Showing posts with label Iraq. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Iraq. Show all posts

Friday, November 02, 2018

How Trump Can Further Show Just What an Extraordinary Military Commander He Is


               There’s a caravan walking at about 2 to 3 miles an hour through Mexico at this moment made up of primarily impoverished families who are escaping the violence and lack of job opportunities in the Central American countries where they are from. Donald Trump is insisting at his rallies, at press conferences, and at brief encounters with reporters outside the White House, that they are a brutal invasion force. They are still over 800 miles from the southeastern border of Texas, but the general direction suggests they are heading toward California which is over 2000 miles from their present location. (They are near a strange place in Mexico that Fox’s Lou Dobbs called ‘Juar-ll-daaaaaaa.' I haven’t been able to find it on a map of Mexico either.) At the rate they are travelling, it will take them at least 2 weeks to a month to reach the U.S. if they come here at all. But to Trump, the danger is now, today, immediately, so he has told Defense Secretary James Mattis to send armed troops…5000, 5200, 10,000, no 15,000…to meet the threat. That’s more than the U.S. has deployed in Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq to fight ISIS.
If you don’t look too closely, the men in that caravan are…(maybe they’re Middle Eastern, who knows?)…of military age, strong and virile (but unarmed, except for some rocks they might be able to throw). Reporters actually travelling with the caravan describe them as mostly thin, underfed young fathers, and teenage boys who are desperately trying to avoid being forced into joining a gang. Trump along with Fox news claims the women are being cowed into marching in the front of this invasion force in order to form a human shield for those men. And even worse, the women are keeping their babies close to themselves, and the young children nestled around them to provide an extra layer of bodies for the mass of terrifying invaders behind them, and those kids are riddled with diseases like smallpox, leprosy, aids, tuberculosis, and even STDs. According to Fox news hosts, Fox news guests, and many Trump supporters, they are all being paid by billionaire George Soros or the Democratic Party. How do they know? They say it is just so obvious and hinting that members of our own congress must also be going down there and urging them on, encouraging them to sweep into the U.S., and make sure to vote for Democrats…so they can rip health care away from law-abiding white Christian Americans, take over our cities, take away all our jobs…and kneel when the National Anthem is played!
These are the dangerous invaders Trump is warning about

