Veteran’s Day

The […] novel sucked. Even when I liked Heinlein I saw right through that Rah Rah Military is Awesome bullshit.
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I met a man who despised me.

He called me fascist, murderer, and a dumb blunt tool.

I didn’t take it personally – though a younger me might have.

I didn’t meet him in the flesh, like most of my social interactions these days I encountered him online. He surfaced on a well known author’s Facebook page during a conversation regarding a certain well known classic science fiction novel.

The novel was, of course, Robert A. Heinlein’s Starship Troopers.

It’s one of those books you either love or hate.

Very few who are familiar with the work find middle ground between those poles – including those who haven’t actually read it and are familiar with the writer and the novel only by second-hand heresy (yes, heresy, the book is nearly an article of faith to many) and a terrible Hollywood adaptation.

It’s one of those stories where your opinion depends very much on your age and experience, and as such your opinion with regards to the story tends to change and temper over time.

To me, well, that’s what makes it a truly great work.

Love it, hate it, it is a coming of age story and it endures as a lightning rod, as a jumping off point for exploration of the human condition, of government, of service, of duty, of war and conflict, of why we fight and why we should – or should not.

I have read this novel many, many times.

I read it as a teenaged boy before I joined the military.

I read it again at various points throughout my military career, as an enlisted man and as an officer – and in fact it is required reading for students at a number of military academies.

I read it the day the author himself died, and raised a glass to yet another lost shipmate while stationed at a far distant outpost.

I’ve read it a number of times since I hung up my sword. I may, in fact, read it again today.

I don’t know that it influenced my decision to join up. I don’t know that it didn’t. The author, in this work and many others, certainly had some impact on my worldview. I do know that this novel did influence what kind of military man I ultimately became and that there were times, very difficult times, black days, moments when I didn’t know what to do next and lives depended on my decision, when I heard the words of Robert Heinlein whispering in my head, honor, courage, duty, ethics, morality, service above self, willingness to give one’s life in the cause of something greater – even and perhaps most especially when the cost is unjust and immoral and terrible.

The ideals of that book, and the veteran who wrote it, those ideals spoke to me in a very personal way.

And they still do.

As a writer of politics and military subjects, I encounter this book and discussions of its author often and I watch the resulting battles with some amusement. I’ve read hundreds of treatises on this book and its long dead author, detailed analyses from bloggers, columnists, best selling writers, noted scientists of various specialties, politicians, academics, and of course, military professionals.

All, every one, miss one fundamental thing.

And that is this: The reason six decades later this novel still generates love and hate and violent emotion is because the protagonist, Johnny Rico, a man very much like me, finds a home in the military.

War is his profession and he embraces it willingly and without regret.

And that, that right there, is the novel’s great sin.

That’s the criticism most often leveled at both the book and its author, they are pro war, pro military, and therefore somehow fascist and un-American.

To me this is like saying a fireman, one who runs towards the inferno, who is willing to brave the flames to save others, is somehow pro-arson.

There is no one who knows the terrible cost of war more than a veteran. There are few more anti-war than a combat veteran. Just as there is no one who knows the terrible toll of fire more than those who fight it. And yet, both still serve, because that is who they are. 

It’s okay in our society, at the moment, to love the soldier, to tell the story of war.

It wasn’t always so. When I was growing up, society openly despised the soldier.

But somewhere in the intervening 50 years, the circle has come full around and now again it is not only okay to love those who do violence in our names, it is nearly mandatory.

But it must be done in a certain way, you see.

It’s okay to write about war, to set novels among the conflagration and tell tales of glory and honor and sacrifice, so long as those who are caught up in its horror resent their own service. So long as they despise the conflict and the government and the utter ridiculous stupidity which sent them into the meat grinder. It’s okay to tell stories of war and conflict so long as the hero is serving only out of duty and will return to civilian life once the war ends – or die heroically, or tragically, or foolishly, depending on what kind of story you’re telling.

But to tell a story of those who serve when they don’t have to?

To write of those who find a home in the military?

That is a sin.

Those people, you see, they’re the losers. Honor, courage, duty, ethics, the morality of war, service above self, willingness to give one’s life in trace to your country, well, these things are for suckers, wannabe fascists, murderers, dumb blunt tools with nothing better to do.

This is the difference between Full Metal Jacket and The Green Berets.

This, this right here, is the difference between The Forever War and Starship Troopers.

This is the difference between the man I met up above … and me.

Today we honor those who served in peace and in war.

We honor those who came of their own free will and those who came only because they were called.

We honor those who came of age in bloody conflict, those who like me, like the protagonist of that novel, found a life, who found ourselves, in the military.

And we honor those who resented every goddamned miserable senseless minute of it.

Today wreaths will be laid. Flags will be raised to the truck and lowered to half-mast and there they’ll fly, cracking in the cold breeze, the symbol we fought and bled and died for, while below words of patriotism, duty, honor, courage, service, and sacrifice will be spoken.

The trumpets will sound their terrible call and the tears will flow – as they are down my face even as I write this.

Because, you see, I remember.

I remember those who trained and led me. I remember those I served alongside. I remember those I trained and led myself. I remember those men and women, every one of them, the good and the bad, the faithful and the faithless, the leaders and the followers, the admirable and the shitheads, those who came before me and those who came after, those who still live and serve and fight out there every day in the dark and dangerous corners of the world, those who have hung up their swords, and most of all I remember those who have given the last full measure – I remember them, each and every single one, each and every single day.

They are always with me, because they are the people who made me what I am.

Perhaps we are nothing more than blunt instruments. Perhaps we are fools. Today I am disinclined to argue the point.

Perhaps we are.

Because after the wreaths are laid, and the flags are lowered, and the trumpets sound their final mournful call, then the politicians will return to the same old divisions, the tax bill, the latest pork barrel project, or how the other party is a bunch of unpatriotic un-American bastards.

Tomorrow they’ll remember us not at all – or at best, only as a way to further their own selfish agendas.

The talk show hosts will cry their crocodile tears, and wax self-righteous and angrily demand that their listeners honor veterans. They'll take people to task for not wearing an American Flag pin, or for not having a yellow ribbon on their cars, or for not serving in uniform, all the while hoping nobody calls them on their own service, of which, most have exactly none.

And tomorrow, as always, they’ll forget all about us and go back to telling Americans to hate each other.

The Great Patriots, those Americans who think love of country is a contest and who wave the flag as if it were the cheap symbol of their favorite football team, are going to drink a lot of beer and discount liquor and pontificate drunkenly at great length about how the country is going to hell in a hand-basket because of that son of a bitch in [insert: Congress, the White House, Wall Street, et cetera here] and how we should be doing better by our “Heroes.” All the while hoping nobody calls them on their own service, of which, most have exactly none.

And tomorrow, they’ll nurse their sullen hung-over resentment and go back to fearing that the men and women they honor today will knock on their door to take away their freedoms and liberties and guns.

Meanwhile today a lot of folks who don't think much about patriotism are going to go to parades and wave little flags and quietly give thanks for those who bought their freedom at such terrible cost. Some will stand ramrod straight even though many can barely stand at all, like me they limp, or they roll, bent but unbroken, they’ll place their hands over their hearts as the American flag passes, and in their eyes you can see horrible memories of Saipan and Iwo Jima, Normandy, the Rhine, the black Ardennes forest, The Chosin Reservoir, Khe Sanh, Tet, Al Basrah, Anbar, and Bagram.

They won't talk about honoring veterans, they are veterans.

Today those with sons and daughters and husbands and wives in the service will raise a flag in their front yard, just as they do every day - and pray that those same loved ones get home alive and whole, just as they do every day.

Today those with sons and daughters and husbands and wives and mothers and fathers who have fallen in the service will visit graveyards, they'll bring fresh flowers, and fresh flags, and fresh tears.

Today, some just won’t give a good goddamn. They'll get a day off from work. They'll picnic, or party, or go boating, or hiking, or to the track. They'll paint the house, or do chores around the yard, they’ll haul trash to the dump if it's open or take the dog for a walk. Or maybe they won't, maybe today will be just like any other day. Kids still go to school, here in Florida. Teachers still teach. Stores, restaurants, car lots are all open with blowout sales. And it may be that these people most honor veterans, by simply going on with their lives, by living without having to remember the dead on some far distant battlefield, without having to worry about their security.

Without having to thank anybody.

And today, some will protest. Protest war, the military, the government. They'll use this day to burn the flag, they’ll take to Facebook and Twitter to call us fascists and murderers and dumb blunt tools. They’ll use this day to march and to demonstrate and it may be that these people are paying the highest compliment to veterans – even though that is the least of their intentions. Because, you see, it was veterans who bought them their right to despise us.

We are not heroes.

We are not heroes. Most of us anyway, we are simply people like any other, doing the best we can with what we have under difficult circumstance. We came when called and did our duty, each for our own reasons. You don’t have to understand why, just as you may not understand why a fireman would run into a burning building instead in the other direction. Just as you may never understand why Heinlein wrote what he wrote.

And that’s okay.

In our country, in a free society, the soldier should be no more revered than any other citizen.

We should respect the warrior, if he be worthy, but we must never worship him.

For there is no glory in war.

It is a horrible, brutal business and make no mistake about it.

We can wish it otherwise. We can rail against the utter stupidity and the phenomenal waste and the bloody obscenity of it all. We can declare and decry war’s terrible necessity and its terrible cost. Be that as it may, given human nature, for now war must often be done and our nation, our world, needs those who would fight, who would stand rough and ready to do violence in their name. It is a duty, a profession, a job, and a calling that must be done.

Perhaps in some distant future we will have put it behind us, perhaps we will have made war and the warrior long obsolete.  We can certainly hope that it shall be so. We can and should and must strive to make it so.

