Gary Brecher - War Nerd Writings

War Nerd Writings

Currently, the War Nerd can be found here: http://www.nsfwcorp.com/author/gary-brecher

Every two to five weeks, Brecher publishes his The War Nerd column in eXile. In each installment, Brecher offers his idiosyncratic analyses of armed conflict from a military, political, or rarely, social standpoint. In his first eXile column, Brecher declared that The War Nerd was to be "a column on how all the wars are going, kind of a war reviewer." He has acknowledged an aesthetic or perhaps even fetishistic pleasure in the study, observation, and intimate knowledge of armed conflict (again from his first column):

"American peace truly sucks (That's what I live in and work in: American peace. Fresno. Townhouses in a dry riverbed. Scrub acreage with fancy British names. America the hot and stupid)."

"That's why we need a war now and then. You can drain your dick at every bondage site on the web, but you can't really drain your head there, it takes something bigger like a decent war and some of those guncamera shots. I figure about one a year. Which is why this was already a good year."

Brecher describes himself as a Nationalist "who just wants America to kick ass." While typically enjoying war as a spectator, Brecher has been highly critical of the foreign policy of the Bush administration. One basis of his critique has been that Bush has gone to war in Iraq and Afghanistan, and possibly planned for war in Iran and North Korea, without publicly defining a sound strategy or acknowledging the ruthlessness required for victory.

Following publication of Brecher's article "Victor Hanson: Portrait of an American Traitor", Hanson responded with an article accusing Brecher of being an anarchist In the September 9, 2005 of the eXile, the editors announced that the War Nerd would be suspended without pay for one issue as a result of these accusations. It is doubtful that this was a serious reprimand. Nonetheless, the subsequent issue of the eXile did not contain Brecher's regular column. Another similarly themed Brecher article, 'It’s All Greek to Victor Davis Hanson', appeared in the December 19, 2005 issue of the American Conservative.

On June 24, 2006, Newsday columnist James Pinkerton appeared on Fox News and referenced Gary Brecher's analysis of the alleged Haditha massacre, in which he took the view that, in any war, Haditha-like events are to a great degree unavoidable, as a position held by a distinct "minority" of commentators, but nevertheless "correct". In that column, Brecher stated that massacres like Haditha were a staple of counter-insurgency warfare, but doubted that this particular instance would be of any use to the effort, characterising it as 'too little or too much'.

Brecher has summarized his view of modern warfare as follows:

1. Most wars are asymmetrical / irregular.
2. In these wars, the guerrillas / irregulars / insurgents do NOT aim for military victory.
3. You can NOT defeat these groups by killing lots of their members. In fact, they want you to do that.
4. Hi-tech weaponry is mostly useless in these wars.
5. "Hearts and Minds," meaning propaganda and morale, are more important than military superiority.
6. Most people are not rational, they are TRIBAL: "my gang yay, your gang boo!" It really is that simple. The rest is cosmetics.