A Thorough Analysis of the Missing 411 Map by David Paulides

Karst Map of the Conterminous (AKA Underground) United States - 2020

Public domain usage by Communications and PublishingMay 2020 (approx.) and found on the USGS website.

Preface:  I offer these insights and observations to any and to any and all studying the David Paulides books and Missing 411 map clusters, in the hopes that more and more frequent breakthroughs may be achieved.  In any case, I hope they're useful, but whadda I know?  I'm only one perspective, yet hopefully with some merit; the online map I'm using smudges some of the fine print, so if that throws me, please correct me—gently.

In any event, here they come.

Comparing the Missing 411 Clusters List to Reality

Just why are the Missing 411 clusters so closely linked to water? Having analyzed the map Paulides has made, I simply don't get it. Dave talks a lot about the jumbo dead spot running through the continent and the Great Plains, but if you take a look at he map, there are other dead spots to consider, too.

For instance, if water is so salient, what would you think of the Florida panhandle, flanked by sea and ocean? What would you predict? Well if you reasoned that it is teeming Everglade swamplands and USO hideout in both freshwater and offshore, you'd be sadly mistaken. The map done doesn't show any, including population-dense Miami, apparently.*

You want another one?  Another Missing 411 map cluster that ain't?  Very well,  my fine friends; look up and to Lower Michigan, provocatively wedged betwixt Great Lakes Michigan and Heron.  It had people, it has abundant water, but once again, the Missing 411 Map remains silent.  Why?  And why if water is so important, as the David Paulides books insist, are the essentially no cases across the Southern Coast, from Texas to Georgia?

What the Missing 411 Map Shows About Mountains

And now note the How come the southern coast is well-nigh clean record of vanishings where the Appalachian Mountain Range starts to shadow the US coastlines all the way up to Canada; pretty interesting, if you ask me.

Note that wherever the Missing 411 map shows coast clusters, it's always backed up by a rocky spine behind them, be it the Appalachians, Cascade-Sierras, or the less-noted Olympics upon the peninsula of the same name by Puget Sound; Dave has talked a lot about the connection betwixt water and rocks, but in the macro, it looks like mountain and water need to be in close enough proximity.

But why is this? What's causing this?

Obviously I don't know exactly, but for whoever's doing this, I know what this pattern looks like to me, and I'd call it a habitat range. These entities may have the ability to seemingly abduct at will, but they just don't seem to do it very from mountain ranges, and I find that very suspicious; consult a map showing elevation, or even better, a 3D map, super-imposing the Missing 411 clusters over them, and then tell you don't see what I do. Even just a simple eyeball comparison of the various maps makes my point, I think; from a continental level, wherever there is a spike in elevation, even with landlocked clusters, there tends to be a correspondent spike in cases. 

The pattern holds true for the northeastern part of the country too, doesn’t it?  We have a large mountain chain next to the largest population area in the US, combine them, and voila—the most vanishings in all the US in a nice, tidy package; such also explains to me the mass size of the Yosemite Cluster, just 170 miles from San Francisco, as well as the sea.

How I think the Missing 411 Map Can Make Predictions

But are there any counterexamples in my theory?

Well, in the western, southwestern areas there be lots of mountains, but not a lot of people are there.  As such and as you’d expect, there aren’t as many clusters, and duly lack girth, as well, when we encounter them.

Also, withing these mountainous badlands are sizable dead spots, leading to this offhand prediction:  THese abducting entities—whoever, whatever they be—would seem to need two things in their environment—high country and water—if only in the form of sufficient rainfall—to hang out, and the more overlap between them and people, there be more missings in consequence. As such, it would behoove someone, I think, to do a rainfall study, overlaying that data over a height map, and I think you’ll it a least a factor, coupled with the opportunities for entities to abduct people. If we, for instance, could find a dry mountain range near a large metropolitan area, say 150 or less miles, and yet no cases, well, I think that could go a long way to vindicate my theory.

This is why I think Dave’s Ogallala Aquifer  theory as to why adduction occur in the middle US, namely that it's because they live in the underground reservoir, doesn’t hold water. Simply put, it's too exotic, and the pattern is far simpler than to go there. The lush, verdant Great Plains water enough, but it doesn’t have mountains, and mountains are where you find the clusters, if only on the outskirts. This would explain, I think, those two deadspot peninsulas, namely Florida (no hilly habitat) and Michigan (next to none). Note, too, that standalone cluster around Arkansas; that also corresponds to an elevation bump.

