Ben Franklin warned government with his clever sayings. I expect several would apply to Obama devastating the military ground forces today. We may be saving a few billion dollars now, but is may cost us 100’s of billions in the near future.

The current administration currently plans to reduce US Army ground forces by as much as 20 Brigade Combat Teams. This is the equivalent of 5-6 Divisions. To put this in perspective, this is more combat power than the US had in Iraq at any one time.

So, what does this mean to non military people? It means we cannot sustain a ground battle like Iraq unless the US keeps the troops in theater until the fighting is complete. There will only be enough troops to replace them with no reserve. In the event there is fighting in Korea and somewhere in the middle east, the US will not have the capability to fight and win in both theaters.

While Obama explains he is planning on increasing air and sea power, history has showed that no war has ever been won without taking and holding the ground. Air and sea power project power but cannot by themselves win.

I remember the Carter military reductions. There was no money to maintain the bases. At FT Benning, there was money for painting buildings, but not repairing buildings. Remember the Clinton “peace dividend”? The Democratic Congress and Clinton made major force reductions to pay for domestic programs. A great number of excellent soldiers were released. After 9/11, their expertise was needed but absent.

If the US must fight a foreign war, will there be adequate assets left to defend the homeland? There are currently more than known 80 Hezbollah cells already in the US. Only God knows how many terrorist cells there really are in the US. Can we fight China’s expanding military and the terrorists at home? If the military is so greatly reduced, will there be the capability for them to “defend the country against all enemies foreign and domestic”? Just like the Carter and Clinton administration, it looks like we again are using a strategy that is penny wise and pound foolish!

Worst. President. Ever.

In an ironic counterpoint to the extra-Constitutional power grab he used to get an unlimited new bureaucracy up and running, President Obama popped into the Pentagon on Thursday to announce massive military cuts – grabbing some new cash for social spending by cutting back on one of the few duties Washington is actually supposed to perform.  This will effectively spell the end of the traditional U.S. military doctrine that our armed forces must be able to fight two enemies at once, which is okay, because that has never ever happened before, and anyway the world is nice and peaceful now.

At least we can be confident that America’s potential enemies don’t factor the size of our military into their strategic calculations when they contemplate aggression.  Besides, if we need more troops, we can just hire them real quick, toss them some rifles, and load them into planes.  War is easy nowadays.

…It’s funny how liberals think the military is the one and only sector of the U.S. government that should get “leaner” and more “flexible” or “agile.”  Is there a single other endeavor of the government that Obama thinks could be improved by having fewer federal employees?  Doesn’t the urgency of eliminating men and women in uniform to hit that $450 billion target say something about the high cost of labor that liberals are usually uncomfortable discussing?

Reuters is reporting this is a cut of 10′s of thousands of troops. As John Hayward wrote above, Obama is so naive, so utterly clueless, he believes our wars (and there will be future ones) can be fought long distance….or does he?

In the president’s signing statement issued Saturday in passing into law the fiscal 2012 defense authorization bill, Mr. Obama said restrictions aimed at protecting top-secret technical data on U.S. Standard Missile-3 velocity burnout parameters might impinge on his constitutional foreign policy authority.

As first disclosed in this space several weeks ago, U.S. officials are planning to provide Moscow with the SM-3 data, despite reservations from security officials who say that doing so could compromise the effectiveness of the system by allowing Russian weapons technicians to counter the missile. The weapons are considered some of the most effective high-speed interceptors in the U.S. missile defense arsenal.

There are also concerns that Russia could share the secret data with China and rogue states such as Iran and North Korea to help their missile programs defeat U.S. missile defenses.

Maybe not. I suppose he is just happy knowing we are now no longer a superpower. No longer a threat to anyone. Because then everyone will leave us alone right?

Where will that money go, the money that was supposed to go to the only real job a President has?

To pay for 110,000 unpaid jobs and other entitlement program he can muster up.

In Obama’s world higher taxes creates jobs, throwing free money around makes better citizens, and a smaller military makes stronger.

Worst. President. Ever.

Open Secrets reveals Ron Paul’s top 3 contributors as being the following:

US Army $24,503
US Air Force $23,335
US Navy $17,432

Unfortunately, this doesn’t really tell us how many individual donors contributed. Isn’t it the case that Open Secrets only counts those (around 11,270) who give $200 or more (FEC- $250?)? I think about a third of donors don’t bother listing their workplace on their contribution form. And a combined $65,000 in military campaign donations accounts for very little as a percentage of the millions that the Paul campaign has raised.

In 2008, much was made by the Paul Bearers regarding military contributions (supposedly) going to Ron Paul. The same thing is happening again:

A posting on his campaign website the same day he appeared on “NewsHour” sheds a little light. Headlined “Ron Paul Campaign Raises Most Donations From Military,” it says that Paul has “raised more than any other current presidential candidate in donations from members of the military. Of those donors who indicated their occupation and employer, Paul topped the other contenders.”

Back in 2008, I blogged the following:

Paul: Absolutely. The real question you have to ask is why do I get the most money from active duty officers and military personnel?