Perhaps some day we will set aside a day to honor the peacemakers and study war no more.

Perhaps.

But I wouldn’t count on it.

I don’t know. I don’t particularly care. I won’t live long enough to see such a day if it ever comes.

You see, I didn’t do it for you.

I didn’t do it for you and you owe me nothing. Neither thanks nor pity.

I’ve said it before, I’ll likely say it again: If you want a better nation, you have to be better citizens. And me? I joined the military for myself. To prove something to myself. To be that better citizen in my own way.

I joined for myself, but I stayed for them.

I stayed for my comrades in arms, for those I served beside. I did it for them. I did it for all the things I found in that novel, honor, courage, duty, ethics, morality, service above self, willingness to give one’s life in the cause of something greater – even and perhaps most especially when the cost is unjust and immoral and terrible.

I did it because like the protagonist of that book, that is my sin, I found a life there among friends.

I met a man who despised me.

He despised me for who I am, a veteran.

And you know what? That, that right there, is the highest compliment I could be paid.

That, that right there, is what we were doing out there in the dark and dangerous corners of the world, defending his right to hold us in utter contempt.

I met a man who despised me.

He called me and those like me fascist, murderer, dumb blunt tools.

He’s wrong. Utterly wrong. But I can live with that.

And I wear his contempt as a badge of honor.

Caveat Emptor

Whether the mask is labeled fascism, democracy, or dictatorship of the proletariat, our great adversary remains the apparatus – the bureaucracy, the police, the military. Not the one facing us across the frontier of the battle lines, which is not so much our enemy as our brothers' enemy, but the one that calls itself our protector and makes us its slaves. No matter what the circumstances, the worst betrayal will always be to subordinate ourselves to this apparatus and to trample underfoot, in its service, all human values in ourselves and in others.
― Simone Weil

"We will have a military like we've never had before."

What does that mean?

No. No. Stop. Don't wave your hands and make vague noises.

Don't roll your eyes and sigh.

Stop and think about it.

Answer the question.

I mean, it sounds good. Make American Great Again. We'll have a military like we’ve never had before. Sure. Sure. Who wouldn’t want that? What patriotic American wouldn’t want a … um, well, whatever kind of military he’s talking about? It must be better than the one we have now. Right? Must be. Sure. Let’s get us some of that. Got to be better. Bigger. More powerful. Shinier. Yeah! USA! USA!

Right?

I mean, right?

But, well, not to be unpatriotic and all, but better … how, exactly?

You did notice that Trump never actually tells you this. Ever.

There’s a reason for that.

You see, the Long Con is based on simple human nature. A confidence game that plays on greed, pride, desperation, fear, hope. Which is why religion is often so very successful at it. It takes skill and commitment to pull off a long-con, weeks, months, years even, to groom the suckers, until the mark finally hands over his money of his own free will. And the most skilled confidence man can fool a mark over and over, convincing him again and again to hand over his money. And the best part is that once, if, the mark ever twigs to the fact that he’s been fooled, robbed by his own greed and gullibility, well, he’s often too embarrassed to do anything about it.

As General Smedley Butler once said, war is a racket.

And the military industrial complex and their shills have been playing this game for a very long time.

The key to this con is greed, pride, desperation, and fear. Or in simpler terms: the refuge of the scoundrel, patriotism.

"We will have a military like we've never had before."

The key to a successful con is letting the mark convince himself. Ohhhhh, yes, like we’ve never had before! You bet. We gotta get us some of that, America!

Never give him too many details, too much information. Let him create those things in his head. Let him build it up in his mind, let him imagine how for just a few dollars down he’ll make a fortune. How many of those Spanish Prisoner scams have you seen? The Nigerian Banker with the fortune in British Pounds Sterling sitting in an African bank and all you need do is hand over a small processing fee for your share of the fortune. Crude and clumsy, and yet thousands fall for such cons every year. You laugh at the suckers, meanwhile the CEOs of Northrup-Grumman and General Dynamics, the politicians, and the media pundits tell you that you need a shiny new warship and a fleet of brand new invisible planes. Pride, you want to be proud of your military don’t you? You don’t want another country to have a better military, do you? No, of course not! Our prestige is on the line. And what about all those threats? ISIS for example! Yes, ISIS. If we don’t fight them over there, we’ll have to fight them over here! You’re gonna need a fleet of shiny new warships to defeat ISIS, folks. How much is freedom worth, they’re cheap at that price. What are you, a liberal fool? Do you want them to murder your children? Don’t you love your children? We’ve got to have this new military! One like we’ve never seen before! Yes, yes!

But what does that mean in detail?

Trump never explains anything, any of his genius ideas, in any detail.

He constantly makes vague pronouncements like this one. And no one ever calls him on it.  Not the press. Not the people. Certainly not Congress.

Trump says we need a big beautiful Wall.

And the masses nod or rage depending on their inclination, but what does that mean?

Big! Yes! Yes! Beautiful! Oh, God yes!

Big and beautiful. Beautiful and big.

But what's the goal? Stop illegal immigration? Stop terrorism? Stop drugs? How? What terrorists? What drugs? Which immigrants? What's the plan? What studies and hard data is the plan based on? What are the counter arguments? What other options do we have? Have we looked for any other solution? Where are the studies weighing those options against each other? Where is the cost benefit analysis of each one? The environment impact statements? What are the objectives of this wall? How will you measure if the objectives are being met and what's the backup plan if they aren't? How much will it cost? To build? To maintain over its lifespan? How long is that lifespan? How will we pay for it? Who will build it? How long will it take? Will construction stretch into the next administration? What happens if that administration elects not to continue? Do we get our money back? Who will maintain it? Who will patrol it? How long will it be? How high? How is it better than what we have now?

Etcetera.

Etcetera.

And etcetera.

He never answers any of these questions. He never explains anything. Not only because he doesn’t know, but because he’s conning us. 

Trump claims to be a genius. Of course we have only his word for that and he’s a little short on the details of who certified his intellect. We’re just supposed to take him at his word. Stable genius. Sure.

But have you ever actually listened to a real genius?

Stephen Hawking is one of the most brilliant minds who has ever existed. He studies time itself. Time. Try to define that. Go ahead. Try to explain time. Time is … what? Hawking studies things that most mundanes can't even put into words in even a general sense, let alone comprehend in any detail. And yet – and yet – what Hawking is most noted for is his ability to patiently explain that very complexity to ordinary people. He wrote a famous best selling book on it. He gives sellout lectures on it, like some kind of rock star. Even though doing something as ordinary as speaking is horribly difficult for him.

Ever watch Elon Musk describing his plans for the future of humankind? This guy is so many steps ahead of the human race that there is legitimate reason to wonder if he's maybe an alien in disguise, sent here from some advanced civilization out there beyond the stars. Musk can describe the most complex machines – like his Falcon Heavy – the most complex ideas, and why they are so very important for our future, in terms that anyone can understand. All while cracking sly jokes and sending his own car into orbit around the sun.

Trump?

Trump claims similar genius, yet he can never describe his plans in even the vaguest of terms.

"We will have a military like we've never had before."

What does that mean?

What the hell does that mean?

The United States spends on average 20% of its entire federal budget on the military – and that does NOT include the Veterans Administration or money spent on veterans after they leave the service.

54% of federal discretionary spending is on the military.

4.5% of the Gross Domestic Product is spent on the military, that’s 700 BILLION dollars as of this year.

And Trump and conservatives in Congress tell us that we must increase that expenditure.

We have to.

We have to, right? Don’t you want a military like we’ve never seen before? Sure you do.

But … why?

Why do we need to spend more on the military?

No. NO. That's not a rhetorical question. Why do we need to spend more on the military?

Why? The answer to that question, the ability to answer that question in any detail, is the whole goddamned point here.

We spend on average right now a bit over 4% of the Gross Domestic Product on ... well, I was going to say Defense, but that's not really accurate, is it? War. Military hardware. Weapons. Invasion. Power projection. Occupation of foreign nations. Empire building. Whatever the hell you call it, it's not really defense anymore. Department of Preemptive Mayhem and Wanton Destruction maybe. War, Inc.

Whatever we call it, we spend roughly 4% of our GDP on it.

For comparison, during the height of WWII, spending on the military peaked at 41% of GDP.

Forty-one percent.

That’s a lot. We had to give up a lot of other things to fund the military at 41% of the GDP. But that's back when we were literally fighting for survival, fighting a total war, globally, against two different enemies -- enemies that were a vast alliance of nation states -- simultaneously over literally millions of square miles of the planet. We were fighting in the air, on every sea, and over the land on six continents. Nearly every ship, every plane, every base, entire armies, new technologies, doctrine, plans, alliances, all of it, had to be built from scratch. All of America had to sacrifice, they gave up consumer goods, they rationed food and essentials such as gasoline – hell, it was illegal to own a spare tire for your car, that rubber went to the war. They scrounged for metals, they went to work in the factories, they volunteered for the military, they instituted a draft, they bought war bonds. That’s what it took, and more, to fund the military to 41% of the GDP. They could never have sustained it, if the war went on as long as the current one has.

During the Cold War we spent on average about 10% of the GDP on the military. That was to maintain a global presence and go toe-to-toe with the Soviet Union, with the literal end of the world hanging in the balance every day.

During World War II, during the Cold War, our enemies could have wiped us out. Taken us over, destroyed civilization in a dozen different ways. Now? We face some pissant terrorists and a handful of Third World dictators. They can harm us, certainly. Some of them might even have the power to destroy a city. I won't argue that. They might certainly wreak terrible damage.

But they can't destroy the United States.

They can't end the world.