Final Thoughts Upon the Missing 411 Map

As to whether this is bigfoot, I think not.  Bigfoot is seen all over, including the Great Plains and the Skunk Ape in Florida,  so I just don’t think this is his MO, unless it’s a subset of his species.  That said, some of these clusters look very much like inter-species territorial ranges, if you just happened to seek my opinion.

As to whether cattle mutilations are perpetrated by the entities behind the Missing 411 clusters, I've only witnessed one mutilation map (be it however dubious) and those cases are just way too scattered to fit the apparent pattern from the David Paulides books.

*What does the yellow on the Missing 411 Map mean? If those are listed abductions too, my thesis (obviously) would need.

In Which I Review Catcher in the Rye...Not What I Was Expecting

By Little, Brown, and Company

Catcher in the Rye, like Peter Pan, addresses the fear and insecurity of growing up, but whereas one encapsulates this inside an adventure/ fantasy romp, the other does so via vivid, psychological realism, dare I say set in 1940s New York, even if published in 1951. “The trouble behind picket fences” stories were emerging, “Death of a Salesman,” just came out and American writers were increasingly addressing themes of alienation and dissatisfaction in their stories, and this work by J. D. Salinger is a key contributor to that movement.

In it, his his hero, Holden Caulfield, a privileged white kid whose family could afford a maid as well as his private school, flunks out and goes AWOL in New York, restless, and unsure of his next move.  

Holden is highly intelligent and not particularly rebellious, just disaffected, mostly.   He’s not lazy, either, just bored and emotionally isolated.  He’s not very likable, but over time Holden just grows on me, given we start to see just how emotionally troubled the poor kid is.  

Upon reading this, I cannot help but reflection how times have changed.

People seem to keep getting jaded younger and younger, and this novel, being ahead of the curve, naturally caters to that, but at the same time, this dissatisfaction, largely prefiguring that vaunted mid-sixties cloudburst, was  largely directed at adults, whereas now, it’s more nebulous.

Society may have altered, but still this post-modern angst, as it is now known, still persists even as it is now no longer so tightly associated with rebellion.  As embodied on Girls, this sense of frustration is still blamed on parental issues, but given the parents’ world views are largely the same as was not the case in the fifties and sixties, this now-classic disconnect has lost almost all its revolutionary bite.

In any case, I just get a kick out of Holden’s tendency to call people “old” simply to distance himself.   “Old Sally”—the closest thing Holden has to a girlfriend, and Phoebe—Holden's sister—are basically my two favorite characters in the whole blame novel.  In particular I like the scene where he calls Sally up drunk; says a ton about his emotional state, right there—both funny and depressingly sad.

Holden suffers from disillusionment, and thus his dream which he relates to Phoebe is to protect other children from that selfsame disillusioning, and thus his idealism arises from his cynical ashes, a wish which is later touchingly demonstrated when he convinces her not to run away with him.  He is basically expressing a wish to self-parent himself, whilst at the same time lacking role models he wants to emulate—that’s his biggest problem.

That one teacher, with whom he spends much of a night with comes closest, though.    Trouble is, when that teach starts getting a mite too familiar with him—dare I say fatherly—running his fingers through the boy’s hair just before he wakes up during the night—Holden turns skittish, rationalizing it with what today would be denigrated as “homophobia” and leaves.   Holden duly fears getting  close to others, and not  without reason, given his brother died, and a classmate killed himself, but those are probably just contributing factors to his depressing, and not the cause; at bottom he’s an an idiosyncratic snob reacting to trauma and pain and not doing very good job given he’s so very isolated from quite a loving family, but I think that’s pretty much par for the course, at his age.

 At the end of the day I found this book more insightful than I did enjoyable, more for elitist discussion than people who want to casually consume literature, but this is like just me, talking.  In any event I would not recommend this book to anyone; it my be well-written, but it’s about themes I’m not interested in, attitudes I do not endorse, and thus I simply shrug and say you should just leave it on the shelf.  Holden Caulfield isn’t annoying enough to hate, but he is just punk enough to ignore.

