Misusing, and Abusing, our Military

It took us ten years to win the Iraq War.  Ten Years!  Actually, it shouldn't have taken that long.  It's just that we changed Commanders-in-Chief in mid-stream and the new one, B. Hussein Obama, wanted nothing to do with it.  

Nothing, we now know, to the extent that he refused...for more than six months...the requests of his commanders and generals to send sixty thousand additional troops to Iraq in the form of a "surge."  He was asked for sixty thousand.  The military experts told him it would take that many to finally win the war.  After six months he agreed, reluctantly, very reluctantly, to send thirty thousand.  Thirty's pretty close to sixty, right?  Well, no it isn't.  But under the new Common Core standards, perhaps 30 and 60 are about the same.  

And those thirty thousand, together with the 120,000-or-so soldiers and Marines who were already there was enough to tip the balance in favor of the U.S. of A.  We won.  Finally. Thankfully.

The Iraq War cost us the lives of 4,503 brave soldiers.  War-fighters. They gave their all for this country, and for their brother soldiers.  And we treasure their sacrifice.

And another 40,000+ Americans were grievously wounded in that War.  Those brave men and women are currently trying to repair and restart their lives after having written a check to America, payable with an amount of up to and including their lives.  Thank God for the Wounded Warriors Project.  At least they are helping to mend our finest.

But we won.  Thank God!  Our guys and gals kicked their asses and we prevailed.  All that remained was to leave a peace-keeping force behind and come on home.

But along comes Obama.  He didn't much care for the Iraq War.  He campaigned against it.  It was the "bad war," he said.  Afghanistan, on the other  hand, was the "good war." That's the one he liked.  Not the other one.  So it was no big surprise that he screwed the pooch when time came to negotiate a "Status of Forces Agreement," or SOFA, with Iraq's Prime Minister Malicki, so that we could maintain a stabilizing, "trip-wire" force there after our departure.  Exactly, you'll recall, like we did in South Korea, West Germany, Italy and Japan. They're still there, in fact.  More than 120,000 in all.  Standard stuff.  Unless you're a Big-City Liberal skinny ideologue lawyer like Obama.  

Malicki wanted 23,000 soldiers.  Obama offered 3,000.  That was an insult, and was taken as such by Malicki.  And Obama wanted Iraq's Parliament to vote on the SOFA. Malicki said, "No, leave it to me and I'll handle it."  Obama, sensing he'd snookered Malicki, said "No" and proceeded with the evacuation.

So he pulled out all our troops in 2010 and the Bad Guys have been drawn into the vacuum we created.  Like flies to a pile of you-know-what.  So much so that we went from a stable, friendly ally in Iraq to now facing the specter of ISIS, or IFIL, or the Islamic State, or HAMAS, or whatever you/he/they choose to call it/themselves today. 

Reluctantly, Obama agreed to actually "do something" about these killers when they started beheading our citizens.  I guess the weenies who inhabit the bowels of the White House whispered in his ear between golf outings and mentioned to him just how pissed the American people were at watching this outrage on YouTube.  

And his "something" turned out to be an occasional air strike from an F-16.  From 20,000 feet.  Yeah, that'll work.

So they're taking town after town, well on their way to occupying Iraq as an Islamic caliphate.  As of this writing they're within a few miles of downtown Baghdad.  What can the Golfer-in-Chief do about it?  Well, he could do as his generals advise and send 40,000 troops back to Iraq.  He could do that, but he won't.  That's because he doesn't want to appear to have blown it real bad by precipitously pulling them out in the first place.  No "boots on the ground," he says.  And I guess he means it.  Ballet slippers, maybe, but no boots.  Of course, he's lied to us repeatedly about so many things over such a long period of time that one can never be sure when he means it, or about what.

Obama, you magnificent poseur, you'll go down in history as the only U.S. president to actually lose a war we'd already won.  Go play another round of golf.  You've earned it.

But now, we find ourselves in the middle of another feces storm.  It's called Ebola.  It's just about the nastiest, killingest virus in the world, and it's come to America.  Confined largely to West Africa for decades, it's made it way across the Atlantic and landed in Dallas.  Obama said it wouldn't happen. Yeah, right.  Another lie.

So instead of acting when he could have, and should have, by sending teams of medical professionals to the Dark Continent, he waited until it's in all likelihood too late.  I wonder if his response would have been the same if Patient Zero had landed at Dulles instead of Dallas.

