What About Us?

Some of you DID want to hear some of my views, so here goes:

I think that a tremendous amount of pressure has been put on DoD and the Secretary of Defense as it relates to the military and security concerns of the Global War on Terror (GWOT). I’m not saying there are not concerns, but that perhaps there are others that should be sharing the hot seat with the Sec Def. I don’t think the United States would have fared any better under similar circumstances.

Consider the political goal: Regime change. Has that happened yet? I don’t think so, that’s why we’re still here. We could quibble forever regarding what indicators would actually show a regime has been established and empowered, but NO ONE would say the current regime is there yet. Compare a few things, both real and hypothetical: how long it took the US to develop its constitution, and this while not facing insurrection and the threat of civil war; the domestic reaction to a cessation of all banking transactions and the prohibition against the use of the existing currency; the disbanding of all civil service posts and the structures that provided community services, to include police departments, fire departments, electric/power/waste & water facilities, and education institutions; the concurrent cessation of almost all commercial activity related to government and banking, such as real estate transactions (industrial or residential), the regulation of taxes, identities, or vehicles (IRS and DMV), etc. A foreign power shows up, starts restoring some of the physical infrastructure—but no political (city, county, province, or national) power structures are provided (people fall back to family, clan, tribe, etc. power structures, which have been de-legitimized for decades by the previous ruler; the ‘freedoms’ that we now have, the ability to make a choice, also means that we have to start paying for gas, power, waste disposal, stuff we never had to pay for before (but which was often withheld as a political tool of suppression). Furthermore, two years after our deliverance, none of the services mentioned above are back in place, and the majority of the population is trapped on level one of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.

Personally, I think the good ol’ US of A would have succumbed to crime waves and vigilante gangsterism a whole lot faster than this country did. Where are the other persons in leadership in the US, who voted for use of the military as a means of accomplishing the political goal of regime change, and who should be sharing the hot seat with the Sec Def—when the deteriorating security situation is not the result of poor leadership or mission accomplishment on the part of the military, but MAJOR holes in the domestic rebuilding and regime emplacement strategy.

Semper Fi, Jon G.