Tag Archives: Obama

Current Events, Recent Posts

Strength Respects Strength

3 Comments
And as Greg points out, power has always respected power. Its been that way since Adam and Eve. Putin is no different than anyone who has a left and right brain that are somehow connected, which rules out Biden and his gang of idiots.

 

A Putinized disaster

By: G. Maresca

 

Vladimir Putin never accepted defeat in the Cold War. The former KGB agent stated how the dissolution of the Soviet Union was one of the greatest tragedies in world history.

Given their strategic location, rich natural resources and fertile farmland, an old Russian proverb says there is no Russian Empire without Ukraine. Since the 1772 Partitions of Poland Agreement, Ukraine had been part of Russia until 1991.

For over 30-years, Ukrainians have realized greater economic freedom and opportunities that they never experienced as a satellite of the former Soviet Union. Such successes intimidate Putin. Economically, Russia has been stagnant fueled by a declining population. To offset any further demographic and economic slide, Putin hopes to return those old Soviet republics to the Russian fold.

Ironic how Russia did not invade Ukraine when they had a “Russian asset” in the White House. According to Biden, the borders of Ukraine are sacrosanct and must be protected. The American border not so much.

Rewind to 2014, when Ukraine lost the Crimean Peninsula after President Obama’s chemical weapons “red line” in Syria disappeared and Hillary Clinton’s “re-set” was outright dismissed prompting Putin to make his move. Fast forward eight years, and Obama’s vice president has the top job and tells Putin at their initial meeting that “the adults are back in charge.”

Those adults alongside Biden are Harris, Pelosi, Kerry, Trudeau, and Macron. Kerry’s response to Putin’s invasion would be comical if it wasn’t so pathetic: “I hope President Putin will help us to stay on track with respect to what we need to do for the climate.” Watching our Woke powder puff team of generals grossly mismanage our withdrawal from Afghanistan was no help.

The West’s superlative six are nothing but appeasement, global elitists more concerned about wokeness, gender pronouns, defunding the police, open borders, and handcuffing America’s gas and oil resources.

Since assuming office, Biden went to war with American energy production by canceling the Keystone Pipeline that would have prolonged our energy independence. It would have kept world oil and gas prices in check and limit a major source of Russian revenue, while easing American inflation. Moreover, sustaining sanctions on the Nord Stream 2 Pipeline under the Baltic Sea would have denied Putin additional income and political leverage.

Barring new Alaskan production and exploration in the lower 48 states only handcuffs American energy independence and potential. This not only hurts Americans at the pump, but our allies, too, while the high price of oil pays for Russia’s invasion.

Biden’s irrational energy policy underscores another Vlad, this one named Lenin and his infamous wisecrack about how the “capitalists will sell us the rope by which we hang them.”

How pathetic is it when a Canadian waitress who donated $50 to the freedom truckers suffered more financially than Putin when Trudeau locked down her bank account?

The Russian invasion of Ukraine highlights just how fundamentally inept the UN is.

During the 2012 presidential campaign, Mitt Romney was spot-on saying how Russia was foe number one but was mocked by Obama and Biden who believed Putin to be an equitable geopolitical partner.

Like all despots, Putin understands, and values strength and he certainly empathizes with the legacy of the Romanov Tsars and their successors in the Kremlin. Negotiating with Putin, China, and the ayatollahs of Iran only comprehends dynamism, defiance, and dominion. The results are playing out in real time in Ukraine with the Baltic states lying in the balance.

Don’t dismiss the Chinese desire to reunify Taiwan with the mainland, and who could forget our favorite ayatollahs in Tehran finally obtaining their nuclear warhead and those North Koreans forever aiming south. Power only respects power. It has been that way since the dawn of civilization, yet the West fails to comprehend its lesson.

Civilians throughout Ukraine are battling back in what the New York Times calls, “a massive grass-roots movement” that must be giving Democrats heartburn. The next time you hear leftists threatening to take away your guns and ammo think about our friends in Ukraine fighting to keep their freedom.

May God bless, guide and protect the Ukrainian people whose courageous resolve reminds us how precious freedom is that many take for granted.

So where does the U.S. fall in this power and strength struggle for respect? Well, let’s look at the current status of the foundation of  our power and strength – the military establishment.

