War Weary, Pandemic-Strapped America and Its Soldiers

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As the pandemic-strapped U.S. continues into a second decade of the war on terror and a new war on COVID 19  our citizens and our volunteer military are growing disinterested in warfare and focused on re-aligning our priorities.  

The Military Industrial Complex (MIC) has made grand strides in technology, spending billions on new air craft and naval vessels, cyber warfare tools and sensors, while we have downsized combat soldiers to stand in the job line or wait for admission to veterans’ hospitals as our health care infrastructure was sacrificed for war profiteering. 

CRITERIA FOR WINNING

“THE ATLANTIC”

“Although no one can agree on an exact figure, our dozen years of war in Iraq, Afghanistan, and neighboring countries have cost at least $1.5 trillion.

Yet from a strategic perspective, to say nothing of the human cost, most of these dollars might as well have been burned. “At this point, it is incontrovertibly evident that the U.S. military failed to achieve any of its strategic goals in Iraq,” a former military intelligence officer named Jim Gourley wrote recently for Thomas E. Ricks’s blog, Best Defense. “Evaluated according to the goals set forth by our military leadership, the war ended in utter defeat for our forces.”

In 13 years of continuous combat under the Authorization for the Use of Military Force, the longest stretch of warfare in American history, U.S. forces have achieved one clear strategic success: the raid that killed Osama bin Laden. Their many other tactical victories, from overthrowing Saddam Hussein to allying with Sunni tribal leaders to mounting a “surge” in Iraq, demonstrated great bravery and skill. But they brought no lasting stability to, nor advance of U.S. interests in, that part of the world.

When ISIS troops overran much of Iraq, the forces that laid down their weapons and fled before them were members of the same Iraqi national army that U.S. advisers had so expensively yet ineffectively trained for more than five years.”

The Tragedy of the American Military 


RISK ASSESSMENT

Our government has not considered the risks, the indigenous cultural impact, the expense and the sacrifices required to sustain the nation building that must occur after we invade countries in pursuit of perceived enemies and place the burden of governance on military personnel who are not equipped to deal with it or manage USAID contractors who have profit motives in mind and corruption as a regular practice.

“POGO”

"Cost-plus contracts have long been criticized by government watchdogs like the Project On Government Oversight and waste-conscious lawmakers. Most recently, incoming Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain (R-AZ) bluntly stated that these contracts are “disgraceful” and should be banned."
  
Your Tax Dollars Defrauded

 THOSE WHO HAVE FOUGHT ASK GOOD QUESTIONS

‘NEW YORK TIMES”

“There are 26 veterans from the United States’ two most recent wars serving in the House and Senate.

Many say their experience in Iraq and Afghanistan taught them that the American military cannot fix what is fundamentally a cultural and political issue: the inability of governments to thwart extremism within their own borders.

Ted Lieu of California, said he would not support giving the president the formal authority he had requested because, like many veterans, he finds it difficult to see how the conflict will ever end.

“The American military is an amazing force. We are very good at defeating the enemy, taking over territory, blowing things up,” said Mr. Lieu, who served in the Air Force and remains in the Air Force Reserve as a lieutenant colonel. “But America has traditionally been very bad at answering the next question, which is what do you do after that.”

Veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan now serving in Congress have emerged as some of the most important voices in the debate over whether to give President Obama a broad authorization for a military campaign against the Islamic State or something much more limiting.”

Veterans in Congress Bring Rare Perspective

NO SKIN IN THE GAME

"THE ATLANTIC"

“A people untouched (or seemingly untouched) by war are far less likely to care about it,” Andrew Bacevich wrote in 2012. Bacevich himself fought in Vietnam; his son was killed in Iraq. “Persuaded that they have no skin in the game, they will permit the state to do whatever it wishes to do.”
 The Tragedy of the American Military

BUYING OUR WAY OUT?

Foreign aid in the billions continues to the Middle East.  US weapons export sales have reached a crescendo, increasing by 31% to 94 countries. with the Middle East receiving the line share.

US Arms Exports Increase 31% 

A single Weapon, the 1.4 Trillion dollar F-35 will soon account for 12% of our total national debt.

