Starving the Monkeys: Fight Back Smarter

by Tom Baugh

  More sadly, and disconcerting, that equipment included our weapons. We had already served the worm's purpose and had now been rendered free, if somewhat displaced, citizens once again. As such, imported assault rifles, this time our own, were not suitable for our possession.

  Had the locals instead been shouting "Schwartzkopf Schwartzkopf Schwartzkopf" I wouldn't have had any concern about that coca farmer. But instead I found myself, an officer in the United States Marine Corps, being guarded at an airbase in eastern Saudi Arabia by locals with German HK-91 assault rifles. As they spent more time looking inward than outward, I started looking around for a pipe. I always liked that rifle, and having owned one, was sure I could put it to productive use if the need arose, and if I could get my hands on one.

  Fortunately, the need never arose. In May of 1991, we boarded a C-5A Galaxy and rode home in luxury above the cargo bay, stopping once, in Rota, Spain, to refuel and change aircrews. As for me, I was immediately packed off to recruiting duty as the Operations Officer of Marine Corps Recruiting Station, Cincinnati. As is the Marines' custom, for obvious reasons, over the next year most of the officer billets in the recruiting service nationwide would be filled by combat veterans. And yet, the idle bunkroom chatter would follow me to that job. There, the consequences of that chatter would introduce me to the almost religious significance which otherwise intelligent people assign to the drug war and to political sacred cows.

  A few years later I learned that I had been investigated during my first year on recruiting duty for a plot to assassinate the President. I, of course, was oblivious to any such plot, and so didn't see the odd events of that year as having any particular significance. Apparently, some disgruntled knucklehead in my tent during Desert Sit had instigated a complaint against me. I imagine it was the one guy who had habitual roid rage. Or perhaps it was one of the displaced flower-children who I suspected of reading my outgoing mail. I salted my mail with scandal hoping to draw one or the other of them out. I never heard a peep of these tidbits, so either they weren't reading my mail, or were uncharacteristically self-disciplined. Or perhaps they smelled the bait.

  Regardless of the source, this complaint turned into a bumbling investigation by the Naval Investigative Service, with the cognizance of the Secret Service. And not one individual in the loop, who should have known me better, intervened during that entire time to put a stop to that nonsense. As for me, I wouldn't find out about this investigation until I was told about it in passing by an assistant director of the recruiting district in Philadelphia. And I never found out which individual started it all. And apparently, my skill with the rifle and my letter to the President had been seen as contributing factors leading to the credibility of the investigation.

  My Air Medal, and other assorted semi-meaningful fruit salad, came through as I was in Cincinnati. The Major chose to award me these at an All Hands meeting he scheduled in Columbus, which was odd since these events were usually held in Cincinnati. "But hey," I thought to myself, "he's the boss." The Major insisted that I drive him and the XO to this event. As the junior officer of the three, I had little say in the matter. Being reluctant to ding a government vehicle and deal with the resulting paperwork, I offered to drive First Wife's Honda Civic. I had plenty of paperwork to do as it was, I didn't need to volunteer for more.

  The Major refused, and insisted that I drive a white government Chrysler to that Columbus meeting. The Major sat beside me in the front, while the XO rode in the back, a curious seating arrangement. I later learned that the XO was taping the conversation from the back seat. The XO would eventually spread this taped conversation throughout key personnel of the station, even after I had been exonerated unawares. The conversation, paraphrased for brevity, went something like this:

  XO: So, (1st)Lt Baugh, I understand you don't like President Bush. (smooth opener to uncover an assassination plot had I actually been a dedicated conspirator)

  Me: (expletive deleted) no. CO: (shocked expression) That's your Commander in Chief you are talking about.

  Me: He's also an elected official, and I'm a voter.

  XO: Uhh, so what do you think about his gun control policies?

  Me: I think he's a (expletive) (expletive) lying two-faced piece of (expletive).

  CO: (shocked) How can you talk to the XO like that?