From the Free Beacon

 • March 1, 2022 5:00 am

As Russia Wages War, US Army Trains Officers on Gender Identity. Mandatory military training program pushes soldiers to undergo gender reassignment surgery

While Russia wages a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the U.S. Army is putting its soldiers through training on gender pronouns and coaching officers on when to offer soldiers gender transition surgery, according to an official military presentation on the subject obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.

The mandatory presentation, “Policy on the Military Service of Transgender Persons and Persons with Gender Dysphoria,” was given to officers earlier this month along with instructions for them to train their subordinates on the material. Portions of the presentation were provided to the Free Beacon by a whistleblower who was ordered to undergo the training as a high-ranking officer in the Army Special Forces.

An Army spokesman confirmed to the Free Beacon that the slides in question are part of “mandatory training” and come from an official program “used to train Army personnel on the recent changes to the DoD and Army transgender service policy.” All Army personnel, from soldiers to commanders and supervisors, are required to participate in the training by Sept. 30, 2022, according to the spokesman.

The transgender presentation follows on a June 2021 announcement by the Army altering its policies so that transgender soldiers can openly serve. The shift in policy is part of a larger push by the Biden administration to make the military more welcoming to transgender people. These efforts have prompted pushback from Republicans in Congress and some within the military who view the policy changes as an effort to promote “woke” propaganda within the service. As Russia’s invasion of Ukraine threatens to spark a larger conflict, military experts and insiders say they are concerned America’s fighting force is prioritizing woke culture over protecting the American people.

“The Army allows transgender soldiers to serve openly,” states the presentation, which is tailored for Army commanders and leaders. “An otherwise qualified soldier shall not be involuntarily separated, discharged, or denied reenlistment or continuation of service on the basis of gender identity.”

The presentation offers several hypothetical scenarios for how soldiers should be treated if they are transgender or in some stage of transitioning to another gender.

In one situation, a “soldier who was assigned male at birth says he identifies as a female,” “lives as a female in his off-duty hours,” and “is not requesting to be treated as a female while on duty.” In that case, the soldier should be treated with dignity and respect and no further action is required.

If the transgender soldier, however, “later requests to be identified as a female during duty hours and/or experiences increased distress relating to his gender identity,” the officer in charge must “inform [the] soldier of the Army’s transgender policy and recommend that he sees a military medical provider.”

“Gender transition in the Army,” the presentation states, “begins when a soldier receives a diagnosis from a military medical provider indicating that gender transition is medically necessary.”

In another scenario included in the presentation, a “soldier is assigned female at birth. She tells her first sergeant that she identifies as male and would like to be treated as a male. She has not yet seen a military medical provider.”

In this situation, Army leaders are ordered to “inform [the] soldier that the Army recognizes a soldier’s gender by the soldier’s gender marking in DEERs,” or the Defense Enrollment Eligibility Reporting System, a massive database that tracks military members. The soldier, according to the presentation, will be expected to meet the uniform, grooming, and physical readiness standards associated with their recognized gender.

The soldier will then be sent to a military medical provider who can determine whether “gender transition is medically necessary.”

Damn, don’t those kind of reports make you feel warm and fuzzy? I suspect reports like this  has Putin shaking in his KGB boots, ya think? I’ve made no secret on here that I am somewhat of a Putin fan. I shall pray for the people of Ukraine, but that’s as far as I will go. I have tired of us being the caretaker of the world only to lose men and women to useless political wars where we have no interests whatsoever. How dare we lose one American soldier, Marine, sailor, or airman fighting in Ukraine while our own country is going to the dogs and fast becoming a Third World Shithole. I’ve discussed Putin with some of my peers about how bad Putin is and what he’s doing. I make no apologies, while I may not agree with what he is doing, I do respect the man’s fortitude and determination to do what he considers necessary for the good of his country.  That’s a lot more than I can say about our nation’s leader.

Meanwhile, thanks to that person in our oval office, WTI crude opened this a.m. at $111.37/bbl and Brent crude opened at $114.43/bbl. And to think that on Trump’s last day in office WTI was $52.87/bbl, and before COVID hit Trump had it down to $3.32/bbl, and we were paying less for gas than we had paid in 30 years. Two years ago we were an oil exporter and  energy independent. Putin’s getting rich; we are paying for his actions in Ukraine at the gas pump.

