Housecleaning in Iraq and Afghanistan - Do They Even DESERVE Our Help?

Eight years ago our military forces were committed to freeing the Iraqi people from the tyranny of Saddam Hussein & Company. Suddenly I find myself wondering, "Did the people of Iraq even desire our help, or did we - once again - just assume the mantle of the Global Police Force?".

The Allied Coalition Forces in Iraq have sacrificed a total of approximately 4,700 ±1% young lives to "free" the Iraqi people. Eight years later we are still there trying to accomplish the task and.or maintain some level of "freedom". And, from the look of things, we may still be there in 2017! Could it be that the majority of Iraqis just don't give a rats ass about our brand of freedom, and just wanted to be out from under Hussein's thumb? Perhaps their idea of freedom is the freedom to be ruled by the Taliban - or some other Islamic fundamentalist concept. The South Vietnamese people had essentially the same situation - and demonstrated the same attitude. The South Vietnamese goverment wanted help holding on, but the people in general didn't seem to care who was running the show, so long as they had their own little farm or rice paddy to work in. And they demonstrated this lack of interest in the way they "fought" against the North Vietnamese. The Iraqi's seem to have a corrupt government (but then, who doesn't?), and military and police forces that are largely in confused disarray! The Iraqi people either don't care, or are content to let the outsiders do all the fighting for them. The battles seem to be primarily composed of western outsiders fighting Arabic outsiders - the "western invaders" vs. the "Islamic incursionists". Where are the Iraqi forces?

Of those roughly 4,700 Coalition Forces lives lost, 4,375 (94%) are the lives of young Americans!

Then we got sucked into Afghanistan chasing Taliban and al Qaeda phantoms. Judging only from the pictures I have seen, Afghanistan has an unearthly appearance about it. There is virtually nothing green in the entire country! It's probably 90% dirt and dirt derivatives -sand, dirt, mud and rocks, occasionally interspersed with rocks, mud, dirt and sand. This desolate landscape looks like it belongs more on the Moon than it does on planet Earth. No wonder their main export is opium... anything else refuses to grow under those conditions! In Afghanistan the figures are 1,533 total Coalition fatalities, with 930 being American deaths (rounds off to 61%).

Why do I have an extremely difficult time believing that the CIA, Britain's MI-5 and MI-6, and Israel's Mossad - supposedly the top intelligence agencies in the free world - have no idea where Osama bin Laden is hiding? How easy can it be to hide a really ugly 6'4" Arab who needs daily dialysis, and is surrounded by a couple of dozen men carrying sub-machine guns? Somebody knows exactly where he is - it's just not profitable enough to divulge that information at this point in time. Since $25,000,000 isn't enough of a reward, money must not be the required currency. What else is there? Political currency is most probably the preferred method of payment... power! Our own intelligence agencies (FBI, CIA, NSA, etc,) are so territorial that they don't even share information between them at the inter-agency level. That being said... how can we be so naive as to expect the exchange of intelligence information at the international level?

So we now have a substantial investment in human lives, as well as an astronomical financial investment in the world's largest sandbox. Investments that the permanent occupants of the region don't seem willing to make themselves! Is that not UNBELIEVABLE? Are we the dumbest people on the planet, or what?

What we seem to have there is the philosophy of our Welfare System on STEROIDS! "Give to those who are incompetent, illiterate, or just too lazy to provide for themselves." We can train their military and police forces - we can teach them the mechanics of democracy. What we cannot do is supersede 1,500 years of culture and religious tradition, nor can we instill in them the desire and the motivation to cast off the shroud of religious and social tyranny in favor of freedom. America's type of freedom is a concept with which the bulk of Arabs have little or no familiarity, and for which they have virtually no respect. The mindset seems to be one of: "To endure the constraints which others force upon you as freedom is strength. To be free to choose those things which make up one's life is surely a sign of weakness."

I support our troops and their efforts wherever they may be deployed. But those deployments can only be successful when there is the full commitment of our government behind them, not some half-assed, namby-pamby political CJ telling the battlefield commanders how they may fight the battle. THEY SHOULD ALWAYS BE ALLOWED TO FIGHT TO WIN! We should have learned that from the Korean "police action"... but we didn't. We should have learned that lesson from Vietnam War... but, apparently we didn't. Politicians (the scum of the Earth) dictated the conditions under which our military commanders would fight. Both encounters were non-victories - and at tremendous cost! Let the warriors do that which they have trained for - fight and win wars, and let the politicians do what they do best - plunder the treasury and nothing! Let the Generals command, and the politicians observe.

