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Channel: Iraq – Page 61 – Far East Cynic

There was never a chance………..

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Phib, in one of his repeated themes, bemoans the fact that we did not give ourselves a chance to “succeed” in Afghanistan. “All it required was about another four-five years of patience. Of course, that 4-5 from now is based on an alternative history where we did not announce our retreat in DEC 09 … but what is, is. District by district “Shape, Clear, Hold, Build” was a solid way to do it – but just as it was getting roots as the surge soaked in, we stopped feeding it. The following results will be sadly predictable.”

Complete and total horseshit.

This is a peculiarly American disease where we always place the blame everywhere but where it really lies. This is how we get pundits like William “The Bloody” Kristol- who,  incidentally, could not be bothered to serve one day in his miserable life, but is more than willing to send other people’s children to die for his right to earn six figures a year-advocating war without end in the Middle East.

Didn’t give it enough time? We will have been in that Godforsaken country for over 13 years. How much f*cking time do we need? Or more correctly, how many chances do the Afghans get before we tell them to go f*ck themselves?

Two facts here are really important. One, the clock did not stop ticking in Afghanistan just because we invaded Iraq. So the very idea that we could “just pick up where we left off” and somehow, magically we would have a peaceful and stable Afghanistan, by spending ten plus years-losing Americans-to create what? And two, the patience of the American people is not unlimited and we are long past the point of patience with any of the wars for most reasonable Americans.

A land of people who refuse to help themselves. This, by the way, is backed up by over a 100 years of Afghan history. This is what we are getting today, it is what we would have gotten 10 years from now-it will pretty much always be that way as long as the country is saddled with albatross of Islam.

Want to know the day we “lost” Afghanistan? March 19,  2003. That’s the day the United States in one of the most stupid moves in its history, foolishly invaded a land that had not attacked it, and in the process metastasized what was  essentially a localized disturbance into the world’s bloodstream. One could even make the point that we could look further back-to-the point where a man like George Bush, under the advice of some pretty questionable characters, decided that the United States could somehow accomplish the impossible and eliminate terrorism from the earth. Rather than pursue the vengeance that our public opinion required in the aftermath of 9-11, the grey hair allowed himself to be diverted into what has now quite well been proven, to be a worthless, damn fool ideological crusade.

And what do we have to show for it? Nothing of substance.

Oh sure, Bin Laden is dead, but as it turned out, that had nothing to do with clear, hold, and build. And Al Queda has been disrupted-but again, that happened without years of counterinsurgency. We have lost over 6000 fine Americans dead and almost 50,000 wounded for the “right” to stay in a backward nation from over a decade, however. What did they suffer for?

Nothing of value Phib. Nothing of value. And that was true in 2009, as assuredly as it is today. Put the blame where it belongs and leave it there-on the Afghan people.

Now that is what I will drink more over. The  tendency on the part of policymakers — and probably a tendency on the part of some Americans — to think that the problems we face are problems that are out there somewhere beyond our borders, and that if we can fix those problems, then we’ll be able to continue the American way of life as it has long existed. I think it’s fundamentally wrong. Our major problems are at home in the US.

Starting with the idea that we can somehow “fix” people who are unfixable.


Going down a sinkhole…….

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Is still a bad thing-no matter how many times you do it.

The usual suspects have come out, and seized upon Robert Gates’ new book to criticize the effort to get the US out of the worthless hellhole that is Afghanistan, and to rewrite the history of the US fiasco in Iraq.  I find the tenor of the comments interesting, if more than a little bit predictable.

First, I think it is most important that the specific quote be examined in the context of the text around them. Gates was and is a person who moves deliberately, does not waste words, and I like to think of him as a consummate professional. Certainly he made a far better SECDEF than his worthless predecessor, Donald Rumsfeld-who ranks right down there with McNamara in terms of overall mediocrity.

Furthermore, it is particularly important to remember who is out there fronting for these criticisms right now: Bob Woodward and William “The Bloody” Kristol, neither of whom can be consider to be exactly “objective” observers. As Charles Pierce notes:

I mean, is there any possible reason to criticize the president because he injured the rather peripatetic fee-fee of Saint David Petraeus, or to find it unprecedented that a president might wonder whether or not a war he inherited — and, yes, supported, as a candidate — wasn’t ultimately a futile proposition, or whether his generals were giving him the straight dope. I guarantee you, back in the 1860’s, Woodward would have been the go-to stenographer for all those incompetent generals who Lincoln fired. (George McClellan would have loved him.) In the 1950’s, Woodward would have been MacArthur’s first phone call after Harry Truman canned his ass.

The other important thing to remember about Bob Gates is that a Democratic president thought keeping him on as Secretary of Defense would be a smart, centrist, bipartisan move that would be applauded on the op-ed pages, and by important people. Like, one supposes, Bob Woodward, who now occupies as space in the dingbatosphere far beyond mere journalism.