The 1.4 $Trillion F-35 Aircraft 

QUOTE BY ERIC PRINCE, EX- CEO BLACKWATER:

“NATIONAL DEFENSE MAGAZINE”

"The world is a much more dangerous place, there is more radicalism, more countries that are melting down or approaching that state." 

At the same time, the Pentagon is under growing pressure to cut spending and the cost of the all-volunteer force keeps rising, Prince said. 

"The U.S. military has mastered the most expensive way to wage war, with a heavy expensive footprint." Over the long run, the military might have to rely more on contractors, as it will become tougher to recruit service members. 

Prince cited recent statistics that 70 percent of the eligible population of prospective troops is unsuitable to serve in the military for various reasons such as obesity, lack of a high school education, drug use, criminal records or even excessive tattoos. In some cases, Prince said, it might make more sense to hire contractors.”

What's Eric Prince Been Up To?

QUESTIONS FOR THE READER:

Did not the Roman Empire run into these issues when they outsourced their wars and went to the baths?

Image: Photolibra

What makes us believe this worldwide war of attrition can continue indefinitely and that our younger generations are going to be willing to enlist and/or pay the bills, especially when our health care is now at the top of the agenda. 

 

Can we insist our government representatives consider these factors and plan ahead?

Future generations, their wealth, health and treasure will depend on our answers.

Memorial Day 2019 - A Combat Vet Talks "Cause and Effect"

A young woman lays down on the grave of U.S. Marine Corps Lance Corporal Noah Pier on Memorial Day at Arlington National Cemetery on May 31, 2010, in Arlington, Virginia.  (Chip Somodevilla via Getty Images)

As we honor our fallen this Memorial Day, an observer of our military actions over the last two decades in the Middle East could in no way have predicted the splintered, irrational, “Turn-Your-Back-And-You-Have-Two-New-Enemies”, scenario the US faces today. Perhaps a look back over our shoulder, examining cause and effect relationships along the road is in order.

CAUSE:  The US fights a just and honorable war assisting many Middle East allies and other countries free Kuwait.

EFFECT:  Saddam Hussein is driven from Kuwait and the country is returned to its rightful government.

CAUSE:  The US does not leave the Middle East after rescuing Kuwait, but rather, stays in peripheral countries militarily “To Protect Our Interests” with an imperialist attitude resented by cultures that have an ingrained,religious hatred for that type of presence by foreigners.

EFFECT:  The rise of Bin Laden and many more like him today and the deaths of 3,000 Americans on our soil, attacked in our homeland because we did not leave the Middle East. 

CAUSE:  The US reacts to 911 by setting up an elaborate Homeland Security apparatus and beefing up the National Security Agency by orders of magnitude, technologically, while putting in place a carefully concealed legal apparatus to counter terrorism.

EFFECT: The US has no outside terrorist incidents of a 911 magnitude since the Twin Towers fell in 2001 but Americans develop real concerns about our government and its role in controlling our lives as whistle blower disclosures regarding the apparatus of intelligence operation reveal potential constitutional issues.

CAUSE:  The US invades Iraq fed by false, intentionally staged intelligence, fronted by agencies and industries bent on economic gain. The US sets about war fighting and nation building programs that seek to displace a culture that had evolved through conflict and war lords for hundreds of years and is tied to the absolute requirement that religious practices be part and parcel of government, a principle the US has rejected as unworkable since our Constitution was written

EFFECT:  Failure to build anything substantial in the form of a nation over a 17 year period.  The deaths or crippling of our finest soldiers, dramatic increases in our national debt and a cynicism among our citizens with respect to the $Billions that have gone into the pockets of corporations supporting our huge Military Industrial Complex (MIC) and wasteful USAID Programs by companies that spend more lobbying Congress than they pay in taxes.

CAUSE:  The present Middle East unrest due to ISIS/ISIL and other splinter groups we thought had been scattered to the winds. 

EFFECT:  UN security council meets with many nations talking and less than a half dozen nations carefully and selectively participating in an air war against terrorism while the remainder watch the outcome.   Our military and corporate defense establishment (MIC) shout, “Sequestration to reduce military spending must end!” and estimates more years will be required with more American boots on the ground to train forces that we had already trained for a decade and provide "Stability"). 

