This Year We Choose the Best of the Least

People who ‘rise to the occasion’ are generally no different than the people from whom they emerge. If the people are focused on good character, sound leadership, selfless service, a sense of personal responsibility for the good of the nation, an understanding of good and responsible nationalistic spirit, then those who are chosen to represent them will display these qualities.

However, what we have seen happen far too often are men who are missing an innate understanding of what should be moral eligibility for the positions they seek. I for one am astounded that anyone could not feel inadequate or disqualified for federal political office having not served, in some capacity, in the Armed Forces of this nation. What kind of arrogance is it that allows a man to consider himself – or herself eligible for a position of service that bears the authority to send others to their deaths having first exempted themselves from that heavy responsibility when it was their time?

While the US Constitution does not require Military service as a prerequisite for holding the position of President of the United States, the voter certainly can demand it simply by refusing to consider men who don’t have this essential experience in their resume. This irresponsible voter oversight creates an opportunity for the kind of degenerate decisions that continue to endanger better men on the battlefield. It is this kind of selfish, self-centered, sociopathic vision that allows unqualified men to rise to the highest levels of authority in this country. And make no mistake, ‘we the people’ have not only ignored this missing qualifier in too many of our candidates, we have encouraged people who should have disqualified themselves to run in the first place.  

This is not a complicated issue it is in fact a stance that we all take every, single, day. As business owners, we regularly fire people who do not display a minimum of talent or the character necessary for the jobs we offer. Truly successful corporations typically hire men for leadership positions who have an innate understanding of the industry they will be leaders in. Even Churches glean resumes, interview candidates and listen to the sermons given by men who apply for positions as Pastors of Congregations. Law Enforcement personnel suffer a gauntlet of interviews, academy training and lengthy probationary periods before being put on the permanent rolls. We all spend a significant amount of time with contractors, service personnel, mechanics and babysitters before hiring someone to perform any one of their services in our homes or on our equipment. And yet the process of choosing someone for the position of President of the United States is run more like a popularity contest than a period of deeply considerate vetting.

How else do we wind up with one man whose entire personal experience is summed up by college and a position as a community organizer on the one hand while on the other, a business man who never grew anything, built anything or created any substantive thing. And I know, in some cases both of their efforts probably allowed for the creation of some jobs but their efforts certainly contributed more to personal aggrandizement and personal wealth than the former. In any case, that nagging, desire to serve others with your very life seems to have been lacking in both – at least as it pertained to military service. President Obama simply chose not to serve while Mitt Romney sought a deferment for school. Please keep in mind that this is no small matter for as President of the United States because they hold the authority to press others into service and harm’s way even through selective service if necessary.

The last election cycle reaped a man with no military experience and personal prejudices for a specific religious institution. The men whom he has appointed to positions of authority within the DOD and military circles have shared his historically incorrect and skewed view of this religion and it’s worshippers. Our Marines, Sailors, Soldiers, Airmen and Coastguardsmen continue to bear the devastating consequences of that election, the appointees and the strategy they chose. Their price is measured in thousands of deaths, tens of thousands of life altering injuries and a prohibition to hold the enemy accountable on the battlefield.

The greatest sin however is that this country squandered the greatest gift that can be bestowed upon man for if the 1% of this generation can truly be said to be gifted by God, called by God to selflessly serve their country in the uniformed forces of this nation then it can also be said that those in whose hands they placed their lives and their gifts, betrayed them. They betrayed them by dangling the aura of pure service in the fires of combat in front of their faces and exchanged it for senseless death and mutilation void of a righteous fight with the enemy or even righteous retribution. By denying the Warrior ‘his day’ they have emboldened the enemy, moved the Afghan population toward the Taliban, made this country less secure as a result and mystified the thinkers in this nation!

Short of Divine intervention, our last hope is for a last minute, life altering personal epiphany on the part of at least one of these candidates. However, if these two men truly represent the heart of this nation a policy changing personal epiphany is unlikely. Their ‘epiphany’ would have to be inspired by the heart of the people from whom they come and there is little evidence that a plurality of the electorate understands either the significance of their responsibility or the effect it will have on those who are compelled to function within the constraints of COIN fantasy.

An additional cost that is more difficult to measure is the loss of respect for all current leadership in this country. Even if the White House can be blamed for its vision and it’s appointments, and Congress for its lack of oversight, the ultimate blame for the devastating decisions on the battlefield lays at the feet of the General Grade Officers who bear the final responsibility to decry what they know to be wrong.

I am reminded of one of the tenets of good counseling and that is to never leave a counseling session without an uplifting note or a piece of sage advice; while the outcome of this election is likely sealed, the responsibility of the electorate is not. We face election cycles every 2, 4 and 6 years nationally and more at local levels. As long as we are American citizens and as long as the US Constitution remains a viable cornerstone of jurisprudence and a declaration of personal freedom, we will have elections. And as long as we have elections, we have a responsibility to choose from among us the best to represent our interests rather than the least of the bad.