And, no matter how professional Gates is-he is still a Republican. Who has served a series of Republican presidents and made more than a couple of mistakes himself.

Or does no one remember Iran Contra anymore?

When Obama came into office-he was committed to getting us out of the hell hole that is Iraq. (Which was just as well since there was no prospect that an American troop presence would ever have resulted in social peace there) He had campaigned on the idea that Iraq was a colossal mistake and it diverted resources from the fight against Al Qaeda in Afghanistan.  DOD was supposed to give him a menu of options for pursuing “victory”. In the end they only gave him the same tired old formula. A plan for a troop escalation of 40,000 and an open-ended big war to “prove” David Petraeus’s theories of counter-insurgency. Petraeus’ sexual proclivities were as yet unknown-so he still enjoyed sainthood status.  This even though, in Iraq, he was part of the problem long before he became the solution. And when examined in detail-the surge did nothing that it was supposed to have done. ( As is being proved every day now in that useless nation). So what he said carried a lot of weight-and going against them was not a politically expedient move.

Now, even Gates’ critics acknowledge that on the whole, he was a very positive force at the Pentagon and for the nation. He appears to have helped prevent Dick Cheney and the Neocons from attacking Iran. He warned against the seductive character of drone warfare, and wants a court to sign off on drone strikes. He said he thought any military commander who wanted to take US troops into another big ground war should have his head examined. And he tried to rein in the Pentagon’s off the rail procurement processes, which have led to such fiascos as the Little Crappy Ship.

Plus, these criticisms are more than a little self-serving. They seek to completely ignore the fact that by 2009, in general, the public had had it with war without end, and was tired of the wars in general, and Iraq in particular.  As is typical for your fan of Bush’s peculiar brand of liberation theology, it ignores the real people who were causing the failure of said policy, namely the people of Afghanistan themselves. Andrew Bacevich quite correctly pointed out that there was a distance between “American actions and America’s interests is becoming increasingly difficult to discern. The fundamental incoherence of U.S. strategy becomes ever more apparent. Worst of all, there is no end in sight.”. It appears to me, at first glance (and I will need to read the book), that contrary to what the neocon apologists say, it is probably Obama that got the assessment right. He understood the public mood and had no real reason to trust the folks giving him advice-especially since they had a vested interest in seeing the wars continue. “It is further understandable that Obama entertained the severest doubts about the feasibility of Petraeus’s big counter-insurgency push. At best, he was willing to give it a try.”

Events have proven the naysayers correct-the Afghans excelled at screwing away opportunities presented to them. Petreaus is gone into obscurity, and Afghanistan has increasingly become synonymous with the overall failure of the so called “War on Terror”.  Public opinion, rightfully so, wants us out-and the sooner we get out,  the better for America. Probably not for Afghanistan, but they made their choice. Now they should have to live with it.

You have to conclude that Gates resents Obama for outmaneuvering him and some of the more gung ho officers. Obama didn’t intend to go on fighting and nation-building in Afghanistan forever. Indeed, US forces are no longer in the lead in military operations and soon they’ll be gone or be little more than troop trainers.

If anything, Obama could be faulted for giving the COIN (“counter-insurgency”) officers the benefit of the doubt and playing along with their completely unrealistic plans. He should have listened to Joe Biden, who has long experience in foreign policy and is most often right (unlike Gates). If Gates is right and Obama distrusted the generals pitching them and was skeptical of the strategy itself, it has to increase your estimation of Obama. Our estimation of Gates, in contrast, can only fall because of his disloyalty and his naive approach to Afghanistan.

Traveling again

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On the road again-had a challenging journey yesterday to the other side of the Atlantic. To start with my ICE train to the Frankfurt Airport was going to be delayed by 90 minutes. That was a non-starter as it was going to make me late for check in-and my requisite need to “pre-charge” in the lounge. ( The new Lufthansa lounges in the Z terminal of FRA are pretty sweet). Went to the Deutsche Bahn office and got re-routed to an IC train which was taking me to the Frankfurt Main station.

I made it in an ok amount of time-but then using LH’s check-in kiosks caused a bit of problem when it refused to read my passport. The newest EU immigrant manning the kiosk line-seemed not to grasp the fact that I need to go to a counter where a human could check my passport. Finally got that worked out and by the grace of God, the security line was very short. Landed safely in the lounge.

Then after boarding the plane-saw the chance to get an open aisle seat without someone next to me. Snagged it and figured things were looking up! But I spoke too soon.

The plane required maintenance that delayed us by almost an hour. Now, this was a problem because I was hoping to make it time to get in a combat nap at the hotel prior to Super Bowl kickoff. Now I would be lucky to make the kickoff-much less the first quarter.