CAUSE (PROJECTED):  A political battle like none seen in recent times during the coming US national  elections, driven by concerned American citizens and their view of the US role in the Middle East. As our burgeoning National Debt Clock approaches $23 Trillion the culture in that part of the world has had a very difficult time figuring out how we can help while we near energy independence from oil and require some nation building of our own in the homeland. 

EFFECT (PROJECTED): A leader and a political climate that will permit prudence, tough decisions, carefully avoidance of bad intelligence and overreaction so that we do not continue to sink into the oil and blood soaked desert of Middle East cultural revolutions. 

Global corporations will then cease consuming the MIC and USAID tax payer dollars to prosper, while parking their assets overseas as our young become indebted for generations.



Image: usf.edu/florida

What Mark Thompson Has Learned Covering the Military for 40 Years

Image:  “Otherwords.org”

“Scant public interest yields ceaseless wars to nowhere”

“Straus Military Reform Project – Center for Defense Information at POGO”

“It turns out that my spending four years on an amusement-park midway trying to separate marks from their money was basic training for the nearly 40 years I spent reporting on the U.S. military.

Both involve suckers and suckees. One just costs a lot more money, and could risk the future of United States instead of a teddy bear.

But after 15 years of covering U.S. defense for daily newspapers in Washington, and 23 more for Time magazine until last December, it’s time to share what I’ve learned. I’m gratified that the good folks at the nonpartisan Project On Government Oversight, through their Straus Military Reform Project, are providing me this weekly soapbox to comment on what I’ve come to see as the military-industrial circus.

As ringmaster, I can only say: Boy, are we being taken to the cleaners. And it’s not so much about money as it is about value. Too much of today’s U.S. fighting forces look like it came from Tiffany’s, with Walmart accounting for much of the rest. There’s too little Costco, or Amazon Prime.

There was a chance, however slight, that President Trump would blaze a new trail on U.S. national security. Instead, he has simply doubled down.

We have let the Pentagon become the engine of its own status quo.

For too long, the two political parties have had Pavlovian responses when it comes to funding the U.S. military (and make no mistake about it: military funding has trumped military strategy for decades). Democrats have long favored shrinking military spending as a share of the federal budget, while Republicans yearn for the days when it accounted for a huge chunk of U.S. government spending. Neither is the right approach. Instead of seeing the Pentagon as the way to defend against all threats, there needs to be a fresh, long-overdue accounting of what the real threats are, and which of those are best addressed by military means.

The Defense Department’s Quadrennial Defense Review, which is supposed to do just that every four years, has become an engine of the status quo. The Pentagon today is little more than a self-licking ice cream cone, dedicated in large measure to its growth and preservation. 

Congress is a willing accomplice, refusing to shutter unneeded military bases due to the job losses they’d mean back home. The nuclear triad remains a persistent Cold War relic (even former defense secretary Bill Perry wants to scrap it), with backers of subs, bombers and ICBMs embracing one another against their real threat: a hard-nosed calculus on the continuing wisdom of maintaining thousands of nuclear weapons on hair-trigger alert.

Unfortunately, it’s getting worse as partisan enmity grows. It’s quaint to recall the early congressional hearings I covered (Where have you gone, Barry Goldwater?), when lawmakers would solemnly declare that “politics stops at the water’s edge.” The political opposition’s reactions to Jimmy Carter’s failed raid to rescue U.S. hostages held in Iran in 1980 that killed eight U.S. troops, and to the loss of 241 U.S. troops on Ronald Reagan’s peacekeeping mission in Beirut in 1983, was tempered.

But such grim events have been replaced Hillary Clinton’s Benghazi and Donald Trump’s Jan. 29 special-ops raid in Yemen. Rancid rancor by both sides cheapens the sacrifice of the five Americans who died. It only adds a confusing welter of new rules designed to ensure they aren’t repeated. 