  Me: He asked. Tell him to not ask stupid questions if he doesn't want an answer.

  XO: Uhh, so what do you think about that trip to Columbia which President Bush made earlier?

  Me: That was a stupid thing to do. If some (expletive)-head shot his (expletive) (expletive) down, it would make us all look like idiots.

  XO: (smelling meat on the table) Uhh, so how exactly do you think they would shoot him down?

  Me: (deciding to put it in terms which even these two artillery officers could understand) Cartegena is in a bowl. Range is constrained, elevation and lead can be worked out ahead of time. Does the idea of a direct-fire howitzer with flechette rounds plus plane on final approach mean anything to either of you? No ECM, no flares, no warning, nothing.

  XO: Don't you think he's got people to think of that?

  Me: (planning a smart-aleck answer along the lines of whether they thought Dallas had been thought through) Well, ...

  CO: (interrupting) Why would anyone in Columbia want to kill the President? (I saw even the XO's eyes rolling in the mirror at this point)

  Me: (wondering why the hell this conversation had gone so sideways) Are you serious?

  CO: (combative) Yeah, tell me.

  Me: Well, imagine you are one of those coca farmers just trying to feed his family. You would take a dim view of some (expletive)-head telling you that you can't grow a product when it is his (expletive) people who buy the (expletive).

  CO: (shocked, agitated and fuming) So does this mean you want to just kill him? (again, very smooth)

  Me: (wondering what kind of morons I'm trapped in this car with) What the hell are you talking about? This isn't some third world country, we can just fire the guy. You better watch saying that kind of crap, someone might get the wrong idea.

  (minutes pass as the concrete slab miles click beneath us, CO getting restless)

  CO: (combative) So what do you think he should do?

  Me: He ought to legalize drugs and make the problem just go away. (recalling how baby boomers are above blame by their parents) I bet his own kids are (expletive) crack addicts.

  CO: So you think drugs should be legalized?

  Me: Yep.

  CO: (shocked) Why? How can you say that? Then we'll have drug dealers running all over selling to kids.

  Me: For one thing, as soon as it is legal that coca farmer will be selling to Dow Chemical, and the drug dealer won't be able to compete with their low prices. As far as drug users go, I think they ought to dump a truckload of coke in the middle of downtowns all over the country. Let those idiots go for it until they kill themselves. Good for the gene pool.

  XO: But then we'll have to take care of their medical bills.

  Me: Not if we give them enough coke for free.

  CO: (exploding) You'll think different when you have kids of your own!

  The conversation rambled from that high point to nowhere good. One of these side ventures included my assertion that the best way to smuggle a nuclear weapon into this country would be to hide it in a bale of marijuana. By the time we arrived in Columbus, I thought both of them had lost their minds. I'm sure that assessment was mutual.

  The All Hands went off spectacularly, and the Major awarded my medals with trembling hands and much acclaim. But that wasn't the end of the investigation, apparently. The rest of that story is beyond the scope of this book but involved the Akron SWAT team. And a stun gun, a roll of duct tape, and the apprehension and detaining of an undercover agent of the Naval Investigative Service by the Cincinnati police. After, of course, said agent had been assigned to watch my apartment. I'm blushing.

  Anyway, I now have kids, and no, my
views haven't changed. I teach them that drug abuse will destroy their minds and their future, but if they choose to use them anyway, they take upon themselves the negative consequences. I tell them that idiots should be given free drugs with which to exterminate themselves. Even so, my children and yours are more at risk from the consequences of getting caught experimenting with drugs than they are from the experimentation itself.

  If children are of the nature to abuse drugs, they will find some way to destroy themselves eventually. This they will do regardless of what laws are in place. The laws merely add their own special form of self-destruction to otherwise viable children. And, by stumbling onto a secret transaction, even non-experimentally-inclined children are more likely to get shot by a drug dealer than they are to do business with one.

