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| Name: |
alahusker
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| Subject: |
Got to get it off my mind..
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Date:
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12/3/2009 9:02:50 PM
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This combat veteran of 2 wars (Viet Nam and Desert Storm) is still bothered by the host of "Hard Ball" refering to the United States Military Academy at West Point as the "enemy camp."
I woke up last night, remembering my return from Southeast Asia, in 1973. It was degrading and yes they did spit on me and fellow Airmen.
My return from combat operations after the first Gulf War was positive.
I still salute and buy returning soldiers a beer when passing thru ATL.
But I must wonder where we are headed as a Nation?
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| Name: |
MAJ USA RET
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| Subject: |
A lesson in Civics
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Date:
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12/3/2009 9:43:18 PM
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A lesson in Civics
1 – We must elect a rational legislative branch in 2010
2 – We must elect a competent, ethical, experienced leader in 2012
3 – The Legislative and Executive branch, if sufficient in ethics and competency will have to abrogate the follies established under the current disastrous convergence between Legislative and Executive branches. This may entail annulling international treaties which run counter to our constitutional rights. This may entail amendments to the constitution.
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4 – The states may recall their senators and convene a Constitutional convention. This is not impossible – the Honduran government sacked its president for unconstitutional conduct. (See Article V of the Constitution.)
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5 - Disillusioned states may secede from the union. This will likely result in 6 below.
6 – We have the 2nd Amendment and guidance on how to use such in the Declaration of Independence. Remember, militias belong to the states… not the federal government. The National Guard belongs to the governor… not the president. Remember, the President and Congress may scream for the heads (or imprisonment) of rebelling patriots, but if their are millions of us, WHO WILL THEY GET TO DO THE DEED? My brother? Your brother? The US Army? The Marines? Which of them will shoot you or me?
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| Name: |
muddauber
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| Subject: |
A lesson in Civics
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Date:
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12/3/2009 10:44:44 PM
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Keep it up. Gotta agree with you on this.
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| Name: |
Summer Lover
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| Subject: |
A question
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Date:
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12/3/2009 10:51:12 PM
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I only dispute ownership of militias, and feel that the belong to the People of the State, rather than the State itself. Comments?
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| Name: |
Yankee06
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| Subject: |
A question
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Date:
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12/3/2009 11:50:12 PM
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-We've had this discussion before on rebellion/revolution and what will the troops, our brothers and sisters, do. I, like y'all, do not have the answer.
-But, as discussed before, I, like y'all, do have a history. At kent State our brothers killed our sisters, and we all suffered through the nightmare.
-In the early 70's, I personally trained an Army unit of 200 soldiers to go to Washington DC and protect it from demonstrators. Use of violent force was a final option. In a stressful training situation, I had one soldier bayonet another soldier who was acting as a protester. I was surprised and shocked at how easy it was to turn a citizen-soldier against a citizen.
-Hopefully, we will not have to see that again.
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| Name: |
MAJ USA RET
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| Subject: |
The Answer
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Date:
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12/4/2009 10:14:47 AM
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I remember that training in the late 60s and early 70s (PV2 to PFC then). I also remember thinking how stupid and irrelevant it was. The absolute cardinal rule became “No loaded weapons!” A bullet cannot be un-fired. In crowd control, the rifle is used more like a staff. I had trouble imagining who and how we would arrayed against our fellow citizens. Apparently so did TRADOC. The training ceased.
Please recall that the troops at Kent State felt threatened by the students’ mob mentality and, in those days soldiers were derided... not respected. The first shot was accidental and the volley that followed was instinctive… because of LACK of training… and because they had LOADED weapons.
The purpose of the 2nd Amendment (Article the fourth), is to repel invasion… and tyranny. As you may have noticed lately, our ship has sprung leaks. Our current government neither recognizes the leaks nor that the ship is imperiled. Indeed, our government is making matters worse. The enemy is among us: drug cartels, sleeper cells, terrorists… and our government is absurdly making nice with the enemies foreign and domestic.
This corruption and corrosion may exist in the Capitol and on the left coast, but I don’t believe it exists in the heartlands. That the heartlanders are overtly wrapped in the 1st and 2nd Amendments, should give pause to the enemies… foreign and domestic… and rightly so!
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| Name: |
Yankee06
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| Subject: |
The Answer
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Date:
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12/4/2009 12:11:48 PM
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M-RET,
-It's an answer; ...not sure it's the answer.
