Prepping For Our Next War

There has been a lot of talk lately about the United States imposing a “No Fly Zone” over Libya in order to keep Gadhafi from bombing the protestors and massacring his citizens.  .  Defense Secretary Gates has responded urging caution.  He says such an exercise would require bombing Libyan runways, communications sites and anti-aircraft installations to keep Libyan forces from attacking US aircraft while they enforce the no fly restriction.

Senators Kerry, McCain and McConnell disagree.   They are pushing the White House to intervene in the Libyan crises.  They want the President to enforce a “No Fly Zone” over Libyan territory.  Senator McConnell would also like the President to offer assistance to the opposition forces in the form of advisors or equipment.

Senator Kerry has been the most vocal.   He feels that by simply bombing Libyan runways we would halt Gadhafi’s air operations against the protestors.  And he says that this would be a short operation that would not require our involvement for a long period of time.   He does not feel that such an operation would constitute a military intervention.  Senator McCain shares his views.

Are these people crazy?  Do they not realize that our military is already stretched to the breaking point in Iraq and Afghanistan?  Do they not realize the toll that these multiple deployments are having on our troops and their families?  Do they not remember that World War I and the Viet Nam wars were suppose to be  “short wars” where our involvement started by sending in advisors and equipment?  Do they really believe that bombing Libyan runways, telecommunications sites and anti-aircraft installations would not constitute an unprovoked act of war by the United States? 

Perhaps someone should ask the Senators how they would feel if a foreign country decided to conduct a bombing run on JFK international.  Would the Senators consider that an act of war?

What is this sudden interest in Libya about?  Is this about protecting the protestors?   There are violent uprisings going on all over the world on a daily basis. Should we intervene in all of them?

Is this about oil?  Most of the oil from Libya is going to China.  Why would we endanger our pilots to protect oil flowing to China?

And why us?  Why must the United States always be the one to step in?  If there is a valid reason to intervene in Libya militarily then why can’t NATO or the UN take the lead?    

Senator McConnell is clueless.  Senators Kerry and McCain should know better.

Budget Cuts Roll Downhill

During the mid-term elections Republicans promised to cut deficit spending and increase jobs.  The voters tired of wasteful spending and bloated big government bought the Republicans’ sales pitch and swept them into office.  The voters are about to get what they asked for and they may not like it.

While Republican leaders have shied away from tackling entitlements and defense spending they have shown no hesitancy to go after domestic discretionary spending.  Even though this tactic has zero effect on balancing the budget it will have a drastic and sobering effect on those who voted Republicans into office.

Here is how this works.  The Republicans have proposed to cut some $61 billion dollars out of domestic discretionary spending including funding for: education, innovation, infrastructure, Planned Parenthood, NPR and heating oil assistance for the impoverished to name just a few.  Faced with a reduction in federal funds, state governments, who unlike the federal government must balance their budgets, are looking at huge budgetary cuts as well.  Many states rely on federal funding to stay afloat.  If federal funds are not available they have no choice but to cut services and programs.  State governments in turn provide a substantial portion of the funding local city and township governments need to operate; in some cases as much as 60% of their budget.  Without these state funds cuts in local police, fire, health services, road maintenance etc. are inevitable as are the massive layoffs of lower and middle income workers.

These cuts are not just restricted to public sector programs and jobs.  As local services are cut and layoffs occur people have less money to buy things.  A decrease in the demand for goods and services naturally means a reduction in private sector retail sales, manufacturing and service providers.  As their revenues decrease they are forced to lay off more folks.  And as the purchasing of goods and services decreases so does the corresponding sales tax revenue that is so important for state and local governments.  The circle continues.

We assume that the voters who asked for these austerity measures want to keep their jobs.  We assume that they want someone to respond when they dial 911.  We assume that they want their children to be safe, healthy and well educated.  But we have to find a way to pay for it.

Many people want to reduce the size of the federal government and allow the states to assume a larger role.  But if  you constantly cut federal taxes and federal funding then the financial burden must fall to the states as well.  Cut federal taxes?  Great idea; until you find yourself raising state taxes to make up the difference.  Get rid of the death tax?  Great idea; until you need to raise property taxes to make up the difference.  Dump the Department of education?  Great idea; until you need to float a school levy every other week to keep the doors open.    Somebody has to pay to put cops on the streets.  Somebody has to pay to educate the children, staff the hospitals, fix the potholes and plow the snow.   

Cutting domestic discretionary spending on the federal level affects the poor and middle class workers.  The resulting decrease in goods and services increases unemployment and damages an already struggling economy.  Ultimately, cutting federal spending hurts the very people that voted for the cuts.                   