  Generations of Americans did fine without a drug war. But all of our modern drug-related hazards are arbitrary creations of the forces of niceness. This collective relies upon the intrusiveness and permanent destruction of individual spirit which these laws allow. This insanity continues to grow with each passing year. In Texas, in an effort to combat illicit drug labs, graduated cylinders are illegal, meaning that having the ability to measure liquids marks you as a criminal on the face of it.

  The national government has even outlawed the possession of certain quantities of certain atomic elements. As the sophistication of drug labs grow, driven by higher and higher profits as the increasing penalties increase the cost of doing business, the ignorant populace demand greater and greater controls. So, lithium metal and iodine crystals join uranium and plutonium as atomic elements which are illegal for the individual to own. Mere possession of them in sufficient quantities are grounds for imprisonment for life, in some circumstances.

  Internet Research

  Research iodine. But chemistry is a resourceful science. And, iodine is easily obtained from seaweed ashes and sulfuric acid, which is in fact the way in which it was discovered. This process gives drug labs yet another lucrative product which can be sold to their fellows for profit. But, while iodine serves a role in specific chemical processes, it is not an absolutely essential portion of the process. Instead, it is merely convenient. And so the drug labs will discover an alternative which will do. They already have, in fact, and it is as close as your swimming pool.

  In the meantime, skateboarders are limited to weaker formulae and inferior protection. Their skinned knees make them one of the largest groups of first-aid users of iodine, a valuable disinfectant which travels easily and never goes bad. And suddenly, the horrors of flesh-eating bacteria are on the rise.

  Similarly, lithium serves a role in illicit drug chemistry, but the dark secret is that sodium and potassium can serve similar roles with slight modification to the processes. Obtaining elemental sodium or potassium is easier than getting metallic lithium, and any of these require little more than various kinds of salt, a pottery furnace suitable for hobbyists, and electricity. I'm not telling you anything which drug labs don't already know, since they are better informed than you, such are the nature of lies which surround our quest to control our citizens.

  What will the collective of nice do next, regulate or control salt? Require all folk potters to register their kilns? Limit access to electricity or fire itself? At some point these restrictions come directly into conflict with your efforts to run a legitimate business, or for that matter, live your life.

  In our rush to control those who can control nature, we drive civilization backwards. Imagine the next Haber or the next Tesla who might otherwise have invented a new process to benefit us all. Traditionally thinkers are spurred into discovery by a lab they operate in their garage or basement, or experiments they might try as a child. Now, these thinkers are locked away if they try, out of our irrational and arbitrary fear that they might be running a drug lab or making bombs. Or, these prodigies become so frightened of the law that they turn to other work.

  And so we now live in a society where our paper mills are older than the employees who operate them. Most of these operators, those who still have jobs, have no detailed knowledge of the chemical magic which goes on within these marvels of the past. With each industry which is shut down for economics or the environment, rarely any rise to replace it. To further shackle that little Haber or Tesla, we have eroded education to the point that chemistry, physics or math are so poorly taught that we might as well not even bother.

  So when a paper mill or a refinery closes, those jobs are lost forever as we grow more and more ignorant with each passing year. Ignorant, because we fear what might happen to increasingly ignorant and less capable children. This is the labor pool from which you, the entrepreneur, draw your employees. You might as well try transporting Dark Age peasants into the present. At least they wouldn't have learned to sue you yet. Or get you thrown in jail and have everything you own seized when they decide to keep their drug stash in your office.

  This insanity which pits law enforcement against otherwise peaceful citizens also corrodes the respect which can be demanded by important portions of our military forces. Just as Bush the First increasingly destroyed our civil liberties in the shadows behind Reagan. Simultaneously, he was also making sure that our National Guard was being turned into an instrument of oppression of the states they serve.

  Traditionally, the National Guard, under control of the various states and more properly called the State Guards, served not only as a national military reserve. Sometimes, more importantly the guardsman also was a humanitarian resource available to the direction of the Governors. In this role, the soldier drawn to such service could be more compared to a fireman rather than a state trooper.

