They Are Not Getting It

"Bryan" queries on "Shock and Awe" at The Command Post.

I didn't see the report that he's talking about, but it is nonetheless obvious to me that the concept that's been short-handed as "shock and awe" is still competely opaque to these journalists. They are simply not grasping the fact that this is not about tonnage, or body counts, or any of the rest of the the concepts of war that they kept prior to the integration of information technology to weapons. They do not understand that the principle thing about it is that "shock and awe" will occur in the minds of military adversaries precisely because they are the ones at whom it is aimed: exclusively. The thing that's "shock[ing]" about it is that it can be that selective, as well as more ferocious than ever before. It implies the dawning realization in the mind of a military adversary that he can be segregated for destruction -- remotely.

It is not about massive destruction on a scale that the casual glance at today's weapons will call to an equally casual mind, and that is why these people do not understand it, because that's what -- and how -- they are still thinking.

This obdurate persistence of ignorance is beginning to raise my contempt of them to brand new heights. When I couple it to their presumptions and arrogance (exemplified in episodes like the fraudulent B-52 image for which I still hold CBS responsible), the imperative to judge between a dichotomy of something like "wisdom" handed down from tradition ("habit") on one hand and the obvious evidence that I see for myself every day, there is simply no choice:

These people are dismissed.