The Obama "Rules of Engagement" are basically ridiculous! Rules like these could not possibly be set forth by anybody who wished to win a military confrontation:
There will be no night or surprise searches.
Villages have to be warned prior to searchers.
U.S. soldiers may not fire on the enemy unless the enemy is preparing to fire first.
U.S. forces could not engage the enemy if civilians are present, and troops can fire at an insurgent if they catch them placing an IED but not if they're leaving the site of where they just placed one.

These Rules of Engagement (ROE) are not that far from those given during Vietnam. The idiocy of such "rules" becomes especially clear since the enemy has only one rule - Kill as many of the infidel dogs as you can! I'm surprised there's not a ROE stating:
"You cannot attack if you suspect the enemy has inferior weaponry." or
"You cannot attack if you think the enemy has poor dental hygiene."

A government that does not give it's military complete support will find itself without the support of that military in time of need.

"U.S. Soldier In Iraq Shoots Dead Five Comrades"

A headline from today's Reuters News Service online edition, broadcasts that an Army Sergeant killed five other U.S soldiers at Camp Liberty, "a sprawling military base northeast of Baghdad airport that houses thousands of U.S. troops." The article goes on to say, "The soldier walked into a center for soldiers who are experiencing stress and opened fire, killing the five." A later television news report said that the Sergeant had his weapon taken away from him earlier in the day after an argument, but that he apparently found another one. Exactly where is the surprise in that accomplishment? A soldier in a combat zone, with thousands of other armed personnel around him, managed to access a weapon other than his own... SURPRISE! (As I continue, I will use the term "soldier" as all-inclusive - embracing Army, Navy, Marine and Air Force personnel.)

Where did the soldier do this? "A center for soldiers who are experiencing stress." The initial "guesses" are that he was suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD. Ya THINK? Am I the first person to realize that not everybody, no matter how big and macho they seem, can wrap their mind around the stresses of prolonged combat. I think this is especially true of those who serve multiple tours in a war zone. Many members of our military services have literally "dodged the bullet", and many have also done it more than once.

Would it not be "normal" for a soldier to have a significant increase in apprehension each time he was reassigned to Iraq or Afghanistan? Some soldiers have served three or more tours in those areas of armed confrontation, and they can force themselves to perform the routine physical tasks required of them because those tasks are necessary to their survival. The body continues to function, even as the mind suffers - and in some cases the mind cracks - under the psychological weight of the things that soldier has had to do to protect himself and his friends. A normal person will reconcile those acts under the intellectual heading of "it was him or me", but how and where do those acts get reconciled emotionally... or do they?

Existing in a war zone is something that has to be experienced to be fully understood. The first thing a soldier has to come to grips with is that there is a very distinct possibility that he could be killed at any given instant 24 hours a day. Your first thought now is, "That's true everywhere, not just in a combat zone! I could get hit by a car crossing the street, or slip and fall in the bath, or an elephant could fall out of a tree and come crashing through my roof and kill me." The difference is that the car wasn't aimed at you, your bathtub didn't have a landmine in it, and the elephant was a ridiculous example you just made up to try to put me off my game. Violent, intentional, man-made death - the inhumanity of one person toward another, wantonly extinguishing the life of another human being that you don't even know - is not something we "civilized" folks easily accept on an emotional level, therefore we have to intellectualize it. Seeing human beings reduced to pieces and parts on a routine, day-to-day basis will eventually effect most psyches, the only difference is to what degree.

The other things a soldier in Iraq or Afghanistan must deal with are blisteringly hot 140º summer days, spiders the size of a Frisbee, erratic mail from home, concerns about family, and all the other normal concerns that most people have. To the American soldier serving in that part of the world, sleeping in a tent is often considered a luxury. And, any day nobody that you knew was killed, is a better than average day.

Today at Camp Liberty, there were six victims. Five are dead, and one is at least temporarily lost... even to himself. The stressors were more powerful than was his ability to resist and reconcile them. Tonight six families grieve the result of an unexpected, unreasonable, and totally incomprehensible act, perpetrated by an American soldier against his brothers in arms.

In war there are no winners... the victor simply loses less than the vanquished... and second place doesn't get a red ribbon.

How to End The Conflict(s) In the Middle East ...

Here's a quick fix for the armed conflicts throughout the Middle East! Build one squadron of 'crop dusters' with oversize spray nozzles. Fill their tanks with liquefied bacon grease, and spray the entire Middle East with it. The Muslim faithful will then have to stay indoors, thereby limiting their ability to engage in combat ... and their ability to eat for an extended period! Eventually they will starve to death - problem resolved.
It works for ME!