Now is the time to become educated on all of those issues that affect us as a nation, as individuals and most certainly those among us who have chosen to place their lives and their posterity in the hands of those we will elect to the highest positions of authority in the land. It is time for the uneducated, the insufferable idealists, the pessimists and the optimists to lay aside their uneducated opinions, their personal prejudices and that bowl of cherry blossoms.

It is time to become a responsible citizen who recognizes they hold the lives of Warriors in their hands at the polling booth!

SF

jb

Double Standards of Compassion from our American Leaders!

Much has been written about the ongoing “war against terrorism”. We have all heard the phrase, the clash of civilizations and have been spoon fed the idealistic expectations of the architects of these two campaigns, one in Iraq and the other in Afghanistan for ten years. Periodic sit-reps (situation reports) have been delivered by Politicians and General Grade Officers alike and even the retired community of hopeful sycophantic, legacy building idealists have not been able to contain their zeal to delve into the world of fantasy and declare our misadventures as humane.

The supporters of these misguided and unconstitutional nation building schemes are so invested in their own tripe that they cannot bring themselves to accept the glaring truth. To add insult to injury, they see the world through the eyes of the enemy and the enemy’s familial environment rather than through the eyes of the American population without whom they would not have jobs.

The stories allowed to come out of Afghanistan are largely tainted if not fabricated these days with the sole intent of keeping an increasingly frustrated American public from a full scale revolt.

Not fabricated you say? Case in point; L/Cpl Edward J. Dycus USMC who was murdered by an Afghan “partner” while standing guard. The problem is, this young Marine’s death was not first reported as another act of treachery by our “noble” Afghan partners, but was attributed to death during combat operations in Afghanistan. What acceptable reason can there be for withholding this kind of information from the American public? In fact, who could possibly justify lying about any of the deaths of our Warriors at the hands of the unscrupulous, blood-lusting 7^th century hordes of that forsaken land unless it is to present a picture of that culture and this military operation there as something other than what it is; an unmitigated disaster!

And what ever happened to Lieutenant Colonel Davis USA, who presented a scathing 84 page analysis of the Afghanistan debacle which accuses our political and military leaders of deceiving the American public about the “progress” in Afghanistan. He made news for about three days and, curiously, has not been heard from since.

How about the questionable actions of Lt Col Homiak as detailed by Diana West nearly two weeks ago? A request for an investigation into his action/non-action which jeopardized the lives of a Marine Corps Patrol on June 6^th, 2011 continues to languish in the halls of those who compelled the Marines in that patrol to be placed in harm’s way to begin with. Do you suppose those fine gentlemen and women in the Capital truly understand the ramifications of their silence for those continuing to patrol under the confining attributes of COIN doctrine?

Which leads us to the two events which have captured the attention of the world and certainly our legislative and executive branches in recent weeks; The inadvertent burning of Korans which were being used as notebooks by EPW’s to communicate with one another and the killing of Afghan civilians, Men, Women and Children allegedly by a Staff Sergeant in the Army.

The incessant apologies, the promises of prosecutorial retribution, the tolerance of Afghan rioting and accompanying murder of our American Warriors for the burning of copies of the Koran as well as our “understanding” of Afghan hatred for us, presumably because of these acts has muted the whimpers of our leadership over the 3 year campaign of murder by our Afghan “partners” of our Warriors.

This double standard would be considered unacceptable if all of the players were American, committing these acts on American soil. There would be a general outcry from the public for fairness and justice for all. The media would fill there dockets with rhetoric and anecdotal evidence of political malfeasance while insisting that one party or the other was simply playing to their electorate at the cost of another, unfortunate segment of society.

And yet, because these acts occurred on foreign soil and the participants wear uniforms, the media takes the skewed message from the political sphere and propagates it through their various venues like some kind of perverted gospel of truth.

While I certainly do not condone the killing of women and children – by anyone, in any culture, in any country, on any continent, I never-the-less do not see these murders as more reprehensible than the campaign of murder of our forces by those they are forced to train with, which has gone almost unreported.

While I accept the political sphere apologizing for the killing of women and children in Afghanistan, I repudiate the deafening silence by those same political “leaders” when it comes to the murder of our forces by the 7^th century hordes of Afghanistan – those our “leadership” insists are “our friends”.

It is important that the American public remind our politicians of something they seem to forget; the Afghan Soldier and Afghan Policeman are not constructs in a game or implants from an alien race from Alpha Centauri. They are in fact a product of their society, their culture, their family, their religious ideology, their own personal vices, their own personal prejudices and hatred. In essence, they are Afghanistan. In the same way, our Warriors are a mirror of our cultural experience.

