By Barry Hastings
Congress fiddles with sequestration of military funding while the world burns. Americans see whatever news directors determine will be the story of the day. There’s no way you can know what’s going on in the world with the pitiful, pitiable 30 minute national news broadcast we’re offered each evening – 12 minutes of news, 18 minutes of commercials.
And the newspapers? Well, few institutions have fallen further, faster, th
an the American newspaper – even a poor reader can finish reading the G.R. Press, the Gazette, Enquirer, or State Journal in 15 minutes flat. . . and gain very little hard info for the pain suffered.
With the whole world either in flames, or fearing them, the U.S. military budget in 2016 will be 31 percent lower than our 2010 expenditures. Training costs have already been reduced, meaning soldiers in the field are getting less preparatory combat training; some almost certainly losing their lives as a result.
A poll I commented on some weeks ago recently found a decline of 35 percent in service men and women who rated their “quality of life” good or excellent. Seventy per cent of them predicted a further decline in quality of life for service families. Sadly enough, a very large proportion of enlisted military families only survive with help of food stamps or other social welfare programs.
“Disgruntled” is the proper word to describe the enlisted military mind, today. Soldiers are leaving the service, and new enlistments are down beyond salvage. And what should administrators do to change the situation after 14 years of failed political and military leadership: Poor planning en route to the badly ill-conceived, under-manned second Iraq war, where 15,000 men were asked to do the work of half-a million (and half-a-million, given what we’re seeing today, likely would have caused a call for ever more).
The Petraeous surge, which cost 1500 more American deaths in the Iraqi hell-hole war zone, and also left the Iraqi military in a condition from which it could only fail against highly motivated (by victory, after victory, after victory) ISIL fighters at home. Everyone seems to want to brighten the Petraeous image, but to me he’s a piece of burned-out slag on the floor of a long gone Pittsburg steel plant. Just another felon.
He is — to put it bluntly — a bum, who sucked his way to the top by giving Bush, Cheney, Bumsfeld, and his past-their-prime superiors what they wanted, despite the likelihood of failure that drove many skilled general officers to resign in protest, or retire. Plenty of men and aircraft to whip a pathetic enemy army, but none to hold the ground bought with the blood and courage of our American soldiers.
Until he went to Iraq as a general, he’d never been in combat. His combat command was a reward from BCR for his (no serious) planning effort causing the deaths (and mutilation) of many thousands of Yankee soldiers. In the end, now a convicted felon, he screwed up everything he touched.
Even after his conviction for sharing “top secret’ material with his reporter/biographer/mistress, some writers insist the surge worked. (Does Iraq look to you like anything we’ve done there has worked? Ever?) “After the surge took hold and turned the tide in Iraq, one such writer recently commented, adding it, “eviscerated Al Quaida In Iraq.” Truth is, we have never been on top of the situation in Iraq — gave up on ’em as allies some time back. (“Every time I think I’m out, they suck me back in.”) and so we have been sucked back in.
It’s the first time in world history where ‘eviscerated’ leaders of militant movements have rebounded so quickly (hardly knew they were gone) to form an even wealthier, better armed, much more numerous and dangerous organization as Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, leader of ISIL. We’ve had several opportunities to cut his life short — really short, and let them pass. Now we can’t find him to kill him, and I doubt our political/military leaders have cojones for the job in any case (unless they find him alone without water in mid-Sahara).
Too damned busy spying on us, hassling or imprisoning patriots like Manning and Snowden (and many more unknown attempted whistle-blowers than you can count on fingers and toes). Meanwhile, the J. Edgar Hoover Institute of Fastidious Justice is run in basically the same heavy-handed manner as in days of yore (the dark ages of Orwell cannot be far behind what’s happening here, now).
These days al Baghdadi is listed 54th in the Forbes magazine list of the world’s most powerful people, and he’s as murderous as the worst in history, and aims to be worst.
Now, spin around slowly, ahhh, Homeland Security Department, subdivisions of: Transportation Security, Secret Service, Drug Enforcement Agency, Border Patrol … ah, what the hell, except for the Coast Guard, the whole freaking place is a slime pit. Well, what can you make of, or do with an outfit made up of former low performance departments of various government agencies.
The Coast Guard is as close as anything connected or subordinate to government you’ll find almost scandal free. And they avoided even slight taint for well over 200 years. The other services don’t even approach pristine.
The Air Force having as many major scandals in little over a century, as the Navy has in twice that. The Army is badly corroded – mainly for sending soldiers to die in unworthy causes, lying about those causes in several recent wars; lying to the commander in chief, their own soldiers (“this stuff won’t hurt you, son, we’re just tryin’ to kill the goddammed rain forest. . . , and the rice. . .”), the public, and the press.
And the civilian commanders? They allowed themselves to see ‘the light at the end of the tunnel’, as, by now, we should expect. How good does this make you feel? I ask because every word is true, and we’ve got to do something about it soon. . . or we’re finished.
We’re in the most precarious, and dangerous overall world situation we’ve ever faced, and through sequestration, our GOP majorities in house and senate are forcing cuts in trained military manpower, and modern weapons. Given what our known adversaries (China, Russia, most of the Muslim world) are about, what’s happening makes me very, very uncomfortable.
You could complain, but it’s not likely to help (according to Manning, Snowden, et al).