Guys, we have major problems right here within our own borders e.g., CPI at 7.1% in January, literally 1,000s storming our borders every month, spending out of control, rising prices for everything especially the necessities for life, a military training to become warm and fuzzy powder puffs, Marines changing their entire force structure, and the list goes on. We are no longer the powerful nation to be respected like we were two years ago. We need to stay out of Ukraine , and let Europe stand on their own two feet for a change.

Current Events

We Are Screwed!

14 Comments

First it was gays and lesbians,, then it was the transgenders, and now the nonbinary. Had to stop and think about that one . I mean I knew , or at least I thought I knew, what binary meant, but just in case I went to old Man Webster. He says the noun binary means: ” a system of two stars that revolve around each other under their mutual gravitation.” Got that? 

Pentagon Quietly Looking into How Nonbinary Troops Could Serve Openly

18 Jan 2022
Military.com | By Rebecca Kheel

The Defense Department has quietly begun looking into how it can allow troops whose gender identity is nonbinary to serve openly in the military, three advocates familiar with the situation told Military.com.

The Pentagon has asked the Institute for Defense Analyses, or IDA, which operates federally funded research centers, to study the issue, said the advocates, one of whom requested anonymity to disclose a sensitive topic.

Someone who is nonbinary identifies as neither male nor female, often using “they” and “them” as their pronouns and marking their gender as “X” on forms that have that option.

It is unclear exactly how long the research has been going on, but SPARTA, an advocacy group for transgender troops, put researchers in touch with several nonbinary service members this month.

SPARTA President Bree Fram, an Air Force lieutenant colonel, likened the effort to the study the Pentagon asked Rand Corp. to conduct in 2015 before lifting the ban on transgender people serving in the military. Bet this LtCol was fun to work for.

“Speaking with non-binary troops and defense officials to understand what regulation changes may be necessary is a great first step,” Fram said in a statement to Military.com. “We are hopeful this will allow non-binary individuals to serve authentically and realize their full potential in the military.” Why should they, do we need them? 

Jennifer Dane, executive director of LGBTQ military advocacy group Modern Military Association of America, said members of her organization have also spoken with IDA and believes initial conversations about open service by nonbinary troops began last year.

Asked for comment, IDA referred Military.com to the Pentagon, which declined to comment “at this time as we do not provide information that may or may not be part of the Department’s research efforts.”

There is no explicit ban on nonbinary service members, but there is also no official recognition of their existence or guidance about how they should adhere to gendered policies, such as what uniform to wear or where to shower.

Advocates say policies allowing transgender troops to serve openly have made it somewhat easier for nonbinary service members, but add they still face hurdles because there is no official recognition of nonbinary gender identities.

If policies are changed to allow nonbinary troops to serve openly, it would be the latest move to make the military more inclusive for LGBTQ people. Again, why? Do we need them or do they need us to forward their agenda?

It’s been just over a decade since the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” the law that banned open service by gay, lesbian and bisexual troops.

In 2016, the Obama administration lifted a ban on transgender troops. Former President Donald Trump reinstated the ban in 2019, but President Joe Biden lifted it last year shortly after taking office.

Dane said she is hopeful the research on nonbinary troops will lead to policy changes, but expressed concern that “there’s going to be a lot of hurdles, more so than transgender, I think, because there’s no binary on it.”

But as more people in younger generations identify as nonbinary, including in official documentation such as passports and driver’s licenses, Dane said an open service policy will be crucial to recruitment and retention. A 2021 study by the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law found about 1.2 million U.S. adults identify as nonbinary 76% of whom are under age 29. Don’t you just love it when they spout figures like this? How did they determine these numbers? Certainly one has to trust them, I mean look from where they came. Ha!

“To get the talent, obviously, you’ve got to kind of get with the times,” Dane said. What talent are we talking about. You mean men and women to find, close with, and destroy the enemy?

Dane also pointed to a recent Air Force decision to allow email signatures to include someone’s pronouns, including they and them, as “opening the door to further conversation” about nonbinary troops. “Aim High”

The Biden administration has taken steps to be inclusive to nonbinary people at agencies besides the Pentagon.

The State Department last year issued a passport with an “X” gender marker for the first time.

The Department of Veterans Affairs also recently announced that transgender and nonbinary veterans can identify as such in their official department medical records.

While stressing that he could not speak to the military’s current research efforts, Aaron Belkin, director of the Palm Center, which researches issues of gender and sexuality in the military, said he believes there are three categories of policies the military might have to consider as it looks into open nonbinary service.