From the Oval Office Trump admitted that “nobody knows for sure” whether there are gang members, ISIS soldiers, or Middle Eastern terrorists in among the caravan, but it’s possible…anything is possible. Why he doesn’t say that their pockets are all stuffed with millions in gold coins and they are coming to give it to Americans, free…is unknowable. But isn’t’ that also possible if anything is possible? He says he “tries to tell the truth” but the qualifier is he “tries”, not “does.”
If Trump really thinks this is truly a dangerous invasion force, why doesn’t he use the same tactic that has worked so well for him in the past? The tactic that makes disreputable news anchors wax poetically about how beautiful their launch is, how their use makes him appear more presidential to certain members of Congress, how Ivanka thinks it makes him…I mean, how Melania thinks it makes him more manly and desirable, how the use of them showcases what a strong, powerful, forward-thinking leader he is, all from the safety and comfort of one of his golf resorts?
Launch Tomahawk cruise missiles at them.
Trump insisted that Syria, a country far, far away and no threat to us, deserved to have cruise missiles launched at them…twice. If they were a threat, how much more is a threat just 2000 miles away and getting closer to our border? Since Trump is using the language of war, why not use our weapons of war? Just don’t distract him with a beautiful piece of chocolate cake or he’ll forget at which country he was supposed to launch them. We don’t need to wake up and find we’re now at war with Uruguay because Trump can’t tell the difference between that country and Mexico.
Not just cruise missiles either. Trump has no problem having our military and CIA launching missiles from drones over countries we are not at war with. If U.S. Predators and Reapers can send Hellfire missiles into wedding parties in Pakistan and schools in Yemen, then he can ignore Mexican sovereignty and launch missiles at the migrant caravan, too. Yemen, Pakistan, Mexico…what’s the difference?
But he mustn’t stop there. The world needs to see how tough Trump is. So send U.S. carrier groups into the Gulf of Mexico and down the Mexican Pacific coast to launch air attacks on the caravan. Maybe Trump can even ask for help from the Saudi Arabian Air Force which has lots of experience blowing up kids on buses and in schools in Yemen using U.S. weapons and hardware Trump sold to them. They’ll be able to show our pilots how and where to lay down ordinance to cause maximum damage. U.S. submarines can be included to add their missiles and firepower to the defense of the nation from this dangerous hoard of…poor people trying to escape the same war-like setting in their own countries.
Our F-117s, F-35s, A-10s, B-1s and B-2s can gain valuable experience dropping bombs on them or flying in low and slow and machine gunning them as they are strung out along Mexican roads. Sure, there will be some collateral damage and unintended casualties of Mexicans who happen to be too near a drop zone or target area, but innocent dead Mexicans is the price we have to pay to be free. Last year, Trump claimed he authorized our military in Afghanistan to drop a 21,000-pound non-nuclear bomb called a MOAB onto a suspected terrorist site. It was never confirmed that it was, but that’s immaterial. Plus, two innocent Afghani civilians were killed by it. However, dead Afghanis mean about as much to Trump as dead Mexicans. He can do the same to these violent migrant people. With a blast radius of over a mile, a MOAB will kill a good one-quarter of the first wave and make the rest of them think long and hard about wanting to come to the U.S. for anything.
                   Monkey see...monkey do!
It is certain Trump’s base will love this idea. Nothing makes them happier than to think Trump is killing thousands if not hundreds of thousands of non-white, non-English speaking people. They get giddy with the thought that, even with the massive tax cut that added $1.5 trillion dollars to the national debt - and there’s now GOP talk about gutting Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid to make up for some of that debt - that there’s still plenty of money laying around to throw at a military solution to the immigration issue…specifically these immigrants. What difference does a few billion dollars added to that deficit make if Trump can get a couple thousand dead immigrants out of it?
And as a last resort, if any of them do happen to reach the Rio Grande or the New Mexico, Arizona, or California border, and if they can be goaded into throwing a rock, Trump has ordered the 15,000 deployed soldiers there to consider that a weapon and then can now shoot-to-kill the migrants. Because in Trump’s way of thinking, a hand-thrown rock is as lethal as an AR-15 and deserves the return fire from one. That is what happens when you don’t serve in the military and make wild assumptions based on your feelings.
Military genius such as this can only come from someone who avoided service altogether with five draft deferments, suffered from a painful bone spur (or spurs…who knows for sure) in his foot, has never spent a day in the military, but overcame all that, and, using his vast military school background, has deployed the world’s mightiest military force to kill unarmed immigrants walking toward our southern border. We see this in every great military leader down through history. Leaders like…………..well, they must be there because how else would we know how great a military genius Trump is?
Remember, on June 16, 2016, Trump told Bill O’Reilly on Fox News that “No one is bigger or better at ‘the military’ than I am.”

If these migrants really are part of an invasion force, show us you are up to the task of defending the nation by the application of your Constitutional and presidential powers to stop them. Here is your chance to prove you understand it, Trump.

Saturday, March 01, 2014

Nothing Fails Like Prayer


I received this email Prayer Request from an unknown sender today that said (in red):

When you receive this, please stop for a moment and say a prayer for our troops around the world.

(Apparently, this person thinks mumbling words in your head for a minute or so will convince some supernatural entity that, for the moment, you are sincere about the troop’s well-being. But digging beneath the surface, what it implies is; “Fuck you, troops. I’m too busy talking to myself to do anything more constructive".)

There is nothing attached. Just send this to people in your address book. Do not let it stop with you. Of all the gifts you could give a Marine, Soldier, Sailor, Airman, & others deployed in harm's way, prayer is the very best one.

(This sanctimonious nonsense must have made the originator feel self-satisfied, safe in their own home, far away from any fighting where they don't need to be armed to the teeth to stay alive. Rather than have someone stop for a minute and think a few words about our military personnel, wouldn't those troops prefer to get the hell out of harm’s way, out of the combat zone, or at least have a fully functioning automatic weapon in their hands? If God is going to protect them, wouldn’t it be easier to eliminate the enemy, or eliminate the circumstances for the troops being deployed there? Why not ask for that if you really believe your praying is going to help?) 


Dear Lord, Hold our troops in your loving hands. Protect them as they protect us.  Bless them & their families for the selfless acts they perform for us in our time of need. In Jesus name, amen.
(So, if any of our soldiers, sailors, marines, or airmen get killed from this point on, can we sue God, Jesus, or the person who sent this email, for not honoring that plea? There’s nothing about stopping whatever it is they are there fighting, just begging for protection after our government started the war and sent them over there. And I have to wonder, is that blessing also extended to the soldiers, private contractors, or CIA who have committed crimes against the Afghani and Iraqi civilians?)


