So, I have had a long day on the highway to mull some things over in my head. What that means is a new blog post. There will be another in the morning, but I spent too long today thinking about this to not write it.
We have had an unparallelled level of violence in the country in the last year. Let's leave the conversation about crime statistics and gangs and gun control. Let's just think about internationally inspired terrorism tonight.
I see every kind of comment and post possible. Some are thoughtful in their profanity and bigotry. Some are just blunt and brutal in their profanity and bigotry. Some are shockingly uninformed about the enemy, in particular what it means to be Muslim, yet they claim to be informed and knowledgeable. Some are blissfully uninformed, and don't care that what they espouse is impossible, given who the enemy is.
See, we don't even like the thought that we have an enemy in "Islam". We want to be able to say that you know, it is just the militant, radicalized ones that we have an issue with. Just like, you know in WWII, we were only really at issue with the radicalized and militant Nazi's and Japanese and Italians. Where there is a difference, those were races and nations, not a world-wide religion practiced in many nationalities. We cannot get our head around the fact that we might just be at war with about a billion Muslims.
I say might, because we cannot be at war without doing a couple of things. First, we have to decide to go on and fight. As for me, I decided in 2001, and I kept fighting until 2007. I am a bit over listening to political candidates talking about what they know nothing about. It sounds very macho, being the drum beater for fighting this war. Listen to Trump and Cruz and Carson, who between them have ZERO practical experience in foreign policy, military service or battle-space strategy. They also have no stake in the fight in the terms of sons/daughters over there serving the cause.
You can pick on Joe Biden all you want, but his kids served, in the WAR, in combat roles. You can pick on Jim Webb all you want, but he served, and then his kid served, in the WAR, in combat roles. You can pick on Rick Perry all you want, but he flew combat missions in actual combat aircraft, not pretended to fly retired airframes to fulfill halfhearted National Guard commitments. You can pick on Lindsay Graham all you want, but he wore the uniform of the country and served honarably.
I do not find it a prerequisite for someone to run for President, to have served in the military. I do not find it necessary for anyone to serve in the military. But, if you have not served, if you have no stake in the service, (meaning you couldn't play seven degrees of Kevin Bacon to find a relative that served,) then perhaps you should be the last person to sound like you are channeling Patton. Especially, if you have the gall to talk like you understand what combat is, you know roostering up in the hen house. You know, the whole, come insult me to my face Mr. President, balls out stuff, and any of that dreck Trump screams.
Haaji is a stone cold killer, and they get their 10 year old kids to blow themselves up next to your vehicle. Don't pretend you know what or where the elephant is, and if you don't know what it is, get out of the conversation. And, if you are going to be a jingoistic, bigoted, toad, do it without asking America's military to pick up the tab for your lack of stones.
Whatever you don't respect about President Obama, respect they fact that he stopped sending thousands and thousands of Americans to die on sand that will never be ours, will never be settled and will never be worth another drop of American blood. All of the barking about ISIS is Obama's fault, ignores the fact that we, as a nation, decided to completely destabilize a country (Iraq) that had no capacity to be a threat to America, or Israel for that matter, because it was beneficial to Halleburton and the Koch brothers.
I am not againast the war in Afghanistan, nor did I shirk my combat duty destroying Iraq. We, America under Bush, Cheney, Powell, took apart all internal structure and stability within the tribal hierarchy in interior Iraq and Syria. We created the vacuum into which the ISIS predecessaors crept. We lied about what we had accomplished in Iraq, in terms of training and stiffening the Iraqi Defense Forces. We lied about the ethnic cleansing that was taking place. We talked about surges and finding Bin Laden, for years.
Obama recognized the fool's game we were playing. ISIS is America's creation. And I have no heartburn with taking it out. But, only if the Saudi's, Paki's, Syrians and Jordanians are the lead units. It is their world there. If we don't want the oil, and we keep saying we don't, let them dog pile it out.
Haaji is a stone cold killer. These boys are not over there playing at this like GI Joe. Our boys do not regenerate after a mortar round like in Halo. Our planes crash with people in them. It is real. Want to know what it is like, go suit up and do the patrol. Get in the gun ship and take out a convoy. Ride around in a Humvee and see what an IED feels like. Give you a hint, it feels worse when it bblow apart your brother's rig. And every other rig has brothers in it.
That is what is lacking, in all this talk. Especially from the front runners on both sides of the political aisles. And, let us all be clear, the numb nuts that have generally showed up here were deficient in lots of ways that you don't see over there. How did those two Haaji's in San Bernadino fire 700 rounds and only hit 14 people? That is typical. Just because people carrry guns around constantly does not make them warriors.
