I would expect someone named the "War Nerd" to actually understand something about tactics and/or military equipment. This guy seems more like a "war jerk", no different than any beer-swilling, blue-collar who gets off on explosions in a "Rambo" film. Plus this guy is so extreme in some of his statements as to make Coulter uncomfortable.
Not to say I'm against the last two wars, I'm actually for them, but it's assholes like this that give hawks like me a bad name.

you got an MSN account? they don't give you a mail server do they....

So scott, have you actually read any of this guy's pieces? They seem reasonably well informed to me.

John,
Actually the only piece I have read is the one Razib linked to, if he is more informed than that piece, then I apologize. I was simply responding to a disgust I feel anytime I hear someone make an over-the-top rant instead of an intelligent argument in support of the war. It does make us hawks look bad you must agree.

I think you need to understand the tone of the magazine that the War Nerd writes for, the Exile. Any magazine whose website carries an opinion poll asking readers to pick their favorite style of pubic hair on a woman is not going to be the Wall Street Journal is it? The War Nerd pieces are there as informed entertainment.

War Nerd sez...

"People talk about the war in the Balkans and act shocked that there's "ethnic cleaning," but the fact is -- it's not weird at all, it's how most tribes fight. Get it straight: massacres are normal, battles are unusual."

How often do pre-civilized tribes engage in genocidal campaigns? I've heard some argue that the pre-colonial indigenous peoples in the America's sought victory and status in battles that were ceremonial in nature, but they didn't seek to completely wipe out neighboring groups. But I've also heard claims to the contrary -- I've even read about how the Kung San, who many anthropologists and neo-primitivists have romanticized, have beat neighboring San people's to death in their sleep. Additionally, I've read about how after Jane Goodall's initial study of chimpanzees, the band she was studying proceded to engage in genocidal warfare with the neighboring band until it was completely wiped out.

Tribes engage in genocidal combat now, but much of that may be do to high populations and scarce resources. I'd be interested to learn about pre-agricultural communities actually waged war with each other, and how brutal and genocidal it really was. When people speak of "tribes", social structure, subsistence strategy and environmental factors aren't always mentioned. The question is worth further inquiry. Does anybody have any insight on this topic?

War Nerd scooped everyone in this classic riff:

http://exile.ru/168/168052003.html

Specifically, the use of cross-dressing by soldier, pygmy eating, and some of their more barbarous behavior. You don't read any of that in the papers because it's just to harsh, and there's no way to spin it as some great indiginous tradition.

The war nerd comes off bad in Sailer's interview. He appears much more shallow than he is. I've read his stuff and it's well informed. He obviously has a "schtick" that's getting him noticed, so you'll get the outrageous. It's a familiar pattern: you go to the extremes to get noticed, then move to the center to hit the big dollars by gaining wider appeal. Musicians, actors, artists, writers all do this. Strip away the "woe is me" and Kurt Cobainesque whiny-ness and self-loathing that he uses to get noticed, and you find an intelligent commentator on human behavior.

Read _War before Civilization_. Better yet, look at the Y-chromosome distribution in western New Guinea. Lots of mtDNA diversity, very limited Y-chromosome diversity. One simple explanation.

Yes, War Before Civilization by Lawrence Keeley is an excellent, mind-changing book. Massacres of "civilians", genocide, ambushes, allpart of the normal panoply of "pre-civilized" peoples.

Jared Diamond (in Guns, Germs, & Steel, which I have recommenced reading based on the recommendations of the regulars here) mentions the Maori genocide and enslavement of the population of one of the neighboring islands. The Maori indicated that this was their normal custom. Granted, they could be regarded as an unusually warlike people, but still: one more datapoint for savages behaving savagely.

the new guinea study can be found at the STANFORD HUMAN POPULATION GENETICS link under "publications" on the left blogroll....

scott, regarding 'war nerd' i think you are missing the point entirely. he's actually anti-war, and his shtick is a sophisticated sendup of 'chickenhawks.'

i'm a leetle suspicious of this exile.ru website. is it a sister publication of pravda.ru perchance?

btw war nerd was wrong about the fedayeen (i think it was the 4/16 column; too lazy to look it up) being serious challengers to the us army/marines and he never retracted it, although he's shrewd about losing the peace, although i'm not sure where he actually *predicted* that, although he says he did.

he has a tendency also to say lotsa nice things about israelis, only to conclude that all their good qualities are essentially meaningless.

I don't think that the Exile has anything to do with Pravada it's more of an independent/alternative newspaper like you might have found on a campus in the 1970s.
By the way whilst looking through their archives I came across this chart http://www.exile.ru/151/materials/europeans-chart.html#part1
It is a guide to what Europeans really think about each other, it had me laughing anyway.

Hey, thanks for the book recommendation. It appears to offer plenty of information relating to my question.

Not to say I'm against the last two wars, I'm actually for them, but it's assholes like this that give hawks like me a bad name.

Read a little more carefully:

I sit in traffic for an hour each way and spend all day in a fuzzy cubicle just so these chicken hawks can talk war when all they care about is money. ... If you elite media guys lived in places like Fresno you'd see fast how just plain dumb most Americans are. People at my office used to talk to me about Iraq until I said it wasn't a good idea. Said we'd win the war and lose the peace. Nobody wanted to hear it.

Scott, I think he has a lot in common with you. You both pontificate about war (though from different viewpoints) and both you and he are not about to join up to serve in the wars you love. Of course, if you are posting from Baghdad, I apologize. However, if you are not a chickenhawk, I'll need a pacemaker.)

You guys need to read carefully. The War Nerd _opposes_ the Iraq war. He's _against_ the lily-livered chicken hawk neocons who currently rule in Washington. Plus, he's freakin hilarious.

Re: War Before Civilization - Didn't Darwin argue that competition between the members of a single species is more intense than an aggregate measure of competition between two separate species? It strikes me that the tribal warfare and genocide are manifestations of this tendency toward extreme intra-species competition combined with a capacity for tool use turned towards development of weapons.

Of course War Nerd is against the Iraq War -- that's one reason why Steve Sailer likes him so much. Steve's pretty soundly against it too and has been for awhile. War Nerd articulates the American Conservative position better than they do.