Kicking Out Old Rules in Modern Warfare

By Ted R Bailey

The problem has been growing for a long time, and now it’s time something is done about it on an international scale.  After all, the world is “global” now, right?  Somebody has to make a ruling.

That’s the problem:  rules.

Every game has rules.  Even social gatherings, business or otherwise, have rules, written or unwritten, that facilitate the flow of ….whatever is flowing.  Let’s take war, for example.

Just this week a story on msn.com tells about a raid on the Pakistan army headquarters in Islamabad, Pakistan where several top officers were killed.  A huge gunfight ensued where bullets were flying everywhere, but no one knew who to shoot at.  And, for one big reason:  everyone was wearing the same color clothing. 

The Pakistani guards at two gates made the statement after the battle:  “We were confused by the uniforms they were wearing.”  What’s up with that?

Come on, people, anyone who watches sports knows the teams wear different colors.  Otherwise, watching sports becomes futile.  You can’t see who has the ball.  Even members of the sports teams can’t distinguish their prospective receiver of the ball, or whom to tackle or block or help.  Certainly, watching the game becomes boring really quickly without colors.  Aghast! A sudden loss of interest in a war is unforgivable.

Whatever the game, as long as there are teams that take sides and compete, be it sports, war, cooking, or sex, there must me some immediate method to determine the players of each side.  It’s a bottom-line, self-explanatory, intuitive principle of competing.  Wear different colors!  Even gangs chose “colors”, don’t they?

Looking back at the success of the two wars between the United States and Iraq and Afghanistan, one thing stands out like a sore thumb:  seeing the enemy is difficult.  A soldier can walk right by an enemy soldier in a crowd of people and never recognize him because of the clothing.  Yet, the enemy soldier can always readily identify the American soldier by the fashion he is wearing:  the spotty camouflaged uniform with video game type headgear, not too much unlike Master Chief of Halo.  Easy, and an unfair advantage.

Why hasn’t someone already dealt with this problem of identification?  One would think the leadership of both sides would eventually call a time out and make some rules, more logically in this case, the American side, since they are at the obvious disadvantage. 

After all, the American military went out on a limb in allocating all of that money for research and development to make the really neat clothing for their soldiers.  It doesn’t seem fair that other team gets to wear whatever they want to the game and make so much headway in the score by winning so many rounds, due to the element of surprise, like the raid on the Pakistan army headquarters.

Somebody has to make some rules.  Of course, one of the principles of winning a battle is based on breaking the rules to gain the advantage. 

Well, okay then.  That being the case, what about the leadership making their team more even by wearing the same thing the other team is wearing?  “Beep, beep,” the alarm goes off, again.  “Then, we don’t know whom to shoot,” exclaim the generals.  Back where we started.

What was that?  Beep, beep?  That’s the answer:  electronically find a hidden weapon and sound an alarm to warn American soldiers of impending danger, sort-of a long range weapon detector like in the airports, just longer distance.

In today’s high tech weaponry development, the most important element of all, identifying the enemy in a crowd, seems to have been sadly relegated to last place.  While DARPA is throwing millions at colleges around the country to promote autonomous robotics, from flying and shooting to crawling around on the ground and finding hidden bombs, no mention has been given to the possibly more sensible technology of a device for finding weapons under clothing before it can be used to kill.  What an advantage that could be.

Now, of course, the argument here will most certainly be:  what if a regular civilian is carrying a gun?  The answer must be: too bad for him; he should not have been carrying a gun in the first place.

Ah, but wait!  The problem with that is it’s too expensive to manufacture it in the US, so they’ll most undoubtedly be forced to outsource it to China to keep the cost down.  Then, there are security concerns…financing…loss of American taxes...

No, forget it.  It’s better to just stay at the status quo and fight the wars endlessly from generation to generation until we’ve all forgotten why they started in the first place.  That way, the blame can be spread out among all the applicable sources.  Politics is a spectator sport, too, you know.

From the entertainment angle, now that war has become a huge spectator sport, maybe an international organization should intervene and make some rules, something like the NBA or NASCAR.  The monetary gain could be huge from all of this.  That’s what we’re really talking about in the war game, isn’t it, economic gain?

Just think.  If medical care in the US can gain so much advertising revenue on television and the print media on everything from drugs to elaborate cancer treatments, with all of that marketing cost being passed on to the consumer anyway, why can’t war do the same?  They’re both based on the life or death premise, aren’t they?  “Use our drug, Use our hospital…or, Call Dr. Somebody and live longer…Support the new war by buying...whatever.”

Visualize the potential.

How about Fantasy War?  Entire websites could be dedicated to it.  You could pick players, dress, weapons, locations, or whatever you want.  Cash in on the war effort at home and make a killing (pun intended)!  It could be fun.

Hey, why hasn’t someone come up with the obvious, war insurance?  It’s only natural.  All of your children should be patriotic and go to war, why not insure their existence?  Make sure that having a baby is risk free in the world today.  War insurance could even be a requirement, set by the government of each country, if you have children.  It’s a proven money maker round the world, even for governments, unless, of course, the “social” option is adopted.

Maybe Europe could make the rules.  Now that Europe is becoming a new nation, sort of a United States of Europe, with the possibilities of electing a ruling body, globalization is a fact in the world now.  No one can deny the possibility of a new world leadership soon to come.  With that, more is around the corner:  new rules, new games, new enforcers, new money, even a new international language, perhaps. 

But wait!  Who will be able to fight whom, at that point?  This is becoming too confusing.

Back to the conversation about establishing team colors:  What about setting colors for the various armies at war? 

Forget it.  Besides, America has such a huge advantage, victory is guaranteed. 

Right?