  However, in the mid-1980s, this protective and crucial defense resource was turned into a form of national law enforcement agency. Previously directly accountable to the people of their state, and along with such previously benign entities as the Civil Air Patrol, its original federalist purpose was subverted. Ed Vaughn, a researcher for a pro-legalization group, uncovered this quote from a high-ranking officer in the National Guard Bureau, responsible for coordinating activities of the various state guards:

  "America is caught up in the most pervasive drug epidemic in history. An epidemic that transcends the health, economy, and general well-being of our nation. The rapid growth of this drug scourge has shown that military force must be used to change the attitudes and activities of Americans who are dealing and using drugs. The National Guard is America's legally feasible attitude-change agent, " Colonel Richard R. Browning, III, former chief of the drug demand section of the National Guard Bureau.

  Read that again. I wonder if Colonel Browning has ever seen a copy of the Constitution which he swore to "protect and defend against all enemies, foreign and domestic"? Including domestic enemies such as, maybe, himself. Yesterday, the justification was drugs. Today, it is terrorism, a threat which could never stand on our shores against even a lightly-armed and vigilant citizenry. Tomorrow, who knows in what ways the military might be employed to adjust your attitude?

  This misuse of the previously well-regarded National Guard is only the foot in the door to having the military as a whole hunt those who defy the forces of niceness. Many are lobbying to repeal the Posse Comitatus Act of 1879, which forbids the use of the regular military forces in domestic law enforcement. When that day arrives, potential recruits with patriotic zeal, yet no interest in law enforcement against his fellow citizen, will have to make a tough choice. And then our ability to fight real wars against meaningful and motivated enemies will be irreversibly damaged.

  The zeal of the forces of niceness against some of the most upstanding citizens in our communities can become overwhelming. So overwhelming, in fact, that we feel we must look the other way just to maintain our sanity. In some cases, the possession of a concealed carry permit is considered sufficient grounds to instigate paramilitary SWAT-like raids upon our own citizens. But in fact, the screening which goes into issuing such permits should raise a flag that the
permit-holder is probably OK. As a Marine, my skill with a rifle and pistol in defense of our country made me a threat, even while still in uniform. Similarly, knowledge of this skill has been used more than once to target and attack innocent American citizens.

  Internet Research

  Read "Overkill: The Rise of Paramilitary Police Raids in America", by Radley Balko, Cato Institute, 2006. One useful link to this document is:

  http://www.cato.org/pubs/wtpapers/balko_whitepaper_2006.pdf

  Each time I hear one of these paramilitary horror stories, I can only laugh. In most cases, the law enforcement officials want to dress up like soldiers and then attack the citizens whom they are hired to protect. These cretins are no better ethically than a common street thug who, with a pack of his homies, gangs up on defenseless unarmed citizens. I say this from the perspective of a Marine trained to fight more heavily-armed and better-equipped Soviets, outnumbered by three-to-one, or more. That slogan, "the few and the proud", means something.

  A typical Marine (or Army Ranger or Green Beret or Navy Seal or Air Force Romad, etc.), outnumbered two-to-one, and given freedom of action and the opportunity to prepare the battlefield, will feel a certain amount of pity toward his adversaries. His first move will be to partition the engagement so that no portion of the opposing force is outnumbering by more than two- or three-to-one at a given time and place. So prepared, a small team could handle a practically unlimited number of adversaries, pausing as needed to eat, drink, reload and urinate.

  Yet, dozens of black-armored officers (I still have trouble using that word in this context) storm into a house, only to later haul out a couple of emaciated meth-heads in plastic cuffs. I chuckle, knowing that these same heroes wouldn't survive more than about three or so of these raids against a few determined and well-trained opponents in a prepared war zone. The fact that they do survive means that, despite their little boy dress-up fantasies, they aren't at war. And that society, including their victims, has not yet decided that they are the enemy.