Civil War General Franz SIgel & the 1864 Battle of New Market

 

Photo from the Library of Congress

The year was 1864, and the Great American Civil War had gone on for four years too long. For four years, the Army of the Potomac had tried over five times to traverse the 95 miles to capture the Confederate Capital in Richmond, Virginia, and been repulsed just as many. On top of that, they still hadn’t even shut down the Shenandoah Valley as either a Confederate invasion route to the North, or as their bread basket. Trouble is, things never go well for the Union in the Valley. Progress was needed, and not the least because Abraham was up for election in November, and if there wasn’t enough progress, the Democrats just might sue for peace, so the South had reason to hope if they stalled long enough they could win, and thus the clock was ticking. So that end, the Federals’ newly-minted Supreme commander, Ulysses S. Grant, decreed the valley be cleared and burned, and to do so, stationed in West Virginia, Grant had the capable General George Crook equipped with 6,000 men, plus 2,000 cavalry. Nigh the valley's s northern mouth Grant also hadanother 9,000 men, but that just didn't matter very much, and that was because their commander (including Crook's) was the German-born General Franz Sigel, and Sigel was a terrible general. You see back when everyone was volunteering, he claimed he was an experienced military commander from Europe who fought three battles, which was true, but he also didn’t mention he lost every single engagement. He’d also tend to bark out orders in German, despite the fact his native-born American subordinates couldn’t follow, and it also didn’t help that his staff was largely German too with similar issues, compounding the language disconnect. Wherever he was, Sigel just kept making life difficult for his higher-up, making ridiculous demands, like arguing that all the German recruits should be serving under him. (Trust me, if the recruits knew his full battle record, they'd be committing mass mutiny in no time.) In any case, Sigel's finest moment in the Civil War came during the1862 Battle of Pea Rdge, where after he complained incessantly to the commanding Union General Samuel Curtis over being (wisely) relegated to the figurehead role of Second in Command, Curtis allowed him to ceremonially order the charge that cleared the forest of Confederates and won the day for the Union, which was sort of like a fireman father forced to babysit his ADHD little boy during an emergency run, and allows him to blow the siren just to give him something to do. Still, he was a great recruiter of German soldiers, so he wasn’t a complete douche; if just stuck to what he was good at, history would be a whole lot kinder towards him. Instead, once it had become clear he was a self-promoting incompetent, losing solo to Stonewall Jackson solo, and just mucking around ineptly, Sigel used his rapport with German Americans to force Lincoln to finally bestow on him the Department of West Virginia just to shut him up. Essentially, Sigel is just the perfect example of how Lincoln dealt with failed big-name commanders: Rather than fire them, Lincoln jsimply reassigned them to the periphery of the war zones, gambling that they wouldn’t have to rely on them somewhere down the road, so they wouldn’t cause any damage there, but still close enough that they could keep their names in the papers .Unfortunately, they would have to rely on them, and they did do damage. (I’m looking at you, Butler and Banks.) In any case, facing off against Crook and Sigel were a paltry 6.500 Confederates led by former Vice President and 1860presidential candidate, John C. Breckenridge. With a resume like that, and no formal military school, like Sigel could boast ol' Brecky was even more pure political general than his counterpart. Upon learning Crook and Sigel were invading, his first step was to gather his scattered forces, and his second was to mobilize more to supplement them wherever and however he could, which in his case meant activating the student body of the nearby Virginia Military Institute, the South’s version of West Point. By 1864 it is said the Confederacy was robbing the cradle and grave for soldiers, but in the case of the activated VMI Cadets, they were also depriving themselves of their future military leadership. The question remained to be seen: Would this stopgap measure of recruiting child soldiers be worth the sacrifice, both pragmatically and morally? As these schoolboys marched off to battle, however, only time would tell. (And me, of course.) As for the Union leadership, Grant , well aware of Sigel's track record, only asked Sigel to clear out the top of the valley, and then link up with Crook, who would clean out the bottom. Sigel could well have flanked Lee, but Grant knew better than to just ask the bare minimum of Sigel, and instead expected Crook to do the heavy lifting. And so, to get this