-Traininng: Yes, TRADOC stopped the Garden Plot (anti-riot) training in teh mid-to-late 70's, because the threat ended. There were no more protestor-riots because the protesters had won.
-Kent State: yes, the troops felt threatened. So what. All troops in a tactical/combat situation better feel threatened. Remember, all of the students killed and most of the wounded were more than a football field length away when shot. Were the troops ill trained? Yes ( maybe TRADOC should start trainnig again)! Were the guns loaded? Yes. There are times that the guns have to be loaded. For riot control to work , rioters have to believe they will be hurt. That "hurt" occurs on an escalation spectrum that ends in death. That's just how the system works.
-1st and 2nd Amendments; you are absolutly correct. mnay it ever be so.
-The heartlands; are the heartlands free of corruption and corrosion? I think not. We all live in Alabama; it's pretty much heartland, at least politically. Look around. Mayors are going to prison and governors are in prison.
I agree, most agree, that something is wrong with our country; I believe it is getting worse and has been for the last two decades. The present administration is pushiing us over the line form our traditional national identity to a new one of some aberration of socialism. The only successful way to fight it is locally at the political grass roots and nationally at the ballot box.
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| Name: |
MAJ USA RET
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| Subject: |
The Answer
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Date:
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12/4/2009 12:38:43 PM
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You are right! I much prefer 1 through 3 in my civics presentation above:
“1 – We must elect a rational legislative branch in 2010
“2 – We must elect a competent, ethical, experienced leader in 2012
“3 – The Legislative and Executive branch, if sufficient in ethics and competency, will have to abrogate the follies established under the current disastrous convergence between Legislative and Executive branches. This may entail annulling international treaties which run counter to our constitutional rights. This may entail amendments to the constitution.”
But this will require every thinking man and woman to vote. We, the informed and educated, must overwhelm the votes of the ignorant and indigent that are herded to the polling places. Like pen raised quail, the consumer class has no idea how to survive un-entitled.
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| Name: |
Talullahhound
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| Subject: |
The Answer
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Date:
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12/4/2009 4:16:38 PM
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With regard to your last paragraph. I agree that something is wrong with our country, but I don't believe that it is only the government pulling us in a direction -- I think Americans themselves are at least partially to blame. We've lost our national identity. We don't know who we want to be.
We think we should be fighting a war on terror, but we cannot tolerate large losses of our troops or collateral damage. We worry about the effect that long deployments have on our troops morale.
We said we would seek out those who were behind 9/11, but when Pakistan resisted the idea of us going after Al Kayda in their country, we backed off.
We knew there wasn't Al Kayda in Iraq, yet we allowed our politicians to distract us, and start a war that had nothing to do with 9/11.
We worry about Iran's nuclear weapons and believe that Iran is a destabilizing force in the Middle East, yet we can't bear the thought dead Iranian civilians should we do anything to prevent it.
We hate that jobs have gone offshore, but we continue to deal with companies that have moved jobs offshore and we continue to buy things made in China.
We can't put it back on just the politicians. We're not as morally tough as we used to be.
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| Name: |
MAJ USA RET
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| Subject: |
Iraq
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Date:
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12/4/2009 5:01:25 PM
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“…We knew there wasn't Al Kayda (sic) in Iraq, yet we allowed our politicians to distract us, and start a war that had nothing to do with 9/11.”
The war was not predicated on the presence of al Qaeda in Iraq. However, they did oblige by showing up to be martyred. The Iraqis are still busy martyring al Qaeda.
The war in Iraq was about weapons of mass destruction (WMD). WMD production and availability under Saddam Hussein was universally accepted as highly probable. Universally accepted includes Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, Joe Biden, and a majority of the legislative branch. Universally accepted includes the major intelligence agencies of the world, including France, Israel, and Great Britain. Saddam was acting like he had them… culturing exactly that perception. He was playing a falsehood or the truth… both to the same end. Was it truely bragadocio?
When we defeated Saddam and his military we did not find any substantial amount of WMD. HOWEVER, we have ample HARD intelligence that huge amounts of material were transported away from the sites of highest probability and priority. Those sites have all of the appropriate residue. We know where the transport trail led. We know who provided transport. We DID NOT have the authority or mandate to invade yet another country.
So… are YOU ready to bet your family’s welfare on WMD that we did not find in Iraq?
The Israelis also knew these things… and they do not play by the same rules. Some suspicious events have occurred since that time. Everybody concerned claimed to know nothing… not the invaders… not the invaded… not the suppliers… not even any allies of any of the parties involved. Go figure.