(Applause)

Is he talking about “donors identified as affiliated with the military,”?

Like everything else Ron-con-related, I believe he is spinning the results of this.

As the reporter in the Houston Chronicle says,

“many contributors do not disclose their occupations, making it difficult to determine the total extent of military contributions to any one candidate.”

More importantly, the amount of contributions are incredibly small, hardly proving much of anything. Beth adds in the Outside the Beltway comment section:

Also not understood by the obsessed Paulbots and other assorted antiwar nutters: the fact that “military employees” includes civil service employees of the various services. That means a GS-7 who works at Whatever Air Force Base in BFE, Idaho has their employer listed as “Air Force.” For all we know, not one of those people is someone in uniform. I’m sure there are some, but it certainly is not all, nor is it indicative of some big antiwar sentiment in the military. For Paultards and Sullivan to extrapolate that idea from this is laughably absurd.

Furthermore, if one compares the 3rd Quarter statistics of Paul and McCain regarding the contribution amounts of those who do not list their employer, 100 dollars worth was given to Ron Paul’s coffers, compared to that of McCain’s: 2,244,223.39. Out of all of that money, how much of that could have been donated by active and retired veterans? Or “Affiliates” of the military? We don’t know. But it seems clear, by the paltry $100 given by the person(s) not listing employment, that the Ron Paul supporters are overwhelmingly listing their employment when making contributions.

Michael Goldfarb at The Weekly Standard writes,

among all the candidates, the total number of contributors surveyed here numbered less than 1,000–out of an Armed Forces of 2.2 million. And, remember, most of these contributors aren’t even active duty.

So yes, Andrew [Sullivan], those tasked with fighting this war do get it, which is why they aren’t donating to Paul. The only real report we have on political contributions from active duty military in this election cycle has Paul taking in just over $19,000, and that’s only counting donations larger than $200. So, maximum, we’re talking about 90 active duty soldiers who we know have actually contributed to Ron Paul’s campaign. The rest is pure speculation, and the Chron‘s tally of $63,440, with its average of $500 per donation, is unlikely to be populated by many of the guys who are “actually fighting this war.”

I have no doubt a number of active and retired military support Ron Paul and are attracted by what he seems to represent: Limited government and fiscal responsibility, conservative use of our military, and apparent loyalty to the Constitution, channelling the will of our Founding Fathers. That’s a seductive message for many Americans- especially the patriots willing to have their blood spilled on behalf of our country.

As this NYTimes piece notes:

Mr. Paul’s national security positions draw raves from many veterans, students and others who believe his noninterventionism would curtail a dangerous trend toward military adventurism and strengthen America’s influence and prestige while diverting resources to pay down the national debt. In interviews at Paul campaign events this week, many said they embraced his national security proposals, rather than reluctantly accepting them.

“He would get us out of our difficulties overseas,” said Tony Snook, a retired Army sergeant first class wounded in a rocket attack in Basra, Iraq, in 2007 who came to a raucous Paul rally that drew 500 people on Wednesday night in Des Moines. “You should choose your fights wisely,” he said. “If it’s not there, don’t invent something, don’t shed blood needlessly.”

But I think it’s a slick bit of propaganda for him and his supporters to push the Paul Reverist meme that the majority of those who actively serve (and those inactive) are overwhelmingly pulling the lever for an ArPee presidency (The NYTimes article itself admits there’s no way to actually verify the claim).

His passionate and energetic (as well as cult-like followers) supporters are the same rabid enthusiasts who manipulate straw polls and who in 2008 fervently defended their Constitutional Messiah whenever and wherever he was disparaged across the blogosphere (FA had a lot of fun back then, stirring up the Ronulans with one anti-ArPee post after another):

First, none of the hype about Ron Paul ever translates in to reality and actual wins. Much hype is made of his straw poll wins, online poll wins, text in poll wins.Did any of this translate in to any election wins? NO! It was all smoke and mirrors hype.

It would follow that all of this is hype too. All part of the Paulbot scheming attempts to create the aura that Ron Paul is contending and winning.

Maybe Ron Paul does garner a lot of supporters from our military. But it’s not provable. We only have flawed and incomplete (easily manipulable) records and anecdotal evidence (driven by vocal and passionate activist supporters) to go by.

U.S. Army Corporal Jesse Thorsen, right, cheers on GOP presidential candidate Texas Rep. Ron Paul, left, in Ankeny, Iowa, on Tuesday

Full disclosure: I’m a Paul supporter. I say that as an American, not as a representative of any armed force. I don’t agree with everything he thinks, but I believe in the Constitution and THAT is my thermometer for judging candidates. Only because I know how the political system works can I not be worried about his crazy thoughts that I don’t agree with. But, this post isn’t about whether or not Paul is a good candidate or would make a good president. I’m not going to argue that.

There are things that Ron Paul and his supporters are doing that are simply beginning to get under my skin. He is using the military to further his political ambitions, even though he wants to gut us. In a recent campaign flyer, Paul used an image of troops that appear to either be in a combat zone or a training environment; doesn’t matter, the troops were in uniform.