campaign started, Crook sent his cavalry under William Averill to destroy some saltworks at a place called Saltville, naturally. Crook sent his cavalry under William Averill to destroy some saltworks at a place called Saltville, naturally. Unfortunately, after Crook burned a bridge near Dublin, Virginia, Crook then caught wind of an overly-optimistic report from an official Confederate dispatch claiming Grant lost the Battle of the Wilderness, and thus Crook decided to retreat. (Sigh.) Nothing ever goes right for the Union in the Valley. Just editorialize, Crook may have been a solid overall commander, but he just didn’t believe in Grant, and ultimately thought him like all his predecessora; only Sherman of all the commanders leading the armies Grant mobilized that spring trusted Grant implicitly, and as for Crook’s cavalry under Averill, which he sent on a raid, it lost to John Hunt Morgan at Wytheville, taking out the last remnants of Grant’s plans for not leaving this moron Sigel all to his lonesome. But let’s just see how this douche does, shall we? Well, moving down the Valley cautiously, just like someone who’s been repeatedly bullied and beaten by inferior forces probably ought, Sigel would fan out his cavalry before him, wait, and then march forward. His lieutenants may not have under stood him very well, but Sigel at least made clear he only wanted his battalions to obey, and their input was not to be encouraged. Understandably bracing for another savage beating, he stopped at Winchester rear the top of the Valley to stage a “mock” battle. The final, official result: “Killed none, wounded none, missing: the 34th Massachusetts infantry.” That’s right, folks: As a result, of all the confusion Sigel lost a whole regiment in only a wargame because he ordered them to advance in a skirmish line, and they just never came back because he never rescinded the order. Needless to say, morale was low. In any case, while Sigel was busy drilling his army to disgust, in any case his supply wagons were getting repeatedly ripped off by raiders, namely that famous partisan guerrilla, John S. Mosby, as well as by one John McNeill, who pulled off a minor coup when he pillaged a critical railway depot. In any case and as a result, Sigel was now forced to dispatch a 400-man escort for every single caravan after Mosby pilfered his personal supply train, whilst chasing after McNeil with another 500, and, to top it all off, Sigel’s every move along the valley floor was being reported to Breckenridge’s forces by Confederate signalmen atop the 2,300-foot Shenandoah peak. And as for Breckenridge? Well, he was still en route, rushing to concentrate his forces to face Sigel, and he only had 1,600 cavalrymen under one General John Imboden. Imboden’s orders were to impede Sigel’s progress, but if so, how? Well, Imboden decided that since Sigel moved only as far forward as his hooved patrols signaled it was safe, he’d make the most damage by assaulting his furthest-flung forces and delaying them as much as possible. Consequently, Imboden took the bulk of his men and went on the hunt, finding a Federal unit somewhere in the Allegheny Mountains, led by one Colonel Jacob Higgins, who was sent after McNeill; they were maybe disappointed, but still up for a fight. Of course, if you've been following along, you've probably already guessed just how this skirmish is gonna turn out. Spying only Imboden’s lead scouts, but not the whole body behind them, Higgins orders an immediate charge; the Confederates retreat into the gap to safety, and the Federals follow; let’s just say that was a mistake. Upon realizing they’d just entered a shooting gallery manned by riflemen perched above either side of the cliffs, they wound up retreating so fast they abandoned all their wagons as Imboden now gave chase to them. Remarkably, despite Higgins’s rout, Sigel made another push ahead, compelling Imboden to draw up in battle formation just outside of a little town called New Market, and what ensued was essentially a grudge match between two politically connected generals: Who would prove more competent? In any case, meantime, one the Federal’s advanced scouting parties, 1st New York, back from patrol, sees the Confederate wagon train gathered nigh New Market, and head for them, somehow thinking they’re friendly, despite them being in front of Sigel’s forces, instead of behind them (like I said: Nothing ever goes right for the Union in the Valley), and the rebels, spying these patsies, now charge them, cut off and outnumbered two to one; (Sigh.) If you’re starting to feel sorry for Sigel’s men, you’re not alone. And so, with Union forces running off in total route once again, with no sign of Crook anymore advancing, Breckenridge concentrated now all his forces on Sigel, thereby deciding the best defense is a good offense. In the meantime, Sigel takes around a third of his force, turning it into a a 2,350-man reconnaissance mission in