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

Franz Gayl Needs Your Help

UPDATE from POGO - 17 November 2011:

"The Marine Corps whistleblower who exposed the Department of Defense's (DoD) delay in providing troops with Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles (MRAPs) has received notice that he can return to work, ending a four-year ordeal in which he had lost his security clearance and faced the loss of his job.

The Navy’s decision (the Marine Corps is within the Navy) to reinstate Gayl’s security clearance came after the Office of Special Counsel (OSC) intervened in the case in October by asking the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) to stay a decision to give Gayl, a Marine Corps science advisor, an indefinite suspension without pay. Gayl's decision in 2007 to tell Congress and the public about the delays in providing troops the heavily armored MRAPs forced the DoD to speed up production of the vehicles and, as a result, likely saved the lives of thousands of troops and prevented serious injuries to many thousands more.

In its request to the MSPB, the OSC cited a petition that the Project On Government Oversight (POGO) and the Government Accountability Project (GAP) had submitted to Defense Secretary Leon Panetta. Nearly 4,000 people signed the joint POGO/GAP petition. The OSC agreed with petitioners that “there are reasonable grounds to believe” Gayl's suspension violates the Whistleblower Protection Act.

The MSPB issued a 45-day stay on Oct. 13 to give the OSC time to investigate whether Gayl had been retaliated against. After Gayl blew the whistle, he lost his security clearance, which kept him from returning to work. His attorneys at GAP argued that the indefinite suspension without pay was a way to "starve him out" of the Marine Corps.

"As former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates noted, thousands and thousands of Marines owe their lives and safety to the brave actions of Franz Gayl," POGO Executive Director Danielle Brian said. "What Gayl has endured is a gross injustice. It's not the way this country should treat its heroes and only underscores the need for Congress to immediately pass the Platts-Van Hollen Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act of 2011."

Gayl issued the following statement through GAP:

“I want to express my deepest thanks to all who have supported me throughout this ordeal. It goes without saying that absent the continuous advocacy of GAP and POGO, I would have been forced from government service years ago. However, the Office of Special Counsel (OSC) under the inspiring leadership of Carolyn Lerner has been the godsend that enabled this recent turn-around. OSC's determination to request a stay, and the MSPB's willingness to support it, allowed enough time for the Department of the Navy to deliver a considered and favorable security adjudication that now permits me to get back to work. I am as committed as ever to return to my Marine Corps to work hard in support of all Marines in the capacities for which I was hired. Again, without OSC, GAP, POGO, and the MSPB, this renewed opportunity would not be possible!”

According to the Washington Post in the following article, Marine Corps Civilian Scientist, Franz Gayl:

“…..made a name for himself a few years ago as a Marine Corps whistle blower, a civilian scientist who helped push the Pentagon to shift its Iraqi weapons strategy. Senators called him a hero for disclosures that helped get heavily armored vehicles known as MRAPs to the battlefield.

But a few weeks ago, Gayl found himself booted from a room where confidential materials are handled and stripped of his security clearance. His superiors accused him of "a disregard for regulations, a pattern of poor judgment and intentional misconduct" - behavior that they said "indicates you are unreliable and untrustworthy."

The article goes on to explain that incidents sited in the clearance removal decision were not reported officially as security breaches, but were judgement calls on the part of Gayl's immediate superiors, upon whom his disclosures in the whistle blower incident had applied considerable pressure.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/19/AR2010111903475.html?sid=ST2010111903784

The Project on Government Oversight (POGO) has mounted an electronic mail-in campaign to get the decision reversed:

https://secure3.convio.net/pogo/site/Advocacy?pagename=homepage&page=UserAction&id=194&autologin=true

Will the public respond to this project and can we continue to tolerate this kind of behavior on the part of military officials in a bloated Pentagon spending billions of tax payer dollars each year?