The difference is that while the alleged actions of the United States Army Staff Sergeant, in Afghanistan are in fact a singularity, the continuing actions of the Afghans our Warriors are forced to work with, are not.

And while our government has made it clear just how reprehensible they consider the alleged actions of that Army Staff Sergeant, they have been correspondingly silent when it comes to the murder of some 70 American, ISAF and NATO Warriors.

I for one, wonder just how this Staff Sergeant is going to fair in our now untrustworthy legal system. Will he be given a fair hearing? Will the bevy of experts who will most certainly be called be trounced under foot by a politically motivated prosecutorial team of lackeys answering to their masters in DC? Will he be treated with the same tolerance shown to Major Nidal Hasan who is certainly guilty of shooting 32, killing 13, American Soldiers while screaming Allahu Akbar, an entreaty to his god, Allah while doing so? Will the Staff Sergeant, accused of killing Afghans be seen as a monster while Nidal Hasan given deference due to his particular religious proclivity?

Is there a double standard in this government; deference for our ideologically motivated enemies, zero compassion for our over-stressed, over-deployed, lied to uniformed Service Members?

Is the American public going to, once again, reward the despicable behavior of our political leadership and their minions wearing stars by casting their precious votes in November for this administration and it’s perverted staff for yet another 4 years or is this American Society finally reaching the limits of it’s patience for the silence and intolerance shown for our Warriors?

Compassion should be universal. Standards should be just and uniform. American Leaders should show due concern for their citizenry – before they show it for the rest of the world!

Semper Fidelis;

John Bernard

Afghanistan; Understandable rage or Unacceptable Behavior?

There have been many in the media, in politics and in the upper echelons of our military structure who have been “grappling” with this question; at least they would like you to believe that. The fact is those who seem to be trying to make sense of the events which unfolded in the wake of the revelation that certain “holy books” were treated disrespectfully, by American Service members, arrived at their “understanding” long before these events occurred.

James Carroll wrote a piece in which he appears burdened with this question and tries to relate the anger felt by the “noble” Afghan and, really, Muslims everywhere by comparing the Quran to the Consecrated Host at a Catholic Mass. He even goes as far as to suggest the Quran is seen by the Muslim in the same way Jesus is seen in the eyes of a Christian. This attempt at equating the reverence for the Quran with either was Mr. Carroll’s effort to cause us all to understand why the events we have watched intensify in the past week might in fact be justified.

Nice try!

What he failed to do in his piece is also relate what the corresponding response would be by either Catholics to the desecration of a Consecrated Host which they believe, through the process of transubstantiation, is changed in substance to the body and blood of Christ. He also failed to relate what the reasonable corresponding response would be from the rest of the ‘reformed’ Christian church. And because of this sleight of hand or unfortunate omission, his piece dares to define the actions of the “noble” Afghan or the devout Muslim as understandable.

The fact is, these kinds of violent responses are anathema to the Christian faith, Christian texts, the Bible or mainstream Christian teaching – worldwide. In fact, the kinds of responsorial actions one can expect within traditionally taught Christian circles to injustice toward the Church is corporate prayer and forgiveness.

So what have we learned from the events of the past week. First; we learned that neither the “noble” Afghan nor our American “leadership” is interested in the truth or telling the whole story. If they were, there would not have been any apologies but an explanation of why these books or papers were destroyed, that being they were desecrated by Islamic EPW’s. Our leadership would have insured that the “noble” Afghan’s “reasonable rage” response would have been directed at the EPW rather than our Service members who, frankly, destroyed these texts, unceremoniously as is recommended within Muslim circles.

They would have responded to the unhinged, barbaric, stone aged actions of the “noble” Afghan with appropriate reciprocity. Being as we are all in the European style “peacekeeping” mode, they would have sent out teams/squads/sections using proper riot control techniques rather than issuing endless Mea Culpa/ Nostrum Mendum on bended knee to any and all Muslims on the planet while buttoning up the bases and FOBs, nationwide.

What we have seen instead, is the opposite and the corresponding responses to these efforts of prostration have been more violence, 4 US troops and Officers murdered, food prepared by the “noble” Afghan for our troops, poisoned, at least one fragging of a base, a suicide VBIED, additional Afghan civilians killed and, oh yeah; a British cemetery in Libya, desecrated by more “noble” Libyans who felt it appropriate to desecrate the dead of a country who recently aided them in their efforts to secure “democracy” in that country. Remember the whole Arab Spring phenomenon that was going to revolutionize the Arab world and make the whole world a more vibrant bowl of fragrant cherry blossoms?