It turned out ok-made it to my room just as the national anthem was being sung. Turns out, of course, I need not have bothered-the game was a Seahawk blowout. They slaughtered the Bronco’s, who appeared to have left any offense they had back in Denver.

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On a serious note, James Fallows has been running an excellent series of articles about the use of Sergeant First Class Cory Remsburg. “About the service and sacrifice of this brave man and other men and women like him, we cannot say enough.” But as Fallows points out-ALL of us should be outraged that he had to make TEN deployments to the various hellholes America has chosen to fight its war without end in. Furthermore, there is a dichotomy of purpose when you have the architects of a failed policy somehow applauding him-while failing to do the things that might have prevented his suffering in the first place.

The vast majority of us play no part whatsoever in these prolonged overseas campaigns; people like Sgt. Remsburg go out on 10 deployments; we rousingly cheer their courage and will; and then we move on. Last month I mentioned that the most memorable book I read in 2013 was Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk, by Ben Fountain. It’s about a group of U.S. soldiers who barely survive a terrible encounter in Iraq, and then are paraded around in a halftime tribute at a big Dallas Cowboys game. The crowd at Cowboys Stadium cheers in very much the way the Capitol audience did last night—then they get back to watching the game.

Later Fallows examines the implications in clearer detail.

There was another moment in the speech that I think will look worse in the long view. It was the emotionally charged ending, the tribute to the obviously courageous and grievously wounded Sergeant Cory Remsburg.

The moment was powerful human and political drama; it reflected deserved credit and gratitude on Remsburg and his family; and as I wrote earlier today, I think it was entirely sincere on the president’s part, as a similar tribute would have been from his predecessor George W. Bush. With the significant difference that Bush initiated the wars these men and women have fought in, and Obama has been winding them down. And so the most favorable reading of the moment, as John Cassidy has argued, is that the president was trying to dramatize to the rest of the government the human cost of the open-ended wars many of them have egged on.

But I don’t think that’s how it came across to most of the Congress, or was processed by the commentariat. This was not presented as a “never again” moment; it was a “this is America’s finest!” moment—which Cory Remsburg himself, and with his family, certainly is. (Also see Peter Beinart on this point.) For America as a whole, the episode did not show us at our finest. In the earlier item, I tried to explain why these few minutes will reflect badly on us and our times when our children’s children view them years from now. Since the explanation was buried at the end of a long post, I repeat it at the end of this one.

A Congress that by default is pressuring the country toward war, most recently with Iran, and that would not dream of enacting either a special tax or any kind of enforced or shared service to sustain these wars, gives a prolonged, deserved ovation for a person who has dedicated his all to the country. Tears well up in many eyes; the cheering persists; the admiration for this young man is profound. Then everyone moves right on.

Years from now, people can play this clip and see something about the culture of our times. It’s a moment of which only the Remsburg family will be proud.

His long exploration of the historical allusions is also worth a read.

Lunch is over-gotta get back to work. Hope it does not snow tonight.

When do we get to blame the Iraqis?

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I woke up this morning to see articles blaming the current situation on Iraq-on our failure to leave troops there. John McCain is living up to his reputation of never meeting a war he did not want Americans to fight. They are trotting out the “I told you so” brigades to say its Obama’s fault for living up to a SOFA agreement that his predecessor negotiated.

This is the 21st century. At some point, Arabs have to take responsibility for their own stupidity and the burdens brought on by a slavish devotion to an apostate religion. What I find so interesting in our current discourse is that no one, and I do mean, no one, ever blames the Iraqis.

And according to Dr. Adam L. Silverman, perhaps we should.

Iraqi Sunnis have been telling us, explicitly, since as far back as 2007 when we started partnering with the Anbar Awakenings guys that as soon as they had a chance – read as soon as we were gone and conditions were right – they were going to go after the Shi’a. They are specifically and especially interested in going after the expatriate Shi’a that we had empowered and put in charge: Maliki and his Dawa Party and the Hakim’s and their ISCI Party and its Badr Corps militia. The Sadrists are not too high on their list of favorites either. By not actually listening, and by listening I mean hearing what they said and observing their behavior in order to get a fuller understanding of their messaging, we have helped to make this worse.

You remember 2007 don’t you-the year the surgeaholics were telling us the surge was “saving Iraq”? And naysayers like me were saying the Iraqis-as the Arabs they are were not worth saving.

And time would appear to be proving me right.