order to guide to the way for the rest of his army, led by Colonel Augustus Moor. Moor, having no personal knowledge of what’s ahead himself, understandably requests scouts and there aren't any; he requests maps too, but is told there aren’t any of them, either. Bowing to reality, he just decides he’ll have to wing it as is, advancing 21 miles in seven hours to the outskirts of New Market, where Breckenridge’s lines are currently forming. Breckenridge tries to bait Moor into attacking, but Moor, for whatever else, isn’t stupid, and decides to wait for the rest of Sigel’s army, now in transit. Frustrated by Moor’s recalcitrance, Breckenridge tries harder to provoke him by shelling the stuffing out’ve him, but Moor simply stands his ground. Breckenridge then decides that if Moor will not attack he will, ordering his cavalry to burn the bridge behind Moor, cutting him off, but before that happens, the rest of Sigel’s cavalry, led by their chief, Brigadier general Julius Stahel, arrives. Stahel, outranking Moor, takes charge, and orders the Federals back to a stronger defensive position along Manor Hill and the pike road, flanked on either side by gun batteries. With his men on another hill whilst getting fired on from Manor Hill, Breckenridge orders his forces to swiftly charge down to the bottom between the two hills, pause there where enemy cannon can’t reach them, and then charge from there the rest of the way to the foe—including the Cadets from VMI. Sooo...how was their first taste of battle? Well, the boys didn’t get the order to hurry, though, and so they marched down the hill in parade form, resulting in their first—and mostly needless—casualties. By then, Sigel himself arrived on scene; ever the wuss, he naturally wanted to retreat, but Moor and Stahel talked him out of it. Meantime, the Confederates, rested and reformed, finally charged up from the bottom of Manor Hill; the regiment defending the center, the 123rd Ohio, crumbled well before the rebels even reached them. The rest of the line held, but rather than try and plug the hole, this was more than enough reason for Sigel to order a retreat north to a place called Bushong’s Hill in two lines. Of course. Somehow, despite his army outnumbering the enemy overall, Sigel’s functional combat line on Bushong's was outnumbered by three to two. For starters, his thin outer line—manned by the fainthearted 123rd Ohio—could be easily flanked on both ends but on top of that, this dummy somehow positioned his cavalry so that it couldn’t easily counterattack with an exposed flank to boot. Breckenridge charges again, now with the VMI boys in reserve; performing above expectation, the hapless 123rd Ohio fires off one volley before running like scared rabbits, forcing one regiment, the 18th Connecticut, and one gun battery led by Captain Albert Von Kleiser, to retreat too. As the Confederates were now grimly closing with the main line up ahead, one of Sigel’s reserve regiments, the 12th West Virginia panicked, firing a volley into the backs of the mainline. With friends like this, who needs enemies? Just sayin'. Meanwhile, the ever-ready Imboden and his opportunistic cavalry had quickly figured out about Sigel’s cavalry’s exposed left flank, and wisely decided to start exploiting it with an artillery barrage. The effect, to quote Imboden, was “magical.” Incredibly, despite all this ineptitude and setbacks, the Federals started to show real resilience. Their main line stalled the rebel charge once they came within musket range, and Stahel’s troopers actually managed to recover from their surprise bombardment. And so, for several minutes the two armies just faced off against each other, shooting away in quintessential Civil War style...yay. At this point, Von Kleiser’s repositioned battery managed to blast a hole in the center of the Confederate line, which, if not plugged, would open them to counterattack. Unable to maneuver, Breckenridge now has only one option. “Put in the cadets,” urges a staff officer. “They are only children,” replies Breckenridge, conscience revolting. “Will they hold?” Ol' Brecky then says, necessity reasserting itself. A few moments later, still feeling guilty Breckenridge makes the only choice he can. “Put the boys in, and may God forgive me the order,” says Breckenridge, defeated. And thus with a cheer the cadets from VMI surged forward, up Bushong’s Hill, and into his orchard. And with that the gap in the Confederate line was now closed, but even so, Breckenridge’s left, led by Brigadier General Gabriel Wharton, was still exposed, given his right, led by Brigadier John Echols, had stalled out several hundred yards to Wharton’s rear. And, despite being mis-positioned by Sigel, Stahel’s 1,000 troopers charged Echols’s 1,100 in infantry. Unfortunately for the troopers, Echols’s two regimental commanders knew just what to do. While one regiment wheeled its men inward to give off flanking fire on Stahel, the other regiment