The fact is what we have to look forward to in our future is even less hopeful than it was a week ago and it wasn’t looking very good then. All of us watching the debacle that Afghanistan has become, have been warning that the situation there would only degrade faster as the mission changed from combat to admin and training. Once our illustrious leaders here determine Afghanistan to be stable enough to no longer consider it a combat zone (they have already arrived there mentally) and safe enough to change course, the conditions would deteriorate rapidly. Those remaining behind to train the “noble” Afghan Police, Army, Administrative Government and other interior governmental agencies would, essentially be left in the den of the wolf for disposal at his whim.

We are getting a glimpse of that right now!

Our “leadership” dares to justify the nonsensical actions of this 7^th century gaggle to the inconsequential destruction of a few books – regardless of their nature, as justifiable. This in itself tells us as Americans all we need to know about the unhinged, asymmetric, illogical and ignorant nature of the people we have entrusted with the security of this nation who presently inhabit the DC beltway!

For those happening onto this conversation late in the game know this; it is not all right, understandable, culturally difficult to understand or reasonable that men, in this late century act out as untamed animals upset over the unintentional or even intentional destruction of books that can be replaced for pennies!

For those of you who still have Sons, Daughters, Husbands, Wives, Cousins, Uncles, Brothers, Sisters, Neighbors who have been compelled by this incompetent and apparently, impotent government to serve in a land that contains not one shred of sanity, it is time for you to act – while you still have a loved one to act for!

They are not being utilized for the better of the United States or the protection of the Constitution of the United States. They are being abused by the ignorance of lesser men who no longer have the capacity to recognize their mistakes, their ignorance or their responsibilities to their country or their solemn oaths!

It is time for you to cause those you have elected to represent you to again understand their proper place in this society.

And that place is not to better the plight of a people who hate us just because we live!

Semper Fidelis;

John Bernard

Another American Prostrates himself and his Country Before the Intolerant and Unforgiving!

In a world where every aberrant act, every self-inflicted malady and every vice is considered an epidemic, we most certainly need to add to the list the act of prostrating oneself and by extension, his country for every single assumed infraction of societal and ideological moray in every minor culture in the world!

As an American, watching senior Officers and Elected Officials continually apologizing for one piece of inanity or another has passed from bothersome to an active insult to the American people! And even if an unhealthy percentage of this population is not insulted by this most despicable of trends; many of us are! These Officers and our elected officials fail to understand they do not represent the many foreign cultures of the world and they certainly are not properly representing us by continuing to prostrate themselves and by extension, us for every little suggestion of insensitivity toward the delicate mental state of the ideologically unhinged.

This latest example was provoked by a gaggle of angry Afghan protestors who were reacting to a story that the Koran or even several copies of the Koran had been disposed of – unceremoniously. If anyone had read the actual account, they would have learned that the copies that were discarded and burned belonged to EPW’s (Enemy Prisoners of War) being held on Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan. They were confiscated when it was determined that the EPW’s were using the Koran as an illicit messaging system to communicate with one another.

For those of you who do not understand the implications of that little piece of information, allowing EPW’s access to one another overtly or covertly, increases the chances of everything from an escape attempt to violent acts against their guards. Removing the Koranic message pads, was not only good judgment, it was necessary and may have saved lives – American lives.

Varying versions of the story have indicated as few as 100 and as many as 2000 “noble” Afghan’s had “assembled” for a protest of the alleged desecration of the Koran. These “peaceful” and “noble” protestors threw rocks and firebombs at security forces in anger over the insensitive handling of their “holy” book.

Just an aside; why is it that protestors, whether on this side of the big pond, or the other, are considered sincere, peaceful and righteous when they employ actions that endanger the very lives of those around them but when someone lodges a peaceful, verbal or written complaint they are being unreasonable, hate-filled and even racist? And why is it that if someone were to burn the Bible – unceremoniously or otherwise that the same kind of reaction to that act would not also be seen as reasonable? Why is it we tolerate these acts of intolerance only from the “noble” Islamic adherent?

A video shows the American Officer in charge of ISAF expounding on the horrors of the handling of the Islamic text as he tries to assure his Afghan audience and the Muslim world in general that this whole episode was just an unfortunate accident and under investigation. His public Nostrum Mendum would have been at least a little balanced if he had also mentioned that the Korans in question had already been desecrated by the Islamic EPW’s who were the original owners and who were using them as, essentially, a combat notebook. Do you suppose the “noble” protestors would have been as incensed by that knowledge? Do you think they would have demanded those Islamic prisoners be handed over for a “proper chastisement”? Or is this episode just another indication of the intolerance of a people ensconced in a religious ideology that preaches and demands intolerance of others?