So, not knowing what he doesn't know (a common failing of Libbies), our Vacationer-in-Chief has decided - ready for it? - to send up to 4,000 American military troops to West Africa to fight Ebola!  Soldiers.  Fighting a virus.  

Actually, I hear his plan is to have our (probably unarmed) soldiers and Marines build hospitals and direct traffic and maintain quarantines and break up fistfights in an effort to minimize Ebola's spread.  Picture it:  Uniformed soldiers, trained to fight bad guys, fighting a virus. Not fighting ISIS, or ISIL, or the Islamic State (even though Mr. Obama guarantees us it isn't Islamic!), but a virus.  

Oh, I should mention that the Department of Defense just named our military action in Iraq.  We have to name these actions, you see, because we just do.  If we don't the Defense Department gets their panties all in a wad.  This one is now named "Inherent Resolve."  Huh?  When does resolve become inherent?  There's been no resolve in this Administration up to now, so we know it can't be inherent.  

But wait, just like the late-night infomercial, there's even more!  Just  yesterday our Vacationer-in-Chief signed an executive order authorizing the Department of Defense to call up our National Guard and Ready Reserve to the tune of up to 4,000 additional troops.  That's because, he said, it might take too long to mobilize our active duty military and get them deployed to West Africa.  

Why would it take too long?  After pink-slipping nearly 100,000 active duty military due to sequestration and almost $1,000,000,000,000  (that's One Trillion Dollars!) of Defense Department cutbacks, he's calling up the reservists because, I believe, there's not enough active duty military to send on this unicorn hunting trip.  Active duty military personnel aren't trained to fight viruses, of course. They're trained to kill bad guys.  But they're not being permitted to do that.  And reservists, who are Wal-Mart managers, lumber yard workers and Verizon cable system installers are even less well trained.  So they're the people our Insurance Salesman-in-Chief wants to send on this one-way trip to oblivion.  And, get this:  They'll receive four whole hours of training!
Amazing.  

Is this the very height of insanity?  Is this the absolute dumbest thing an America president ever did?  In the entire history of our country?  Ever?

I think so.

Now, they'll go over there, unprotected, untrained, unable to know what to do and what not to do, and likely get infected. And they'll be pissed at being so monumentally misused by the President they have sworn to follow.  And then they'll bring the virus back home with them.  And infect their families and friends.  I predict that enlistments into our military, Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force and the Coast Guard, will drop like a stone.  And why should they do anything else?  Those desirous of serving their country in uniform are brave but they aren't stupid. They know when they're going to be misused... and abused.

And that, my friends, is "art becomes life," as in "Outbreak," the movie, comes to America.  

Speaking of Outbreak, watch it again and observe the final three minutes.  The medical cell filtering machine they used to separate the blood from the infected monkey belonged to my company.  I actually rented it to Warner Bros. for the movie.  I may be the only guy, besides the movie people, Morgan Freeman, et. al., to have actually made money off a virus that may ultimately kill us all.  Is this "Bizarro World," or what?

And this just in:  Oblamo just appointed an "Ebola Czar." Did he pick a medical professional with management experience?  Ummm, no.  He picked a D.C. partisan insider hack with absolutely no medical experience.  He picked a lawyer lobbyist named Ron Klain, who has served as both Joe "The Sheriff" Biden's and Al "Global Warming will kill us all" Gore's Chief of Staff.  Klain's main claim to fame (kinda rhymes, don't it?) was counting chads during the famed "recount" that made "W" our POTUS.  Oh, and managing the Stimulus Program which made nearly One Trillion Dollars disappear right before our very eyes!  And half-a-billion of those bucks went to his client Solyndra, the failed solar company which was owned and managed by one of Obama's biggest donors and campaign bundlers.  Yeah, that's it.  Pick a lawyer to keep us safe from a virus.  I couldn't make this crap up even if I tried.

So, in closing, I'd like to send along a suggestion to the Democrat National Committee:  The next time you're in the process of selecting a candidate for President of the United States, please do America a big favor; pick someone with a modicum of experience at running something.  Anything.
And maybe a little exposure to our military.  Maybe even someone who has served in uniform.  That would be helpful. And it would make America a whole lot safer.  We could maybe even suffer through an administration led by someone who has actually been in a position of authority and responsibility.  We've had a community organizer for six years now who's never run so much as a 7/11.  For God's sake, pick someone who knows what the Hell he's doing! Please!  What a concept!

(And thanks to Fred Simmer, my old home town classmate and friend, for the suggestion to opine on this important subject.  Keep those cards and letters coming.)