Rogers appears every bit as ready to teach me something about public policy as Sarah Palin can about honesty.
So to answer your question, it's a waste of time to consider the arguments of idiotic nuts such as Ms. Rogers. It's not a waste of time to reveal their existence, their effect on public policy and their effect on the public at large.
Posted by: Michael Heath | October 26, 2010 8:46 PM
Additionally, as I'm rubber and you're glue, whatever you say bounces off me and sticks to you. Also, something about sticks and stones. Hell, throw in some monkeys jumping on the bed for good measure.
Posted by: Gretchen | October 26, 2010 9:00 PM
JustaTech writes:
I once had a "conversation" with a LaRouchian on a street corner in Seattle. It started out fine, but took a sharp turn for crazy when this guy sincerely said that science education in America is all wrong, and they should stop teaching science with math. *gape* "How should science be taught then? Since math is a universal constant." "Poetry!"
I was a bit rude in my incredulity, and he became quite abusive.
LaRouche youth activists seem to delight in tweaking pompous, anal-retentive baby-boomers who approach them on the street. The following may shed some light on what must appear to you to be a mystery:
http://www.larouchepac.com/node/11092
Posted by: Marisol | October 26, 2010 10:07 PM
Well as a rank anti-Capitalist/imperialist, I have to sat that I support anti-British sentiment in that the US has went from being an independent colony to being it's worse bitch prodigal son vs any of the rest of the Common Wealth countries. Over half of the US wars have been in old imperialist regions of the world, not to help freedom or self reliance but to counter commies and maintain the British/Euro banking capitalistic imperial ownership of wealth in those regions. And once that gets kicked out, then supplant and support regimes to STILL further Western/British/supplanting US interests. Presently, it's expanded to any country with billions to throw around and abuse and take advantage of a developing nation.
Posted by: megan | October 26, 2010 11:55 PM
LaRouche youth activists seem to delight in tweaking pompous, anal-retentive baby-boomers who approach them on the street.
Marisol, that hypothesis fails pretty miserable. LaRouchians frequently approach all sorts of people and the occasions when one does bother to talk to them they have absolutely crazy ideas. I'm reminded of one LaRouchian who seemed completely convinced that it was possible to trisect an angle (he didn't seem to understand the the restriction was to do so with a straightedge and compass) and thought that this was somehow connected to how the economic system needed to be modified.
And then there are all the ideas about music and how rock music was made by the evil British government. (This actually is something that I wonder about. How did both the Randians and the LaRouchians both end up with really strange ideas about music? Were the LaRouchians influenced by Rand or is just something that happens in crazy movements or is it just a coincidence?)
Posted by: Joshua Zelinsky | October 27, 2010 12:24 AM
Is America becoming an insane asylum?
Becoming?
Posted by: chris y | October 27, 2010 4:38 AM
And there are nooooo big banks that act globally that are based in the US. Not a single one. Nooooooo... never. <mock> <mock>
Where I come from, anticapitalism, antiimperialism, and antiamericanism are creepily close to each other.
Posted by: David Marjanović | October 27, 2010 9:12 AM
It's as if they listened to the old Sex Pistols song and mistook it for a documentary!
"God save the queen -
her fascist regime,
it made you a moron,
potential H-bomb."
...
Obviously, a serious threat to international stability.
Posted by: Marcus Ranum | October 27, 2010 9:50 AM
She's an anti-colonialist! Quick, somebody tell Dinesh D'Souza!
Posted by: Eric in Korea | October 27, 2010 10:05 AM
Larouche is nothing but a convicted criminal and cult leader who was sent to prison in the 1980s for hijacking over 30 million dollars from people who thought that he was a legitimate person. In this regards, Larouche is more of a Bernie Madoff with his cult's promissory note schemes and credit card fraud. Like Madoff, hardly anyone who lost a total of nearly 34 million dollars in this madmans delusions and fraud will ever see a dime.
Larouche has been a socialist, communist, Christian, left/right winger, pro Russian, anti Russian and anything else you can imagine to sucker people to his delusions.For over 40 years he has been running a cult of endless economic collapse, New Dark Ages and Nuclear war to recruit enough naive colege kids to drop out of school and support him. His cult skips many labor laws as he has them called "volunteers" and has them running like hamsters 18 hours a day, 6 1/2 to 7 days a week with one crisis after another for about 20 to 40 dollars a week.
This cult circus has been going on for over 40 years by Larouche who has to recruit new blood to replace the worn out and broken down cult members who are discarded or those who have figured out how this farce works. Several hundred people have left the cult and in the last dying days of the elderly Larouche, he needs a few naive people like Kesha to keep him and his wife living that millionaire lifestyle.