  

Freedom Is Just Another Word

Distinguished New York Times columnist Charles Krauthammer published an opinion piece in which he credits the recent uprisings in the Middle East to their acceptance of George W. Bush’s “freedom agenda”.  He points out that while Bush was criticized for his intervention in Iraq, the world is now calling upon the US to bring down Moammar Gadhafi. Krauthammer grudgingly acknowledges the argument by some that the price we paid in blood and treasure to establish democracy in Iraq was too high.  But in responding to the argument Krauthammer defends Bush, noting that Iraq is the only functioning democracy in the Arab world.  He closes by saying:” Facebook and Twitter have surely mediated this pan-Arab (and Iranian) reach for dignity and freedom.  But the Bush doctrine set the premise.

Mr. Krauthammer makes some valid points.  But he conveniently sidesteps a number of important facts in order to reach his conclusion.

During the days immediately preceding the implementation of Bush’s “Shock and Awe” campaign there were no organized, ongoing protests for Saddam to step down.  People were not filling the streets of Baghdad chanting for freedom, democracy or a just day’s pay.  Voices around the world were not calling for US intervention as they are in Libya.  In fact Bush ordered the war on Iraq in spite of NATO’s protestations.  The Iraq war was never about the cry of freedom and dignity, or democracy or the freeing of an oppressed people.  It was about weapons of mass destruction, Saddam’s support of terrorists, the need to keep American safe or securing the continued flow of the lifeblood of our nation…oil.  And to some degree faulty intelligence, revenge or a desire to cement a Presidential legacy may have played a part.  But Bush’s “freedom agenda” was never in the mix.  

The Middle East uprisings that we see today are not the result of some sudden, simultaneous groundswell of acceptance of Bush’s “freedom agenda”.  They are the result of decades of oppression imposed by the very autocrats that the Bush Administration, and those before and after, have supported with billions and billions US taxpayer dollars.  Egypt was the spark and Facebook and Twitter were the conduits.

Naturally the instigators of the nightmare that is the Iraq war see it differently.  Mr. Bush and Mr. Rumsfeld have recently penned their own version of revisionist history.  Mr. Cheney’s piece of fiction is soon to follow.  It should make for interesting reading.  One thing is certain; an apology for the incredible cost that Iraq has caused our country will not be forthcoming.

So did we pay too high a price to empower a democratic Iraqi government?  Was it worth it, as Mr. Krauthammer seems to suggest?  You be the judge:

US Casualties – 4,439

US Wounded – 32.033

Percentage of Us troops suffering mental health issues with 3-4 months of returning home – 30%

Iraqi Casualties – the standard estimate is over 100,000 but some sources feel the real number is more like 600,000.

Iraqi’s Displaced – 2,225,000

Iraqi Unemployment Rate – 60%

Iraqi inflation Rate – 50%

Spent & Approved War Spending Through Nov. 2010 - $900 billion US taxpayer dollars.

Lost or Unaccounted For US funds - $9 Billion US taxpayer dollars.

Mismanaged and Wasted funds in Iraq - $10 Billion US taxpayer dollars

....and still counting.....

      

    

Charlie Sheen and Afghanistan

The media is obsessed with Charlie Sheen.  You cannot change the channel without being forced to sit through one of his many, many, many irrational interviews.  “Mega Star Entertainer Goes Off the Deep End”.  “Authorities Remove Sheen’s Children Under Court Order”.  We cannot get enough.  And the media is more than happy to feed our insatiable appetite.

But there is another story competing with the Charlie Sheen love fest.  Unfortunately neither the media nor the American people are paying much attention. 

“NATO Force Kills Nine Afghan Boys by Mistake” reads the headline in today’s New York Times.  “Nine Afghan boys who were collecting firewood were killed by NATO helicopter gunners who mistook them for insurgents.”

The war in Afghanistan rages on with no end in sight and nobody seems to care.  Well that is not totally true.  Experts say 1% of us are invested in this war.  They are the military men and women who are valiantly fighting the war and the family and friends who spend every day worrying about their safety.  The rest of us are more interested in the antics of Mr. Sheen.

The events that took the lives of those nine children are commonplace in this very unconventional war.  We cannot identify the enemy.  The good guys today are the bad guys tomorrow.  We restrict the activities of our troops, often prohibiting them from firing on a known enemy until first fired upon.  Recent reports talk about US troops sitting in the open, watching enemy combatants surround their position, but unable to open fire until fired upon.  The well trained US troops eventually win the battle but not before several of their unit are unnecessarily injured.

We are in the tenth year of a war with no end in sight.  Financially, we have spent $450 billion dollars thus far and currently spend $2 billion per week.  The loss of American lives and the effects on their loved ones is incalculable.  And the only reason that we continue is because we don’t have the political will to leave.

It is said that we are there to protect America but in fact we are creating the terrorists of tomorrow and making America less safe.

There is another back story to all of this that you will never read about in the papers nor see on the cable news channels. 