Yet mistakes are a part of every military operation, and an unwillingness to acknowledge that fact, and act accordingly, leads to pol-mil paralysis. It’s amazing that the deaths of Glen Doherty, William “Ryan” Owens, Sean Smith, Chris Stevens and Tyrone Woods seem to have generated more acrimony and second-guessing than the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, in which 6,908 U.S. troops have died.

There is today a fundamental disconnect between the nation and its wars. We saw it in President Obama’s persistent leeriness when it came to the use of military force, and his successor’s preoccupation with spending and symbolism instead of strategy. In his speech to Congress Feb. 28, Trump mentioned the heroism of Navy SEAL Owens, but didn’t say where he died (Yemen). Nor did he mention Afghanistan, Iraq or Syria, where nearly 15,000 U.S. troops are fighting what Trump boldly declared is “radical Islamic terrorism.”

But he did declare he is seeking “one of the largest increases in national defense spending in American history.” His $54 billion boost would represent a 10% hike, and push the Pentagon spending, already well beyond the Cold War average used to keep the now-defunct Soviet Union at bay—even higher.

“We are going to have very soon the finest equipment in the world,” Trump said from the deck of the yet-to-be-commissioned carrier Gerald R. Ford on Thursday in Hampton, Va. “We’re going to start winning again.” What’s surprising is Trump’s apparent ignorance that the U.S. military has had, pound-for-pound, the world’s finest weapons since World War II. What’s stunning is his apparent belief that better weapons lead inevitably to victory. There is a long list of foes that knows better.

It’s long past time for a tough look at what U.S. taxpayers are getting for the $2 billion they spend on their military and veterans every day. It would have been great if Trump had been willing to scrub the Pentagon budget and reshape it for the 21st Century. But the U.S. has been unwilling to do that ever since the Cold War ended more than 25 years ago. Instead, it simply shrunk its existing military, then turned on a cash gusher following 9/11.

I know many veterans who are angered that their sacrifice, and that of buddies no longer around, have been squandered in Afghanistan and Iraq.

I recall flying secretly into Baghdad in December 2003 with then-defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld. The bantam SecDef declared on that trip that the U.S. military had taken the “right approach” in training Iraqi troops, and that they were fighting “well and professionally.”

 Last month, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, the fifth man to hold that job since Rumsfeld, declared in Baghdad that the U.S. training of the Iraqi military is “developing very well.” His visit, like Rumsfeld’s 14 years earlier, wasn’t announced in advance.

Even as Army Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster, Trump’s national security adviser, tries to chart a path forward in Iraq, it’s worth remembering that he earned his spurs 26 years ago as a captain in a tank battle with Iraqi forces.

If we’re going to spend—few would call it an investment—$5 trillion fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan (and Syria, and Yemen), don’t we, as Americans, deserve a better return?

The problem is that the disconnect between the nation and its wars (and war-fighters) also includes us:

• Our representatives in Congress prefer not to get their hands bloodied in combat, so they avoid declaring war. They prefer to subcontract it out to the White House, and we let them get away with it.
• Through the Pentagon, we have subcontracted combat out to an all-volunteer force. Only about 1% of the nation has fought in its wars since 9/11. We praise their courage even as we thank God we have no real skin in the game.
• In turn, the uniformed military services have hired half their fighting forces from the ranks of private, for-profit contractors, who handle the critical support missions that used to be done by soldiers. The ruse conveniently lets the White House keep an artificially-low ceiling on the number of troops in harm’s way. We like those lower numbers.
• Finally, we have contracted out paying for much of the wars’ costs to our children, and grandchildren. We are using their money to fight our wars. They’ll be thanking us in 2050, for sure.

Until and unless Americans take responsibility for the wars being waged in their name, and the weapons being bought to wage them, this slow bleeding of U.S. blood and treasure will continue. “We have met the enemy,” another Pogo once said, “and he is us.”

What Mark Thompson Has Learned

2By: Mark Thompson, National Security Analyst

Mark Thompson Profile
Mark Thompson writes for the Center for Defense Information at POGO.

Why is the US Spending So Much Money on Fighting a War that has Claimed so Few US Victims?