Once they realized they could run out the clock on us, they did. As a result, we are no longer there to play referee and other events have diverted our attention. That is why now is a good time to settle scores. Syria is stuck in a Civil War, which provided the Levantine al Qaeda affiliate a way back into Iraq. They have capitalized on the dashed hopes and angers of a lot of Iraqis and scores are now being settled. Some of this is just vengeance, but some of it is also the process of state and societal formation, regardless of whether we like the potential outcome of that process. For all that we do not like to think about these things, state and societal formation, or reformation, is usually violent. It is often serially violent as well. There will be periods of violence – challenges to the established order or by the order to consolidate power, as well as to determine who gets to be included within society and who is to be partially or fully excluded. These periods will be interspersed with periods of calm. It is not, however, a quick or even easy process. The US has gone through this, though we like to ignore or forget it unless we have no other choice.

Read the whole article, it is worth your time. Arabs are nothing, if not remarkably consistent in their ability to screw up a good deal.

But I thought we lost the war during Obama’s West Point speech?

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LTG Daniel Bolger (Citadel Class of 1978) has a very good book out chronicling the truth that a whole lot of people don’t want to admit. For them, the wars were lost when the President of the United States decided to :1) not hang US troops out to dry with a worthless Iraqi government when they refused to negotiate on a SOFA treaty and 2) the day Obama gave a speech at West Point that acknowledged what many Americans already knew-that there was a limit to how much we could do for people who over the last 8 years had proven themselves completely worthless and unworthy of the sacrifices being made  on their behalf. And that a lot of Americans were sick of it.

Fortunately for us, there are some military professionals, who actually fought in the war, who know better:

As a senior commander in Iraq and Afghanistan, I lost 80 soldiers. Despite their sacrifices, and those of thousands more, all we have to show for it are two failed wars. This fact eats at me every day, and Veterans Day is tougher than most.

As veterans, we tell ourselves it was all worth it. The grim butchery of war hovers out of sight and out of mind, an unwelcome guest at the dignified ceremonies. Instead, we talk of devotion to duty and noble sacrifice. We salute the soldiers at Omaha Beach, the sailors at Leyte Gulf, the airmen in the skies over Berlin and the Marines at the Chosin Reservoir, and we’re not wrong to do so. The military thrives on tales of valor. In our volunteer armed forces, such stirring examples keep bringing young men and women through the recruiters’ door. As we used to say in the First Cavalry Division, they want to “live the legend.” In the military, we love our legends.

Here’s a legend that’s going around these days. In 2003, the United States invaded Iraq and toppled a dictator. We botched the follow-through, and a vicious insurgency erupted. Four years later, we surged in fresh troops, adopted improved counterinsurgency tactics and won the war. And then dithering American politicians squandered the gains. It’s a compelling story. But it’s just that — a story.  (Emphasis mine-SS)

Clearly this will get many “surgeaholics” riled up. Devotees of the theory of ever continuing warfare, and of never blaming the people of Iraq or Afghanistan themselves for the mistakes they made,  just does not fit the narrative. Troublesome facts are not the things they wish to hear:

We did not understand the enemy, a guerrilla network embedded in a quarrelsome, suspicious civilian population. We didn’t understand our own forces, which are built for rapid, decisive conventional operations, not lingering, ill-defined counterinsurgencies. We’re made for Desert Storm, not Vietnam. As a general, I got it wrong. Like my peers, I argued to stay the course, to persist and persist, to “clear/hold/build” even as the “hold” stage stretched for months, and then years, with decades beckoning. We backed ourselves season by season into a long-term counterinsurgency in Iraq, then compounded it by doing likewise in Afghanistan. The American people had never signed up for that. What went wrong in Iraq and in Afghanistan isn’t the stuff of legend. It won’t bring people into the recruiting office, or make for good speeches on Veterans Day. Reserve those honors for the brave men and women who bear the burdens of combat. That said, those who served deserve an accounting from the generals. What happened? How? And, especially, why? It has to be a public assessment, nonpartisan and not left to the military. (We tend to grade ourselves on the curve.) Something along the lines of the 9/11 Commission is in order. We owe that to our veterans and our fellow citizens

Reviews for Bolger’s book, Why We Lost, are mixed-I agree with his conclusion- while I agree also with those who think he doesn’t place enough strategic blame with our top level civilian leadership. Furthermore, its clear he thinks we had to invade-and that is a conclusion that is not borne out by history. The invasion of Iraq is the biggest Foreign Policy mistake in the last 30 years. Nonetheless he gives an objective and necessary telling of how we far exceeded our original needs and objectives after 9-11 and plunged into a global rat hole. That alone makes it worth the read.

The 11th day of the 9th month of the 17th year.

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The 17th year since the disaster of 9-11 occurred. Today, of course, will be a day of remembrances and memorials to the 3000 Americans who perished on that day, and the many more both in and out of the service who perished as a result of that day and the actions taken afterward. The timeline of American progress stopped on that particular day, and the slow, steady slide, into the current gloomy age began on the 11th day of September in the first official year of the 21st century.