They can’t topple civilization.

Meanwhile, Between 2001 and 2014, 440,095 Americans died from gun violence on US soil.

Four-hundred thousand.

You know how many Americans died in World War II? 416,500. 

For comparison and lest you think I’m picking on gun violence unfairly, between 2001 and 2014, 534,601 Americans died in car accidents.

Again, for comparison, in the same amount of time, 13 years or so, 58,000 Americans died in Vietnam.

Between 2001 and 2014, the total number of Americans killed overseas by terrorism (as the government defines it) was 369.

Three-hundred and sixty-nine. Total. That’s it. Killed by terrorist overseas.

Inside the US, the number of Americans killed by terrorism during that same period was 3,043 – a tenth of the guns deaths in America that year.

Three-thousand and forty-three. That’s a lot right? Yes it is. But that figure includes the attacks of September 11th, 2001. With the exception of that extraordinary and terrible event, the annual deaths from domestic terrorism (as the government officially defines it) is much, much lower, averaging <10 per year. 

Note: as the government defines terrorism. You can't have it both ways. If the government doesn't define a white Christian man with a modified semi-auto assault rifle firing from a hotel window into the crowd as terrorism for the purposes of gun violence, then they can't count it as terrorism for national defense purposes either. Make your bed and lie in it.

That's the threat we face today. Opioid abuse. Gun violence. Car accidents. These things are what kill Americans today. And while, certainly, terrorist states and rogue nations are a threat, comparatively speaking they’re fairly minor when plotted against the things that are actually killing Americans in large numbers right now.

Quick, what percentage of the federal budget is spent on gun violence?

What percentage on car accidents?

What percentage on drug deaths?

We spend 4% and more of our GDP, 20% of the federal budget, on our military and almost nothing on the actual threats that are actually killing Americans. 

The politicians and the pundits and the defense industry would have you convinced that our enemies are massed outside the gate and tunneling under the walls. But, fear not, America, for the low, low price of $700 Billion, we can defend you! And most of America is too damned scared to stop and question anything. $700 Billion? What a bargain for our safety, plus, super cool military! USA! USA!

Let me give you an example, one of many: 4,486 American service personnel died in the most recent Iraq War. 2,345 American military personnel have so far died in Afghanistan. More than a million have been wounded.

Now, how many of those deaths were due to enemy airpower?

How many of those 6,831 dead Americans were killed as a direct result of enemy airpower?

Need a hint? It’s none.

Over 17 years of war, no American in that conflict was killed or wounded by enemy aircraft. They were killed by IEDS in infinite variation, RPGs, mortar fire, snipers, small arms fire, suicide bombers, but not one was killed by enemy air superiority.

In fact, how many Americans have been killed by enemy air power since Vietnam?

And yet, we’re spending $1.5 Trillion to build the F-35, because we just gotta have it. And this was the cheap one, the single seater, compared to the F-22, the air superiority fighter, which we also just had to have. Now, sure, technological superiority is great and all, but again, it’s not technological superiority that’s killing our people or threatening our country. Hell, 19 shitheads with boxcutters killed 2,996 of us on 911. All the super invisible fighter jets in the world couldn’t have stopped it. Just as they can’t stop a fanatic with a suicide vest. But, the generals, the defense contractors, the politicians and the pundits have convinced you that the real threat is enemy airpower. Or enemy ships on the high seas. Or enemy tanks. So we’ve got to have new planes and new ships and new tanks.

And yet, ISIS can’t destroy us. North Korea can’t destroy us. They can bring down a building. Blow up a city. Sure, and we need to deal with that threat, I’m not saying we don’t. I’m certainly not saying that any building, any city, is expendable. But they can’t destroy us.

And the things we need to fight ISIS, or even North Korea, well, those things aren’t sexy and they don’t keep multi-billion dollar defense contractors in business. So we buy trillion dollar fighter jets to fight terrorists.

It’s a racket. That’s why you never hear about the details.

The generals, the defense contractors, the pundits, the politicians, they never spell it out. They don’t want you thinking about it, asking questions, getting suspicious that you’re being conned.

Ask yourself something: Where's the upper limit?

At what point do we max out, percentage wise? 10% of GDP? 41% like WWII? And what are we willing to give up to achieve that level of military spending? Nylons and spare tires? Will you buy war bonds and ration gasoline and butter? Will you send your children off to fight a preemptive war somewhere in the world?

How is this military Trump plans to create unlike any we've seen before? What will it do that the current one can’t? How will it be better? Who decided that? What did they base that decision on? How much will it cost? How much will it cost to maintain? How long will it last? What do we have to give up? What are the long term consequences? Ronald Reagan created a massive military, unlike any we'd seen in recent history. We activated WWII battleships and built nuclear cruisers and bought new fighter jets and new tanks. We recruited new soldiers and marched out smartly to show the world our might.

It put us into massive debt and couldn't be maintained.

We had to cut back.

Meanwhile, there was the Soviet Union. They too built a massive military at the expense of everything else in their society. They loved to parade it through Red Square to show the world. Their mighty ships patrolled the high seas and their bombers cruised the skies.

And combined with endless war, eventually that military bankrupted the USSR.

The entire country collapsed overnight without so much as a whimper, and disappeared into history.

Right now, North Korea is building bombs and rockets while their people go hungry. We mock them for this, just as we laughed at Soviets standing in endless lines for bread and toilet paper while their government churned out tanks and nuclear cruisers that they couldn’t afford.

These things should be cautionary tales, not examples to emulate.

"We will have a military like we've never had before."

How come conservatives like Trump never say, “We will have an education system like we’ve never had before.”

We’re going to have healthcare coverage like we’ve never had before.

We’re going to advance science like we’ve never done before.

We’re going to help people we’ve never helped before, feed people we’ve never fed before, spread civil rights to those who’ve never had them before, bring freedom and equality and justice to all like we’ve never done before, give a leg up to every member of our society like we’ve never done, work towards making war less likely and work on lasting peace and prosperity like we’ve never done before.

We’re going to see that everybody has a boat and that the tide raises all of those boats together! Goddamned right, that’s what we’re going to do.

They don’t say it, because they don’t believe it.

Because they are amoral bastards who don’t believe in anything but enriching themselves. They’ve been running this con for a long time. They’ll take your last dime and they don’t give a damn what happens to you.

But here’s the thing: the con doesn’t work unless the victim plays along.

Greed. Pride. Envy. Fear. These are the human traits that make this con profitable.

As such, the countermeasure should then be obvious.

You must ask the questions and demand the answers. You must look past fear and greed and pride and mindless unthinking patriotism.

You must hold this administration, every administration, accountable. Every Congressman. Every Senator. Every general. Every CEO who takes taxpayer money. Every political party. Every media outlet. Every journalist. Ask the questions and demand the answers. Never stop. Show up for every election, no matter how minor. Educate yourself on the candidates and the issues before the election.

When government is of the people, by the people, and for the people, the people – you – are the weakest link.

In the end, as always, if you want a better nation, you have to be better citizens.

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron.
― Dwight D. Eisenhower

Monsters

Someone asked, "What would you say to someone considering joining the military right now?"

My answer?

Don't.

Flip, I suppose. Terse, certainly. But that’s my recommendation nonetheless.  Don’t.

It doesn’t need to be any more elaborate than that, if you understand what you’re asking.

It doesn’t require any more words than that, if you understand what you’re asking.

If you understand what you’re asking.

Don’t.

Simple as that.

But, of course, it’s not that simple.

And, of course, it didn’t end there.

How could it?

I mean, if you had to ask, well…

Those you who follow me on Twitter, you saw the responses.

Don’t

Many seemed shocked, surprised, as if they expected a career veteran like me to have answered differently.

But why? They asked. Why would you tell people not to join the military? You did. You spent 20 years and more in the military, why would you, you of all people, tell others not to join up? Are you one of them? One of those disgruntled vets, all sour and angry and ashamed of your service?

No.

No, I’m not one of them.

Not at all.

I’m proud of my service. I’m glad I served. Even when the war was unjust and ill-conceived and based on lies, my service, and that of those who served beside me and under my command, was honorable. I’m proud of my service and those I served with. I am neither bitter nor angry nor ashamed of it. Just the opposite and I’ve written enough about my career here that such should be obvious.

But this world, this America today, is not the same nation it was when I signed up.

I was no idealist. I joined up for a number of reasons, some good, some dumb, some I’ve told you about in other articles and some that are none of your business, but idealism wasn’t one of those reasons. I knew what I was getting into. I joined the military in the first years of the Reagan Administration. Back then, agree with the president or not, the Cold War was very real and you could at least see the very explicit threat America faced every day. We didn’t have to go looking for it. We didn’t have to provoke it with bombast and juvenile posturing on Social Media – even if such had existed back then. And while I wasn't so foolish as to believe everything the government told me, I believed that the majority of those in our government wanted to make the world a better place. Reagan, whatever his faults, whatever his ideology, was trying to make nuclear war less likely, not start one to prove his manhood.

I don’t idolize Ronald Reagan, far from it. And I am well, well aware of his myriad faults and I despise the path he set American politics on, the path that has led thirty years later to this very point. But I was willing to sign up and serve under his command because I believed he truly wanted to make the world a better place for all of us. Reagan tried to tear down walls, not build new ones.

I don’t expect you to agree with me about that. I expect you and I see that time differently. That’s okay.

But I think we can agree that the world, and America, was a very, very different place and Reagan aside, back before the rise of the 24/7 news cycle and hate TV and 9-11, I believed the majority of Americans wanted to make the world a better place. We certainly didn’t agree on how, and maybe many of those Americans never thought beyond winning the Cold War, but in large part most of our country wanted to make the world a better place.

