By Barry Hastings
Every time I wake to the morning news I’m closer to screaming, “This President and his military advisers are leading us down the road to defeat and perdition.”
It was just a short while ago he told an interviewer the administration was, “confident we have control of the situation with ISIL in Yemen.” In a few short weeks the three largest cities in Yemen have fallen to the terrorists, the U.S embassy there has closed down, and now 100 (+ or – a few) American special forces soldiers there, being used to spot targets for allied air strikes, have been withdrawn.
In just about a year these devils have overrun (or threaten) a dozen nations running in a strip from Northwest Africa, to East Africa, across the middle east to Afghanistan and Pakistan, and have launched attacks in Australia, France, north Europe, Libya, Egypt, and the Philippines, among other states. Now they’re recruiting people to attack families of American military personnel in their homes — here. Our allies (if you can call them such) Jordan and Saudi Arabia, are all but surrounded, and both face deeply troubling problems within their own populations.
And yes, despite U.S. Government claims to the contrary, our old “sparring partner,” al Quaeda, is again growing stronger in several regions where the administration, far too early, read last rites over them. The problem here is one familiar to historians, but one politicians always fail to catch ’til it’s too late. They’re always so distracted by day to day troubles (and you know how much distraction this President has had from those who hate him (and blacks in general), they never really have a chance to survey the whole world situation.
So, they live day to day, from aggravation to irritation to agitation to disaster (or nearly so). We’re very near disaster now. Only FDR in recent times and memory, kept his eye on the important ball — the one coming at us like a freight train. His cousin Theodore, early in the 20th century, modernized the military administratively and updated methods and equipment. And only Lincoln before him. The rest, McKinley, Wilson, Coolidge, Hoover, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, two shrubs, and Obama, wasted our resources (treasure and lives) for small, if any gains, and most usually for naught. They thought only of the immediate and practical, rather than the long-term and strategic.
I really wish Hillary had won the nomination in ’08. What I fear is Republicans will convince the nation we need a change in 2016 (which we do, but not those ham-handed nitwits.) They’re the ones who got us into this stew, and brought the pot to boiling. People are always asking me, “Why in the world do you want that bitch?” And I always answer with the same words, “Because she’s the toughest guy we’ve got.” And so she is.
It’s only a matter of time, with thousands seeking ways to reach us and harm us, before something they try works. Our security agencies are just not taking their work as seriously as it must be taken. Our Congress, particularly the twits running the House of Representatives, fiddle with Obamacare while a broad stretch of the world burns, thousands die daily, many thousands more are uprooted and millions quake before the looming threat. Homeland security seems to provide us with a scandal a month. The FBI, 14 years after 9/11, still doesn’t have its act together. NSA is so busily spying on us it will almost certainly miss the next act, as well
Meanwhile, our army, badly in need of rebuilding for conventional battle at long distances from home, is a tattered, war-weary wreck. I’d guess they haven’t met recruitment goals for at least a couple of years. Nor are soldiers re-upping as pentagon officials hoped. And who can blame them with the funky-punky way our (lack of) strategic thought and planning has played out since Iraq II.
A large part of the funky planning problem rests squarely on the shoulders of generals like the disgraced David Petraeous, who have yet to be exposed and expelled. Too damn many generals without enough work to keep them all busy.
We need a new means of building up the military — a new selective service act, and one leaving very few loopholes outside of health issues, or war-necessary occupations. Especially no more loopholes that let cowards like Dick Cheney escape the net (only to appear later in positions where he could send better men to die in his stead.) Cheney’s a man whose death in VietNam would have been of great value to the nation far into present times. You can bet his $$ are going to Jeb Shrub.
Naturally, I expect none of this to happen. The President, knowing little of military affairs or the military, just doesn’t have the cojones to force them into line, or fire them. Somehow, I believe it wouldn’t prove a problem for Hillary, but I’m worried about the next 500 or so days. A lot of merde can build-up over so much time in this fast moving world. Already has.
As if ISIL, al Quaeda, Boko Haram, other murdering Muslim fruitcakes and nut jobs aren’t enough, another senior general (Frederick Hodges) commanding U.S. Forces in Europe, recently told the media he believes, “The Russians are mobilizing right now for a war they think is going to happen in five or six years.” he went on to say, “I think they are anticipating that things are going to happen, and they’ll be involved in a war of some sort, of some scale, with somebody,” in that time period. He believes Russia has set itself on a path to, “redraw the boundaries of Europe.”
Hodges says the quantity of sophisticated equipment Russia has provided to, “its proxies in Ukraine, is a manifestation of of Putin’s strategic world view.” He says he believes they have no intention of leaving, having provided, “the latest air defense systems, and electronics warfare systems they’ve developed.” The evidence suggests Russian actions in Ukraine provide a level of assistance beyond a foray, and are far above anything any rebellious militia could come up with.”
The Hodges interview appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Feb. 7-8 edition,and is worth chasing down and reading. We really are surrounded by enemies who’d like nothing better than to see us in the dust. And while they watch, and wait. . . we disarm.