December 07, 2003

• Liberia: Joshua Blahyi aka Gen. Butt Naked - General Butt Naked told reporters that at the age of 11 he had a telephone call from the Devil who demanded nudity on the battlefield, acts of indecency and regular human sacrifices to ensure his protection. "So, before leading my troops into battle, we would get drunk and drugged up, sacrifice a local teenager, drink their blood, then strip down to our shoes and go into battle wearing colourful wigs and carrying dainty purses we'd looted from civilians. We'd slaughter anyone we saw, chop their heads off and use them as soccer balls. We were nude, fearless, drunk and homicidal. We killed hundreds of people
• How on earth can you love war? He scares me.
• What scares me is the Fresno-Moscow connection. (But then, I've been to Fresno...)
• I this part of what he wrote interesting. The best war is when you can hate both sides, and that's how it was with the WTC. I cheered those jets. I work in like a ten-story version of those towers, and I know for a fact that I'm not the only one who perks up every time a plane gets close to the building. Everybody cheers the planes now. Until those planes hit the WTC nobody dreamed you could knock down an American corporation building. Nobody ever thought one would come down. And when they did, damn! It was like the noche triste, when Aztecs made the Conquistadors bleed for the first time and said,
• Actually he seems like a pretty normal guy. Sure a bit more disgruntled than most and he's definatly a bit more anti-christian than your average american but the good old american muslim=arab=bad equation is there and his interest in weaponry seems...mostly normal. Overall I'd put his commentary far below the BBC but above the Fox News Channel.
• Thanks for the NRA link, Spooky. That's where I always go to get my sports scores.
• I thought I detected some irony in his writing. But maybe I'm wrong. I often am, about irony. It's like goldy, only made of iron, right?
• I think it is pretty obvious that Gary is a totally made up character. A good read yes, but a lot of the color comments are creative writing and nothing more. Satire isn't dead, it is just hiding in Russia picking up whores, doing too many drugs, and wishing it was 1996 again.
• Yes, jb, I have read all his articles and I sense more than a bit of irony in the whole enterprise. War is a human reality and Gary is a reality check. Most of us will rubberneck when we pass a dramatic car crash, right? What is so different about a war? Scale? OK, but so many of us still watch from a distance and are fascinated. And aspo, I find it interesting that you peg him as a "made up character". "He" is asked about that in this interview. I am not convinced either way, though having read the War Nerd columns in sequence there is a sense of development in the writing that smacks of a collective effort. But regardless, I prefer to think that "Gary" walks among us. And for the record, I also can see - I saw - the art in the attacks of September 11, 2001 (and I'll never refer to that incredible day as "9/11").
• I find this character fascinating and repulsive. All right, so I suppose that's what you're supposed to think about him, but I don't really care if this guy is 'real' or a fictional construction. His message is compelling, and as a compelling message, it needs responding to at face value. I'm what you might call a professional war nerd, in that I'm a PhD student in naval history. So, yes, I can understand being fascinated by war. I can understand the need to understand it in a deep sense. I just can't understand finding it beautiful or exciting or ... anything other than horrible. When I think about war, my main emotional reaction is one of compassion. War has a kind of relentless, random horror that directly attacks our human need to see meaning and order. And so I feel it is important to confront war because, by doing so, I can help to restore some kind of reason to the reasonless. To have everybody turn away would be an act of abandonment. But I could never 'get off' on war. The very idea of it is incomprehensible. I can harden myself against its worst excesses, sure. I can force my mind to think about it in a detached way, when necessary, so that I can see it more clearly. I can, in a funny sense, come to love the people and ships I spend all day reading about. I can even see a certain terrible beauty in heroism and sacrifice.... but in death and killing? Never! This isn't some abstract 'I know death is bad so I shouldn't like it' thing; it's a pure, spontaneous, atavistic truth. So is this guy all bad? No. He's not right about everything he's saying, but when he is right, he's a useful source of perspective on what has become the most talked about political issue of our day. We can't look at 9/11 in isolation (sorry Patsee, we need our jargon too!). When people say ridiculous things like 'no one can understand what we Americans went through that day', they're really saying 'I don't read the international news or history books'. If we want to understand the world and ourselves, we need to look at war as it really is, not as we'd wish it to be. This is a really long comment, so I'll stop there. If anybody's actually interested I can talk about some of the things that I think he gets wrong. Sorry for taking up so much space.