The first are policies that likely won’t need to change at all, such as nondiscrimination policies that already ban discrimination based on gender identity.

The second are policies that could be made gender neutral, such as some uniform standards – changes Belkin said would benefit not just nonbinary troops but also female troops.

The third category are policies the military can’t or won’t make gender neutral, such as where to shower. In those cases, Belkin said, commanders could consult with the individual nonbinary service member about which gender’s standards would be more appropriate to follow. Oh, that’s nice, As a Nonbinary I get to choose with whom I shower.

“The opponents to nonbinary service, just like they did for Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell and just like they did for Obama’s transgender policy, they’re going to insist that implementation is so complicated and so hard, in fact it’s so complicated that it can’t be done. That’s complete bull—-,” Belkin said. “Implementation is not complicated. Period, full stop. The military could easily pull this off tomorrow. It would not be a big deal.”

Aaron Belkin himself. Of course it would not be a big deal says Belkin. He knows this as a fact because he has experience in what military service? NONE!

 

Finally, you MUST watch this short video as it deals with the reality of the question, what is the DOD doing. Preparing the militaries for war or developing a national social club for the minority groups? Surely that will help with recruitments and retention. Watch and you decide. I believe we’re screwed.

Yes, I believe we are certainly screwed folks.

Current Events

Generals Investigating Generals – Really?

15 Comments
I know Col Anderson having personally served with him. He has been a thorn in public officials’ sides for many years. Even while on active duty he was an avid writer. For example, In December 1988, in a Washington Times article,  Gary criticized the Air Force, suggesting that it be dissolved and folded into the other military branches. The piece earned him a  personal call from the Commandant and a temporary stay from public writing. “He took my crayons away for a while,” Gary said.
I suspect no one reading this post will have difficulty agreeing with Gary’s thrust. That abysmal, downright disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan where Marines lost their lives needs to be thoroughly investigated and some one in the hierarchy held accountable, and I don’t mean some colonel or brigadier general. Heads need to roll, but  generals investigating generals is a joke. The upper echelon of flag officers are as inept and unprofessional as they have ever been.. Let’s just refer to them as members of the GPA (General’s Protective Association). Put retired senior enlisted and field grades who ate Afghan dirt on the investigation team, and we will find the truth.
There is so much truth in this article about our generals. Read and learn.

Keeping the Generals Out of the Afghanistan Investigation Is a Great Idea

6 Jan 2022
Military.com | By Gary Anderson

Our general officers should not be allowed to investigate themselves, and any conclusions about the rapid collapse of the Afghan government and its military forces inevitably will be tied to the actions of those officers who for two decades shaped U.S. strategy.

The recently passed annual defense policy bill includes a requirement for a new study of the failures in Afghanistan. In the past, it was pro forma to appoint retired flag rank officers, usually four-stars, to lead such an investigation. The current legislation precludes the generals and admirals who were part of the problem, as well as members of Congress serving since 2001, ostensibly a roundup of all of those who were responsible for the decisions made in Afghanistan.

That is a good call, but giving the Investigation three years is not; the war will be ancient history by then.

Several recent opinion polls suggest that the traditionally high regard that Americans have held for our military is eroding. But a closer look shows that the public still respects our troops. It’s senior military leadership that is losing the trust of the public. Americans appear to be far ahead of Congress, which let the generals who fouled up the Afghan evacuation off the hook with a proverbial slap on the wrist during hearings last fall.

The sad truth is that our flag rank officers have become merely another political interest group. They know that upon retirement they will be appointed to the boards of think tanks, corporations and universities. Going along to get along is the norm, and one never criticizes another member of the club.

This careerist, risk-avoiding atmosphere has been developing for years. Not all modern general officers are guilty, but far too many are. This goes a long way in explaining why no senior flag officer demanded that serious questions be asked about the course of the war in Afghanistan while their subordinates, particularly in the enlisted ranks, knew it was going sideways for two decades.

