A Dirty Little War...

 

 

"It's a dirty little war
Three-Five-Zero-Zero
Take weapons up and begin to kill
Watch the long, long armies drifting home"

Three - Five - Zero - Zero
Hair

There is a reason why some of the biggest peace lovers in the country are veterans of combat. Unlike when we were kids playing "king of the hill" or some other battle game, war is an ugly business. Even stand off warfare, where smart bombs and cruise missiles are becoming more common, is ugly. Killing someone or seeing a fellow soldier fall in battle are life long scars that are carried by many.

A man I worked with years ago was a former A-4 Skyhawk pilot in Viet Nam. He had been retired from the Navy for many years and was deep into his second career. One time, we both attended an off site training event for the purposes of team building. During one of the exercises, we were to reveal to team mates something which was deeply held or repressed. It was a very hard exercise for most.

This man, who I deeply respected, told me a story he had held inside for decades. He was coming back from a bombing run from North Viet Nam. He was out of bombs, but still had a full compliment of 50 caliber rounds. He radioed the carrier and asked if there was someplace useful he could unload the rounds, or if he should return with them unspent. It was suggested that a tree line on the way back might have some bad guys in it, so if he wanted to, he would take a pass or two and unload the 50 caliber rounds. He did, and then returned to the carrier.

A few days later, he received notification that when Marines had performed recon on the tree line, they found some dead bodies - lots of dead bodies. My friend was told there were almost a hundred dead people in the tree line. Rather than feeling ebullient, he was devastated. Even though this was war, he knew he had probably taken many lives. It was no longer abstract - it was real.

My point in telling this story is this - war is an ugly business. Someone once said the purpose of war is to kill people and break things. It is true. Warfare has gone from close combat to stand off attacks. However, regardless if you kill someone with a bayonet or use a cruise missile with a high powered warhead, the end result is not pretty. In fact, it is awful. War should always be the path of last resort. Our military is not to be used as a video game. It is a lethal killing machine which should only be used when there is no other option to protect the homeland.

As we stand on the precipice of another war scenario, we really need to think about lessons we should have learned in the past and how this action could affect our future. Once the first cruise missile is in the air, there is no way to un-ring the bell. Our future will then be cast. People will die - some innocent, some not. Regardless of the outcome, the actual event will be dirty and ugly. Soft tissue being blown up by high explosives. As clean as we try to make the outcome, it will still be a dirty little war....

The Two Depressions of Youth

 

 

"A dark cloud hangs over many of our youth today..."

Yesterday, I read an article about the depression of youth. No, this article had nothing to do with the medical diagnosis - it had to do with the economy. The article said whereas the overall unemployment rate is a "recession like" 14.0% (U6), the unemployment rate for youth is a "depression like" 24%. For black youth, the news is even worse. Their rate is stuck at an astonishing 40%.

Some might ask "who cares?" - they are just kids and can live with Mom and Dad. The "who cares" comes from this - many of us learned the rudiments of work skills from our first part time job. Working not only gave us spending money, it also gave us additional learning and purpose we could not get from being in school. In short, having the mix of being a student, taking part in extra curriculum activities, and working part time was an excellent way to learn the basics of time management.

The other depression which seems to plague our youth today is the medical diagnosis of depression. I will be the first to admit I don't really understand this disease, but I am getting smarter. It is not just feeling sad - it is much deeper, and much more serious. I have been amazed as I have aged the number of people we know, both adults and youth, that have been diagnosed with clinical depression. Not just diagnosed, but also treated with some hefty medications.

The question which had bothered me for a while now is "why?" Why are there so many people today with depression? Why had it hit our youth so hard? I think back to when I was in high school - I did not know of anyone who had depression. Was it because depression existed but was not diagnosed? Did people just "mask" it or self treat it? I don't know. All I know is this. In my opinion, today we have an epidemic of depression, bi-polar and a slew of other mental health disorders. It is a big and expensive problem not just for the families of those affected, but our society as well.

I have said before, it is not easy being a kid today. Whereas the future looked bright when I was young, the future today can look somewhat murky. We have depression in portions of our economy and clinical depression in sizable portions of our youth population. My generation can help two different ways. First, we can fix this stubborn economy which will allow everyone, especially our youth, to find employment. Second, we can get smarter about clinical depression. Chances are someone in your family or a family you know has it. We need to know it, and we need to understand it better so we can be of positive support to those (and their families) who suffer from it. 

On the Path to Athens

 

 

"Hey - no news is good news!"