Now, according to the conventional wisdom of the age, I am supposed to remember the fallen and then cheer the country on to renewed resolve in the endless war that the opening of the 21st century bequeathed to us. At the same time, I am supposed to ignore the 20-20 vision of hindsight that clearly shows the damage we did to ourselves as a nation because of our reaction the events of that particular day. 

There is only one problem. I can’t just ignore the damage that was done, particularly the way the day was hijacked by certain members of a President’s administration, a course of action that led to the biggest foreign policy disaster of the last 50 years and wastage of 4,497 American lives in Iraq-all sacrificed for nothing.

Yes, you read that right- all sacrificed for nothing. Mr. Pierce explains why:

With the intelligence all pointing toward bin Laden, Rumsfeld ordered the military to begin working on strike plans. And at 2:40 p.m., the notes quote Rumsfeld as saying he wanted “best info fast. Judge whether good enough hit S.H.”–meaning Saddam Hussein–”at the same time. Not only UBL”–the initials used to identify Osama bin Laden. 

Now, nearly one year later, there is still very little evidence Iraq was involved in the Sept. 11 attacks. But if these notes are accurate, that didn’t matter to Rumsfeld. “Go massive,” the notes quote him as saying. “Sweep it all up. Things related and not.”

Things related.

And not.

While most people were thinking and praying for friends and relatives in New York City, and just generally walking around stunned and hurting, there were people in government already planning to use the attacks as an opportunity to carry out the imperial projects about which they’d been dreaming for decades. (, the attacks as a chance to put in place authoritarian measures that had been gathering dust on the shelf since COINTELPRO was exposed in 1971.)

For all practical purposes, the Iraq War, with all its terrible consequences, intended and unintended, was launched on September 11, 2001. Four planes that morning. A country’s grief and pain was hijacked later that day.

I firmly believe that most of the current problems of the world, and of the United States can be directly traced to March 19, 2003. And March 19, 2003, can be directly traced to September 11th, 2001.

And ever since that day, the United States has been involved in a war that is going to go on and on and on and on, probably for the rest of my life. The war is sucking away the resources of our nation at a time it desperately needs them. On these pages and others has been argued back and forth the pros and cons of that war repeatedly. Follow the tags for the post and you can get a sense of how I felt back in 2006 and I how I still feel now. Go to other pages and you can read odes to our “victory” in Iraq and how with just more time – after the longest war in US history – American will “win” in Afghanistan.

Except, we won’t. The only way we could have won was not to play.

Especially with the current charlatan who acts as President.

But it’s too late for that. And unlike in the 70’s, the impeachment of a President will not save us from a war that will go on and on and on.

American has gotten it’s revenge for 9-11 many times over. Well over 500,000 people have died as a result of that one event.

As I wrote in two different posts in different years, 

I will always remember and will never forget. But in doing so, it also means that I will never forget what came in its aftermath, much of which was- to put it bluntly-misdirected effort, in response to a unique event, the likes of which most of us had never seen before.

It is important, therefore, to look at 9-11 for what it is, a deliberate act of cold-blooded murder. The fact that it is so,  does not, however, provide a blanket absolution for the myriad of flawed events that followed in its wake.  We have extracted our vengeance for that horrible day a 100 times over.  The cost of doing so has been huge-and we will debate the wisdom of those subsequent decisions for years.

Guys like Dick Cheney, and George Bush and others-believe the horror of 9-11 gives them a pass on responsibility for flawed decision making subsequent to the event. I say no. The rat holes of the wars that have been pursued in the years following, and the very avoidable -and equally tragic-costs, cannot be just wiped away just because we were the victims on a particular day.

We can though, remember that day with honor- and vow to move forward into a better future than what those murderers tried to inflict upon us. All of our worlds changed that day-and I for one wish that day could be undone.  I want my world of September 10, 2011 back. But its never coming back.

There is a line in a Tom Clancy novel, Red Storm Rising that goes something like this:
“The whole world seemed like it had caught fire, and because of them[the hijackers] the world literally would.”

I want my world back. My world of September 10th back. 

Comments are closed on this post.

A great insult

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I took most of this past week off, primarily because I was not very motivated, and that lack of motivation will continue into the New Year. Of that I am quite confident.

The Christmas holiday was pretty much as I expected with the S.O. doing her best to go through the motions while either not understanding or caring about the things that are really important to me. Three of my “presents” were not presents for me at all – but rather additions to her collection that she “gave” to me. Since I pretty much knew it was coming, it was not much of a surprise and a disappointment. Rather it was just a disappointment for myself of how many things that I want, which are simply denied to me.

Watching the news over Christmas however was a disappointment, especially as I watched the details of the shitbag in Chief’s “visit” to US forces in Iraq. Flying from the US on Christmas day, in the middle of a totally self-inflicted wound of a partial government shut down, the visit to the Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines was a studied insult to their service and a graphic demonstration of Trump’s fundamental unfitness to be Commander in Chief.