I am so tired of hearing about how we don't see this in Texas or Idaho or some other state with lax gun laws. Pray it does not come near, not just because it means people dying. But, there is no cap on the extent of the casualties if armed civilians start shooting at military trained suspects. Most people without military training are positive that they would be able to strap on and do some protecting. They have never considered what it means to havve someone shooting at you too. Wait until the movie attendant starts running away, firing over his shoulder, dropping ticketed customers, hoping he hits the terrorists, who is busy shooting other customers.
Most people assume it is like buck fever, you know, some butterflies and rapid breathing, but then it clears. When your face is getting peppered with masonry powder from the rounds penetrating the block wall next to you, that "buck fever" does not go away. You have to convince yourself to turn toward the rounds, open your eyes, and try to return fire. You have to smell the cordite, the blood, the body fluids, the puke, the smoke, and your own urine. You have to hear the screams and moans and ricochets and cursing. And you have to ignore it and take aim, control your motions and fire in steady control.
That almost never happens. It is like the scene you laugh at in the movies, where the gun comes up over the windowsill, and just fires at random. The guy in the line behind you at Walmart, who has completely lost his mind over the number of things in the basket in the Express Line, he is going to just calm down and pop that pesky Haaji firing a Kalishnikov, with his really cool Duck Commander camo .40 cal. It doesn't work.
Pray for all of America, that we do not have the nightmare of our concerned and armed citizens out to protect us from some force with training and weapons and discipline. Most can't reliably shoot at a deer running away, much less a man firing at them. I wish we would think about these things with logic and gravity, not bravado and ignorance. We act like if we have some more folks carrying pistols in their belt, there will be material differences in the loss of life. And we think it will happen in the wrong direction. We are going to see more.
If we want to fight international terrorism, then we need to go to war. You are going to need a whole bunch more Army. A whole bunch more Marines. A whole bunch more sailors and ships. And even some more Air Force. You are going to need to require your children to not just respect the military, but to serve in it. You are going to have to figure out what Blue and Gold Stars are, and it sucks to know that personally. You are going to have to get some skin in the game, get involved and invested.
Because if you choose to vote for any of these idiots that are convinced we are going to be able to fight this war like things stand, you are insane. You saw how that worked when GBII was in office. If you elect one of these fools, and they succeed in actually getting what they are braying about, we are going to end up with 10-12 million in uniform, destroying large swaths of SW Asia, Africa and Indonesia. We are going to be fighting a more intractable, determined and embedded foe than we saw in WWI or WWII or Vietnam. It will be bloody, horrific and full of civilian casualties. It will require fire bombing like we did in Germany and Japan. It will be civilians and combatants, because they are permanently embedded.
Wake up America. This is not Lone Ranger and Tonto time. Please, stop talking about how our civilians, even more heavily armed, are going to somehow make this better, in terms of terrorism. (You could stop talking about it for all other kinds of crime, because it is never going to be a viable answer, unless we require military training like Israel, so we know how to actually use the weapon.) But, in terms of terrorism, it would be way better if we did not try to return fire on the active shooter, but put our efforts into understanding our surroundings, building survival plans that involve flight and hide.
We have almost completely given the military over to those that are economically depressed. Those with money, influence, and public voice, their children are not serving. They are not serving. They don't know anyone personally that dies overseas. They don't know anyone personally that is missing an arm or leg. They don't have friends that are gone, but still here, because of traumatic brain injury.
It is easy to sound like a bad ass, when you don't know what it means. It is easy to isolate your senses, when you have no sense of what is involved. It is easy to talk and point and gesture. But it rings hollow, when it is about those other folks, not your folks. We better stop play acting over picking our leaders, and find some folks that know what leadership is and means.
And, for the record, leadership is not the crap coming out of Clinton, Sanders, Trump, Cruz, Carson's mouths. None of them, and the wouldn't know leadership if it smacked them in the mouth for trying to have a talk at the adult table. Sorry to be so righteous about this. But, a whole crop of people with no stake what so ever in the outcome are vying for another shot at doing it wrong and not even in keeping with America's principles and freedoms.
I just see and read people that I assume should know better, but they don't. I make that assumption because I do, and I didn't learn it playing Call of Duty on an Xbox. You cannot learn it playing Call of Duty or Halo. And you can't learn it by osmosis. It takes dedication and determination. Which one of the clap trap do you think is actually going to be dedicated to this task, this learning, this requirement? The Clinton? The Socialist? The Megalomaniac? The Narcissist? Or the Autisitc?
We better grow up before we watch the Sears Tower collapsing and have to start all over again. That is all for this topic.
God loves you and so do I. God does not love America, nor does he much care to bless America, if we don't figure out how to do better for ourselves. God is never going to care about our kingdom, just His. He cares for all of our citizens, and all of their citizens. We don't get a holier than thou card to play, because we don't want to figure out how to do this correctly.
No comments:
Post a Comment