Where were those “noble” Afghan protestors when eleven (yes, 11) Afghan policemen opened fire on NATO troops two days ago? And for that matter, did this Officer or his US political “handlers” care enough about that attack and the countless other attacks that have occurred in the past three years, to denounce them publically, to the “noble” Afghan?

I can’t seem to find that video anywhere…

I was also wondering why it is so imperative that we, as a nation be “sensitive” to the intolerance of a people who would just as soon have our heads on several pikes while admonishing our very same population for not being tolerant enough of others?

This goes far beyond the discussion of double standards. We are now firmly engaged in the psychologically sick act of self-destruction. We are no longer satisfied to consider ourselves or the actions of our predecessors loathsome, we are now obsessed with ensuring our own destruction as a nation, a culture and a people. Our leadership is no longer interested in right or wrong, truth or lie, acts of desecration or accidental disposal, the survival of our nation or the perception of our strength. All that really counts is ensuring the most despicable people and cultures of this world truly believe our heartfelt apology – for existing and that we will continue to strive for the total annihilation of our culture, our society, our population.

The country I heard about, read about and was taught about as a child seems to have vaporized. The dream that was the vision of our founding fathers and that was kept alive even through the generation of my parents and a sizeable portion of my generation, has been circumvented by a sub-culture of prostrating, anti-American self-mutilators who seem to think they represent all of us.

I have sad news for you; you don’t!

Semper Fidelis;

John Bernard

Obama Seeks New Ways to Insult the American Warrior Community!

While I understand that only a fraction of the population of this nation is directly affected by what you are about to read, I would never-the-less like to remind you that the remainder of the population is affected coincidentally. While the majority of the American population probably never even considered the Armed Forces as a possible career objective, there are those who never considered life without serving their country, in uniform, on a field of combat. Most of these young men and women never take the time to internalize some idealized vision of charging death for God and Country, they just have a burning desire for the call on their lives to do so and then, most importantly, they act!

President Obama, however, was apparently never burdened with that urgent call to serve others – or his country selflessly. And because the only thing he ever answered to was a call to “self-empowerment” and self-ingratiation, he has been a brutal failure as a moral leader and Commander in Chief. In addition, his unquenchable desire to “win over” that portion of the world population to whom he has sold his soul has led him to a new round of actions that should anger every red blooded American and will disgust every American who has ever donned the uniform of a United States Marine!

This week, President Obama blocked legislation that would hold Iran accountable for
the Hezbollah bombing that killed 241 U.S. Marines in 1983 . This inexplicable move hasn’t any bearing on the current crisis except for it’s ability to tilt world opinion in favor of US interests. The Obama administration’s actions to derail this legislation in Congress, then, can only be seen as an effort to bolster support for the Iranian regime which can only be understood through the prism of this sitting President’s indefatigable efforts to “reconcile” with the Islamic nations of the world.

If three plus years of his purposeful attempts to insult the country he has sworn to defend through his many prostrating speeches on Islamic soil and this latest otherwise despicable move haven’t enlightened you, then maybe this next story will help finish your education!

As of February 1^st 2012, President Obama has determined that Combat Pay for US forces will be determined by a new criteria. In general, Afghanistan has been deemed a combat zone and all US forces deployed in that region have been eligible for combat pay due to the certainty of encountering dirt-bags in firefights, ambushes, IED’s or suicide bombings. This new policy now requires having been shot at first. For those not understanding the problem with this, it now says that the US Government has effectively declared Afghanistan a “safe zone”! And this in spite of the nearly daily reports of Americans being either wounded or killed!

This newest insult is certainly an effort to bolster what will be his campaign claim to have “pacified” Afghanistan during his tenure and having kept one of his last campaign promises to bring all troops home by the end of his first term. But here again is where perception, does not align with reality. In a land where the Taliban are given new control over the country by our unwillingness to hold them accountable in combat and where discussions of “peace talks” include promises to release known murderous thugs back onto the battlefield where our troops still operate, the Taliban have made it clear they are not only not in talks but that they are not interested.

Is this the “safe” Afghanistan where Warriors are still forced to patrol daily, are wounded in daily, killed in daily, betrayed by Afghan Soldiers and Police Cadets, daily and which the Obama Administration has now effectively declared no longer a combat zone?

So once again, the health and well-being of our Warriors will suffer for political expedience. In addition, all troops fired upon, wounded or killed by our “Afghan partners” will not be viewed as combat deaths but fratricide/murder, making those incidents criminal acts. This will affect the way United States Marines, Soldiers, Airmen, Sailors and Coast Guardsmen who are wounded or killed in that polluted land are treated by this government. It will also most likely change the SGLI eligibility status from non-taxable to taxable!!

Are things clearing up now??