I could support that.

I could be part of that.

Even if I didn’t agree with the various administrations over the years, or the methodology, or how we were used, I could be part of that.

Fast forward to the present:

Joining the military is (so far) still a personal decision.

If you're considering it, then you should understand in detail what that decision implies.

You're going to swear a binding oath to obey the orders of the President. This President. If you don’t understand what that means now, well, you could find yourself later in the same jail cell Chelsea Manning just vacated.

You need to understand that oath and what it means before you sign up.

Oh sure, the orders must be lawful.

But you’re going to find out, sooner or later, that there is a hell of a lot of wiggle room in lawful. Using that above example: nothing that Manning disclosed, not one of the things she couldn’t live with, none of them were unlawful. Immoral maybe. Unethical. Horrible. But not unlawful.

And here's the real rub: what is and is not lawful, well, that’s decided by Congress and the President.

This Congress.

This President.

You? Once you swear that oath, you don't get to decide what is and is not lawful, but you will be held responsible for it anyway -- and they will not.

So, before you hold up your right hand and swear your oath, you need to think about what that could mean for you personally.

Particularly under this Congress and this president.

And you need to think about it in detail. Hard. All the way through. And if you can't live with what it very well might come to, if you can’t see what it might very well come to, then don't swear that oath.

Because once you do, you're part of it.

All the way.

Once you swear that oath, you're part of this administration. Part of its agenda. And you’ll be held responsible, at least in part, by history for it. If you sign up during this administration, you're saying you're good with all of that – or if not good per se, then at least you can live with it. Whatever it might come to. You won't have an excuse. You volunteered. You're in, all the way, whatever might come, to the bitter end.

And you damned well better understand that in your bones.

Me? I spent more than 20 years in the military. I served under Republicans and Democrats with equal fidelity. I had to do some pretty shitty things in some pretty awful places. I don't regret that, because I made my peace with it before I swore my oath the first time and again when I became a Chief and then an Officer and was put into a position were I would surely have to order others to do terrible things in the name of my country.

I can live with it.

I can live with it, even if I didn't agree with the government, or the president of the moment, or the war. I did my duty because I believed we were right. Because I believed we weren't sacrificing our lives for nothing. Because I believed the majority of Americans wanted to make the world a better place.

I no longer believe this to be true of America.

You see, my word, once given is good. No exceptions.

So I don't give it lightly. And as such, I could not in good conscience swear to obey the orders of this President, even lawful ones – not when he is enabled, encouraged, and unchecked by this Congress and an America who put these rotten faithless sons of bitches in power. I could not in good conscience follow the orders of this feckless fool of a President unrestrained by this small-minded hateful Congress. I do not believe they want to make the world a better place for anyone but themselves.

I do not trust these people not to waste lives, mine, yours, the lives of my troops, the lives of our children, or the lives of those caught in the middle.

In point of fact, many in this government have made it abundantly clear that they regard the lives of those they deem unAmerican to be unworthy of any further consideration. This is not acceptable to me. I would not pledge my life to those who see me as expendable to further their own selfish ends.

Yes, but what about the Coast Guard, someone asked. What about the National Guard, asked several others.

No.

Hell no.

Those services most especially.

Why? Well, see, the Coast Guard is a military service under the cognizance of the Department of Homeland Security.

Think about that.

Think about why it is that way.

You want to think carefully about what that implies nowadays in the context of, oh say immigration, or drug enforcement, or national security, and how those things have grossly distorted the Coast Guard's traditional mission in this paranoid, nationalist, post-911 America. And then you want to remember that the Coast Guard is specifically not under the Department of Defense because it is, primarily, a law enforcement agency who unlike the rest of the military, can enforce the government's will directly on Americans without regard to the Posse Comitatus Act or other niceties.

The same is true of the National Guard when under the command of State Governors, and I wouldn't trust those fascist bastards not to abuse that power nor this federal government to hold them in check.

Nor would I want to be the instrument of it.

How likely do I think that danger is?

I don’t know. And that’s the problem.

So, if you're thinking of joining, think on that very carefully.

Remember, you asked me what I would do.

Back in the early part of the last century, there were those Germans who signed up. They weren’t Nazis. They weren’t terrible people. They were serving their country long before the fascists came along. They were decent people who hailed from a tradition of service in a nation that valued their sacrifice. They were professionals. And when Hitler came to power, well, at first they were glad to see their military restored to priority in that society.

But when it all went to hell, when the horror became apparent, it was too late. They were part of it then. All the way. To the bitter end.

Those men, they didn’t know, not at first, not like those who joined up after the truth was obvious, but in the end they had become monsters just the same.

Today?

In this world?

In this America?

I would not join up, because I know in detail what that oath means.

The oath is power. Service is power. Not for you, but for those who command it.

And I know that the restraints and the reason that were once placed on that power no longer exist in America.

I won’t be a part of that. And I am not willing to risk becoming a monster even by accident.

You?

Well, that's your decision.

And you’ll have to make it.

But if you’re asking for advice, then my answer is this: Don't.

If you don't like my advice, then you shouldn't have asked for it.

Then again, if you’re asking, you really don’t understand the question.

And you really, really should.

Memorial Day 2017

Note:  The original title said 2018. That was a typo, not some subtle message. It’s been corrected, though this essay it will likely apply to 2018 as well // Jim

Last night the air was torn apart by the flash of lightning and shook with the crash of thunder.

I slept fitfully and dreamed of war.

This morning the world has gone silent.

Cold rain falls and the sky is the color of gunmetal.

This seems fitting to me. This quiet melancholy day, leeched of color.

For this is the day we Americans are supposed to pause and remember those many who have fallen in service to the United States.

Memorial Day isn’t about honoring veterans.

No, it’s not.

Not the living ones anyway.

Memorial day is about the dead.

This is the day some dutiful Americans visit the graveyards and the military cemeteries to place flowers and flags and to remember husbands and brothers and wives and mothers and sisters and sons and daughters who wore the uniform and came when called and gave the last full measure. My own father lies out there, under the cool white marble of a military cemetery, and today I dearly wish I could stop by for a visit – but it’s a thousand miles away and too far. Dad would understand.

Today is a day when we will lay the wreaths and sound the lonely trumpet and shed a tear and a salute for those comrades long gone.

Today is about the cool gray ghosts who still wander the countless battlefields of America, from Lexington to Antietam, from the Ardennes to the Chosin Reservoir, to Tet, to Basra, to Kamdesh, and all the terrible battles yet to come.

And come they will.

Oh yes, come they will, those new battles, in this endless and unending war.

For that is our nature, we Americans. This is who we have become, a nation of endless war.

Once this day was called Decoration Day in honor of those who died during the American Civil War.

Later the holiday became a day of remembrance for those killed in all conflicts.

Today, Memorial Day supposedly marks the passing of those  who died in uniform, both in peace and in war – but it’s been so damned long since there was a peace, the distinction is moot.

Today is supposed to be about those who gave their lives for freedom and liberty, for justice and right, for the ideal of a more perfect union.

 

But in reality, it’s not the soldiers we remember. It’s the endless war.

 

Do you realize that it’s almost two decades now, now since those terrible days in September of 2001?

Seventeen years of war and death and sacrifice and the supposed Global War on Terrorism.

For our children, this most recent generation, the ones just now reaching the age of reason and awareness, they have never known an America not at war. 

They have never lived in a nation at peace.

Never.

Think on that. No, that’s not a rhetorical statement. Think on that. Think on how this conflict has shaped them, this generation, how it defines their worldview during the most formative years of their lives and how this world will shape the one they create a decade from now for their own children.

For them, this new generation, war has become so commonplace, so ubiquitous, that it’s simply business as usual.

For them, war simply is.

For them, war is just another aspect of American life, like plumbing and electricity and the flow of money, invisible and all around. The dead come home from conflict invisible, hidden, silent, returned to their grieving families in quiet ceremonies far away from the public eye, unlamented and unnoticed by a nation grown jaded and bored with slaughter. America does not see the dead, not until days like this one, when the bodies are safely hidden away under slabs of white marble and fields of green manicured grass and draped in words of patriotism and valor.

For them, this generation, war is normal.

And those of us born in the 1960s? Well we certainly can’t tell them that this is wrong.

We certainly cannot tell this generation war is not the normal state, that normality is peace without conflict. 

See, because we grew up in a nation at war too.  By the time I was seventeen, America had been fighting in Southeast Asia for my entire life.  The media was daily filled with images of blood and death, body counts, mangled and maimed soldiers, of burning helicopters and a terrifyingly incomprehensible enemy.  We were told we would go next, that we had to, or the enemy would come here, to America, and slaughter us all.

Back home? Well, back home, the streets were filled with violence and unrest and it seemed that America was about to tear itself to pieces in a clash of violently opposed ideologies – because no matter how much the enemy might despise us, we hated ourselves, our neighbors, our fellow Americans, even more. 

And how did that shape our worldview, the world we have given to our own children?

For us, war is the normal state of affairs too.

And our parents?

They remember a brief period of idyllic America, the perfect peaceful 1950’s, sock hops and ducktails and white picket fences, providing you lived on the right side of the tracks, providing you were white – while Korea raged unseen and ignored in the background and at home they dug fallout shelters and waited for the Soviet bombs to fall and saw commies hiding in every shadow.

Their parents had World War II, and before that … well, the list goes back a long, long way and perhaps war is a normal state of affairs for us Americans after all.

There are a lot of dead to remember on this Memorial Day.

 

And so it goes, this endless cycle.