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Yes, I will bet my family on the WMD we did not find in Iraq. Yours too.
I know why we went to Iraq. I worked in OSD(P) for Doug Feith and Paul Wolfowitz. Very familiar with JINSA and Richard Perle too. Knew the guys in the "intelligence" group that Doug Feith put together when the intelligence groups wouldn't play ball with him. Knew what the real plan was, before everything went to hell in the Hand basket.
Can't discuss how I know, or even all I know.
But it didn't have anything to do with WMD. That was just the cover story.
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| Name: |
Yankee06
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| Subject: |
Iraq
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Date:
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12/4/2009 10:46:58 PM
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-Why Iraq? Not hard to figure.
-The NEOCONS wanted to change the politics of the whole mid-east. They were, and we as a nation should have been, tired of all the Arab BS since 1948, and all the killings of Americans since 1978.
-American military power was the means to gain more than their attention, it was the means to hand over to the worls a new mid-east.
-This plan worked well, till we blew the post-invasion phase of teh plan, with CIA and State depending too much on teh influence of Iraqi expatriots to form a new Iraqi government that would provide the model for the coming decades in the mid-eaast.
-Did it work? Yes! ---at least thru the invasion phase. Syria thought they were next, and immediately started backroom negotiations to show they were more ammenable to working with us. Iran? --as Armardiamasonofabitch told the world..Iraq stopped its nuclear operations in 2003. Hmmmm.... wonder why. Khadaffi rolled over the day after we took Baghdad.
-But W's administration let it all slip away after the success of the invasion. As the old snore goes,...they snatched defeat from teh jaws of victory. And the uninttended consequences of their stupidity are now felt throughout the world and the homeland.
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| Name: |
MAJ USA RET
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| Subject: |
Iraq
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Date:
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12/4/2009 10:57:35 PM
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"...and I would have to shoot you if I told you!" Heard that before.
The last two post provide no information about anything other than then the authors.
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| Name: |
MAJ USA RET
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| Subject: |
Hmmmm
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Date:
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12/4/2009 11:07:47 PM
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Didn't I promise to improve my grammar?
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Actually, Syria and Iran were next. We didn't get the response we expected. And there was virtually no post invasion planning. Colin Powell got it right when he said to Bush "you break it, you bought it".
Any idiot could have seen that we would not establish a democracy in the Middle East merely by taking out a Dictator. Our military planning was brilliant, the diplomatic follow on was non-existent. Paul Bremer was a disaster.
Have to agree with Tommy Franks in what he said about Doug Feith. Even the other Jewish people in Policy used to say that he was a Zionist.
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No, it's not a shoot you if I told you. I'm just not willing to say on an open public forum.
I have often stated that I was against the war in Iraq because I thought that it did not serve our national security, and I thought it diverted attention away from the real fight, which was in the mountains between Pakistan and Afghanistan.
I don't hold a high opinion of Doug Feith, Paul Wolfowitz or Rumfeld. Not because they are Republicans, but because I saw the way they operated, knew what they believed in. Now, if we want to talk about Gordon England, I could be President of his fan club.
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| Name: |
MAJ USA RET
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| Subject: |
Iraq
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Date:
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12/5/2009 9:58:59 AM
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Hound, I agree with your two posts above… to… no after, a point. First, we rightfully invaded Iraq. Second we handily won the war. Then the political disaster came. The first disaster is the implementation of nation building using western ideology in an Islamo-Arabic culture (you are right). The next was Bremer, the John Macnamara of Iraqi Freedom (again, you are right). And, also that the Iraqi soldiers threw down their uniforms instead of their weapons… at that point, we should have handed the Iraqis the keys to the kingdom and said, “Have a nice day! Don’t bother to rebuild your country if you are going back into the WMD or terrorism businesses!”
PS: The nation building folly isn’t going to work in Afghanistan either. It does not take long dealing with Islamic ideology before you realize that they will smile and patiently enjoy the largesse of infidels... until you go away... and you will go away.
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Yup. You are right.
One good thing I heard Obama say the other night -- that he wasn't interested in building any other nation than ours. Now, let's see if we stick to that.
My military friends that worked over there used to have a saying -- never let an Arab tell you his problem because then it becomes your problem to solve.
I'd love to hear some of your stories about working with Iraqis. I've been to the Middle East, but not for an extended stay. But, a lot of the military I worked with were foreign area officers for the Middle East and had dozens of stories.
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