These latest actions by this sitting President would be curious and difficult to understand if his actions in the first months of his administration had not been so telling. When one of the first actions in a President’s term is to give a speech on foreign soil, to people who are spiritually opposed to our right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and who we know have supported terrorist acts across the world, these newest actions can only be described as part of some subversive plan. Let’s not forget that he “apologized” for the United States in that and following speeches to yet other foreign, Islamic audiences and in at least one meeting, prostrated himself to his Muslim host which had the affect of subjugating the United States and it’s citizenry to that “host”.

It remains a mystery why no one in Congress has seen fit to decry either of these last two outrages which should give you an indication of the current condition of the heart of leadership in this country.

This election cycle certainly won’t give DC the enema it needs or deserves but it could have the affect of sending a message to all those who dare suggest they are fit for leadership on the national stage. People seeking to “serve” on the national stage need to know that their personal proclivities toward self-aggrandizement will no longer be tolerated. They need to know that the American voter will be educated and engaged in the political process and that our first concern is for the future security of this nation and that vision includes those who are actively serving in regions of the world into which they have been thrust.

The people of this nation need to realign their priorities and put Honor first; not only in their own lives but in their requirement for those they would have represent them. Our Warriors have done that by the simple act of stepping forward and raising their right hands.

They should at least be afforded the dignity of having the dangerous space they operate in continue to be declared a combat zone!

Semper Fidelis;

John Bernard

New York Times Laments the loss of income for Afghan businesses!

After ten years of nearly constant derisiveness and complacency toward force protection and convenient ignorance of policies that have caused the severe wounding and killing of thousands of American Servicemen, The New York Times took the time to write about the loss of income for Afghan businesses in Afghanistan. The businesses they were lamenting have been thriving for most of these past ten years on what they declared to be 54 billion dollars in aid skimmed largely from US government coffers at the expense of the American Taxpayer; taxpayers, President Obama and his” port side” colleagues feel aren’t paying enough to support government ventures as it is now.

The New York Times shouldn’t fret, however, for it is just a matter of time before the appropriate Federal Department makes the case that in order for the training effort to be successful, we will have to continue to financially support the effort. It is important for the Times to reconsider it’s perception of Afghan businesses as entrepreneurial genius and see them for what they truly are; the pragmatic exploitation of funding by Islam’s spiritual enemies from the west. It is also worth their while to consider appearance of transformation within that society for what it is; Islamic pragmatism.

It should not be lost on the reader that this story was released on the same day that it was reported that another Afghan Soldier turned his weapon on a NATO Soldier, killing him. And this on the very same day that the Obama administration announced it’s intentions to end “combat operations” in Afghanistan (such as they are), in 2013. ISAF will then turn it’s attention entirely to training and support operations; the very type of operation that has bred the kind of contempt and danger-close proximity that has made our forces such inviting targets.

We are now approaching 70 US and NATO Soldiers and Marines who have been killed in the past four years at the hands of their “Afghan Partners”. And these murders have taken place during a time when the overall force numbers have been at their highest and when there was at least a perception that the United States and ISAF was interested in bringing the fight to the “enemy”. What is truly remarkable is that the entire government chooses to define these murderous attacks as ‘aberrations’ in an otherwise normal environment.

If 70 people were sickened in this country of 311 million by a new virus, in the same period of time, everyone from the CDC to Homeland Security and the White House would be declaring an epidemic if not a pandemic. Instead, they continue to violate their collective conscience by perpetuating the lie.

On an encouraging note, Lawmakers heard from military sources closer to the problem and the perception of those sources is worth noting. While they admitted that stopping these kinds of attacks was unlikely, they displayed an incredible naiveté by declaring; “…most attacks have come from members of the Afghan forces "acting intentionally yet independently…". While I agree with that assessment, they naively – or deceptively, offered it up as a defense for their incredibly poor insight into the psyche of a people whose vision of their place in the world is diametrically opposed to ours. They insist that these attacks are an aberration in an otherwise sane world and therefore no serious threat to the men and women compelled to live in such close proximity to their Afghan students, practically inviting such attacks.

The fact that these attacks are largely by individuals and not part of a known militant element makes them more dangerous than an organized militant force. It is a glaring indication of a level of personal corruption that cannot be predicted or corralled. It also provides a view of the Afghan our blinded leadership still hasn’t come to grips with. In a land where one religious ideology rules the minds, lives and perceptions of an entire population and where certain doctrines within that religion call for the killing of those who have not submitted to that religion, it is not only plausible but likely that these kinds of attacks will continue to increase in direct proportion to the draw down and our unwillingness to address them with violent retribution.

This story also states that 75 percent of the 45 incidences which have occurred since 2007 have occurred in the past 2 years! I am sure our sworn government will have a logical explanation for the increase that does not also suggest an increase in the level of inspiration to exploit our ever weakening posture there.