 

True confessions. I have wanted to visit Greece, but so far, I have not. I have hesitated about putting it on my "bucket list", as Greece today is not the Greece of yesteryear. Much, much too volatile for me right now. In fact, it is beyond volatile - it is a mess. It has shown the world a textbook example of "Ponzi Style" government. Most governments in Northern Europe have taken notice of the mistakes Greece has made. The United States on the other hand, has not. In fact, we are marching down (of stumbling on) the path to Athens.

So how is Greece doing today? Greece is part of the PIGS group (Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain). They all have big problems, but the biggest is Greece. The ship of Greece is still taking on water, only not as fast. The austerity measures as mandated by the government and world financial institutions who have pouring money into the country are starting to take effect. However, even with that, Greece just had their 20th consecutive quarter of contraction. Their economy continues to shrink. A side effect of the contraction has been the unemployment rate. Their jobless rate hit 27.6% in May, with youth unemployment again bearing the brunt - around 65%.

Meanwhile back in the good old US of A, things are going much better. Not too long ago, I would look at our National Debt Clock with a nervous anticipation. It was spinning out of control. Our spending still was outstripping our revenue. Even with more new taxes taking effect, the Debt Clock continued to spin.

Then as if a magic spell happened, about three months ago the clock stopped spinning! It as if we were picked up while stumbling down the path to Athens! Our debt problem was solved! No more spending needed to by cut and no more new revenue needed to be collected. We just stopped the clock! Just as Ponce de León wanted to cheat death and aging by finding the Fountain of Youth, somebody in the Administration wants to cheat our debt future by stopping the Debt Clock.

The only problem with this solution is this - bad news does not get better with age. Hiding our heads in the sand will not make the problem go away. Despite how many issues the government can flood us with to blur our vision, the tumor continues to grow. Because the debt clock has gone from a reliable source of information to nothing more than a political tool, all we now only guess how much we owe. My guess is it is $17.2T range, or something close. In any event, it is over the statutory debt limit we are currently allowed to have.

Bob Dylan wrote a song years ago which said "a hard rain's gonna fall". The clouds are gathering, the storm is coming. No matter how many "tricks" Treasury can come up, the day of reckoning will be upon us sooner rather than later. Forget Syria - the real enemy we face is our own lack of financial discipline. Until we understand that, we will continue to stumble down the path to Athens.   

 

 

PCAs and Caregivers

 

 

"This is not about me, it is truly about thee..."

I was at the fair three times this year. I had search my memory banks to remember being there that many times before. Let me just say, I had much more hair, and many fewer pounds when I did go more than once a year. Two of the days I worked at a booth. The other day it was sightseeing and trying different food items for my wife and myself.

It seems like every year when we go, we see more and more people with physical disabilities in attendance. Some have minor disabilities, others more profound. The ones with more significant disabilities are accompanied by a Personal Care Attendant (PCA), or another kind of caregiver.

Every time I see a PCA or caregiver at work with their client or loved one, I am amazed and humbled at the same time. These gentle and compassionate servants are cut from cloth most of us are not. They constantly treat their client or loved one with the respect and attention they deserve. At the fair, it was important to allow everyone to enjoy as much of the fair experience as possible. The PCAs and caregivers were not there for themselves - they were there solely for the people they were caring for.

Every year we go to the fair, we say we go for the people watching and the food. The people watching is always good, as there is always a collage of people roaming around every day of the fair. However, part of the people watching is for me to be inspired. I am inspired to watch people with more aches, pains and disabilities than most of us will ever know, enjoy every minute of being at the fair. I am also inspired to watch the love, the unselfish love, of PCAs and caregivers as they do their level best to make this a special day for the people they are caring for.

Many people think that our veterans, our law enforcement officers and our first responders are heroes. They are. However in my book, PCAs and caregivers are also heroes. Some say heroes, some might say angels. Both terms work just fine as far as I am concerned.

The Fukushima Disaster

 

 

"If we just ignore it, will it go away?"

In a different time, under different political conditions, the story of the disaster at Japan's Fukushima Nuclear Plant would be front page news each day, every day for a very long time. Today however, it is yet another victim of the "blizzard" of news coming out of Washington and the Middle East. This is too bad, because the consequences of what happened in March 11, 2011 could effect the much of the northern hemisphere for many years to come.

First a bit of history. The Fukushima Nuclear Plant operates on the east coast of the Japan. It is an older technology facility, built by (General Electric) and operated by the Tokyo Electric Power Company. Despite its age, it still met the safety standards established by the government of Japan. On March 11, 2011, a massive earthquake with the strength of magnitude 9.0 hit off the north east coast of Japan. This resulted in a killer tsunami which came ashore and killed almost 19,000 people. In addition, it caused significant damage to the Fukushima three operating nuclear reactors.

