By Barry Hastings
The Donald’s recent cruise missile attack on Assad’s military airbase in Syria was nothing more (or less) than another attempt to distract Americans from his administration’s “Russian Connections.”
If he really wanted to send Assad a message, he’d have sent off 99 cruise missiles, thirty-three on the Syrian air base, another 33 for the child-murderer’s military command and control centers, and the final thirty-three on his dwelling place(s).
Some Americans think he should have destroyed all the runways at the air field, but Putin has many aircraft, many other weapons, a lot of concrete, and uncountable tons of ammunition, and will surely replace the aircraft and other armaments destroyed there. On the other hand, killing his command and control organization, would’ve been a major blow to his ability to plan, and to carry out such attacks, and would have crippled his military for a year, two years, maybe more. (Of course, killing Assad himself would have solved the big problem.)
And, as you’ve no doubt noted, President Trump was very careful to let his Russian friends know the attack was “on the way.” I’m not all that impressed with this puny waste of weaponry, though I’m not sorry he did it. But I find it very difficult to believe humanitarianism had the tiniest part in his decision. Just a few years ago he tweeted a note to President Obama there were, “big risks, and nothing to be gained,” by attacking Assad.” He was shedding crocodile tears as the Navy pushed the button.
But on Saturday, April 9, he did the same thing his last two predecessors (Bush and Obama) did all too often, and he recently warned against, saying, he’d “never do it.” That is to say, telling the world a flotilla of naval vessels (including the carrier USS Carl Vinson) is crossing the Pacific toward the Korean Peninsula. It’s an obvious attempt to cow North Korea’s unstable leader, and it’s not an act likely to change that idiot madman’s conduct. It may possibly be enough to flip him “over the edge.” Now, he’ll certainly have his own military command and control on ‘high alert’ as long as those ships are in the region.
Trump is not a man who looks far into the future. Anything appearing to indicate possibility of an upcoming attack on North Korea while this powerful fleet is in the region, will almost certainly result in a nuclear attack on South Korea, and/or Japan – maybe even Hawaii. Sorry folks, but that’s the kind of world we live in, and since we’ve elected a compulsive fool as leader, it seems we’re now at least nearly as unstable as our most dangerous enemies.
We’d have been better off sending the flotilla quietly and secretively, with no publicity. Particularly if he plans on attacking them, or is considering the possibility of doing so. Considering the conditions under which most North Koreans live, and have lived for many years, one could make a very good humanitarian case for attacking their nu
clear weapons stash, their government, and their military establishment. The average North Korean weighs in 40 to 50 pounds under the weight of the average South Korean. Their government controls them — with food and firepower.
As I write, Trump’s budget planners are seeking ways to fund increased security along our southern border. Their intent is to shift at least $5 billion toward hiring thousands of new customs agents, border protection and immigration officers, and technical infrastructure supporting a crackdown at the Mexican border. A big part of the cash would be earmarked for Trump’s border wall, the biggest (most expensive) promise made to his “deplorables.” The projected wall, in artist’s renderings, is reminiscent of the borders between European states, circa 1938-39, and the anti-immigrant fences erected in eastern Europe over the past few years.
They plan to take the money by cutting budgets of the Coast Guard (14 percent of a $9.1 billion budget), FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency), 11%, TSA (Transportation Security Administration), 11%. All three agencies have played significant roles in the DHS since Sept. 11, 2001, (though FEMA got off to a shaky start during Hurricane Katrina, being built from some under-performing segments of other government agencies, and poorly led).
The Coast Guard does not fall into the under-performing heading. Created by the second Congressional bill signed into law by President Washington in 1790, it’s the nation’s oldest continuous sea-going service, and has performed well in every war since our first as a nation-state – the Naval Quasi-War with Napoleon’s France, 1797-98. It did good service in the 1812 war (Britain), the Civil War, The Spanish-American war, WWI, WWII, Korean, Vietnam, and the ongoing middle East straggle. During WWII, this smallest U.S. services (240,000 sailors) suffered a higher ratio of casualties to men serving than any other branch. Furthermore, while FEMA continually stumbled over its own feet during Hurricane Katrina, the CG saved 35,000 lives along the Gulf coast.
Recent news stories brought Trump’s CG budget proposal to light March 7, and it has Homeland Security officials perplexed. Many federal lawmakers indicate they’ll look very closely at the proposal; some have said they’ll oppose it, saying it would have a negative effect on Trump’s own goals to reduce drug imports, terror threats, and illegal immigration. Push-back against the plan is growing in both House of Representatives and Senate.
The Coast Guard is the nation’s, “primary maritime security force,” and is already stretched thin and stressed out by the war on drugs, illegal immigration by sea, and the terror threat. N.Y. Senator Charles Schumer recently noted, “Given the vital installations they guard, and how many drugs and how much contraband they intercept along our maritime borders, cutting the Coast Guard budget to pay for a vacuous and expensive project the like border wall, would be dangerous and irrational.”
Other members of Congress spoke to the thousands of lives saved at sea and along the nation’s lengthy coasts, from Alaska’s hazardous fishing grounds in the Bering Sea and north as far as Point Barrow, down along the Washington-Oregon-California coasts, the entire Gulf Coast, from Texas to Florida, and on up the Atlantic coast to the New England fishing grounds. Scott Pelley, of CBS News, hit the nail on the head Oct. 2, 2015, while screening video of a CG Cutter heading out in a terrible storm, searching for a missing container ship: “The Coast Guard goes out when other ships are sinking.” (I went out the next morning and had a T-shirt made.)
None of them spoke to the Coast Guard’s value as an asset to the U.S. Navy in time of war or other national trial, though Congressman Duncan Hunter (R-Cal), Chairman of the House subcommittee on the C.G. & Maritime Transportation, called the proposition, “an insult,” that would, “put the nation’s security at risk.” I guess most of them are too young to recall the big one.
A spokesman for Republican Senator Cochran, of Mississippi, said, “Chairman Cochran appreciates the Coast Guard’s important role in protecting U.S. national security interests.” Cochran’s spokesman added, “Any proposal to reduce support for the Coast Guard will receive very careful scrutiny in Congress.”
Living in our Great Lake state, I hope you’ll remember how many times you see those Coasties, in boats, ships, and choppers, doing the never-ending job they do, and that at often very frightening risk. If you value the 227 years of Coast Guard service to our country and our people, in war and at peace, let your Congressional representative know you want no part of Trump’s budget cut, and you don’t want him/her to have any part of it either. Support this national treasure.
Semper Paratus
(Always Ready)