wheeled in the opposite direction, even as the men left in the former center of the line formed tight squares where they could now shoot in all directions, meaning Sigel’s cavalry was now charging into a death gallery with no exit. Oh, and Imboden was still blasting away the troopers with his cannon. And, on top of all this Breckenridge noticed their charge, and brought up more guns to blast them with, now meaning that Stahel’s men were now suffering an overlapping barrage. It's almost needless to mention, but all this was just too much for the men in blue; they decided to abort in midcharge, galloping for the rear instead. Finally, Sigel, probably probably hoping relive his best war moment back on Pea Ridge, decides to order an overall counterattack, probably like the one at Pea Ridge, but by now the Confederate line had stabilized, and Breckenridge’s redirected artillery was really bearing down. It also didn’t help that Sigel was now too excited, and was thus lapsing into German again. As for the (badly) coordinated counterattack itself, the 1st West Virginia moved out from the federal center before either regiment flanking it was ready; it made 100 yards forward before deciding this was pointless, and (reasonably) gave up. To their left, 54th Pennsylvania followed suit; only the tone-deaf 34th Massachusetts pressed onward, if only because guys literally didn’t know when to stop. As you can only too weel imagine, they took over 200 casualties in just a few minutes; that’s almost half the regiment’s strength. Amazingly, their insane singlemindedness actually managed to push one Confederate regiment, the 51st Virginia, backwards, until it was reinforced by the 26th Virginia. And then, the whole Confederate line just charged. No order, no nothing; they just collectively charged, driving all before it—including the stupidly stalwart 34th Massachusetts, but who’s laughing?In any event, it just suffered so much concentrated firepower that its color-bearer, who suffered a mortal wound, wound up getting shot three more times before he even hit the ground. But by this point and to noone's surprise Sigel’s army finally began to disintegrate; nothing ever goes right for the Union in the Valley, and let's just say that this day is mere par for the course. Yes, Sigel tried to rally them, but given no one could even understand him, this (fortunately) leaving the fate of his army in the hands of others. Competent, incompetent, who knows? For Sigel's men at this point, this was probably a mercy. The whole army might well have been destroyed and not just routed, save for one enterprising artillery captain named Henry DuPont, who strung out his two guns around 500 yards apart along the pike road; the front cannon would fire till almost overrun, and then retreat whilst the second in the rear provided cover for them and the retreating army until the front gun, now the rear gun, was repositioned, and thus the process repeated over and over across four critical miles, buying precious time. DuPont would recall in disgust: “I had to depend entirely on myself, and did not receive a single order, either directly or indirectly,” which as I think we've established, is probably a good thing, if Sigel is the one giving them. So just count yourself fortunate, DuPont; if you wanted a leader, a simple coin flip would be a better you were actually supposed to have. As for Breckenridge, he may have won, but his thoughts are still with the cadets, and rides over to congratulate them. “Well done men,” says the General, prior to riding off; casualties had claimed nigh a quarter of their number. Breckenridge then ordered Imboden’s cavalry to burn the bridge by Mount Jackson in Sigel’s rear destroy him, but…Earlier in the day, Sigel had ordered a couple regiments to go to Mount Jackson. He should have ordered them on to New Market to better concentrate his forces, but he just didn’t think of it. Hurrah for the law of averages, everyone; this turns out to be Sigel's best move of the day, and it was totally unintentional. In any case Sigel now fled north across the bridge, and didn’t even leave any guards to protect his rear, prepare the bridge for burning, or wait for DuPont, who's been doing all the heavy lifting by his lonesome. Instead, it was all up to DuPont himself to burn the bridge, once he got there, which he does, showing at least that meritocracy still exists. And thus once again Shenandoah Valley was saved due Confederate courage and Union incompetence, but as for Franz Sigel, I have but one question: How can any man be this stupid? He attended military school, was fighting an even more purely political general than himself, had a large numerical superiority, and yet all that still couldn’t keep him from losing to kids, in good portion. And thus ended Grant’s attempt to clear out the Shenandoah Valley using someone whose career lay with comedy, rather than the battlefield; it wouldn’t be Grant’s last, though...