I listened as soldiers and Marines complained bitterly of being told that they had to abandon terrain that they had fought hard to take and hold because a general officer miles away had decided that it was no longer important or that the Afghans would take over, when it was obvious that they were not ready. Some of the revolving door American commanders in Kabul tinkered at the margins, but none had the intestinal fortitude to ask the really hard questions such as:

  • Why did we create an Afghan army in our own image? Soldiers from Herat in the west were defending Kabul while soldiers from Kabul were defending distant Herat. Regional forces would have made sense. That was the way the Taliban organized; they were not dependent on outside supplies that might or might not arrive, or far away chairborne Afghan generals who were pocketing soldiers’ pay. Such a reorganization was possible even as late as 2019, but the idea was never seriously considered.
  • Why was the Afghan air force not a priority? Given the nation’s abysmal road system, the only way to support remote army posts was by air. The Afghan air force was always a secondary consideration. Support to the air force was one of the first capabilities to be eliminated as the decision to leave was implemented while remote outposts were being left to wilt on the vine, and no American general officer had the moral courage to go public with the fact that the organization could never be self-sustaining.
  • About roads, why was the completion of the Ring Road, which would have connected the nation to Kabul, never a military priority? Instead, construction was left to often corrupt civilian contractors who lacked the ability and force protection to operate in contested areas. In 2012, my civilian District Support Team and our military partners in the remote northwest of Badghis Province were still totally dependent on NATO aerial resupply. That was 11 years after the initial NATO incursion. Nonetheless, no U.S. commander voiced opposition to handing over the province’s defense to the Afghan government, which was totally unprepared to assume the responsibility. Instead of publicly telling President Barack Obama the truth, the American commander of NATO forces, Gen. John Allen, punted.
  • Finally, as it became obvious that we were going to quit the country, why was the defensible Bagram Air Base abandoned in the dead of the night and the vulnerable Kabul Airport chosen as a point of embarkation? This was military incompetence of the highest order. Thirteen service members died unnecessarily, and no one has yet been held accountable. The same holds true with a drone strike that decimated an innocent Afghan family.

Who then should make up the congressionally mandated Afghanistan investigation commission? There are many retired midgrade officers who served in Afghanistan and have gone on to succeed in business and in the academic world over the past few decades; some are now in Congress. The same holds true of any number of enlisted personnel who have achieved advanced degrees.

People who saw the war up close should make up the commission. There should also be retired State Department and CIA operatives who knew what was really going on while the generals acted as combat tourists, occasionally visiting the troops and handing out challenge coins.

Without the perspective of those who did the real fighting, we will learn nothing.

Current Events

Joe Dumbkirk

7 Comments

Tomorrow is a day that as Churchill stated many more years ago, “A day that live in infamy.’ For those who who were alive and coherent enough to remember that day, it was the most tragic incident of my lifetime. I was a mere year old when Pearl Harbour happened; therefore, this one is significant for me. I know, as I am sure you do as well, exactly where I was and what I was doing when it happened. I was mending fences on my ranch in Montana when my wife came streaming looking for me May we never forget that day and WHO it was that caused it.

Here’s another good one from my frequent contributor and friend Greg Maresca, a noted historian who only write facts!

By Greg Maresca

It was theatrical in its design and a Shakespearean tragedy in its unfolding. As the 20th anniversary of 9/11 approached, President Biden desperately desired a historical and symbolic end to the nation’s longest war.

Biden’s vision turned out to be nothing short of a ‘70s era U.S. military and intelligence debacle taken to an unprecedented scale paid for in American blood, fortitude and treasure.

Where are the resignations of all the generals and admirals who argued against capitulation?

Robert Gates, the respected former secretary of defense under both George W. Bush and Barack Obama, wrote in his memoir that Biden had been wrong on “nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades.”

Some things never change.

Biden’s foreign policy rewards our enemies and punishes our allies.

It was in June as the Taliban began their march to Kabul that all U.S. embassies throughout the world celebrated sodomy via “Gay Pride Month,” as part of the Biden’s Administration’s foreign policy.

American exceptionalism was replaced with American perversion.

As Great Britain’s Neville Chamberlain is remembered for appeasement in the Nazi takeover of Sudetenland, Biden will be remembered for leaving Afghanistan to the Taliban, while abandoning thousands of America’s allies and rebooting Islamist fundamentalists the world over.

Allowing the Taliban to dictate the terms of withdrawal was reprehensible and irresponsible. As such, it raised the threat of terrorism to levels it had not witnessed in years.

Biden is a shoo-in for the Nobel Appeasement Prize for his military retreat – Dumbkirk.

Biden bequeathed the Taliban a reported $85 billion in military hardware that will allow them to wage war and terror for years. Moreover, Bagram Air Base is now China’s de facto world class central Asian integrated air headquarters courtesy of the American taxpayer. Likewise, Afghanistan is rich in rare earth minerals that China will certainly exploit and profit from.