As bad as this was, it could have been worse. The plant has six boiling water reactors. At the time of the earthquake, one of the reactors had been de-fueled and two others were down for planned maintenance. The other three however, sustained critical damage and initial efforts to "cool down" prior to shut down were unsuccessful. For a while, it looked like there might be a "melt down" in one or more of the damaged reactors.

After the situation had somewhat stabilized, the government of Japan went into full blown damage control with the world press. Some of the bad news was glossed over or not reported at all. The "close call" after the earthquake was not so close after all - it was more like a direct hit. When the world feared a Chernobyl like disaster, instead it is turning out to be a slow motion disaster which could end up being much, much worse. The "spin machine" of the Japanese Government is no longer working, and the truth is starting to leak out.

It is not just the truth which is leaking out, but also the contaminated water located below ground in holding tanks. The water is leaking and heading for the Pacific Ocean. The Tokyo Electric Power Company disclosed last month that the measurements of radioactive tritium in nearby seawater is the highest ever recorded. In fact, it is 18 times higher than what was expected.

This poison is going to continue to seep into the ocean unless we can find a way to stop and contain it. It will poison the water and the fish that live in the water. It will poison the people who eat the fish. With the way the ocean currents are, much of this poison is on the way to North and South America. This could end up being one of the largest, if not the largest environmental disasters of all time.

This is a story for all of us to keep an eye on. Like I said earlier, it is not getting much press right now. It is a big story, and a big problem for all of us.

Wither WAMM (and Code Pink) - Part 2

 

 

 

Hypocrite - a person who puts on a false appearance of virtue

 

M-W Dictionary

This is a follow up article I wrote in the early 2000's. I must say, this article rings as true today as when I wrote it. WAMM, Code Pink, and other Leftie groups continue to be very selective in their outrage. For the past 5 years - not much. In the 8 years prior to that - a whole lot of much. To be taken seriously, stands must be principled. The more things change, the more they stay the same seems to be very true on this issue.

The following was written during the G.W. Bush era:

After picking up the Minneapolis Star Tribune last weekend and reading the article on WAMM (Women Against Military Madness), I was relieved. I thought the organization had either gone on hiatus or had been eviscerated. To hear that they are back and growing was a relief not only to me, but also to many who live in the great state of Minnesota.
 

Much has happened since the Reagan era, when the WAMM crowd was so active. However, since Bush (41) left the presidency, nary a word was heard from WAMM.  With all the evil that has transpired in the world that relates to “military madness”, I began to wonder if the true name of this organization should have been LWAUSMD (Liberal Women Against United States Military Deterrence) instead of WAMM.

Lets’ looks at the last two decades in the world and see the opportunities that WAMM had missed:

• Iran/Iraq war where not only were hundreds of thousands killed in normal warfare, but the Iraq Army also used chemical weapons on Iranian military and civilian targets.
• The use of chemical weapons in against the Kurdish people in Northern Iraq by Saddam Hussein.
• The numerous civil wars in Africa (remember Mohamed Siad Barre of Somalia?) have led to the starvation and suffering of millions of innocent people despite generous aid coming from the Western World.
• The near genocide in Haiti under the leadership of Jean-Bertrand Aristide. A brutal dictator in the image of Stalin.
• The mass murders in the Balkans under Sloboden Milosevic. His final solution was tantamount to what Pol Pot did in Cambodia or Adolph Hitler did in the final stages of World War II.
• The “death squads” that inundate the country of Columbia in the name of cheap drugs for America.
• How about the Soviet Union and now Russia in its treatment of Georgia and Chechnya?
• Finally, what about Al-Qaida in the terrorist acts that have been perpetrated all over the world and topped off by September 11^th?

I have always admired people that take a principled stand, even though at times I might not agree with them. However, if a stand is truly taken on strong principles, then it must be consistent. For example, if one is to protest the United States School of the Americas, then one must also protest the Chinese embassy for the numerous human rights violations that have taken place in Mainland China.
 