First and foremost was the fact that it took him almost two years to make the trip and then it was in response to pretty much near universal public shaming by the news media and various political figures. Second it was set against the backdrop if his asinine recent foreign policy moves – which forced the resignation of an ambassador and the Secretary of Defense.

Then in the brief 5 or 6 hours that Trump was on the ground and again at Ramstein Air Base in Germany, President Shitbag just could not resist the urge to turn what should have been an ecumenical address to the serving troops into an open political rally. Trumps remarks, especially when he said straight out to the servicemen that the US was no longer going to be “suckers” for other nations was an incredible insult to them and the sacrifices their predecessors had made before them. It is totally inappropriate for any President, regardless of political party to address people in uniform this way. Decorum and rules prevented them from giving him the booing these remarks richly deserved, but he deserves scorn for them anyway.

And then there were the fucking red hats. As well as the big fucking red lie. Lets look at the lie first:

“You protect us. We are always going to protect you. And you just saw that, ’cause you just got one of the biggest pay raises you’ve ever received. … You haven’t gotten one in more than 10 years. More than 10 years. And we got you a big one. I got you a big one. I got you a big one,” Trump told the US troops at Al Asad Air Base on Wednesday, according to CNN.

He later added, “They had plenty of people that came up, they said, ‘You know, we could make it smaller. We could make it 3%, we could make it 2%, we could make it 4%.’ I said, ‘No. Make it 10%. Make it more than 10%.’ Cause it’s been a long time, it’s been more than 10 years. Been more than 10 years, that’s a long time.”

In fact, America’s troops have received an automatic pay raise every year for more than three decades. While the pay raise authorized by the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act was the largest in nine years, it only amounted to a 2.6 percent pay raise.

What’s amazing about this is that is a blatant lie, easily disprovable, and yet he told it. He probably believes it – but its not true and the smarter people in the audience knew it was not true.

Reason 467 why he is a worthless sack of shit.

Oh and let’s not forget the hats. I’m with Stonekettle here:

You should go to Twitter and read the whole thread. He’s right about the fact that a least the shitgibbon went and did what people had been brow beating him to do. My issue is how he fucked it up and insulted the troops when I got there, by assuming they were all brain dead Trump supporters. Many of them are not. The reflect America, a divided America, where most Americans hate Trump ( and with good reason).

Trump’s language was reprehensible and as with so many of his actions, violates accepted norms of behavior. Even George W. Bush never talked the way he did, in the middle of defending his flawed invasion of Iraq. Bush understood the difference between a political event and duty. President Shitbag does not.

And here is the end result:

Of course we have not even discussed the way he insulted the Iraqis, by whose grace we are allowed to be in Iraq – but that is a lesson that it appears Trump is just incapable of understanding. Which begs the question of what are his advisers really doing and why did they not build it into his schedule. Even Bush understood the need to do these things and if you go back and read earlier posts you will know that I am no fan of his at all.

Plus, coming back to the fucking hats, there is this little bit of hypocrisy by the USAF:

Trump did what he should have, and just like everything else he does, he did it badly, too late, with malice towards all – proving yet again that he is unfit to be President of the United States.

And this. Read this and remember why he deserves the hatred:

Never placing the blame where it belongs……..

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ver at another blog, there is yet another tired old rendition of the refrain, “The surge worked-and Obama pissed it all away.”  It’s a tiresome song that gets played over and over again, and the usual suspects will shout, “hear, hear.” Now I do understand it. I do recognize that a lot of people believe it. There is just one big problem-they are entirely wrong:

We fought in a war with no discernible outcome. If one were forced to label what we see, it would have to be called a failure because the job was half done. We won in Iraq before we lost. We fought to win, but the gains we made were abandoned for one man’s vision of a superpower-less world. All gave some, sure, but some gave a hell of a lot more. Yet, after the blood has dried and the wounds are scarred-over, what was earned? What was saved? What was gained or lost? We are right to ask, “Why?” 

I don’t know about the rest of you, but I wonder. Perhaps some can see it merely as a temporary job in a longer career, but I can’t. People died because of what I did. Real human beings who no longer live and breathe. This wasn’t some drunk driving accident; it was for a purpose … and now, it wasn’t. 

“I support the troops, but not the war,” is an equivocation that led to the asinine withdrawal and squandering of the gains … and therefore the lives and health of those who were hit.

This supposed ambivalence wasn’t support at all. It was a socially correct door, left ajar so that those sacrifices could be made to mean nothing in the end… for convenience sake.