Biden’s surrender plays daily throughout our fruited plain. Portland, Oregon is lawless permitting Antifa, and the Proud Boys to wage battle without consequences. In Los Angeles, Seattle, and San Francisco homeless bivouacs and unbridled crime have turned these cities into dystopian, democrat nightmares. In Chicago, gang warfare runs rampant with shootings far worse than what our military experienced in Afghanistan especially over the last 18 months going without casualties.

What Biden has succeeded in doing is uniting nearly two-thirds of Americans — all of whom believe his flight from Afghanistan was a colossal disaster.  It is the one-third who believe Biden is actually doing a good job that is most concerning.

In a successful military and intelligence campaign in Afghanistan, we had 2,500 troops with a strategic presence in central Asia’s foremost terrorist breeding grounds. Continued funding certainly could have been found in the series of COVID relief packages passed by Congress, of which less than half went to anything remotely COVID.

For over 70 years, we have maintained thousands of troops in South Korea, and since the end of World War II we have had troops in Japan and Germany. Maintaining a contingent of troops in Afghanistan that have been successful in deterring terrorism at home you think would be a given.

The Russians, Chinese, Iranians and the North Koreans will certainly test our defenses especially in cyberspace.

Come 9/11 our enemies will be dancing in the streets as our southern border is wide open and we are lectured about how vaccinations, global warming, and systemic racism are the most pressing problems facing the nation.

Perhaps Biden should send an army of social workers and psychologists into Afghanistan who could reason with the Taliban and show them the errors of their ways. Instructing them how they were wrongfully utilizing microaggression, ignorant of Facebook’s 58 genders, and the wonders and marvels of applied critical race theory.

Such a pathetic ending in Afghanistan was most unworthy of this 20-year epic struggle.

It was not a departure but an abandonment.

Could there have been any less planning and foresight?

Whatever possessed Biden to believe that the 20th anniversary of 9/11 was the right time for such a pullout?

 

 

 

 

 

 

The ensuing chaos at Kabul’s airport with people falling to their deaths from American Air Force planes is seared into the Biden legacy.

Postscript: This will be my last post for a little over a week. My bride and I will depart on the 11th, Saturday, on a LONG overdue Honeymoon (35 years). We never had one as I was in the middle of SOC workups , then deployed for six months. She understood completely as all Marine wives do. So we are going to some faraway place and hideout for a week. No, I won’t tell you until we return. No phones, no internet, and no TV. Swim, snorkel, scuba dive, sail board, relax, refresh, drink umbrella drinks under a canopy on the beach, and have a specially prepared dinner for us on our day — 13 September — on the beach under the same personal umbrella. 

I wish you all the best, stay safe, keep up the pressure on you know who and all the holders of his many puppet strings. I hope he hasn’t destroyed America so we have a place to which to return. Semper Fi; Jim and my bride of thirty-five years.

 

 

Current Events, Recent Posts

A Little History

4 Comments

Failure in Afghanistan Has Roots in the All-Volunteer Military

For the past three decades, careerism among senior officers coupled with the disconnect between the American public and the All-Volunteer Force have led to failed and unnecessary overseas military interventions.
By Paul Cavallo

September 2021
Proceedings
Vol. 147/9/1423

The tragedy that unfolded over the past several weeks in Afghanistan began with the creation of the “all-volunteer” military in 1973 and the self-promoting careerism that has stalked the Pentagon ever since. Too few leaders have been willing to speak truth to power and say no to overseas military adventurism that had little bearing on the safety and security of this nation. And it goes without saying that those in charge when the war begins are never those who have to finish it.

We saw this most clearly when, in 1990-91, America sent its young warriors into the deserts of the Middle East. We called it “The Gulf War” and “Desert Storm,” but it was, in reality, America’s first mercenary war. The Bush administration cut a deal with the Saudis and Kuwaitis: our men, their money. Kuwaiti “princes” lived large in hotels from Saudi Arabia to Paris while our young soldiers and Marines dug fighting holes in the desert under a searing sun.

