{"id":33923,"date":"2015-12-12T04:00:14","date_gmt":"2015-12-12T09:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=33923"},"modified":"2015-12-11T21:41:04","modified_gmt":"2015-12-12T02:41:04","slug":"this-is-a-case-where-the-satire-is-just-too-close-to-the-reality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2015\/12\/12\/this-is-a-case-where-the-satire-is-just-too-close-to-the-reality\/","title":{"rendered":"This is a case where the satire is just too close to the reality"},"content":{"rendered":"

Duffelblog<\/em> usually comes up with wild and wacky variations on real military topics that are so way-out-there that even Second Lieutenants (and a few Captains) can often tell that they’re satire. This, on the other hand, is one where it’s hard to determine if there’s any satirical content at all<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u201cHis mistake was announcing facts,\u201d Lt. Gen. Paul K. Van Riper (Ret.) said. \u201cWhen faced with facts contrary to what the military and Congress wants, the facts must be changed. It\u2019s standard procedure.\u201d<\/p>\n

Van Riper was speaking from experience. In 2002 he was the opposing general in the 2002 Millennium Challenge, where he led an inferior foe to victory against American forces. The exercise was started over with rule changes to ensure Van Riper could not win again.<\/p>\n

\u201cPoliticians want wars to be won with progressive politics and technology made by contractors who donate to their campaigns,\u201d Van Riper said. \u201cContractors were pitching technology to stop IEDs but war games showed more recon flights searching for people planting IEDs were a better solution. We destroyed those results so we might get some cool laser cannons or something.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not all negative results are suppressed. A study found that despite an Army Optimism Program, 52 percent of soldiers had low morale. The Army took quick action to solve this problem by lowering the threshold of what it considered an unhappy soldier. Now only 9 percent of soldiers have low morale.<\/p>\n

Pretending a problem doesn\u2019t exist has become the DoD standard, according to senior defense officials. In fact, according to data released by the Secretary of Defense\u2019s office, dozens of commendations have been awarded to commanders in recent years for redefining success. The award, called the \u201cSilver Lining Star\u201d is generally given to leaders who have \u201cmade lemonade when life gives you lemons.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Duffelblog usually comes up with wild and wacky variations on real military topics that are so way-out-there that even Second Lieutenants (and a few Captains) can often tell that they’re satire. This, on the other hand, is one where it’s hard to determine if there’s any satirical content at all: \u201cHis mistake was announcing facts,\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[57,5,13],"tags":[31,698,463],"class_list":["post-33923","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-humour","category-military","category-usa","tag-army","tag-congress","tag-parody"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-8P9","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33923","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33923"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33923\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33924,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33923\/revisions\/33924"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33923"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33923"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33923"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}