 

Today there are those who instead of picnicking  with their familiars, instead of working in their yards or enjoying the day, will be patrolling the dark and dangerous corners of this world.  They’re out there, right now, walking the bitter broken mountains of central Asia. They’re out there right now standing the long watch on and below and above the seas. They’re out there in the fetid festering jungles of South America, in the dry dusty deserts of Africa, in the blistering heat of the Middle East, in lands so remote you’ve never even heard of them – and wouldn’t believe the descriptions of such places if you did.  They are out there right now, as far away as a cold airless orbit high above the Earth and as close as local bases in their own states and the armories of their own home towns.  

Some of these men and women will not live out today.

Some will most certainly come home to Dover Air Force Base in a cold steel box beneath the draped colors of the Stars and Stripes, their war over, their dreams ash, soon to be just another restless ghost in America’s legion of the dead.

Today, there are those who wear the uniform, but can no longer serve – their duty stations are the crowded and forgotten wards of military hospitals around the world. They won’t be working in the yard or grilling out today either. Some will spend the day with family, even if they are unaware of it. 

Soon too their last battle will be over.

Today there are those who no longer serve, no longer wear the uniform, but they still fight. They fight the nightmares of Vietnam and Beirut and Mosul and Firebase Alpha and a thousand other battlefields you’ve never heard of.   They are the walking dead, killed in action only they no longer have the wit to know it and so they haunt the streets of America, the forgotten unseen discarded cold gray ghosts of war and conflict, poisoned by nightmares, by pills and alcohol and poverty, slowly fading away.

And today, of course, there are those who no longer fight, no longer struggle, no longer remember.  They lie entombed in the soil of foreign nations, at Normandy, at Tunis, at the Ardennes, at Brookwood and Cambridge, at Flanders and Lorraine, at Manila, Mexico City, in the Netherlands, the Somme, and many other places whose names most Americans no longer remember or never knew. One hundred and twenty four thousand, nine hundred and nine American servicemen lay interred forever in twenty-four cemeteries on foreign shores and there they will stay, never to return to America.  They were the lucky ones, if you can call it luck, found and honored and laid to rest by their fellows.  Others, well, their bones are myriad and they litter the sea floor beneath all the oceans of the world or are lost in the jungles and deserts on all the world’s continents, their resting places unknown and unremembered. 

Today, here, within the boundaries of the United States, there are one hundred and forty-six national military cemeteries, and more than a million Soldiers, Sailors, Marines, Airmen, and Guardsmen lie beneath the cold white granite, my own father among their brave company.  And one day I will join them.

Their battles are long, long over, even if the war still rages on.

They, all of them, came when called, some of their own free will and some not, and did their duty and no one, no one, can ask any more of them.

For them, for all of them, for those who have fallen or will fall in this lousy war, and for all those who have fallen in all the conflicts we’ve fought lo these many years, for those who will fall tomorrow, today raise a glass and give a nod towards the flag.

Remember them.

Remember those cool gray ghosts.

If only for a moment.

Into the Valley of Death, Again

 

To go against the church is to go against God!
-- Monsignor Orelas, Priest, 2011

 

A winning mission.

Not a failure says President Trump.

Or rather not a “failure.”

Given the nature of the situation, perhaps winning should be in Doctor Evil quotes instead of failure but then I’d be digressing by the fourth line and let’s not do that.

So, Our hero Ryan died on a winning mission.

Let us review:

- Chief Special Warfare Operator (SEAL) William Ryan Owens was killed.

- Six American servicemen were injured, several severely.

- Despite strict operational security, covert insertion, and months of intelligence work, the enemy was tipped off to the pending attack. Exactly how isn't known, could have been barking dogs, a crashed recon drone, intercept of communications from Yemeni commandos accompanying the mission, or just plain bad luck.

- A large number of civilian non-combatants were killed, including an 8-year-old girl

Note: reports are that armed women were part of the firefight, making them legitimate targets. I'm not saying they weren't. But even the Pentagon admits a number of non-combatants were killed and has opened an investigation into those casualties

Also Note: Once the advantage of surprise was lost and the firefight began, air support was called in because there were no other options. At that point, given the situation, it would be nearly impossible for there not to be collateral damage and civilian casualties. Sometimes there are no good options, that’s just how it is.

- A $75,000,000 MV-22 Marine assault aircraft was lost.

- Out of the 14 enemy combatants killed, three were actual AQAP leaders, but the primary objective got away (or was never there) and is now openly mocking President Trump and publicly calling him "The White House's new fool."

- And anti-US sentiment in the region, already high, is now rising significantly.

In the aftermath – depending on analysis of captured materials and information systems – it is possible that the mission could be considered an intelligence success. It's too early to tell and likely the results of that analysis, whatever they are, will be classified for OPSEC purposes and even if they are significant, the public will never know. That is the nature of this sort of thing. Failures are public, successes are unacknowledged.

Now, before we go any further let's get something out of the way:

Sometimes missions go to shit and there is not one damned thing you can do about it.

The God of War is fickle and perverse and his prophet is Murphy.

All the planning, all the assets, all the training, all the intelligence work, despite all of it, sometimes there's a barking dog and it all just goes sideways. And then the only thing you can do is call in the gunships and let God sort it out.

That is the nature of war.

And so my criticism is not, REPEAT NOT, directed at the military.

I know these people. I helped plan and execute missions like this one. They would not have gone forward if they weren’t reasonably confident of success, no matter who is sitting in the White House. The people out there on the pointy end of the stick are doing the very best they can with what they have at the moment.

Could things have been done differently? I don’t know, I wasn’t there. I’m not questioning the commanders who made the decision to go forward or the SEALs who executed the mission. That’s not my point. Unfortunately the job has to be done and theirs is not to question why, it's to do or die and ride into the valley of death when commanded. And that is why they are the very best, the most highly trained, with the best equipment and support we can give them.

But there is always a risk that the mission will go bad.

And it did.

In the worst way possible.

Is that Donald Trump’s fault?

Yes.

Yes it is.

He’s the President. He’s the Commander in Chief. The buck stops right in front of his desk. Fair or not, that’s how it is. That is what he swore to when he took the oath of office. That is what the Constitution demands of him. He and he alone is responsible. If the mission is a success he gets to claim it on national TV. And if it goes bad, it’s all his fault. That’s the job. And a real president, a real leader, steps up and takes responsibility either way, most especially when it all goes to shit.

But America does not begin with the President.

It begins with us, the citizens of this nation.

And while it may be the military’s duty to do or die, it is for us to question why.

Chief Owens died in our name, so it is for us to demand a thorough and dispassionate accounting from our leaders.

A few years back, when four men died in Benghazi, conservatives didn't need reminding of this duty – though they then perverted their responsibility into a political vendetta. 

And since the Benghazi comparisons are flying on both sides today, allow me to remind you all that at no time did the previous administration attempt to portray that debacle as a victory or anything other than failure.

And that's my point, right there.

The Yemen raid, whatever the eventual intelligence value, can hardly be called a "winning mission."

To do so is an insult to every thinking American and an abdication of the responsibility which comes with the office of President.

Worse, far worse, this morning the Administration is attempting to silence accountability by saying that any criticism is unpatriotic and a "disservice to Chief Owens."

 

That is some fascist bullshit, right there.

 

That is the tactic of every petty dictator and tin pot tyrant.

It is the duty of free citizens to question their leadership.

Just as Republicans and Democrats questioned Obama.

If, as Sean Spicer this morning claimed, the mission was a success, a true success despite the terrible cost, then it is the responsibility of the administration to prove that beyond a shadow of a doubt to the public.

Otherwise what Spicer is saying is that every Republican who questioned Obama in the wake of Benghazi must be considered equally unpatriotic and un-American.

More, Trump himself claims to have opposed the war in Iraq and Afghanistan right from the start.

Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed to have been a vocal critic and to have never supported the idea of war in the wake of 911.

And he has repeatedly criticized the war and our role in it for the entirety of his campaign, denouncing both wars as failures – this is in point of fact the very cornerstone of his rhetoric.

So when White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer demands the critics of the Yemen raid apologize to Trump out of some supposed respect for a fallen SEAL, then we must demand Trump himself apologize for his critical and disparaging remarks about the war in deference to all of those Americans who died in Iraq and Afghanistan.

No?

No, I suppose not.

He’s just not that kind of leader, is he?

In fact, this morning Trump took to Twitter to criticize Senator John McCain – a man who arguably knows a bit more than Donald Trump about military missions gone bad – for criticizing the Yemen Raid.

Trump said such criticism "emboldens the enemy!"

Criticism of a botched military operation emboldens the enemy.

Think about that.

No, really think about that and what such a statement from a president really means for liberty.

And yet – and yet – despite repeated attacks, McCain himself and those like him in Congress continue to endorse this president and his decisions. And they do so, those Senators and Congressmen, because they are terrified that if they don't then they themselves will become casualties of this war.

And staying in power, no matter how diminished, no matter how far they have to crawl on their bellies, is more important to them than their duty to the nation.

And that should sound the alarm for every American.

Because that is how republics die.

Clemency

 

As a final act of his presidency, President Obama commuted the sentence of Chelsea Manning.

I don’t suppose you’d find it surprising, given my background and previous comments on this matter, that my inbox is overflowing today with messages asking what I think about Obama’s decision.

My opinion?

My opinion is complicated and I don’t pretend to be entirely impartial.

First, the elephant:  I don’t give a tinker’s damn about Manning’s gender. 

I strongly believe it is every human being’s inalienable right to define themselves. I believe this right applies to everybody, even criminals.  Manning’s personal identity is none of my business in any fashion. If Chelsea Manning says she identifies as female, then so far as I’m concerned, she’s female and I’ll address her as such.  This isn’t out of respect for her – because I have none – but out of respect for my own beliefs and the rights I fought for when I swore the same oath she betrayed.