You can read about how this charade is run on sites like:
http://laroucheplanet.info/
http://justiceforjeremiah.com
http://lyndonlarouchewatch.org/
http://www.factnet.org/ under discussions where there are over 9K posts from former members about this lunacy.
This is a bum who had the anti semitic Protocols of the Elders of Zion placed in his propaganda.
If you give your name and phone number to the cult, they will be calling you endlessly to save humanity which seems to be only done by emptying your bank account with them. If you are in college, then the way to save humanity is for you to drop out of college, toil endlessly at their card table shrines or boiler rooms raising money for him. You bascialy work for free as most people in cults.
Kesah is just a cult memember who is still too glassy eyed to see how this whole lunacy works.
Whatever is the current script is all just a mirage as it can change on a dime when Larouche needs you to raise money from another list of people. Last year, Obama was the devil incarnate,. Then , Obama is being advised by Larouche. Now Obama is Hitler. Read up on how this cult operates so you do not get hoodwinked by them.
These cultists call themselves Democrats? Read what the cults LPAC National Leader had to say about a Black Democratic Senator years ago to see what sort of crazy town you are about to enter and Kesha is in.
http://wlym.com/PDF-SpReps/SPRP24.pdf
Just google Debbie Freeman with Parren Mitchell and see that the Senator had to pull a gun on the cult gang sent to his house!
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/cult/larouche/larou4.htm
"His outfit smacks of fascism to me," Rep. Parren J. Mitchell (D-Md.) said in a statement introduced in the libel case. Mitchell said in an interview that LaRouche supporters tried to break up his political gatherings in Baltimore and distributed literature calling him a drug dealer and a "house nigger." Mitchell said he received several anonymous telephone calls, including one death threat.
"I knew it was them because I recognized some of their voices," Mitchell said. He said the harassment ended soon after he pulled a gun on a group of LaRouche supporters gathered outside his Baltimore home. "
Posted by: Lyn Marcus | October 27, 2010 11:02 AM
Why do people listen to these idiots, and why do people take them seriously? How do they ever come this far? If someone is consistently stupid and ignorant, it's ok to disregard them as fools and not vote for them.
Posted by: Think or GTFO | October 27, 2010 12:11 PM
You dumb yanks thought you'd won the war, but we never stopped plotting. Soon our glorious queen will reconquer her former domain through economic warfare, such as tea taxation and making you buy dozens of those horrible plastic teapots with the Union Jack on. MWAHAHAHA!
Posted by: Coryat | October 27, 2010 12:22 PM
Obviously a Lyndon LaRouche groupie.
Posted by: kfreed | October 27, 2010 1:37 PM
P.S. The LaRouchies are the ones seen amongst the tea party crowds with the Obama Hitler signs... which has become a fav of tea partiers, naturally. They were at the single-payer health care rally in D.C. last summer and I was offered the opportunity to speak at length with one of their number. Batshit crazy is right. They claim to be on the left (these are the "Democrats" the tea partiers refer to when they say they include "Democrats" in their ranks), but they're so far to the left that they've turned the corner and ended up on the extreme right of the political spectrum.
Posted by: kfreed | October 27, 2010 2:06 PM
@j.s.d. #28
Bitte nicht! Please don't tell me that any German would actually listen to the LaRouche fantasies.
Posted by: kfreed | October 27, 2010 2:16 PM
Oh please, send John Oliver to interview her, oh please, please, please.
(and now I know what the 25th Amendment to the US Constitution is.)
Posted by: Aj | October 27, 2010 5:48 PM
I was just trying to explain to my younger brother the other day the Special Crazy that are Larouchies. We used to get them worse than the rest of the country, since he ran for Congress (like clockwork) from our district.
In 1990, the strip mall where I worked got a visit from the Broccoli Mobile. Land barge with a giant head of broccoli on top, and loudspeakers explaining that George Bush was a bad President, because he wouldn't eat broccoli. Without explaining why that meant anyone should vote for Larouche for Congressperson. When I was doing my AP Gov't class required canvassing for a candidate that year, we ran into a Larouchie in person, and OMG, he made the Broccoli Mobile seem like a sane campaign method. That's when I learned that they were VERY DEFENSIVE about Larouche having gone to jail for fraud, and that any movement that refers to itself as "a people's party" is likely to attract the crazies. I'm sure there are some sane Larouchies and/or Tea Partiers, but I have yet to meet any of them, and not really sure that I want to, as the amount of rationalization to allow a sane person to associate with such crazies has got to be damaging to mind of an outside observer. The ones I see handing out fliers at campaign events can be identified as Larouchies before you ever see their material, the crazed look in their eyes is so distinctive. Or, at least it was before the advent of the Tea Partiers.