Department of Defense Directive 1344.10 specifically states:

A member of the Armed Forces on active duty may…register, vote, and express a personal opinion on political candidates and issues, but not as a representative of the Armed Forces…[and may]…Attend partisan and nonpartisan political fundraising activities, meetings, rallies, debates, conventions, or activities as a spectator when not in uniform and when no inference or appearance of official sponsorship, approval, or endorsement can reasonably be drawn.
…
A member of the Armed Forces on active duty shall not…Attend partisan political events as an official representative of the Armed Forces, except as a member of a joint Armed Forces color guard at the opening ceremonies of the national conventions of the Republican, Democratic, or other political parties recognized by the Federal Elections Committee or as otherwise authorized by the Secretary concerned.

Now, having read what I quoted above (or what you read if you went to the entire link), take a look at this recent campaign flyer Paul sent out:

These guys are obviously in the military as their all wearing the OCP (Operation Enduring Freedom Camouflage Pattern) uniform. They also appear to be in a tent, which furthers the assumption that these guys are representing the Army. One could easily argue that these Soldiers didn’t know the photo would be used in a campaign flyer and that they did nothing wrong. Fine, but then there is this interview of Army Reserve Combat Engineer CPL Jesse Thorsen out of Des Moines, Iowa that is a BLATANT violation:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Look, I got that a lot of troops support. I’m one of them. But, we don’t need to be getting stupid with it. It’s like we’re Paul’s personal shock troops. He’s a man that doesn’t make you immune from punishment for violating the rules. These Soldiers can’t use the weekend warrior excuse if they’re wearing the uniform. Once you put that uniform on, you represent the United States Army, whether you’re National Guard, Army Reserve, or active status.

After this interview, Paul invited Thorsen onstage and explain why Thorsen support the candidate…IN UNIFORM! Paul should know better than that. There is nothing wrong with Thorsen working on Paul’s campaign since he’s a reservist, but doing the interview and then appearing on stage with the candidate in uniform was a blatant violation. And it looks like he’ll justly be punished for it:

Army reservist who appeared in uniform on national television in support of Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul during Tuesday’s Iowa caucuses could face harsh penalties from the Defense Department for violating military rules against politicking.

Service officials confirmed Wednesday that they are looking into possible violations of the department’s rules governing troops’ political participation by Cpl. Jesse Thorsen, an Iowa-based reservist.

My buddy, Joel Arends, from Veterans for a Strong America, weighed in as well.

“We need troops and veterans at the table, and we need them to be part of the election process,” he said. “But we don’t need troops to be violating regulations. It’s all about common sense, and most troops understand that we cannot mix the use of a military uniform with political campaigns.”

Ironically, I was debating with Joel just a couple of days about about the flier above when he sent out a press release criticizing it. We ended up agreeing on most of the violations, but now that I’m talking about it publicly I want him to know I support his efforts to expose what Paul is doing wrong in using troops to further his campaign objectives.

Disclaimer: These are my opinions and my opinions alone. I support Ron Paul as an American from Texas, not as a representative of any Armed Force or government. If you don’t like my opinion or my voting preferences, sucks to be you. Take out your pacifier and put on some big boy shoes. Welcome to greatest country on earth: The United States of America!

Well now we see the results of our President leaving Iraq. The mission wasn’t complete but when one only cares about his re-election, about himself to be more accurate, then completing the mission doesn’t enter into the equation.

And the Iraqi’s are paying for our President’s selfish behavior:

A wave of bombings ripped across Baghdad on Thursday morning, killing at least 63 people and injuring almost 200 in the worst violence Iraq has seen for months. The bloodbath comes just days after American forces left the country.

The blasts also came on the heels of a political crisis between Iraq’s Sunni and Shiite factions that erupted this weekend.

The political spat has raised fears that Iraq’s sectarian wounds will be reopened during a fragile time when Iraq is finally navigating its own political future without U.S. military support.

Without our backing this country WILL disintegrate. But Obama based his decision to pull out because of politics, not the future of the Iraqi people.

And those thousands of American troops will have died in vain.

A leading Iraqi politician has accused the country’s prime minister of acting like Saddam Hussein in trying to silence opposition, saying he risks provoking a new fightback against dictatorship.

Iyad Allawi — a former prime minister who leads the Sunni-backed Iraqiya bloc — also claimed the United States had pulled out its troops “without completing the job they should have finished.”

Allawi said that the current premier, Nuri al-Maliki, had used fabricated confessions to demand the arrest of the country’s Sunni Muslim vice president, Tareq al-Hashemi.

…Iraq sits on a sectarian, Sunni-Shiite faultline that is generating conflict throughout the region, notably between Iran and Sunni-ruled Arab states like Saudi Arabia. While the overthrow of Saddam in Iraq bolstered Shiites, the uprising against Iran’s Syrian ally President Bashar al-Assad could lead to power in Damascus shifting toward Syria’s Sunni majority.

