It’s always wonderful to see your tax dollars at work. After all, what could be better than breathing the sweet air of freedom, safe in the knowledge that defense planners are working hard to keep you safe from E.T.? At a time when our policymakers seem so cut off from reality, isn’t it nice to know that the hard-learned lessons of Iraq will allow us to defend ourselves from the alien overlords? How pumped are you for the Jihad on E.T.?

Travis Taylor, whose blog doctravis.com is linked above, is the co-author of “An Introduction to Planetary Defense: A Study of Modern Warfare Applied to Extra-Terrestrial Invasion,” along with Bob Boan, Charles Anding, and Thomas Conley Powell, which apparently outlines defenses against some hypothetical alien attack. Reviews from the book’s website are glowing. “It should be on the reading list of anyone who is serious about national security and the future of war,” says “Bestselling Military Sci-Fi author” John Ringo. “It looks like the time has come to take a serious look at planetary defense from all aspects,” says Gerald B. Helman, former US Ambassador to the UN Geneva and Deputy to the Undersecretary of the State for Political Affairs. Hell, UFOdigest.com even gives it a good review… I’m sold.

The best defense of the work comes from Travis himself, as it was apparently inspired by -get this- lessons learned in Iraq? Travis explains to Reuters how the lessons of Iraq are finally being applied to defense planning:

Taylor and Boan started thinking about how to respond to an aggressive extraterrestrial attack during a 2001 discussion about defending against terrorist attacks.

“One thing that popped into my mind was that the only way Americans would be in an asymmetric war on the other side would be if we were attacked by aliens. Everyone chuckled, but then after a minute the comments started setting in,” Taylor said.

“Then we really got to talking about it and we thought, well, you know, we really might need this contingency plan anyway,” Taylor said.

Failure to prepare may mean mankind will have to dig in and fight with improvised weapons and hit-and-run tactics, much the same way Islamic extremists have battled the U.S. military in Iraq, Taylor said.
“You’d have to create an insurgency, a mujahideen-type resistance,” Taylor said. “The insurgents know how to win this war against us. It also tells us that if we were attacked by aliens, this is our best defence.”

Also from Reuters,

Taylor and Boan are hardly basement-dwelling paranoids obsessed with tinfoil hats and Area 51. Taylor holds advanced degrees in astronomy and physics, and is an associate at consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton. He and Boan have done consulting work for the Defence Department and (NASA).

Hat Tip: Hit and Run. Don’t forget to check out Dr. Taylor’s blog… it’s full of the good, hard science you’d expect.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 25th, 2007 at 3:50 pm by Niedermeyer and is filed under Booze, Humor. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.