Memories of George Bush & the Iraq War…

Photo by Library of Congress on Unsplash

Note: I composed this blog back on 5/18/2016 per my records, but then again this could just be the date of the old print-out I used; not totally sure.  In any event, I composed this no later than then. I also altered this for spelling, punctuation, SEO-ing, and that's it, save for italicizing one phrase in Latin.

The Iraq War Started with Desert Storm…

Whenever I think of George Bush and His Iraq War, I inevitably look back to his father, and the Persian Gulf

War, two decades previous. It was a warm August day in 1990 when the news came over the radio that

Kuwait was invaded, and events were set in motion.

I had always loved war histories growing up, and here in front of me was a chance to follow a major

military operation in real-time over the news wires, and certainly didn't pass up the biggest foreign

involvement since Vietnam. Via radio, cable, and broadcast, I stayed tuned, and listened, enthralled.

The night in 1991, when the Storm was unleashed, I recall well staying glued to our cathode-ray tv,

channel turned to CNN. To say “excited” doesn't begin to cover it.

And it ended well—well, mostly. We wonned, and hardly a man died, even if Saddam stayed in power.

In largely an act of remorse, the senior Bush erected no-fly-zones, and sanctions to contain him, and

largely left it at that.

Ah, but something was only beginning.

The Road to Iraqi Freedom

In the years that followed, Saddam emerged in pop culture as something of a boogeyman, and a

recurring low-level headache, reminding us that we'd never finished the job, and fighter pilots were

still risking their lives to contain him. And, nobody liked the fact he'd never been fully dis-armed.

South Park made him into cartoonish mischief maker; in the Hot Shot movie franchise, he made

both—the first, in cameo, and in the second, as the main villain. He also made the Sunday Funnies,

too.

Am I the only one that remembers?

Beyond that, in the wake of the Desert Storm, and more excitingly, at the end of the Cold War, and

the Soviet Union's breakup, US confidence had pretty much recovered. In light of that, how the war

ended seemed especially annoying.

And, there were also intermittent incidents, coming outta Iraq, that had people worried, like when he

pushed out inspectors, bullied the Kurds, and issued incendiary declarations. Increasingly, our

sanction-allies were getting antsy, and our credibility was on the line.

And this was the Clinton presidency, no less. Entering the 2000 election, Gore's team was seen as the

Iraq hawks, not Dubya's. It didn't matter much to most voters, but to this twenty-two-year-old, it did

to me. I still voted to Bush, but I never really was that enthused; John McCain was my first choice,

and for the record, I've mourned the fact he lost the nomination, ever since.

I didn't have much expectations over Bush concerning Iraq, but I wasn't really beating on a war

drum, either. The time just wasn't right—and then the 11th occurred. I was the only one I knew that

wasn't very interested in invading Afghanistan, and that was because of our Iraq commitments.

I also wasn't wild about our hastily-planned autumn offensive versus the Taliban with Rashid Dostum, of the Northern

the Northern Alliance. A primitive offensive? On horses? With approaching winter? It reeked of failure, to

me—failure, and political considerations taking precedence over the martial. I was pleasantly

surprised, but I was still focused on Iraq—as, it seemed, were most of the policymakers.

Afghanistan was a sideshow, right? Bin Laden came from Saudi Arabia, and he had formed al Qaida

because of anger over our continued military involvement there, out of all our anti-Saddam efforts.

Our restraint after Desert Storm just couldn't catch us a break—but could crumple skyscrapers.

People keep complaining about Bush using weapons of mass destruction as the casus belli for war,

but that was largely for legal-political reasons; as is, everyone, even the French, agreed that Saddam

had them, and that was certainly less than good. After all, when Obama called for congressional

support of his infamous “red line” back in 2013, he used the same tack as Bush, and for the same

reasons—which may well have been an error, given the outcome, but does explain something, I think.

Out of all the reasons for ridding the earth of Saddam, weapons of mass destruction didn't even

register. To me, it was all about architecting a new Middle East—a better one. Oh, I never made

a dime off of oil speculation. Can't speak for other neoconservatives, but that was true at least for

me.

I had long wanted Saddam eliminated, and I certainly wasn't alone, but how? I certainly never imagined

it would occur the way it would, that's for sure. I always figured the US would peruse itself on one of

Saddam's recurring incidents, and just lay the hammer down in response.

One proposal, I later heard of, in a magazine I'd read around the time of the invasion, was to use our

aircraft to establish and defend a beach-head made of refugees, which would be expanded in time.

At the time, even then, I was puzzled why this was never tried; I certainly wasn't gloating, that's for

sure.