This country can retroactively reduce the value of your effort, your pain and even your life to zero without batting an eye. Our own countrymen do it, and they do it selfishly. They want safety, security, but they are unwilling to pay for it. Certainly not with their blood, sweat and tears; not even with their wallets.

Three points:

1) It is perfectly possible to support the troops and not the war-especially when you recognize that from day 1, as I did, the war was a huge mistake. The fact that one is powerless to stop the madness, does not prevent one from wanting it to be all over-and voting for someone who promises to do that. We didn’t “squander” success in Iraq-we allowed the real enemies many years to advance past us. Which BTW, is not the same as wanting a “superpowerless world”. It is, however recognizing, that a stupid decision made in 2002 had disastrous consequences. The multi-polar world was willed into existence on March 19, 2003 and all the post hoc whining about what you think Obama gave away is not going to change that. George Bush wasted 4,439 American lives for nothing. Stating it any other way is avoiding the truth.  And here is another news flash- the United States is powerless to stop the rise of the multi-polar world. Need to know why? Go ask George Bush.

2) Not once, not once,(and this is a big point)  does the author EVER put the blame for failure where it belongs-on the worthless Arabs of Iraq themselves, who have had 12 years to make something of their worthless country and have failed miserably at every turn. They were worthless Arab scum in 2003 and they remain so now. Certainly they were never worth the sacrifices made on their behalf. We tried, that is to be sure, but the “seed corn” we were working with was never up to the task of making a democracy.  We got empire with all of the burdens and none of the perks. The surge did not succeed-it failed miserably, at great cost, because it never achieved the political breathing room and conciliation that was envisioned. A whole lot of people told Bush at the time it would fail-and thus he deserves all of the blame.  Invading Iraq was the fundamental mistake-the rest were just attempts to put a bandage on a bad idea.

3) By wasting a trillion dollars on Iraq, the US set it self up for failure on a whole bunch of other fronts-including its own economy. If you supported the war, but did not support raising the revenue to pay for it, then you have NO RIGHT to complain about deficits, ever.  Its a hypocritical position and its truly maddening to hear this logic over and over again, even when the facts tell us otherwise.

The simple truth is that the folks who want to place the failure in Iraq solely on Obama, are not really concerned about stating the facts. The American people acted correctly in 2006 and 2008 by showing their disgust with the stupidity of a worthless war for worthless people. Leaving a residual force behind might have delayed by the current crisis by temporarily restraining Iraqis’ sectarian impulses. However, given political realities in Iraq and the U.S.., Americans couldn’t have stayed there indefinitely.

4,439 Americans dying for nothing bothers me too. But at least have the decency to place blame for that waste of life where it belongs. On the Iraqi people themselves. 

And because of those realities, the surge ultimately failed because the goal of true political reconciliation was unrealistic. In most of the world, sectarian, ethnic, linguistic and/or tribal allegiances run deep, which is why most of the world’s most stable democracies are found in relatively homogeneous societies. That being said, sectarian identities become pathological when a brutal dictator from the minority faction spends decades ruling over and terrorizing the majority population. No foreign power invaded Syria, and it is in worse shape than Iraq.

No residual force could rewire the Iraqis, and thus leaving one behind would just have delayed the inevitable.


No longer relevant

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Meaning it really does not matter that the COVID-19 virus started in China. Sure it makes MAGA hacks feel better thinking that blaming China will change the net effects of Nero’s Trump’s fiddling while the rest of the world burned.

Blame China all you want. Post memes saying China Lied, People Died ( particularly ironic on March 19th, the anniversary of the biggest mistake in the last 50 years – 4,571 Americans who died for nothing in Iraq could not be reached for comment). Did China do things wrong? Yes. So did the US.

Blaming China may make the idiots in MAGA hats feel better, but it does not solve the current problem. More importantly – what was going on in China was known almost real-time as it happened. This administration squandered valuable time by failing to prepare and so here we are. Other nations understood and acted quicker and more effectively. Which simply makes Trump’s lies and inaction even more damning.

So I don’t really care where the virus started. It’s the Trump Plague now, whether we like it or not. Dan Bongino, Theresa A and the rest of the whiners can just go straight to hell.

Reminds me of the so called “nice people” on the front porch of certain military blogs back in the day, clinging to the illusion that the surge was working and anyone who pointed out the entire invasion was stupid and counter-productive to begin with was a traitor to his country. Even when after years of watching, all the prophetic words of how it would destroy military readiness for future events has come true with a vengeance. They just had to defend yet another stupid war in the Middle East.

Which is really ironic today – the 17th Anniversary of Bush’s folly, the point of departure from a hopeful timeline that brought us to where we are today.

Haranguing on and on about how the virus started in China, and taking solace in blaming the Chinese over and over again, brings to mind the words of a North Vietnamese General when asked about the war some 32 years ago.