A number of people have suggested to me Manning’s gender identity issues may have influenced her decision to betray her oath. 

So?

Well, see her identity issues might be seen as, if not an excuse, then an explanation.

And you know what, that’s bullshit – unless you are suggesting to me being trans makes you inherently unreliable.

There are uncounted numbers of service people who struggle with their identity in one fashion or another, with personal problems, with mental health issues, with personal pressures that sometimes stagger the imagination (as a former Chief and Officer, trust me, I dealt with personal issues from my troops most of you wouldn’t believe). The vast, vast, vast majority of those people don’t betray their oath and pass controlled material to a foreign agency.

I respect Manning’s self-declared identity, and I might even sympathize with the severe distress that identity may have caused her in a military environment, but that’s as far as it goes. Right there.

Allowing Manning to use her identity as an excuse is a slap in the face of every LGBT person who served with honor and distinction – particularly those who served before they could do so openly.

So, that said, if you wish to comment on this post I’ll expect you to show that same respect. If you address Manning by name, then use the name and gender pronouns she identifies with. Comments that attempt to make an issue, an insult, or an excuse of Manning’s gender will not post. This is non-negotiable.

Manning’s gender identity is irrelevant to her crime. 

So, let’s put it aside.

 

And, yes, crime.

 

Manning is a convicted criminal. 

Manning is a convicted criminal and her guilt is not in question. She admitted it herself. The evidence is indisputable.

Manning is a criminal under both civilian and military law.

She was charged with twenty-two offenses.

She pled guilty to ten of those charges. 

She faced court martial and was convicted under military law of eleven out of the twelve remaining charges.

She was acquitted of the most serious charge: aiding and abetting the enemy in time of war – a charge that could have resulted in a death sentence.

She was sentenced to thirty-five years in military prison.

None of that is in dispute. Her guilt is not in question.

Should she have been charged in the first place?

Many of the messages in my inbox are from people who don’t think so. Few of those people served in the military. Fewer still served in military intelligence. And fewer still served in military intelligence in time of war.

If they had, they might have a different perspective.

Should she have been charged in the first place. You goddamned right she should have.

I wrote the following back in 2010, when the story first broke and while Manning was still being held in an Army stockade in Baghdad (Note, there was no discussion of Manning’s gender back then, thus she is referred to by the male pronoun and her birth name in the text):

---

[Over] the last month a number of folks have asked my opinion regarding the US Soldier who passed classified information to the WikiLeaks site.

Including this now infamous video clip.

The general consensus seems to be that I might regard this soldier as a hero – and a number of folks pointed me at this idiotic site.

Seriously, what the hell is the matter with you people?

Hero?

Wrong.

Utterly wrong.

This guy is a turd who doesn’t know the first thing about either patriotism or keeping his word.

If you think that I would regard Army Specialist Bradley Manning as anything other than an traitorous asshole who betrayed his oath, his service, and his country and who jeopardized the lives of his fellow Soldiers, then you really don’t know anything about me at all.

There’s a huge difference between a whistleblower and a disgruntled turncoat.

Manning is the latter.

He’s a coward, a criminal, a shitbag loser who was demoted for striking a fellow soldier, and from where I sit, a dishonorable traitor who deserves to be in prison for a good long time – right next Robert Hanson and John Walker and the fact that Manning gave his information to WikiLeaks instead of the Russians is irrelevant.

For those of you not familiar with the story of Spec Manning here’s the thumbnail version: Manning was a 22 year-old US Army specialist serving in Iraq who passed classified gun camera video to the WikiLeaks website. He then tried to pass 260,000 classified documents to a former hacker at WikiLeaks while bragging about his exploits. That hacker, Adrian Lamo, turned Manning into federal authorities. Manning is currently sitting in military detention in Baghdad.

Couple of things:

First, it’s a damned sad day indeed when a lowlife convicted hacker like Lamo has more honor and integrity and sense of duty than a US Army soldier trusted with a security clearance and the defense of secure information and the nation.

Second, the media widely reported Manning as an “Intelligence Analyst,” but the truth of the matter is that as a Specialist he was a low-ranking gofer, who obviously had way too much time on his hands and not nearly enough supervision. This guy was an “analyst” in only the broadest, most entry level, sense of the word.

I spent over twenty years in military intelligence with one of the highest security clearances in the military and I recognize Manning right away, he’s an E-4 headquarters discipline problem who spent most of his time in the war zone skylarking in a cushy non-combat assignment and sifting through classified networks instead of doing his fucking job. While his fellow Soldiers, Marines, Sailors, Airmen, and Guardsmen were out risking their asses every single day, Manning was sitting fat, dumb, and happy, safe in a secure compound surfing military networks and spying on his own people looking for juicy gossip, instead of performing the work that he was supposed to be doing and that would help protect the lives of his fellows. All of us in the military know shitbags like this, the slackers who sit around drinking sodas and slurping cup-O-noodles all day while everybody else not only does their own job but his too. The fucker is probably the same guy who always takes the last cup of coffee and doesn’t make more.

Third, about that video – those pilots didn’t do anything wrong. That’s right. They. Did. Not. Do. Anything. Wrong. Unless you’ve been there, you do not have context to hang this event on and you do not have the experience to understand what you’re looking at. Period. If you think otherwise, you’re wrong.

I’ve avoided discussing this despite a number of requests – because you’re not going to like what I have to say – but I’ll do it now anyhow.

The video is disturbing, it shows the true horror of war, of conflict, and killing – and that horror is not the death of innocents, it is what happens to those who do the killing and who are submerged in blood and death and destruction for months and years at a time.

You should be horrified by that video – just like you should be horrified by videos of those flag-draped steel boxes coming home to Dover Air Force Base (and that is, of course, why the previous administration tried to hide them, don’t want the population revolted and shamed by dead soldiers, no sirree). That’s war, and it’s pretty fucking horrifying. There is not one damned thing glorious about it. No matter how you slice it, what it ultimately comes down to is that you’re killing people and they are killing you. Your government is killing people. Whether or not it is justified is a matter for history and irrelevant to those who actually wage it. On the ground you’re killing people. Killing. Them. By fire and flame and blast, by gun and bombardment and by missile. Sometimes it’s quick and painless – and sometimes it’s slow and lingering and terrible. Sometimes it’s a quick shot to the head and all neat and tidy – and sometimes it leaves human beings splattered like burned chunky spaghetti sauce across the landscape. Sometimes you kill the people you intend to, those sons of bitches on the other side who are trying to kill you – and sometimes you kill children and old people and reporters and friendlies and some poor hapless bastard whose only crime was to be in the wrong place at the wrong time when the minigun cuts loose. That’s war, it’s brutal and it’s ugly and it’s inhuman and it is immoral (yes, immoral, war is inherently immoral no matter which side you are on. I’m not saying that war isn’t oft times justified or that the actions of individual soldiers aren’t moral and righteous, but war itself is a dirty immoral business and make no mistake about it). That is the vicious nature of war, perhaps if Americans actually understood that they’d be less eager to have one every ten years or so. And we’ve been at this one now longer than any other in our history (with the exception of the so-called “Indian Wars”) and it is taking a measurable toll.

Americans want to believe that war is somehow glorious and moral and a grand adventure. That might makes right and that real American soldiers sleep the sleep of the righteous and the just untroubled by bad dreams. That patriotism is slapping a $2 magnet on the back of their cars while waving a flag and calling those who don’t believe as they do un-American. They live in some make believe fantasy land where it’s possible to bomb a country into democracy while making a profit and the enemy is easy to identify because he looks just like a Jap or a Nazi or a Slope or ragheaded terrorist. Americans want to believe that the enemy doesn’t love his country as much as they love theirs. Americans want to believe that war is just like TV or a video game, all clean and safe and without consequence. Americans want to believe that God stands with us and that he has forsaken the enemy. Americans want to believe that war isn’t horrifying and inhuman and immoral.

Americans want to believe that Johnny can march off to war and come home unaffected.

Reality is somewhat different – and after WWII and Korea and Vietnam and the Gulf War and Bosnia and Beirut and Somalia and now more than ten years of this goddamned endless conflict you’d think Americans would understand that fact.

But they don’t.

So, let me clue you in. If you are to survive the battlefield with your mind intact, then you’d damned well better have mental defenses that are as bullet resistant as your ballistic vest. Some folks can’t deal with it, can’t deal with the stress and horror and inhumanity of it all. They just can’t. The DoD and VA mental health clinics are full to bursting with these broken veterans – and truthfully, they may be the most human of us all. All are affected in some way. And those who engage in the business of war develop coping mechanisms or they simply won’t survive on the battlefield. And those coping mechanisms are well understand by those who train us – and those who have to fix us after we’re broken. Killing human beings in our society is immoral, and since we generally don’t recruit sociopaths into the military, we have to find a way to overcome that prohibition in the people we send off to war. The oldest and best method is to vilify the enemy, to make him less than human. Japs, Krauts, Gooks, Slopes, Towelheads, whatever, soldiers have done this since the time of the Roman Legions. It’s a natural human primary response to the situation and it works. So does gallows humor. The business we are engaged in is ghastly and horrible, we know that, but it is our sworn duty, it is the nature of our profession. And so we deal with it the way humans in similar circumstance deal with blood and gore and horror and stress – they make jokes, just as cops do, just as paramedics do, just as firemen and doctors and pilots do (I’ve known more than a few air traffic controllers in my life, all have lost aircraft under their control. When that happens, they crack wise and keep doing their jobs – because the alternative is to come unglued at the thought of an airliner you were responsible for full of people splashed all over some cornfield, and if that happens, if they freeze or become hysterical or lose focus, thousands more could die. So they crack wise and make graveyard jokes and they carry on as long as they have to. Ever wonder why the ATC profession has such a high rate of alcoholism and suicide? The only profession with a higher suicide rate is … us. The military).