“The rise of sectarianism is already there,” Allawi said. “We are witnessing the beginning of it and the influences of what is happening in the region is only adding fuel to the fire. My fear is that the Iraqi people will lose faith in the political process and sectarianism will prevail.

“Unless the international community and the region get involved and unless sense prevails, Iraq is heading towards a very big conflict.”

Krauthammer:

U.S. Army Sgt. 1st Class Alpi ReyesCruz, who is from the Dominican Republic, waits for his ride on Combat Outpost Herrera Dec. 2. Reyes, an infantry soldier by trade, was finishing up a seven-month deployment as the Army Research, Development and Engineering Command's science and technology advisor for Regional Command East. The assignment took him all over the region, usually by himself, to document improvements soldiers wanted in their equipment. Once documented, he would relay the information back to the States where prototypes would be made and sent into theater for real-world trials before being mass produced and officially issued.

I went to the PX yesterday looking for some boot laces for one of our Wounded Warriors. His uniforms and boots had to be cut off. So, he has boots, but no laces.

Half the shelves were empty with little signs that begged for patience as “we are experiencing logistical supply shortages due to the blockade in Pakistan.”

Kabul is pissed because the ‘Merican drawdown will result in something like a $14BN loss to their economy. Their economy has seen roughly 11% annual growth over the last 5 years.

In other news, Pakistan has blocked ISAF trucks from crossing Torkham gate from Pakistan into Afghanistan. These trucks provide the majority of our equipment and life support. The Pakis are demanding something like $1750 per truck to be allowed transit, and there are currently over 1000 trucks stuck there (and as they are sitting there, they get pilfered, and attacked by Taliban). These are contracted vehicles, so the drivers are just as likely as not to say “screw it” and leave, with or without their payloads; and even if they stay, we pay them extra for their trouble.

Pakistan is literally holding needed supplies and trying to keep our forces hostage. These are, if you’ll recall, the same “partners” in the war on terror who didn’t know (*ahem*) bin Laden was living right outside their version of the war college. We kill bands of insurgents every day, and if they are anywhere near the border, Pakmil suddenly claims they were Pakistani forces. Even though we clear any kinetic strikes close to the border (within 4km on our side) through the Pakistan military liaison.

Can we please tell India that they are welcome to go jack Pakistan up? I get that Pakistan is a nuclear power, so we can’t exactly bully them, but last I checked, we a) have ICBMs, and they don’t; b) are the only country to ever use nukes in warfare; and c) already have an Army sitting on their border. Any commander in chief with balls would just order one or two of his brigades to seize OUR, taxpayer-provided equipment, and transport it into Afghanistan, with ROE that clearly states to remove any obstacles to that movement. Then, we would cut all funding and diplomatic ties with them, seize any Pakistani owned assets in the US, embargo all of their goods, and sink any ships they have, military or commercial. Just for giggles, we’d then drop bigass bombs all along their border in the “training camps” their military has (which look an awful like insurgent training camps, given that they are full of insurgents training, and not Pakistani military.)

Iraq will become Barack Obama’s Vietnam. Not in the boogieman sense that the left has been using the Vietnam War for the last 40 years where every American use of force is the “next Vietnam” but rather in its aftermath.

The Vietnam War ostensibly ended in ended in early 1973 with the signing of the Paris Peace Accords. The agreement was based upon an agreement by all sides to stop hostile activities and for American troops to depart. The Americans would continue to supply the South Vietnamese military. In addition, the SVN leadership was explicitly assured that were the North Vietnamese to resume hostilities the United States would begin bombing Hanoi and other targets in the North.

Unfortunately for the South Vietnamese, the promises of arms and support were mirages. In 1974 Congress cut military aid to Vietnam from $2.3 billion to $1 billion and then in 1975 to $300 million. Thanks to the Democrat’s Case-Church Amendment, when the North had resupplied and resumed hostilities, the promised US bombing never came. In April 1975 Saigon fell and the South surrendered.

Then came the nightmare. Upwards of a million South Vietnamese found themselves in prisons, “re-education camps” or other tropical outposts where they were treated to starvation, torture and murder. Hundreds of thousands more braved the oceans in order to escape, a quarter of them never reaching shore. The effects of this nightmare reached into Cambodia and Laos as well.

And now there is Iraq.

The war in Iraq was obviously far different from the one in Vietnam. Unfortunately however, the aftermath may be similarly unpleasant.

While Iran will not invade Iraq anytime soon, the country could still become a vassal of the ayatollahs. If Iraq escapes that fate it may well collapse into a civil war that eventually draws not only the involvement of the Iranians, but of the Saudis, the Turks and other neighbors as well. Oh, and, yes, perhaps eventually the Americans again.

However one feels about the war in Iraq in the first place, the manner of the exit ensures one thing, that the American blood and treasure spent toppling Saddam Hussein and seeking to establish a viable democracy in the Middle East will likely be for naught.

Not that Saddam Hussein will be coming back anytime soon, he won’t… but the country he once ruled will likely become a basket case or a failed state.