‘You know, you never beat us on the battlefield,’ I told my North Vietnamese counterpart during negotiations in Hanoi a week before the fall of Saigon. He pondered that remark a moment and then replied, ‘That may be so, but it is also irrelevant.’



So it is with Trump’s whinefest today at his daily press conference, an event that should, in and of itself be quarantined.



The now-daily gathering of the Coronavirus SuperFriends on Thursday took the express bus to Crazytown, perhaps never to return. This is because they insist on telling El Caudillo del Mar-A-Lago where the briefing is and at what time it will be held. Can’t someone just lie to him about all that?

When Trump continues to lie about how great a job he is doing and “how no one could have foreseen this coming”, remember this: to believe that Trump did not know about Corona Virus, means you have to believe that US Intel agencies were not monitoring events in China and neither was the State Dept. This, even though the Bejing Embassy is one of our largest embassies and we have three consulates in China. It means you have to believe the intelligence agencies were not doing their job and not providing due diligence up the chain. That is a stretch when you consider the professionals we have working in our intel agencies. So, the only realistic conclusion is: Trump and his lackey’s disregarded the intelligence.

Of course he did, that is who he is. Because that is how low we have fallen.

Yes, George W. Bush and company must bear the blame for the mistake that was made this day, some 17 years ago. However he did not go at his mistake with the genuine lack of decency and malice that his successor did some 12 years later:



After the 9/11 attacks, President George W. Bush made an early visit to a Washington mosque. He spoke feelingly against bigotry and helped curb the rash of hate crimes that erupted in the fall of 2001.


Trump and his party-line media do not do that. They cannot do that. That would take empathy—and empathy might dangerously remind Americans of the tragic cost of Trump’s mismanagement and absent leadership. Rage is all they feel, so the rage is all they can express. Hatred fills their hearts, so hatred fills their mouths. The government and the government-line television network are, for the time being, in the charge of broken souls. Those broken souls are breaking a nation.
David Frum.

“The virus started in China!”

“That may be so, but it is also irrelevant.

It sure does not seem that long ago.

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30 years ago today, I launched off of USS America (CV-66(6) on one of the first missions of Desert Storm. According to my logbook, we got 5 hours airborne flying over Saudi Arabia and looking both into Iraq and into Jordan. America was not flying any strikes that first night – we had only arrived in the Red Sea the day before leaving Norfolk on the 26th of December 1990. Our Tomcat squadrons had been expected to lead a MIGSWEEP mission on the first night of hostilities, but it was not clear at that time when that would be. So it was not a given that we would arrive before the war had started or that we might have to maintain Desert Shield for many months after we arrived. On the 17th, I helicoptered over to USS Joh F. Kennedy for a series of briefings from “the old hands” on operating in this new environment.

It was like crossing into a whole different world. During the TRANSLANT, the ship seemed like it would on any other deployment – we flew most of the way across the Atlantic and the Mediterranean. Entering the O-3 level on JFK was a shock when we saw folks walking around with no patches on their flight suits, people packing 9MM into their SV-2’s and wearing silver reflective tape with their blood type where their name tag should be.

On arriving on JFK, we were informed that :1) CVW-3 would lead the MIGSWEEP, and America would be relegated to flying “Red Sea CAP” to guard against any possibility that Jordan might join the war on the Iraqi side. and 2) The war was going to begin that night. Jordan joining the war seemed ( and was) a ludicrous idea at the time, but the knowledge that our aircraft were really going into conflict was and that the conflict was here was quite sobering. The Tomcat CO, who had to lead the strike planning team for the MIGSWEEP, was not happy about this change of plans, to say the least.

All in all, I flew almost 120 hours between 17 January and 02 March on both sides of the Arabian Peninsula. Not all of it was in the E-2; there were some KA-6D hops in that list too, which is a memory I will never forget. I also will never forget going up to the cockpit of our trusty E-2 to see the USS Wisconsin shooting 16-inch shells at Kuwait. Seeing the flames from the barrels from 21,000 feet on a clear night was amazing. I also had the privilege of flying into Riyadh on the day the ground war began, only to find I had left my gas mask back on the ship. I actually caught a brief glimpse of Norman Schwarzkopf as he was visiting the Air Operations Center.

It was an amazing adventure at the time – and it sure does not seem like it was 30 years ago, but alas, it is. I wish I had known then what I know now – the time before and after would probably have been so much better. But I was proud to have been a part of that trip.

America was the only carrier to operate on both sides of the conflict, starting the war in the Red Sea and ending up in the Persian Gulf a week before the ground war started. My last sortie of the war was controlling B-52’s into their targets and deconflicting them from other close air support missions.

Listed below is America’s chronology of that war from the USS America Cruise book. By the way – I was also on that first SCUD hunting mission listed in the list. (Slide your mouse to see both pages).





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