U.S. Marines in Desert Storm
U.S. Marines in Operation Desert Storm in 1991. (Naval Institute archives)
The peacetime, all-volunteer military, after all, was a good job with benefits and perks. And that “war” went relatively well and quickly with few American servicemembers killed or injured, to the high praise of the U.S. public who were entranced, awed, and seduced by the lethality, performance, and accuracy of our high-tech weapons, while forgetting that the troops on the ground, in the desert, held it all together and made the irrefutable success of the war possible. Yet it was also the start of the forever wars. Saddam Hussein remained in power after the war and the U.S. military remained in the Middle East—enforcing no-fly zones and oil embargoes on Iraq with naval forces in the Persian Gulf and air and land forces based in Kuwait, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia.

While it might be a “chicken or the egg” argument, it is hard not to see that the permanent increase of U.S. military presence in the Middle East went hand in hand with the rise of militant Islam and anti-American terrorism. How many Americans remember the 1996 terrorist bombing of a U.S. Air Force barracks in Khobar, Saudi Arabia? Nineteen U.S. servicemembers were killed and 498 wounded. Two years later, the embassy bombings in Tanzania and Kenya killed 12 Americans and hundreds of civilians and wounded 4,500 people. Then came the October 2000 attack on the USS Cole (DDG-67) in Aden, Yemen, killing 17 sailors and injuring dozens of others. Less than a year later came the 9/11 attacks, answered shortly by the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan. A little over a year later, under the false pretense that non-existent Iraqi weapons of mass destruction would be used against the United States, came the invasion of Iraq.

Khobar Towers bombing in 1996 in Saudi Arabia
The 1996 Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia killed 19 U.S. servicemembers and injured nearly 500 more. 

By the end of 2003, U.S. special operations forces had completed much of their mission in Afghanistan to capture or kill senior leaders and high-value targets within both al-Qaeda and the Taliban. The Pentagon, however, rather than putting their “swords” away somehow decided to “nation build” a medieval land of warring tribes into a Western-style democracy, ignoring the fact that our democracy took centuries and many great wars to achieve.

For the past 31 years, the brunt of the cost has been borne by the all-volunteer force. The majority of American citizens have not served (none were required to), and most know few who have. A few dozen—or even a few hundred—servicemembers killed per year was the cost of doing business. But where were the generals and admirals who should have stood up to the civilian leaders, without compromise, to say “enough,”—that foreign wars too often leave our soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines dead and forgotten, and for what? Were the military’s senior leaders just following along in-line, waiting for their moment, their chance for another star, or a richly coveted post-retirement job with a “vendor.” Were they just inured to the burdens of the profession? Unable to see the giant machine in which they were cogs—the failed foreign policy that resulted in the spilling of blood and national treasure for questionable (if any) gain.

It is no surprise that the “war” in Afghanistan eventually became a bottomless money pit. More than a trillion dollars was spent; did it make our nation safer, or did it just make Washington-connected corporations rich? Some of that money was funneled back to Congress through campaign donations and favors, all the while young Americans were being killed and wounded. Walk into any Veterans Administration hospital and see first-hand the reality that was brought home.

So, with the most recent deaths and injuries at Kabul International airport—clearly caused by a lack of planning, foresight, and courage at the top—we witness more evidence of the ongoing tragedy and travesty that is American “foreign policy” and the willingness of senior military leaders to go along with it. Will we ever learn? History suggests, no.

Postscript: While some commenters on the  actual article disagree with the author, I do not. I understand where he is coming from and follow his line of thought completely. The disconnect between the American public in general and the military and their assigned missions is indeed relevant. A quick “war story” if I may.

Serving as a temporary Chief of Staff at a command when the actual made a quick decision to retire, I had to handle my job as well for a few months while the Corps had to find a colonel for the billet. After a few months of this double duty my general, a fresh-caught BG, comes in my office with a cup of coffee to shoot the bull. Out of the blue he calmly says, Jim you know you will never make general.” To which I laughed telling him all I ever wanted to be was a Gunny. He asked if I wanted to know why, and of course I knew he wanted to tell me so I said yes.

He told me he knew several generals who would jump at having me as their COS because I had a knack of letting seniors (and juniors) know that if they cannot handle your answer they should never ask me the question. He said generals cannot do that. They must always speak the party line or they will never move above one star, which is why so many generals retire as a BG. They spoke outside the party line once and were passed over, or they  want nothing to do with it and retire.

Personally, I took his comments as compliment as that philosophy helped me to rise from private to colonel, and I was not about to change it. When a general speaks, understand he is never telling you what he truly believes in his heart. He is simply a mouth piece for the admisntration at the time.