The writing on the wall has been there for years. Candidate Obama had been a critic of the Surge and President Obama’s only priority in Iraq seemed to be leaving.

Iran was paying close attention. Although they had been heavily arming insurgents and Shia militants during the dark days of 2005-2007, by 2009 their efforts had largely been defeated with the establishment of a fledgling but credible Iraqi government infrastructure.

However, the national elections of 2010 opened the door to Iran once again. Barack Obama was inexplicably a proponent of a laissez faire policy in reference to the dysfunction in the formation of the Iraqi government following the 2010 elections. To anyone looking (and there were many) it was clear that the United States was disengaged and focused on wrapping up the operation.

Such chaos invites the efforts of a strong horse. Iran was willing to play. With an ambiguous constitution and a Chief Justice carrying Prime Minister Maliki’s water, the Iranians became the power brokers behind the new government, forcing Mr. Maliki into a coalition that included the Sadrists, erstwhile insurgents led by cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. This was only possible because of the vacuum left by the Obama administration. Had the Iraqis been confident that the United States would be standing with them until they could stand on their own, there would have been no vacuum for the Iranians to fill.

As things stand today, Iraq sits on a precipice of disaster. Within the last three months terrorist attacks have increased, sectarian infighting has escalated and two of the country’s eighteen provinces have sought semi-autonomous status, seeking to enjoy the autonomy the Kurds enjoy. Other provinces will surely follow. For a country with a weak central government and deep divisions amongst its population, such a centrifugal force is not exactly helpful. This will be particularly problematic as the national government seeks to collect and distribute oil revenues, bolster the power grid and perform other traditional tasks. Apart from the growing separatism at the local level, the federal government is a patchwork of alliances, most of which are held together by Iranian influence. That influence comes in various forms, from their covert (but hardly secret) support of terror groups Khataib Hizballah and Asaib Ahl al-Haqq, who are not only responsible for killing US troops but for targeted assassination across the country, to their overt economic, diplomatic and religious ties. As if to put a cherry bomb on the top of this powder keg, the day after the last American troops left the country, the Shiite-led government issued a warrant for Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi, the country’s highest ranking Sunni official, on terrorism charges.

Of course it did not have to be this way. American Military planners had long sought to leave a force of between 20,000 to 30,000 troops to provide continued security, run counterinsurgency operations and to focus on training of the Iraqi military. Most analysts believed that number was the minimum number necessary to maintain many of the hard fought gains won over the last four years.

While 20,000 troops may sound rather small in terms of maintaining gains achieved in a country of 30 million people, the message they would have sent to the Iraqis, and equally importantly, to the Iranians, would have been crystal clear: The United States will not allow a democratically fragile Iraq to become an battleground of the Middle East or an Iranian puppet.

That however was never Barack Obama’s message. His campaign would later reveal his message: “Ending the War in Iraq: A Promise Kept”

For some perspective, one might observe that leaving sizable troop levels in a theater for a period of time after a conflict in order to maintain hard fought gains is nothing new. A quarter century after the end of WWII there were 260,000 American troops in Germany and today, sixty years after the Korean War there are 30,000 US troops in South Korea. Obviously the Korean peninsula and Western Europe are different than Mesopotamia, but the notion remains that leaving troops to midwife a long term positive outcome is far from foreign. At least to most people not named Barack Obama.

Instead, the message the Iraqis and their neighbors received from the United States was one of detachment driven by a President with little interest in anything other than ending “Bush’s War”. Whereas Bush talked with Prime Minister Maliki on a weekly basis, President Obama spoke with him rarely and not at all between February 13 and October 21 of this year, critical days in the period leading up to the end of the American presence in Iraq.

After months of doing nothing the administration finally proposed in August of this year to leave 3,000-5,000 troops, far below what most believed was necessary to secure the peace. Those numbers, far too small to fulfill its mission did prove helpful to the administration however: it provided a fig leaf behind which it could hide its retreat. This fig leaf came in the form of a lack of immunity for American troops on Iraqi soil. While Mr. Maliki and other members of the government may have been willing to go to the mattresses to secure such immunity for a substantial force that demonstrated a serious American commitment to Iraq, they were not willing to do so for a token force that would provide little support or security. Even that fig leaf was too small to provide true cover because the administration could have easily put any forces in Iraq on the diplomatic rolls, which would have provided such immunity.

At the end of the day, Iraq will be Barack Obama’s Vietnam in the sense that not only will most of the hard fought gains be lost, but there will be thousands who will pay the price for his choice, starting with the innocents who will be caught in the sectarian crossfire. They will not be the only ones however. So too will a price be paid by neighbors who fear an emboldened Iran as well as freedom advocates across the region who might have sought replicate Iraq’s success and build secular, democratic governments. And then there is the world’s confidence in the United States as a long term ally in the fight for regional stability and a bulwark against Iranian intervention.

Of course all of this comes on the heels of another futile round of sanctions seeking to keep the Iranians from developing or delivering a nuclear weapon. Barack Obama has certainly conveyed a message of strength and stability to the region. “Ending the War in Iraq: A Promise Kept” Indeed.