The fact is, declaring these murders which are increasing in regularity as anything but an aberration just doesn’t support the narrative and as any politician will tell you, the narrative is more important than reality when the perception of reality governs the minds of voters. The lives of Warriors have been determined to be nothing more than materiel for the political machine which all candidates – and this sitting President have proven by the almost total lack of foreign policy discussion thus far. At a time when this country is embroiled in a war that has claimed thousands of American lives and tens of thousands of wounded, it is not just unconscionable that foreign policy has not been discussed at length, it is astoundingly unethical and immoral!

The candidates and this President, by their silence have proven themselves to be callous and uncaring about our Warriors of whom so much has been asked. This is not only a disgraceful way to treat this current generation of Warriors, it has also had the effect of jeopardizing the future security of this nation by causing this next generation to reconsider the ramifications of serving a government that holds it’s Warriors in such low esteem!

How this primary season turns out is made almost incidental by the continual disregard shown to those who sacrifice so much, for so little.

If the only concern expressed in this election cycle is for money, jobs and more money, will it really make any difference in the end who takes the reigns in 2014? If the American people are so shallow as to not demand more from their candidates than what they have shown so far, do they have any right to hope for a better four years than what they have experienced in these last three?

For those who are not getting it, I will break it down for you; as long as there are men and women, in uniform, thrust into harm’s way, the first and last thing discussed by these candidates, by the news outlets and even in discussions over morning coffee, should be the state of that war and the well-being of those who have been compelled to sacrifice their lives because what is at stake, is lives while money, is just money!

If you know those who think differently, it is most likely because they have never sacrificed of themselves and have never been asked to sacrifice those they loved.

Do I really expect more from the New York Times? No; they are a business looking at the bottom line. Truth is not a line on the balance sheet! The American people however, would do well to look into their souls and take account because someone is outside the wire insuring your right to self-examination in relative safety!

God protect the Warrior!

Semper Fidelis;

John Bernard

Unreasonable Risk and Ill-Conceived Combat Missions!

During an exchange with a Senatorial Aide, I received from him the link to a piece written by a Colonel Tony Pfaff, USA. The piece is entitled, 'RISK, MILITARY ETHICS AND IRREGULAR WARFARE'. In this piece the Colonel details the problems encountered in asymmetrical combat, the unwieldy and artificially established parameters thrust upon not only unit field leaders but upon individual combatants as well.

He refers to the 'absurdities' created in an environment created by the unusual mix of non-combatants, friendly combatants and 'irregular' fighters. The absurdities he refers to amount to forcing friendly combatants to measure the value of life on a sliding scale with the non-combatant at the top and the friendly combatant at the bottom. To his credit, he makes it clear that a commander should never take the indefensible position of not considering protection of his force when planning and carrying out the mission.

The main problem with the piece is that while it accurately portrays the combatant as being the instrument through which a sovereign nation can project violence to protect it's citizenry and thus rightly assumes risk on it's behalf, it never-the-less tries to equate all human life. From the vantage point of a government's responsibility to it's citizenry, that should never be an issue. From a strictly objective view point and certainly through the eyes of our Founding Fathers and our Constitution, all men are indeed created equal and endowed with certain unalienable rights "by their creator". The problem, however, is that men are free to determine for themselves who that "creator" is and whether he has indeed established that standard for literally all men or if he has decreed that unbelievers should be brutalized, and killed.

While I do recognize and agree with the Founding Fathers on the rights of all men, I do not see the world as flat. I recognize that there are indeed men who have given themselves to ideologies that run counter to our unique understanding of that vision and that some men in fact hold ill in their hearts for any who do not believe as they do. Such are they who hold to the doctrines of Islam and the entire population in Afghanistan stands in excess of 98% compliant with that religion.

Colonel Pfaff continues and quotes from Walzter:

"While commanders are expected to conserve soldiers’ lives as a matter of military necessity, the demands of irregular warfare—where support of the local population is critical to mission accomplishment—place almost all the risk associated with conducting operations onto the soldier.

The difficulty for the standard view [conventional warfare] is that when choosing where to transfer risk—mission, enemy civilians, or themselves—combatants must always choose to transfer risk to themselves, except when the mission itself is at stake. By placing friendly combatants lowest in priority in terms of risk avoidance, one effectively denies them the right to life. By denying them the right to life, they are denied the protection of the state they are defending. This view is explicitly held by Walzer who notes:

“The immediate problem is that soldiers who do the fighting …lose the rights they are supposedly defending. They gain war rights as combatants and potential prisoners, but they can now be attacked and killed at will by the enemy. Simply by fighting … they have lost their rights to life and liberty … and they have lost it, even though, unlike aggressors states, they have committed no crime.” [13]"

Doesn't this by necessity draw into question the efficacy of COIN warfare? While history demonstrates not only the unusual risks associated with this sort of campaign, it also illustrates the futility of defining mission accomplishment in an environment where the local population and/or the government is not equally invested to the point of willingness to sacrifice their own lives for their own benefit. The popularized phrase, "winning of hearts and minds" in itself is a damning indictment of the reluctance of the local population to even agree with the "liberating force". And if they must be "convinced" first, was there ever an emergency of conscience to begin with?