Posted by: Djinna | October 27, 2010 9:58 PM
Truth is, Larouche is way the hell out there -- not really right or left, just batshit. Someone on RationalWiki described him as "where right and left meet on the far side of the moon".
Posted by: BrianX | October 27, 2010 11:23 PM
For instance, "Raging Bee" looks to me like someone nursing a grudge or harboring a hidden agenda - look how many posts this person has made on this subject today.
Yeah, the best way to hide an agenda is to stick around and attract attention with huge numbers of comments. Being inconspicuous and saying nothing just doesn't work, y'know?
Posted by: Raging Bee | October 27, 2010 11:36 PM
Speaking as a British citizen, I can assure you that it is impossible for you to declare war on us, since after the last spending review we don't actually possess a military to declare war on.
I mean, we are building a couple of Aircraft carriers, but they are for decorative purposes only - we are not getting any actual aircraft for them.
On the other hand, if you'd like to come over and spend a few $billion building military bases, we could do with the cash. Con to think of it.. give us $50 billion, we'll knock up some CGI footage of a nice war with none of those nasty 'Torture' and 'Kids getting maimed' bits, you can have a nice celebration and we'll call it quits, OK?
Posted by: Andrew Dodds | October 28, 2010 8:36 AM
@kfreed, 50:
Sorry, at least one does - Helga Zepp-LaRouche, Lyndon's wife and party leader of the Buergerrechtsbewegung Solidaritaet . But don't worry - they are far, far from the 5%-threshold needed to get in any Bundes- or Landtag.
Posted by: j.s.d. | October 28, 2010 3:05 PM
Why is it that whenever someone brings up LaRouche that I think of L. Ron Hubbard?
What they have in common is nonsensical bullshit, for sure.
I think the difference is that Hubbard was a cynic who deliberately made stuff up to be as whackaloon as possible. He didn't actually believe in any of it -- it was his way to escape taxes.
LaRouche made stuff up and actually believed it. Although now that he's 88, I wonder how much of his stuff is being "vetted" for him.
Posted by: Kevin | October 28, 2010 5:57 PM
Joshua Zelinksky, aren't you the famous Wikipedia administrator who is known for using Wikipedia as a propaganda platform for the defamation of your political enemies? (Daniel Brandt comes to mind.)
Posted by: Henry | October 29, 2010 12:30 PM
Hy Henry, I am the controversial individual you are thinking of. You do however seem to be quite confused. Among other details my politics and Daniel's politics are actually quite similar.
Posted by: Joshua Zelinsky | October 29, 2010 10:20 PM
Andrew Dodds @55 - Google "the Grand Fenwick Ploy" as introduced in "The Mouse that Roared".
CB
Posted by: captainblack | November 1, 2010 10:34 AM
Andrew Dodds (#55) - bearing in mind how excellently US forces (leaders in military spending by a degree of magnitude) are doing in poor, 'third-world' Afghanistan, even Jones the Butcher with a WWII-surplus Bren Gun would pose major logistical difficulties for the Americans.
"World Sheriff", indeed. :) - Dingo
Posted by: DIngoJack | November 1, 2010 10:51 AM
Actually, DingoJack, I suspect the US military would do quite well against a first-world opponent. Its military is pretty much optimized for World War III -- all out war against a sophisticated opponent who has overrun several allies who now require liberation, and who is so much of a threat that it would justify the use of ICBMs. Specifically, the erstwhile Soviet Union.
But ask it to topple a government without harming the civilians and then try to rebuild the nation it just broke -- that's not so straightforward. If the US wanted to turn Afghanistan into a puddle of glass, it could, fairly easily. Trying to rebuild Afghanistan is a completely different pickle. Trying to find one dude in a hostile and extremely remote mountainous region surrounded by people whose honor depends on protecting him . . . that's just not something any amount of military funding will achieve.
Posted by: Calli Arcale | November 2, 2010 3:39 PM
> Actually, DingoJack, I suspect the US military would do quite well against a first-world opponent.
Only by use of what is now commonly known as "Zerg Rush".
On a per-soldier basis, the US is quite a long way behind the volunteer armies of most of the first world.
It's just they have more than (IIRC) the next five biggest armies in the world in TOTAL.
Not forgetting if they were on their own, friendly fire could only affect US casualties. :-P
Posted by: Wow | November 3, 2010 12:25 PM