Mario Launi, a WWII veteran who served in the Pacific, will be turning 100 years old on January 26, 2012. He is currently at the Hollidaysburg Lutheran Home, 915 Hickory Street, Hollidaysburg, PA 16648. His family and caregiver have requested the community and all veterans to come together and shower him with cards. So what I am requesting that every patriotic and freedom-loving American in the area join in thanking him for his sacrifices. This will be a small token by letting him know how much we appreciate his selfless and dedicated service.

Thank You so Very Much,

Peggy Lidwell, Ret USA MSG
Service Officer
Post 175
Gallitzin, Pa

Christopher Hitchens 1949-2011, essayist, provocateur, wit, atheist, Brit-American and honest man, passed away on December 15. A Socialist early in life who evolved into a Marxist and eventually into a Conservative Marxist (a distinction he coined), later in life; Hitchens played no favorites and took no prisoners with his writing, he sought victims from both the Left and the Right, using his views of incompetence and dishonesty to guide his sharp critiques of those he eviscerated with indifference and without remorse, but regardless of whether you agreed with him, and he almost always bucked public opinion, he had the ability to make you think.

In this country, we have a phony pantheon of self-proclaimed intellects, starting with the president and his crew of faux intellectuals, but we have a few men who can write, Krauthammer, Sowell, Hanson, Horowitz, Goldberg, men who can write and make you think; Hitchens was among those who have a tremendous grasp of history and can write in a manner that will cause you to think and reconsider. There is a common thread among these writers and several others; they are honest in their opinions and expression. They have not let solipsism become immersed and diverted into proscribed theories of thought and writing that must conform to the party line without deviation or independent thought. No one can say that Hitchens wrote within the boundaries of Leftist drivel that we read in the New York Times or watch on the Main Stream Media. He was honest to his own convictions and was willing to let his thinking evolve when exposed to new evidence.

Hitchens excoriated the Clintons, George Bush, Kissinger, Mother Theresa, Sara Palin, and many others, but he could do it with wit and style.

Typical Hitches in the giddy-up:

“[George W Bush] is lucky to be governor of Texas. He is unusually incurious, abnormally unintelligent, amazingly inarticulate, fantastically uncultured, extraordinarily uneducated, and apparently quite proud of all these things.” – Hardball with Chris Matthews, NBC, 2000

“‘Bombing Afghanistan back into the Stone Age’ was quite a favourite headline for some wobbly liberals. The slogan does all the work. But an instant’s thought shows that Afghanistan is being, if anything, bombed OUT of the Stone Age.” – Daily Mirror, November 2001

“The noble title of ‘dissident’ must be earned rather than claimed; it connotes sacrifice and risk rather than mere disagreement …”

“Do bear in mind that the cynics have a point, of a sort, when they speak of the ‘professional naysayer’.” “To be in opposition is not to be a nihilist. And there is no decent or charted way of making a living at it. It is something you are, and not something you do.” – Letters to a Young Contrarian, 2001

“[Mother Teresa] was not a friend of the poor. She was a friend of poverty. She said that suffering was a gift from God. She spent her life opposing the only known cure for poverty, which is the empowerment of women and the emancipation of them from a livestock version of compulsory reproduction.” – Slate, October 2003

“The search for nirvana, like the search for utopia or the end of history or the classless society, is ultimately a futile and dangerous one. It involves, if it does not necessitate, the sleep of reason. There is no escape from anxiety and struggle.” – Love, Poverty, and War: Journeys and Essays, 2004

“Those who had alleged that a million civilians were dying from sanctions were willing, nay eager, to keep those same murderous sanctions if it meant preserving Saddam!” – The Weekly Standard, May 2005.

“The Bible may, indeed does, contain a warrant for trafficking in humans, for ethnic cleansing, for slavery, for bride-price, and for indiscriminate massacre, but we are not bound by any of it because it was put together by crude, uncultured human mammals.” – God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, 2007

“My own view is that this planet is used as a penal colony, lunatic asylum and dumping ground by a superior civilisation, to get rid of the undesirable and unfit. I can’t prove it, but you can’t disprove it either.” – God Is Not Great

“The only position that leaves me with no cognitive dissonance is atheism. It is not a creed. Death is certain, replacing both the siren-song of Paradise and the dread of Hell. Life on this earth, with all its mystery and beauty and pain, is then to be lived far more intensely: we stumble and get up, we are sad, confident, insecure, feel loneliness and joy and love. There is nothing more; but I want nothing more.” – The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Non-Believer, 2007

His support of the Iraq War and deposing of Saddam Hussein, and denouncing the Islamo Fascism of the Middle East put him at odds with the Left.