My principled stand is that I believe our military to be an expensive, imperfect organization that quite often has not shown itself to be the best steward of our tax resources. On the other hand, this imperfect organization won the most dangerous war of the 20^th century – the cold war. What many people don’t realize is the cold war took an ominous turn in the mid 80’s. The Soviet Union, which was already bristling with ICBMs aimed at every major city in the United States, had now deployed SS-20 intermediate range missiles that could reach every major city in Europe in a matter on minutes. The Soviets were not in the mood to negotiate as they believed they finally had the leverage to back NATO down and gain strategic advantage. Under the leadership of Ronald Reagan, the United States developed the Pershing II missile, which was a far superior weapon to the Soviet SS-20. Although never deployed, we advertised it as a missile which was so accurate, we could target and hit Leonid Brezhnev’s bathroom window ten minutes after launch. That was enough for the Soviets – they agreed to pull the SS-20s out of Eastern Europe if the United States did not deploy the Pershing II.
 

However the final blow to the Soviets came from another weapon that was never deployed – SDI, or “star wars”. Ronald Reagan, despite unrelenting criticism from the Left and some of our allies in Europe, informed the world that the United States was going to develop and deploy the Strategic Defense Initiative.  The Soviets, who were having severe internal financial and political issues, knew that economically and technically, they could not counter SDI. It was the beginning of the end for the Soviet Union. Two weapon systems, Pershing II and SDI, never deployed, helped bring a peaceful end to the Cold War. Military Madness? No, military genius.
 

By the way, lets not forget the Gulf War. The Left still contends it was a war for oil. Ask the people in Kuwait what they think this war was all about. We went up against the 4^th largest army in the world and defeated them with minimal US causalities in a ground war that lasted 100 hours. Kuwait was freed and the Gulf was open for the commerce that Japan, Europe and the United States need to run their economic engines. Military Madness? No, suburb military strategy.
 

I am glad that WAMM has found its voice after going mute for most of the 90’s. I believe in the diversity of opinions that exist in this country – it is what has made us the great nation that we are. However, we must remember two things:

1)    We must rely on historical facts and not fall victim to hyperbole or conjecture.

2)    Our military has been far from perfect, but it has allowed us to live free and freely express our opinions – even the ones that are expressed in hypocrisy.

"The Mother of all Battles"

 

 

"In this world, there truly are some very bad people"

I was still in the Navy when the United States was involved in Desert Shield and Desert Storm. In fact, while stationed at Fort Meade, my last duty before retirement was to prepare a paper on the "lessons learned" on the Gulf War. However, that was over 20 years ago. Things back then were much different.

Saddam Hussein was indeed a very bad man. In some respects, he made Bashar Assad look like a light weight. Saddam was feared in the Middle East as he had assembled quite the standing Army. By 1990, Saddam's army numbered over 1,000,000, which made it the fourth largest in the world. All that military power gave Saddam a sense of bravado, which led to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. It was naked aggression in the most clear definition of the word. The world did not like what is was seeing, and many thought Kuwait was just a stepping stone to Saudi Arabia. The prize - world domination of the oil markets and all the power and wealth that went with it.

The vast majority of the world's nations believed what Saddam was trying to do was wrong. It would be a game changer for the region, as well as the world economy. The United Nations was fully in agreement that Saddam had to leave Kuwait and the occupation had to end. A huge coalition of the willing was assembled to set up a "firewall" on the border of Kuwait to ensure the aggression could spread no further. Troops and arms began to flow into the region at a breakneck speed. Battle plans were prepared. Hundreds of tanks, artillery and APCs were repainted from jungle to desert camouflage.

How much did this scare Saddam? Not a bit. He knew there was a battle coming. He did not care. He really thought he could win it. He told the allies to prepare for the "Mother of all Battles". Regardless of what was found after the war, most everyone knew Saddam had chemical weapons, and was ready to use them. How did we know? He had already used them on the Iranians during the eight year war. Yes, to defeat Saddam on his home turf was going to take a battle strategy like we had not put together for years.

The rest of the story is history. We all know how it ended. A magnificent victory for the world and a bloody defeat for Saddam Hussein. This was a clear cut case of bad guy vs. the world. In Syria however, we are finding a much different story. A couple days ago, a man was on one of the TV shows telling how he recently spent much time in Syria, mostly working with the rebels. His words - "The original rebels are for the most part gone. They have been replaced with Al Qaeda, Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamic extremists." He then went as far to say the gassing of civilians might have been done by the rebels to bring the United States into the was against Assad.

In 1991, the end game was clear - crystal clear. Evil was almost universally identified and the world was united against it. In Syria, we have a classic civil war. There really are no good guys fighting. However, there are hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians caught in the crossfire. It seems that our President is going to get us involved in a fight between Syria's version of the "Hatfields and the McCoys". It is a fight we should walk away from. There will be no winners - only losers. We can't afford to be one of the losers.