• Well I think a large chunk of what makes The War Nerd (mmm, capitals are so much fun) interesting is that he combines the wasgasm mentality so prevalent in a certain set of Americans (a certain class that fits Frenso far too well, ah well at least it gave us Brian Kenny Frenso to make up for it) with the willingness and ability to research and think critically about his desires in war. That being said I think given the writing style, given the history of the paper he is in (a great rag, an amusing read, one I've been reading for ages, but definitely a rag), given New York Press columns by ex-eXiler (and I think cofounder) Matt Tabbi, given the sort of nudge nudge wink wink responses in the interview mentioned above, I think the evidence is firmly in the made up category. That being said I think The War Nerd is brilliant, and some of his commentary (both on life as an American and on war itself) is among the best you can get out there.
• Eep! Why did it cut off my comment when I put in a link? Is there some trick to linking an href? Anyway, to continue.. . Well I think a large chunk of what makes The War Nerd (mmm, capitals are so much fun) interesting is that he combines the wasgasm mentality so prevalent in a certain set of Americans (a certain class that fits Frenso far too well, ah well at least it gave us <a href=www.bonghitrecords.com>Brian Kenny Frenso</a> to make up for it) with the willingness and ability to research and think critically about his desires in war. That being said I think given the writing style, given the history of the paper he is in (a great rag, an amusing read, one I've been reading for ages, but definitely a rag), given <a href=www.nypress.com>New York Press</a> columns by ex-eXiler (and I think cofounder) Matt Tabbi, given the sort of nudge nudge wink wink responses in the interview mentioned above, I think the evidence is firmly in the made up category. That being said I think The War Nerd is brilliant, and some of his commentary (both on life as an American and on war itself) is among the best you can get out there.
• Nope, that wasn't how you make a link either. Does anyone know what I'm doing wrong? Typing a literal < seems to kill the comment there, but typing a &lt; just places a < in the text. I know you can put a link in a comment somehow.
• Ok, last comment I SWEAR. the second of three < in that previous comment was supposed to be a "ampersand lt semicolon", but even though I typed "ampersand amp semicolon lt semicolon" it seems to have all shrunk into one big <. This comment box is too smart for its own good. Or at least my own good.
• You need to put your link in between these(after the =): ""
• That could have been clearer, sorry. [a href="www.nypress.com"]New York Press[/a] where [ is < and ] is >
• This is just a test to see if I can give Brian Kenney Fresno the love he deserves. Ahh, that looks like it worked. Thanks dng!
• really interesting link. i guess deep down humans must somehow enjoy war, or we wouldn't do it. well, let me specify: MALE humans. i think it's a testoserone thing. like how little boys get into fistfights. why? they must enjoy it.
• fistfights are good
• well, let me specify: MALE humans. Yes but as Peter Gabriel says, "With the man in the woman and the woman in the man." The warriors will not fight if their women will not fuck them. Fistfights are good, but mass death is war. Thanks, aspo.
• The French "Well, I'm going to tell you guys something you probably don't want to hear: these sites are total bullshit, the notion that the French are cowards is total bullshit, and anybody who knows anything about European military history knows damn well that over the past thousand years, the French have the most glorious military history in Europe, maybe the world."
• I wonder which "Anonymous" posted this? Could maybe be one of the lost legion of pete_bests. *guesses, often wrong*
• Patsee? [only slightly less than random guess]
• The ex-Patsee is the present-day Jerry Garcia, no?
• you are all-knowing, all-seeing, yes?
• homunculus - that's worthy of an FPP, either here or on mefi - if you don't wish to, I would like to. I get so tired of Americans forgetting that the French fought for their revolution, and (though there are some small inaccuracies in his article*) this is a good rant to try to whip some sense into their heads. I hope he writes that book soon, but if not, a simple history of Europe c.1650-1815 should do. *eg, the agressor in the 1812 war between Britain and The States is under debate, and WWI was only four, not five years, long.
• you are all-knowing, all-seeing, yes? No, I just hang around here a lot. Sorry to disappoint. *waves*
• nope not me. But I do vote for the FPP'ing of the link. French babes are hot. Err, I mean "I'd hit it"
• if you don't wish to, I would like to. Go for it!
• Okay, I'll post it here.
• Voila.
• Look who's that just ahead of me? Why IT'S NO ONE!!!
• I am after you. This is nothing but noise.
• I wondered where I saw this article. Natch, it's from tha baddest muthafuckah in accountz receevaboo - H-dogg in tha hizzy! Hoooooooo!
• I think in war parlance, all our latest comments qualify as "disinformation."