“I got hold of a copy of the video that showed how Saddam Hussein had actually confirmed himself in power. This snuff-movie opens with a plenary session of the Ba’ath Party central committee: perhaps a hundred men. Suddenly the doors are locked and Saddam, in the chair, announces a special session. Into the room is dragged an obviously broken man, who begins to emit a robotic confession of treason and subversion, that he sobs has been instigated by Syrian and other agents. As the (literally) extorted confession unfolds, names begin to be named. Once a fellow-conspirator is identified, guards come to his seat and haul him from the room. The reclining Saddam, meanwhile, lights a large cigar and contentedly scans his dossiers. The sickness of fear in the room is such that men begin to crack up and weep, rising to their feet to shout hysterical praise, even love, for the leader. Inexorably, though, the cull continues, and faces and bodies go slack as their owners are pinioned and led away. When it is over, about half the committee members are left, moaning with relief and heaving with ardent love for the boss. (In an accompanying sequel, which I have not seen, they were apparently required to go into the yard outside and shoot the other half, thus sealing the pact with Saddam. I am not sure that even Beria or Himmler would have had the nerve and ingenuity and cruelty to come up with that.)”

His opinion of Michael Moore:

“If Michael Moore had had his way, Slobodan Milosevic would still be the big man in a starved and tyrannical Serbia. Bosnia and Kosovo would have been cleansed and annexed. If Michael Moore had been listened to, Afghanistan would still be under Taliban rule, and Kuwait would have remained part of Iraq. And Iraq itself would still be the personal property of a psychopathic crime family, bargaining covertly with the slave state of North Korea for WMD. You might hope that a retrospective awareness of this kind would induce a little modesty. To the contrary, it is employed to pump air into one of the great sagging blimps of our sorry, mediocre, celeb-rotten culture. Rock the vote, indeed.”

On George Bush:

“[George W. Bush] is lucky to be governor of Texas. He is unusually incurious, abnormally unintelligent, amazingly inarticulate, fantastically uncultured, extraordinarily uneducated, and apparently quite proud of all these things.”
“The general view was that you were a provincial Texan with no interest in doing anything much except shrinking the budget and cutting the maximum tax rate. (This general view was more or less right.)”

“George Bush made a mistake when he referred to the Saddam Hussein regime as ‘evil.’ Every liberal and leftist knows how to titter at such black-and-white moral absolutism. What the president should have done, in the unlikely event that he wanted the support of America’s peace-mongers, was to describe a confrontation with Saddam as the ‘lesser evil.’”

His latest book, a memoir, Hitch-22

“I became a journalist partly so that I wouldn’t ever have to rely on the press for my information.” – Hitch-22, 2010

“What is your idea of earthly happiness? To be vindicated in my own lifetime.” – Hitch-22

“Cheap booze is a false economy.” – Hitch-22

“Where would you like to live? In a state of conflict or a conflicted state?” – Hitch-22

A man whose favorite author was George Orwell, will have redeeming qualities.

Yes, he criticized George Bush and Mother Theresa, he may have been an avowed Marxist, but he called out phonies on the Left and the Right. He admired America’s fighting man and felt that America’s Revolution was the best revolution. He was a wit and a great thinker; among the greatest wits of this era.

One of my favorite essays of his, is this hit piece is on Hillary and Bill, it deals with the honesty mentioned earlier:

Why on earth would we choose to put the Clinton family drama at the center of our politics again?
By Christopher Hitchens|Posted Monday, Jan. 14, 2008, at 12:15 PM ET

Hillary Clinton
Seeing the name Hillary in a headline last week—a headline about a life that had involved real achievement—I felt a mouse stirring in the attic of my memory. Eventually, I was able to recall how the two Hillarys had once been mentionable in the same breath. On a first-lady goodwill tour of Asia in April 1995—the kind of banal trip that she now claims as part of her foreign-policy “experience”—Mrs. Clinton had been in Nepal and been briefly introduced to the late Sir Edmund Hillary, conqueror of Mount Everest. Ever ready to milk the moment, she announced that her mother had actually named her for this famous and intrepid explorer. The claim “worked” well enough to be repeated at other stops and even showed up in Bill Clinton’s memoirs almost a decade later, as one more instance of the gutsy tradition that undergirds the junior senator from New York.
Sen. Clinton was born in 1947, and Sir Edmund Hillary and his partner Tenzing Norgay did not ascend Mount Everest until 1953, so the story was self-evidently untrue and eventually yielded to fact-checking. Indeed, a spokeswoman for Sen. Clinton named Jennifer Hanley phrased it like this in a statement in October 2006, conceding that the tale was untrue but nonetheless charming: “It was a sweet family story her mother shared to inspire greatness in her daughter, to great results I might add.”

Perfect. It worked, in other words, having been coined long after Sir Edmund became a bankable celebrity, but now its usefulness is exhausted and its untruth can safely be blamed on Mummy. Yet isn’t it all—all of it, every single episode and detail of the Clinton saga—exactly like that? And isn’t some of it a little bit more serious? For Sen. Clinton, something is true if it validates the myth of her striving and her “greatness” (her overweening ambition in other words) and only ceases to be true when it no longer serves that limitless purpose. And we are all supposed to applaud the skill and the bare-faced bravado with which this is done. In the New Hampshire primary in 1992, she knowingly lied about her husband’s uncontainable sex life and put him eternally in her debt. This is now thought of, and referred to in print, purely as a smart move on her part. In the Iowa caucuses of 2008, he returns the favor by telling a huge lie about his own record on the war in Iraq, falsely asserting that he was opposed to the intervention from the very start. This is thought of, and referred to in print, as purely a tactical mistake on his part: trying too hard to help the spouse. The happy couple has now united on an equally mendacious account of what they thought about Iraq and when they thought it. What would it take to break this cheap little spell and make us wake up and inquire what on earth we are doing when we make the Clinton family drama—yet again—a central part of our own politics?