MAY GOD BLESS YOU FOR PASSING IT ON!!
(Of course, all capital letters means shouting so that God heard them say it. At least the writer is consistent...May nothing happen to you for forwarding this since you just did nothing for our troops, and now others can do nothing too.)


Believe                                                                 
(When a Muslim or a Hindu tells a Christian to 'believe' in their god, what is their reaction? Also, isn’t ‘believe’ what the people who’ve been abducted by aliens tell us we should do, just believe their story or believe in extraterrestrials?)


The irksome part of this gobbledy-gook is the people who send this junk email around actually believe they are doing God’s work. God isn't aware of this 'need' so they have to act as surrogates for this invisible, non-involved supernatural omniscient/omnipotent/omnipresent thing. This being never instructed them to pray for soldiers fighting in wars their government initiated in faraway places. Look through all the Bible verses you like…which one tells you to do anything close to what they ask in the email above? It’s simple…none. Jesus even supposedly said 'Love your neighbor', not slay your neighbor.

Here’s what ought to scare you if you believe in this God…what if he WANTS all those soldiers, sailors, marines and airmen and women where they are because he has plans to kill them all, or maybe it’s to allow the Taliban or al ’Qaida to win and show the people that Allah is the right God? 

Prayer…Jehovah already knows what you want, right?…So now he just want to hear you beg? That’s one hell of a god you believe in.

Saturday, August 31, 2013

Like it or not, Syria is NOT our problem


What is it with the American government, its covert services, and military? Have we done such an admirable and praiseworthy job in Afghanistan, and left a stable, peaceful, and democratic situation behind in Iraq, that we now want to put that same expertise to work in Syria? And drag other unwilling nations into the quagmire with us? Has the summer heat finally gotten to our politicians and military leaders? I’m asking a lot of questions in this post because our politicians and military haven’t.

Why do we need to stop Assad? We don’t do jack about Kim Jong Un in North Korea. We don’t do diddley about the daily killings in Somalia, Sudan or the Democratic Republic of Congo. Look how Ahmadinejad is no longer considered a big threat. He’s still making the same noise as before, but we now just consider him a loon, even though his regime has killed hundreds of Iranians. But let Assad gas his own people, (like Saddam did to the Kurds in 1988 while we stood around with our thumbs jammed up our sphincter…Hell, we even helped him.) and suddenly, Obama grows a pair and threatens to take our military into another mess.
Haven’t U.S. politicians learned anything? Do they understand what George Santayana meant when he said “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”? This is the information age, and we’re swamped with information technology, so It’s not like the facts and statistics from past U.S. misadventures isn’t available, in an easy-to-read second grade level format (which is the right level for our Congress and administration), So how are they missing the warning signs to stay clear of Syria? Does the president think he has a great relationship with Vladimir Putin and can talk the Russians into staying on the sidelines? Didn’t John Kerry learn anything about the misapplication of the U.S. military when he served in Vietnam? Are Syria’s friends in the Middle East (and there are several) just going to lets us walk in and beat up Assad? Does our military think that we’ll only lose a few thousand of our men and women in uniform when we go up against a well-armed military with state-of-the-art Russian hardware, unlike those backwoods tribal yahoos armed with second-rate black market weapons in Afghanistan that have cost us a couple thousand casualties? Those Afghani bumpkins have been easy to subdue in the past ten years; so no doubt, the Syrians will be a pushover.
Oops, wrong target!
We’ll play it safe and initiate combat by using our Predators and other drones to selectively take out the people who are deemed the biggest threats…which has worked so well in Pakistan, Yemen and Afghanistan with no collateral damage to come back and haunt us. And when that doesn’t resolve anything, we’re going to put U.S. troops on Syrian soil…to do what? How will we tell friend from foe? And getting involved in Syria’s civil war will benefit us how? How many American lives is this effort worth? When were we given the badge, and the task, to be the world’s policemen? Team America: World Police was meant to be a crude, funny movie, not the way the U.S. really operates. And naturally, with our superpower status and vibrant economy, we’ve got plenty of money to pour down the Syrian rat hole.
Those who think we as a country need to ‘man up’ and get involved in the Syrian mess should be in the first invasion wave and put their money (and their lives) where their mouth is. Senator Bill Nelson (D-Florida), if you REALLY believe we need to go into Syria to stop Assad from killing his own people, I want to see YOU in uniform, leading the troops in the front line with your bayoneted rifle poised to kill the first Syrian who challenges you. And take John Kerry and Obama with you!