                                                     Image:  Sodahead dot com

QUESTION ON QUORA:

"The cost of war is in the trillions.  That type of money could have saved hundreds of thousands of lives in the medical industry or literally millions of lives in the developing world. Why is the US spending so much money on fighting a war that has claimed so few US victims?"

OUR ANSWER:

Aside from the threat of another 911 and the fact that we have lost over 4,000 young soldier’s lives, the real reason is there is money in it for big business and the Military Industrial Complex.  War is a racket. So is occupying under the guise of democracy. People make big money at it and an entire Military Industrial Complex thrives on it.

The details of exactly how this occurs were in a warning by President   Eisenhower as he left office.  His words were very prophetic:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=8y06NSBBRtY#t=76

The Military Industrial Complex (MIC) consists of both the Pentagon and the  contractors that serve it, their  lobbying firms and the politicians who  promote weapons systems,  incursions and services to the government for  profit and gain. 

The MIC has tremendous power, even though it is presently being tested by  Sequestration.   For further details and  specific example of how the MIC has influenced our decision makers and  contributed to the deaths of our finest youth, please see the following:

ABOUT THE MILITARY INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX

It is corrupt and driven by corporate influence:

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2007/03/spyagency200703

 http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2007/11/halliburton200711

It is broken and riddled with incompetence:

http://rosecoveredglasses.blogspot.com/2008/04/us-federal-government-procurement.html

http://rosecoveredglasses.blogspot.com/2007/01/what-american-public-must-know-about.html

A quote many years ago from Major-General Smedley D. Butler: Common Sense (November 1935)

" I spent thirty-three years and four months in active service as a   member of our country's most agile military force---the Marine Corps. I   have served in all commissioned ranks from a second lieutenant to   major-general. And during that period I spent most of my time being a   high-class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street, and for the   bankers, In short I was a racketeer for capitalism

Thus, I helped  make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil  interests in  1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place to live  for the  National City Bank boys to collect   revenues in…. I helped  purify  Nicaragua for the international banking   house of Brown  Brothers in  1909-1912. I brought light to the Dominican   Republic for  American  Sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras   "right" for  American  fruit companies in 1903. In China in1927 I helped   see to it  that  Standard Oil went its way unmolested. During those years  I  had,  as the  boys in the back room would say, a swell racket. I was rewarded  honors,  medals, promotion. Looking back on it, I feel I might have  given Al  Capone a few hints. The best he could do was operate his  racket in three city districts. We Marines operated on three  continents. War Is A  Racket"

The beat goes on today with the KBR's the Lockheed Martins and the other huge corporations supplying and supporting wars.

Every major aerospace company from IBM to Lockheed Martin and Boeing has totally stand-alone divisions that serve as cost centers and pursue monumental interests in the politics of government   and the billions in service contracts that are outsourced there.  This has gone on for years.  I watched it for 3 decades on the inside of these companies.

These companies routinely spend more in lobbying expenses than they pay in income taxes each year. 

http://www.ibtimes.com/30-major-us-corporations-paid-more-lobby-congress-income-taxes-2008-2010-380982 

The interests of these firms is now changing slightly with Sequestration   and many are making acquisitions and marketing services in the Health   Care sectors or escalating their interests in civil aviation, education   and other fields.

If it was too costly to do business with the government, 302,315 companies and  some of the largest corporations in the world would not be involved in it.  See  the  below link to contract awards and amounts in 2010 to large  enterprises: 

 http://www.usaspending.gov/explore?carryfilters=on

Top 10 Contractors FY 2010

1. LOCKHEED MARTIN CORPORATION  -                    $34,288,619,722
2. THE BOEING COMPANY                                          19,358,512,809
3. NORTHROP GRUMMAN CORPORATION                   15,472,742,729
4. GENERAL DYNAMICS CORPORATION                      14,903,216,900
5. RAYTHEON COMPANY                                             14,880,453,061
6. L-3 COMMUNICATIONS HOLDINGS, INC.                     7,629,644,919
7. UNITED TECHNOLOGIES CORPORATION                    7,330,023,190
8. OSHKOSH CORPORATION                                         7,197,520,183
9. SAIC, INC.                                                                  6,595,330,339
10. BAE SYSTEMS PLC                                                 6,587,705,335