Those Apache pilots were doing what they were supposed to be doing. They were directed onto target. They were literally miles away, watching those men on the ground through powerful night-vision cameras. They had seconds to analyze what they were seeing. It’s not like the movies. It’s not like a video game. It’s sweltering and the bird is shaking and vibrating and howling. It’s nerve wracking and the levels of stress and paranoia and adrenalin are so far beyond anything a normal human being ever deals with that it can’t be described – and it’s a damned sight more harrowing than anything some cowardly skylarking E-4 REMF back there in an air conditioned trailer ever had to deal with. Now, those pilots had to kill people, in a way far more personal than the average Soldier or pilot, and they had to do it over and over again, for months, years. That was the nature of their job. Could you do that? Unlikely. Just as the average person couldn’t do what a paramedic does, or a surgeon, or an executioner. It’s not the physical aspect, it’s the mental. They deal with it by joking, by gallows humor. Those pilots had no reason to believe other than what they did at the time, that they were looking at a legitimate military target, and they did what they were supposed to do. They eliminated the threat. They pulled the trigger on human beings in a very personal way – and they joked about it while they were doing so because that’s how you deal with it.

And that’s what so many people found offensive. That’s what Manning found so offensive.

They were wrong, of course, those pilots – not for joking while killing people, but for killing the wrong people. It’s easy for the armchair generals to condemn them for it, but if you think you would have made a better judgment call in that situation, well, then by all means sign up. Put your abilities, honed by hours of Gears of War, to use. The Army is always looking for good people with the magic ability to see through the fog of war and separate friend from foe. Go on, put your money were your mouth is.

I know, no matter what I say, you’ll still think me wrong.

You think the real question is this: with all our vaunted technology why couldn’t we tell that those men on the ground were TV reporters and children and non-combatants? Why?

Well because as I’ve alluded to in the previous paragraph, war is not at all like a video game or a movie or a book written by somebody who has never been there. And because computers aren’t very good at determining the intentions of human beings in a grainy green-lit shaking night-vision video feeds taken from miles away.

That’s the job of Intelligence.

That’s the job of Intelligence analysts.

See, while those Apache pilots, and countless thousands of other forces, were out there on the line – intelligence analysts were sitting in an air conditioned trailer in a secure compound in Bagdad. Their job was to analyze video and images and data and patterns and messages and the countless other bits and pieces and fragments of information in order to give the trigger pullers a better picture of the battle space. It was their job to determine intent.

In this case, the events in the video happened two years before Manning showed up in the war zone, but somebody just like him was supposed to be looking at the data and providing information to the warfighters.

Now, it’s true that you never have enough information, and you never have a clear picture, and you can never truly know the enemy’s intention. And that too is the nature of war. You simply do the best you can in a dynamic and ever changing environment. And even if you do everything right as an analyst, everything you know may be rendered outdated in seconds by changes in the battlespace. Intelligence work never ends. In the war zone there is never an idle moment. You learn from your mistakes and failures – and you will make mistakes and you will have failures and that too is the nature of war. But what you don’t do is sit around, fucking off and surfing through the networks looking for ways to screw your superiors when what you’re supposed to be doing is supporting the guys out there on the line. What Manning should have been doing was his job, analyzing data, doing his part to help build a coherent picture of the threat in order to reduce the likelihood of killing the wrong people.

He should have been doing his part to support his brothers in arms.

Instead he betrayed his oath, his duty, and his country, those soldiers out on the line, and those self same innocent Iraqis he claimed to be so concerned about. Manning’s actions directly put his fellow soldiers in harm’s way and may have put Iraqi lives at risk as well. If Manning was so concerned for the lives of those innocent Iraqis, then he damned well should have done his job.

(Note: I speak from personal experience here.  Somewhere in the back of a closet, in a box of paper records I keep from my military service, is a Navy Commendation Medal that I was awarded for, in part, saving the lives of 43 Iraqis. That situation isn’t one I’m going to discuss in detail, but the short version is a target had been incorrectly identified in the fog of war. I was the intelligence officer who had personally led a team to inspect that target the day before and knew from direct observation the strike package had been ordered in error. I could have kept my mouth shut. That would have been the easy thing to do. Admirals don’t like changing strike packages – especially ones that are queued for launch on the carrier’s flight deck – or being told they are wrong. I could have looked the other way. I could have ignored it. They were just towelheads, right? Enemy non-combatants, but enemies nonetheless. It was two days into the war and we were killing them by the tens of thousands. I mean, what was another 40 or so, right? But they don’t pay Chief Warrant Officers to keep their mouth shut or to do the easy thing. So, instead, I did my duty and pissed off my chain of command in the process. And 43 innocent Iraqis lived. Later, instead of a court martial, I got a commendation. So don’t tell me about Manning’s concern for Iraqi civilians because I don’t want to hear it).

Now, if Manning truly felt that he had evidence of a war crime – then there are very specific methods to bring that to the attention of the chain of command, all the way up to the Commander In Chief. He could have forwarded that information to his superiors. If he was unsatisfied with their response he could have reported it to the Inspector General’s Office – and he could have done so anonymously if he was afraid of repercussions. Every single one of us in uniform knows how to contact the IG – and if you could find Adrian Lamo’s email address, you damned well could find the number for the IG which is posted on the bulletin board in every space in the military. Failing that, he could have contacted his Representative or Senator – and again, if you can find a hacker’s email address or a two year old classified video buried in SIPRNET, you sure as hell shouldn’t have any trouble finding your congressman’s webpage.

No, Manning, with malice aforethought, deliberately betrayed his country. He stole classified information that he was neither authorized to access or equipped to understand and passed it to unauthorized persons. Nothing whatsoever justifies his actions. Period. But, then he bragged about it to Adrian Lamo and offered to pass on 260,000 additional classified documents. Two hundred and sixty thousand. He didn’t do this out of some outraged sense of morality, he was doing it for the same reason every other traitor does it – because he thought he was smarter than his chain of command, because he thought himself above his brothers in arms, because he appointed himself moral guardian of America, and because he wanted to improve his situation at the expense of duty and honor. What Manning did was a violation of not only his oath of enlistment, but the oath he swore to protect classified information when he was granted a security clearance. This man’s word is shit. He is a disgrace to the uniform he wears and an insult to all of us who have ever served with honor and distinction and who hold our oath dear.

Specialist Bradley Manning is a cowardly dishonorable scumbag and his actions may have led directly to the deaths of Allied men and women and have directly affected national security both in the war zone and at home.

More than that, because he was busy betraying his country instead of doing the job he was trained and paid and sworn to do, other pilots may find themselves living with the fact that they killed innocent men and women and children because they didn’t have the information they needed to make different choices in the battlespace.

This man is no hero.

And to call him one is to spit in the face of every man and women who has ever served and sacrificed for this country.

This man deserves nothing less than life in prison.

---

Looking back seven years on that essay and I wouldn’t change a word – well, other than the gender pronouns.

If I wrote that today, I might be a bit more judicious in my use of the word “traitor,” but I’m pretty confident that I’d end up in the same place.

Manning is a criminal. By her own admission. By military law. She betrayed her duty, her service, and her oath. She did it deliberately and with malice aforethought.

Nothing she disclosed was evidence of wrongdoing on the part of the military or the government – yes, I know you’re reaching for your keyboard right now in fury. But before you type the words “war crime” go back and review all of the material Manning stole and gave to Wikileaks.  Show me the war crime. Show me what was worth seven years in prison. Show me what was so terrible that it couldn’t be brought to the attention of US authorities without betraying your oath.

Show me what was so terrible that not only it couldn’t be brought to the attention of the proper authorities but instead should be given to an international criminal who deals in stolen property for his own profit and to further his own political agenda.

Go on. Read all of the material – don’t forget there are 260,000 diplomatic messages to go through and 500,000 pages of other material. Show me the crime. I’ll wait.

 

So, where does that leave us?

 

I waited to answer my email until after President Obama’s final press conference.

I figured he’d talk about his reasoning, and he did.

And there were no surprises.

First, the president commuted Manning’s sentence. Manning wasn’t pardoned.

That’s an important distinction.

I can perhaps live with a commutation.

But I would be adamantly opposed to a pardon.

Manning doesn’t deserve a pardon in any fashion.  She betrayed her country. She betrayed her oath. That is not in question. And Obama didn’t say otherwise and made no excuses for her. Nor did he in any way criticize the military or the military legal process that convicted Manning of her crimes.

But…

But, as much as it galls me – and it does gall me – President Obama was right. Manning’s sentence was out of proportion with other similar cases.

Thirty-five years in Maximum Security was far beyond what others who acted similar to Manning got. Manning wasn’t a spy like John Walker or Robert Hanssen. She was an idiot. She betrayed her country because she was stupid and selfish. She wanted us to think she did it for some higher cause but the truth is she just thought she knew better than all the rest of us. She was a lousy soldier and she shouldn’t have been there in the first place and maybe some of that is on the Army, or maybe not. But in the end perhaps 35 years was too long.

Thirty-five years is too long when a General who gave classified material to his mistress got nothing but a slap on the wrist and is hailed as a hero. And yes, thirty-five years is too long when the Secretary of State can run a private email server in her house with classified information on it. Granted, neither Petraeus nor Clinton’s actions were anywhere near what Manning did, but it’s damned hard to hold the troops to account when their commanders set such examples. 

I want you to understand something here: I have no sympathy for Chelsea Elizabeth Manning and I’ll be honest, if she was right now looking at another 28 years in Leavenworth, I would shed not a single tear.