This is a further indictment against our Sovereign leader's ability to define the enemy and separate them from the "non-combatant/innocents" in that country. It should also force us to reconsider just how far from the original mission of retribution for the actions of 9/11 we have strayed!

The Colonel then moves the discussion from combat operations to law enforcement with such fluidity as to suggest they not only should exist simultaneously, but says that the Soldier and Marine should be expected to operate in both environments, alternately, with ease. While that may seem reasonable as an operation ages and in fact did happen in both Japan and Germany in the forties, it is worthy to note that the transition there did not occur until after Germany and Japan had capitulated. It is also worthy to note that we were fighting regular forces answerable to the Sovereign governments of both those countries. We were also battling and then working with men who had a sense of personal honor not unlike our own. Their understanding of their responsibilities to their sovereign government and then to us as occupiers was measured by their own government's mandate for them. Once their government capitulated, they essentially laid down their arms.

Neither the Taliban nor Al Qaeda represents a Sovereign government or a people if we are to believe the ISAF and United States narrative. I have argued that at least the Taliban are as much an Afghan phenomenon in Afghanistan as their brothers in Pakistan are, Pakistani. Because of that distinction, separating them from the civilian population is not only daunting, but fruitless because they are, essentially, the same. Making that case need not go further than a quick look at IED proliferation. I will use an analogy: We live on a rural dirt road, in a rural town that is approximately 3.5 miles long and has a population of approximately 100. I can tell you with confidence that no one can travel down this road, much less spit on it without someone and sometimes everyone knowing it. As such, enforcement of the law and security of property and lives here is a relatively simple task. In any case, nothing goes undetected.

In Afghanistan, if we are to believe the narrative, the average Afghan citizen only wants 'peace' and security from the Taliban. According to Karzai and our government, we are (were) there to offer them that opportunity. If this is true and the average Afghan does not agree with the Taliban, then there should be very few instances of IED's being successfully set and nearly zero of ISAF, NATO and American troops falling victim to them. The facts show something decidedly different, however. In a land that is by any measure rural and where digging a hole in a road and setting an explosive device would surely be noticed by some if not all of the population adjacent to the IED site, there is little evidence that a plurality of the population in any of the areas we have operated in, have made a good faith effort to aid in the identification and location of either the IED's or the 'perpetrators' and the staggering numbers of amputees and deaths as a result of that lack of non-combatant good faith effort punctuates the point.

If we extend this conversation of Afghan civilian/non-combatant situational awareness to the presence of Taliban and Al Qaeda members in their midst, it is extremely difficult to make the case that the 'non-combatant' element of Afghan society is not also complicit on some level. And if they are complicit, there is one question that has not been adequately answered by the Colonel and that is whether anyone, with a straight face, can declare any portion of the population as non-combatants. And if we can't, then the apparent ethical problem plaguing our Sovereign government and our upper echelon military leaders is a self-inflicted wound that has neutralized their ability to consider force protection as primary during combat operations in an ideologically monolithic society like Afghanistan.

As a consequence of that misplaced ethical concern for an inappropriately identified non-combatant population, they have unnecessarily endangered our forces and reduced their combat effectiveness by forcing them to consider the lives of these 'non-combatants' as superior to their own. This is the very definition of 'unreasonable risk'.

As an unintended consequence, this has made this Sovereign nation less secure and it's population less safe.

At the same time, they have emboldened an unsophisticated gaggle of murderers and their compatriots (the complicit 'non-combatant') and have caused our allies to have far less confidence in our ability to accurately identify legitimate threats across the world and drawn into question our willingness to meet them on any field of combat with appropriate force.

Colonel Pfaff also quoted Israeli Asa Kasher and then Major General Amos Yadlin who refuted Waltzer's earlier claim that the state should always place the life of the combatant as a last concern remarking:

“…the duty to minimize casualties among combatants during combat is last on the list of priorities … we reject such a conception because it is immoral.” [14] The authors argued that the state’s obligation to protect its citizens from harm—which justifies the use of force in the first place—extends also to soldiers. While recognizing that soldiers do assume risks friendly civilians do not, they argue that soldiers still retain their rights to life. The state may be justified in putting his life at risk because of its obligation to defend all citizens, but the obligation to protect the soldier to the extent commensurate with his duties does not go away."

To which I say; AMEN!

Semper Fidelis;

John Bernard