Idiocracy (2006)

[Enzo]

This is the middle east, where something that happened 500 years ago is still bouncing back and forth between different groups. ANy time we kill some guy there, regardless of whether he "deserved it" or not, we instantly make all his sons and relatives our sworn enemy. I am not sure how to describe "winning" against that. In a war like WW2 we faced an enemy with defined borders and armed units. We kill or make casualties of those forces and essentially the task was complete. Oh other than the Marshall plan or something. But with guerilla war, none of that applies.

I remember when people would say of Viet Nam, they should have let us WIN. And I wonder how to define winning there.

And MM_Dandy's point sums that up as well.

[Мастер]

In a war like WW2 we faced an enemy with defined borders and armed units. We kill or make casualties of those forces and essentially the task was complete. Oh other than the Marshall plan or something. But with guerilla war, none of that applies.

But Iraq had defined borders and armed units. So why was the task complete with the defeat of the military forces of one country, but only beginning in the other country? There could have been a guerrilla war in Germany or Japan after the traditional war, but there wasn't.

MM raises a most intriguing point. I'm trying to think of other examples. But it's 5:00 AM here, I'm not thinking as well as I was a few hours ago.

[Enzo]

Once we took Guadalcanal or whatever, it was ours. Once we took some Iraqi city is really was not. Perhaps there is a different idea of what "taking" a territory is today compared to 70 years ago. Modern warfare uses things like cruise missiles and bombing to subdue an area, while in WW2 I think for the most part we had a line of forces on the ground moving across an area.

[Мастер]

Once we took Guadalcanal or whatever, it was ours. Once we took some Iraqi city is really was not.

OK, but the thing I want to get at is, why?

Perhaps there is a different idea of what "taking" a territory is today compared to 70 years ago.

That's a good thought. Perhaps it has nothing to do with the place, but the time.

Modern warfare uses things like cruise missiles and bombing to subdue an area, while in WW2 I think for the most part we had a line of forces on the ground moving across an area.

So if there were a line of forces on the ground moving across an area today, would the outcome be the same as in WW2?

Most of these issues were covered quite poorly in Idiocracy.

[Lance]

Well, in WW2 we fought governments, not the populations of the countries. Now we fight ideologies. When the civilian population hates you as much or more than the military you are fighting, how can you ever win? Look at Viet Nam.

[Мастер]

Well, in WW2 we fought governments, not the populations of the countries.

So why was that the case? Members of the US government declared that the Iraqis would welcome the Americans (and the British) as liberators, and at one point, I heard the war planners were studying the occupations of Germany and Japan. But the Iraqis had a different plan. Germans and Japanese at the end of the war in 1945 could have taken up arms and fought the occupying powers, just like the Iraqis did in 2003. But they didn't, for the most part (I'm sure there were some cases). So why was that?

MM has cited one possible reason (the formal capitulation of the leaders of Germany and Japan, something absent in the case of Iraq). Enzo suggests another possibility. Maybe there are other factors.

Now we fight ideologies.

What is the ideology being fought? Is it "terrorism"? If so, I would call that a tactic, not an ideology (and a tactic that at least one US army general and subsequent NSA director has stated the US is quite guilty of using itself). Something else? If so, what?

I feel like a lot of people in the west are engaged in an ideological battle, and their ideology sounds to me a lot like the ideology their countries were supposed to be fighting against in Europe in the 1930s and 1940s. I do hope I'm wrong about that, but I'm close to giving up on that hope.

When the civilian population hates you as much or more than the military you are fighting, how can you ever win? Look at Viet Nam.

But that's the question. Why was that the case in one place/time, and not in another? What made the difference? Why was Vietnam different than Germany and Japan? Why was Iraq (and Afghanistan, if you like) more like Vietnam than like Germany and Japan?

[Lance]

But that's the question. Why was that the case in one place/time, and not in another? What made the difference? Why was Vietnam different than Germany and Japan? Why was Iraq (and Afghanistan, if you like) more like Vietnam than like Germany and Japan?

Again, the difference is that we were fighting the governments, now we are fighting their whole <some other word besides ideology since that didn't work last time>.

[Мастер]

Again, the difference is that we were fighting the governments, now we are fighting their whole <some other word besides ideology since that didn't work last time>.

So who decided that the battle would be against the German government, and the government only, in the 1940s, but against something much more intangible in Iraq sixty years later? The Iraqi invasion began on March 19th. On May 1st, forty-three days later, the president of the US gave a speech on an aircraft carrier in front of a huge banner that read "Mission Accomplished". It sounds to me like he thought the battle was against the Iraqi government, until the insurgents informed him that they were going to improvise instead of following the script.

In Germany, lots of people adhered to an ideology that now has a rather bad reputation. If you're a filmmaker and you want everyone to know who the bad guy is, all you have to do is slap a swastika on his shoulder. The Germans could have continued fighting, but they didn't. If the Germans had fought a guerrilla campaign from 1945 until 1970 against the occupying powers, killing maybe a few hundred thousand of them, we wouldn't be saying that the war against Germany was a war only against the German government. We'd be saying it was a war against the German people, or against an ideology, or against something other than the government, as the government fell in 1945. But we're not saying that, because there wasn't an insurgency in Germany after the government fell.

The people in Iraq could have put down their weapons, and said, "we may not like this situation, but it's what happened, let's live with it the best we can, and try to build a better future". In that case, we'd be sitting here saying that the Iraq war was against the government of Iraq, and ended when the government fell. As nearly as I can tell, that's the scenario Mr. "Mission Accomplished" seemed to have in mind. However, we're not saying that, because the Iraqi insurgents went off-script. I think the coalition that invaded Iraq would have been quite happy to fight just the government, but the Iraqi insurgents had a different idea.

The German people could launched an insurgency, but they didn't. The Iraqi people didn't have to launch an insurgency, but they did. In each case, the nature of the battle was determined by the behaviour of the people in the countries that were occupied. They behaved one way in one case, and a different way in the other case. Had they behaved differently, the nature of the conflicts would have been completely different. So why did they behave one way in the one case, and a different way in the other case?

[Lance]

Exactly. I think we are on the same page.

[Enzo]

Well, we didn't do all THAT bad in Viet Nam, after all we came in second.

[MM_Dandy]

I'm pretty sure no matter who won that war, Vietnam was coming in second. It's sort of like the War of 1812 - we say we won that war, except that you couldn't have noticed by looking at the numbers, and yet the losers by far were the native people.

[Lance]

Okay, so which groups among our species are the most adaptable to change?

[Lance]

It’s Official: ‘Idiocracy’ Writer Says His Satire of a Brain-Dead America Has Become Reality

[Мастер]

It’s Official: ‘Idiocracy’ Writer Says His Satire of a Brain-Dead America Has Become Reality

So will you be voting for the particular individual known as President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho?

[Lance]

So will you be voting for the particular individual known as President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho?

Probably.