Someday soon, maybe even today, a company of US soldiers will enter the village where the nine boys were killed.  Their commander will have a bag full of cash which he will dole out to the families of the nine dead children; essentially placing a value on their lives. 

But enough of this depressing war business; what’s going on with Charlie today?

   

 

Washington's Reaction To Gates' Comments...Silence

We recently commented on defense Secretary Gates’ speech to the cadets at West Point.  Gates offered the opinion that any future Secretary of Defense that advised his President to engage in a war in the Middle East, Asia or Africa in the manner in which we are conducting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan “should have his head examined.”  He went on to speak frankly about our questionable involvement in Afghanistan, its’ vague definition of winning and the great price we have paid for an ultimately unsatisfactory conclusion. 

The fact that the nations’ top military guy has publically questioned our roll in an ongoing war is startling.  The lack of comment from our usually opinionated congressmen is amazing.  The silence from the White house is deafening.  The only comment from the Obama administration is that they didn’t know the details of Gates’ comments before hand. 

The top military guy disses our war strategy and no one is talking?  Why?

No one is commenting because America has grown weary of these wars.  Congress knows it.  The White House knows it as well.  The only reason we remain is to avoid announcing defeat; and Gates has announced that victory by any measure is not an option.

Some pundits have suggested Gates’ comments were a calculated response to the fictitious drivel uttered by former Defense Secretary Rumsfeld on his revisionist history book tour.  But Gates is too measured and too polished to question a strategy where American lives have been lost for political points.

More than likely what Gates is saying is this.  Given the wildfire of unrest in the Middle East we would be well served to re-evaluate our political and military strategies for the region.  To continue along our  current path will cost us dearly.

Let us hope that the silence we hear out of Washington means someone is listening.     

      

It Baffles The Mind

Buried among the plethora of news reports regarding Libya and Wisconsin in today’s news is a short four sentence story that illustrates why we are up to our eyeballs in debt.

The USA Today reports that the US is launching a new missile defense system to protect EUROPE against a potential nuclear threat from IRAN.  Quoting the report: “The US is sending a special radar equipped warship to the Mediterrean Sea next week in what will be the first step in the development of a broad anti-ballistic missile system to protect Europe against a potential Iranian nuclear attack.  This marks the first of a four stage plan to put land and sea-based radars and interceptors in several European locations over the next decade.”

To find this little nugget of largess buried among all the other stories of our impending financial Armageddon is striking. 

Aren’t we broke?  Aren’t we facing a monumental deficit that has us on the verge of joining Greece in the land of financial bankruptcy?  Aren’t talking about cutting social security benefits, Medicare, Medicaid, unemployment benefits and home heating oil subsidies for the poor?

Then how in the hell can we afford to spend billions on a defense shield for EUROPE???

     

It's All About The Oil

United States warships and military aircraft are steaming toward Libya at this hour.  The White House has explained this deployment as: 1.) show of force to put pressure on Gadhafi to step down and 2.) a positioning of assets to better offer humanitarian aid if needed.  They state that there are no immediate plans to intervene in the Libyan unrest but are quick to add that all options are on the table.

Here we go again.

Does anyone remember Somalia?  Bosnia?  The US positioned its forces to offer humanitarian aid in those conflicts as well.  Anyone who saw “Black Hawk Down” knows how that turned out. 

The truth of the matter is the US is positioning itself to enter into Libya.  Our participation will be sold as being  part of a NATO peacekeeping mission; but make no mistake that it will be US blood and treasure spearheading the effort.

It is hard to believe that the American public would stomach another military conflict given all that is going on in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Even Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, while addressing the cadets at West Point, said: “any future defense secretary who advises the President to again send a big American land army into Asia, or the Middle East or Africa should have his head examined.”

So why do It?  

We cannot afford it.  Sending a carrier group to the shores of Tripoli as a show of force is not like jumping into the family Prius and running up the mini-mart.  A quick up and back by the USS Whatever Carrier Group costs tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars…dollars we don’t have.

It is not a matter of national security or a peacekeeping mission.  Gadhafi is no military threat to us.  Since Reagan bombed his tent he has been quite the gentleman.      

It is not a matter of providing humanitarian aid either.  Genocide has been going on in Africa for years and you didn’t see the USS Whatever deployed to Darfur.

Make no mistake, Gadhafi’s violent attacks on his own people warrant the condemnation of the world community and perhaps military intervention by NATO forces.  But why must the US always be at the forefront of these efforts?  Why will we see the United States taking the lead, investing more of our blood and treasure into another political civil war than all the other NATO nations combined?

The answer is oil plain and simple. We are grossly, ridiculously dependent upon it and Libya has massive quantities of it.  And we will use any means necessary to guarantee that oil continues to flow uninterrupted to our shores.

 As long as US gasoline prices continue to soar, Secretary Gates is preaching to an empty room.