I was worried even then over the bad blood for and against the invasion, and truly wasn't interested in

its continuance, given it could lead to...the increased political bitterness of today. A minimalist

approach, not all that dissimilar from the Northern Alliance I'd been against the year before, seemed

more than satisfactory, and quite possibly more palatable to national and international opposition.

The Iraq Invasion in Retrospect

Opponents of the invasion have years later lamented that we could've done “anything” in the

wake of the 11th, but when Bush decided to use it to remove a long-term torn in the side of the US,

and the international order, many balked, despite the outpouring of sympathy. If so, then, it wasn't

about removing Saddam, but how.

No one, unfortunately, has ever explained to me how Bush could have done so sans international

outcry. I think was possible, but I'm the only one I'm aware of to toss out such a scenario. As it

was, Bush was very tone-deaf, but well-meaning, and operating on an internal time-table. In any

event, he should have listened more to other other international leaders, and shown concern for

their concerns, but did not.

I avidly followed the planning for war, in any event, reading about the day after, and the

administration's plans for it. I even read my mother The Savage Wars of Peace, by Max Boot,

recounting the “small war” history of the United States, and how we forgot our successes with them,

entering Vietnam. Unlike most, I don't think we would have had more success in Afghanistan had we

not only re-focused on Iraq, but it would have helped had we focused on counter-insurgency from the

get-go.

I had a lot of confidence in Bush's team, then, and the invasion itself was and act of brilliance, I must

say. In college, then, I was accosted by an anti-war activist, who called what we were doing

“colonialism.”

Me: “You know, colonialism has its advantages. Britain, you know, who's helping, is a product of

colonialism, hereself. She was once a part of the Roman Empire.”

Her: “The Romans reached Britain?”

You know, stupidity isn't completely confined to conservatives—right? For as much as Dubya went on

to seemingly confirm certain stereotypes, I've never forgotten that moment. Liberals may get better

press, but that doesn't mean they don't make gaffes—like lousy education.

As is, like so many other war proponents, I just couldn't fathom how badly Bush botched “the day

after,” or that they forces on the ground wouldn't execute the beginning of the post-war plan they'd

spent so long to construct.

Retrospection on the Iraq War, Itself...

Looking back, I still think the Iraq War could have worked, but for mismanagement like Abu Ghraib, but

beyond that, I now realize legitimacy matters much more than I understood, much more. I don't

believe what Zbigniew Brzezinski said, namely that Iraq was just neo-colonialism in a time that

wasn't tolerant of it, but that's because because things, on the other hand have worked pretty well,

in part, in Afghanistan, given a) we had more legitimacy, entering in 2001, compared to Iraq, in 2003,

and b) for all our failings, we manged to avoid undiermining our legitimacy to the degree we did in Iraq.

In any event, “neocolonialism,” or whatever call it, has has been good for Japan, and Germany; it's

also been good for South Korea, too. The verdict seems unclear for Afghanistan, but If her trajectory

stays the course, I expect the conclusion to be positive there, too. They know they need us, post-Karzai,

and that is positive.

Back in 2008, during Obama's anti-Bush backlash, I could empathize with much of the movement's

frustration with Bush, but I still couldn't help but feel like they were using a sledgehammer to crack a

nut. George Bush's style could be frustrating, but still, when I hear stuff where the Bush year's intervention

was “at the heart” of the foreign policy, I can't help but be annoyed. Dubya did more than that, like

like push for international treaties, but that shows just how badly Bush's critics were obsessed with

his failings, which largely led to Obama's greatest failing, down in Syria.

For my part, I feel grieved by him, but not angry. Even so, a lot of folks think Bush lied, and when

a rash of conservative politicians in 2014 defended the Iraq War, it not only made news, it made the

covers of Mad Magazine. I can say, Hey, Bush made some errors, but I can let it go—why can't

you?

All too many cannot, and it's bad for everyone; I can take responsibility for what limited role I had in

what happened, and feel no need to demand that somebody say, “I lied.” As I've made clear, there are

plenty of good reasons to support George Bush, and when I hear some writer from Salon.com call the invasion

“evil,” like I did last year, I can't help but take umbrage.

Don't call politicians “evil” lightly; I certainly don't. To that end I don't call Neville Chamberlain evil,

for as much as he enabled the evil that was Adolf Hitler. To that end I have also spared Barack

Obama it as well, despite all his neo-appeasement.

Such rhetoric raises the stakes, and I don't think you want to go there.