 

But I’m not particular put out by clemency either.

 

I wouldn’t have done it, but I’m not the president either, perhaps if I was looking at it from his viewpoint I would see it differently.

Emotionally, Manning could have rotted in prison for all I care.

Dispassionately, I understand clemency and respect the president’s decision.

Perhaps my perspective is not yours.

Perhaps my experience is not yours.

Tens of thousands of us went into that lousy war, me included.

We, all of us including Manning, went of our own volition. 

Four thousand, five hundred and fourteen of us died in Iraq.

Two thousand, three hundred and ninety-two of us died in Afghanistan.

Those men and women, they don’t get a choice about living with the consequences of their decisions.

Those of us who lived, who held fast to our oath, we have to live with our choices. Every single day.

Manning should have to live with hers.

She betrayed her country. She betrayed her oath. She betrayed us. She did it on purpose.

Whether it be in prison or out, Manning should have to wear that betrayal around her neck for the rest of her goddamned life. Commutation of her sentence won’t change that.

In the end, we all have to live with what we’ve done.

President Obama included.

Perhaps that’s why he made the decision he did.

I guess, I’ll just have to live with that.  

 

 

 

 

 

Cossacks

“And what is Aleppo?”
  – Libertarian Party Candidate Gary Johnson

 

What's your plan to fight ISIS?

The plan, man! What’s the plan?

I am this morning reminded as I often am of that scene in Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome. 

You know the one.

Sure you do.

Max, Savannah Nix, and the Feral Kids have kidnapped Master and along with Pig Killer busted out of Bartertown's power plant dungeon. They're barreling madcap down the train tracks through the blasted wasteland in a ramshackle makeshift pig-shit powered steam locomotive. Max works his way up the side of the train, fighting Tina Turner's post-apocalyptic punk-metal roadies all the way and finally reaches Pig Killer at the controls of the engine.

"So, what's the plan?" Max shouts over the roar of the slipstream.

Pig Killer grins in unbelieving mirth. "Plan?" He laughs in delirious glee. "There ain't no PLAN! Hahahahahah...."

God, I love that scene.

I digress.

I'm not really sure what the point of last night's "Commander In Chief Forum" was, unless NBC wanted to publicly confirm how utterly incompetent Matt Lauer is as a journalist. It was 30 minutes of, "So, Scumbag Lying Hillary, tell us more about your criminal email scheme to destroy America," and 30 minutes of "Gee, Awesome Donald, you're so dreamy!" Lauer repeatedly cut Clinton off and repeatedly failed to follow up on Trump’s increasingly bizarre and ridiculous statements.

If they still teach forum moderation in Journalism School, this would be a good example of how not to do it.

Somewhere wedged in between Trump's gushing schoolgirl man-crush on Vladimir Putin (and honestly, was it just me or did anybody else expect Trump to go full on Tom Cruise couch jumping at that point? I LOVE HIM! I LOVE HIM! No? Just me then) and the ten billionth recounting of Clinton's email server, somebody in the audience asked Trump, "What's your plan to fight ISIS?"

What's your plan to fight ISIS.

The plan.

What’s the plan?

What’s your plan to fight ISIS?

That question shows just how little Americans, including a lot of veterans who ought to know better, actually understand about the Islamic State and the ongoing mess in the Middle East.

What's your plan?

Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan: Have we anything resembling a plan?
Herger the Joyous: Ride till we find them. Kill them all.
-- The Thirteenth Warrior, Touchstone Pictures, 1999

As if it's that simple.

As if “ISIS” is even the right label.

As if you could just sum up a solution to two thousand years of sectarian violence in a Tweet. I mean, think about it, Lauer wouldn’t give Clinton two minutes to explain her goddamned email, right? But Trump is going to give us the war plan in the same amount of time? Sure, why not.   

As if "ISIS" was just this one little unified group of easily identified shitheads confined to one little chunk of land instead of a vast nebulous entity spread across half a dozen countries and mixed in with millions of innocents.

As if the "ISIS" of January when the new president is sworn in would still be the same "ISIS" of today, right now. As if the enemy is all, “Whoa, hang on, flag on the play. Let’s us just wait for the new guy over there in America. It’s only fair!” As if the tactical situation would be unchanged between then and now. The international situation unchanged – including no further actions by Trump’s beloved Putin between now and then. The terrain, the weather, the supply routes, the intelligence, the bases and strongholds, the available assets, all unchanged. Trump claims to be some genius real-estate mogul, but even real-estate doesn’t work like that. Is this guy really so naïve that he thinks the vastly more complex world of war and geopolitics remains static from day to day?  

As if you can formulate an actual workable plan to deal with a staggeringly complex problem without detailed information, without a full assessment of available assets, without the consultation of Congress (you know, the people who have to fund and authorize such an adventure), without some kind of actual national strategy which includes military and nation-building options and contingency plans for when the enemy doesn't roll over and cooperate.

As if you can do all of this by firing the nation’s top generals and running it all yourself from the Resolute Desk, apparently by using your vast Hitler-like military genius.

As if it was just "Okay, you military guys, listen up. Here’s what we’re gonna do: Bomb some shit. Yeah, bomb some shit. And, uh, some fighter jets! And Tanks! And SEALs! Yeah! Green Berets! Kill 'em. Kill 'em all. God Bless America! High fives all around! Profit!”

Crazy, right?

Yeah, but see, the worst part is this: that really is Trump’s whole damned plan:

“Part of the problem that we’ve had is we go in we defeat somebody and then we don’t know what we’re doing after that, we lose it, like, as an example you look at Iraq what happened how badly that was handled. And then when President Obama took over and likewise it was a disaster. It was actually somewhat stable I don’t think it could ever be very stable it’s a war we never should have gone into it in the first place but he came in and he said, “When we go out” and he took everybody out and really ISIS was formed. This was a terrible decision and frankly we never even got a shot. And if you really look at the aftermath of Iraq Iran is going to be taking over Iraq they’ve been doing it and it’s not a pretty picture. The, and, and I think you know, ‘cause you’ve been watching me I think for a long time I’ve always said shouldn’t be there! But if we’re gonna get out take the oil if we would have taken the oil you wouldn’t have ISIS because ISIS formed with the power and wealth of that oil.”

That, that right there was Trump’s actual answer to the question, “What’s your plan to fight ISIS?”

That rambling incoherent stream of unconscious, that goddamned gibberish, was his answer.  

What’s your plan, Commander?

Well, see we go in, right, and we defeat some people and then we don’t have a plan for after that. Sad.

Okay, thanks for the history lesson, Professor, but what’s your plan?

Well, Iraq, see, I supported it but I didn’t support it and we won and it was stable but also not stable. We shouldn’t have gone in but we shouldn’t have left. And that’s how Gazpacho is made!

Yes, yes. But what’s your plan?

Iran is taking over Iraq. Not pretty! Not pretty! They’re doing it. People tell me they’re doing it. Sad!

I got it. But again, what’s your goddamned plan?

Take the oil! We should take the oil. In Iraq. Because ISIS, which is the Islamic State in FUCKING SYRIA, somehow something something Iraq invasion vague hand waving Putin squirrel Assad.

Jesus H. Christ, man, what’s the plan?

Plan? There ain’t no plaaaan ahahahahahahaha!

It’s gibberish.

It’s just goddamned gibberish.

Trump is ramshackle makeshift train wreck carrying a cast of pig-shit covered lunatics down the tracks into a wasteland.

If you take Trump’s statement apart, line by line, and you get rid of all the digression and all the filler and the non sequiturs, the only coherent thing you can parse from his response is this: Kill ‘em all, take their stuff

Kill them all, take their stuff.

 

That’s not a plan for defeating the Islamic State, you lunatic! THAT’S THE ISLAMIC STATE’S PLAN.

 

Kill them all, take their stuff.

Trump isn’t talking about defeating ISIS, he’s talking about pillaging Iraq.

Trump is actually talking about invading a country and looting it.

No wonder this guy admires a Russian despot. Because that’s some shady Cossack shit right there.

How does this work?

No really, I’d like to hear the details.

We … take the oil? Right. Okay. How?

No, that’s not a rhetorical question. Trump disparaged Obama for not taking Iraq’s oil on the way out. But how would we do that? Do we drill new wells, build massive new pipelines, and then what? Pump the country’s entire oil supply to a fleet of giant supertankers waiting offshore? How long does that take? Who pays for the wells and the pipes and ships – do we maybe just enslave the Iraqis and make them build it?  And the other Gulf States are gonna what? Just watch us sail away with the booty, with enough oil to completely collapse the world market and completely destroy their economies? I guess we’ll have to fight our way out of the Gulf. Good thing giant lumbering tankers don’t make easy targets. No. What do we do with it? Billions upon billions of barrels of oil, where does it go? To refineries in America? They don’t have that kind of capacity. To storage tanks? Do we just park it offshore for a while? Who cashes out on this? Do Americans get a cut? Sure, we’ll all be Saudi Sheiks. Or do we just give it to Exxon? Here you go, fellas, Merry Christmas! Maybe we give it to Putin?

And what if the natives resist? Do we send in Colonel Quaritch and his fleet of flying tanks to burn down the big tree they all live in? Because it’s looking a lot like Trump got his entire plan from watching Avatar.

So, we take the oil from Iraq, we kill all the big blue natives, and somehow this magically ends the war in Syria and stops global terrorism.

I guess Trump never watched the end of the movie.

Maybe it’s just me.

 

Jake Sully: This is how it's done. When people are sittin' on shit that you want, you make 'em your enemy. Then you're justified in taking it.
-- Avatar, 20th Century Fox, 2009 (Director’s cut)