Hitchens considered Thomas Jefferson the Author of America, and admired the writings of Thomas Paine, Evelyn Waugh, Bob Dylan, and George Orwell. Although he was an atheist or an anti-theist as he called himself, it is interesting to note that he appreciated Dylan and Waugh, whose works are deeply rooted in theism.

He was a complex and complicated man, who refused to tell you what you wanted to hear, but instead concentrated on honest opinions; he was an honest thinker, and we need to recognize the advantages of honest men over partisan hacks and propaganda politicians. A political system like our Republic requires differing opinions and a swing of power and influence like a metronome; how refreshing it would be to have politicians and pundits with wit, who could offer ideas in opposition that would tend to make America stronger rather than intentionally trying to destroy the country to rebuild or transform America into some form of Marxist tyrannical dystopia.

Howdy, everyone. Sorry I haven’t kept in touch as often as I wanted to. With the holidays here, we’ve been VERY busy getting troops home for leave.

Recently, my team lost eight vehicles. The contract was ending and my unit decided not to renew it to save money. I’m all in favor of saving taxpayer money, but not at the expense of the mission. Frankly, I lost 2 more vehicles than I need to efficiently do my job. However, this vehicle situation is one I want to touch on.

Where I am located, there are NTVs (basically civilian SUVs) everywhere. It almost seems like there are more NTVs than there are personnel to drive them. These NTVs range from older, early 00s model Toyotas to current model year Land Cruisers. Vehicles range in price from about $500 to $1500 for a lease per month, depending on model and year.

My team of used to have about 14 of these, one of which was a bus, one was a pickup truck, and one was a minivan. The rest were various types of Toyota and Mitsubishi SUVs. We recently ended the contract on eight of them. The average cost of these vehicles was $950 per month. By ending this contract, we saved over $90,000!

Just on my FOB alone, there are easily 5,000 NTVs. Now, I don’t know how many are assigned to military units and how many are assigned to contractors and civilians. So, let’s just use a nice, conservative number of 1,000 belonging to military units. Assuming the average cost of $1000 per month per vehicle, we are spending $1 million per month JUST ON NTVs!! But, that isn’t what is most outrageous.

KAF is a central turn-in point for units that are leaving or upgrading equipment. As you may know, we no longer use HMMWV (humvees) outside the wire. We have been using the MRAP series of vehicles for a few years now. These vehicles are great and increase the survivability of our troops from small arms fire and IEDs. They are true lifesavers!

There are HMMWVs here on KAF that are just sitting in a yard collecting dust, but no one can have them issued because they aren’t on our MTOE. In other words, HMMWVs are authorized vehicles for units to use right now unless they bring them from home station. Our only options for FOB transportation are NTVs or the bulky MRAPs (which I don’t have, by the way).

When we lost our vehicles, I looked into getting HMMWVs to use for transportation and movement of personnel and equipment around the FOB. I was told that I couldn’t sign for any because we aren’t authorized them.

So, instead of just issuing troops who never go outside the wire – like me – free vehicles that are just sitting around, we pay $1000 per month per vehicle that we don’t need to. And this is just on THIS FOB. There are numerous FOBs where this is also the case and we’re wasting money on civilian vehicles when a free HMMWV would work just fine.

We are a nearly bankrupt nation and every department is trying to find ways to trim their belts. I think a good start would be to get rid of these NTV contracts and find a way to authorize troops to use HMMWVs for use on the FOBs only. It sickens me that we are wasting so much money needlessly. It also sickens me that I need vehicles for my mission but I can’t sign for a vehicle just sitting around doing nothing.

On the positive side, we haven’t had any indirect fire since 30 November. The weather has gotten pretty cold, dipping down into the low 30s overnight. The days are still quite pleasant hovering around 70. We come to the office all bundled up and by mid afternoon we’re already sweating!

Morale is high and our troops are doing great things here. With the holidays here, care packages have been flowing in. It’s humbling to be the recipient of such generosity. Someone even donated a Blu-Ray player to us to watch movies on when they heard that our PS2 was broken. Now, we’re just trying to get movies to play on it. Thankfully, it also plays regular DVDs.

I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas. We will celebrate here with a special meal of canned eggnog, meats, cheeses and crackers. It’s a deployment tradition I’ve always followed. We’ll sit around drinking hot chocolate and apple cider and watching A Charlie Brown Christmas! Our tree even resembles that one! heh. Just kidding. We had a tree sent to us with lights and decorations.