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The Tragedy of the American Military
The Atlantic ^ | by James Fallows

Posted on 12/31/2014 7:28:09 PM PST by US Navy Vet

The American public and its political leadership will do anything for the military except take it seriously. The result is a chickenhawk nation in which careless spending and strategic folly combine to lure America into endless wars it can’t win. In mid-September, while President Obama was fending off complaints that he should have done more, done less, or done something different about the overlapping crises in Iraq and Syria, he traveled to Central Command headquarters, at MacDill Air Force Base in Florida. There he addressed some of the men and women who would implement whatever the U.S. military strategy turned out to be.

The part of the speech intended to get coverage was Obama’s rationale for reengaging the United States in Iraq, more than a decade after it first invaded and following the long and painful effort to extricate itself. This was big enough news that many cable channels covered the speech live. I watched it on an overhead TV while I sat waiting for a flight at Chicago’s O’Hare airport. When Obama got to the section of his speech announcing whether he planned to commit U.S. troops in Iraq (at the time, he didn’t), I noticed that many people in the terminal shifted their attention briefly to the TV. As soon as that was over, they went back to their smartphones and their laptops and their Cinnabons as the president droned on.

(Excerpt) Read more at theatlantic.com ...


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: fallows; iraq; military; usmilitary
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To: PROCON

Thank you, PROCON.

And a Happy New Year to you. Toasting our military right now.


41 posted on 12/31/2014 8:49:25 PM PST by rlmorel (The Media's Principles: Conflict must exist. Doesn't exist? Create it. Exists? Exacerbate it.)
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To: Jim Noble

I look at everything, everything, from an eternal point of view. Those who served because they love their country, their families, their brothers in arms, and do their part out of love, have not loved in vain. Never is the Greater Love given in vain.

“Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.” John 15:13

Did their enemy fight for this reason?


42 posted on 12/31/2014 8:50:47 PM PST by huldah1776
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To: US Navy Vet; blueyon; KitJ; T Minus Four; xzins; CMS; The Sailor; ab01; txradioguy; Jet Jaguar; ...

Active Duty/Retiree ping.


43 posted on 12/31/2014 8:51:40 PM PST by Jet Jaguar
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To: ansel12

“If you think there is some deep meaning to it, what are you thinking?”

I’m thinking that I’m willing to speak my mind, not hide behind riddles.


44 posted on 12/31/2014 8:53:07 PM PST by Rembrandt (Part of the 51% who pay Federal taxes)
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To: US Navy Vet

I have heard it said by soldiers and sailors in multiple wars, that they wouldn’t, in a million years want their friends, families, or loved ones to have to experience ANY of the boring, uncomfortable, or terrible things they had to endure.

But they invariably want all of them to appreciate and be grateful that they had to.


45 posted on 12/31/2014 8:54:11 PM PST by rlmorel (The Media's Principles: Conflict must exist. Doesn't exist? Create it. Exists? Exacerbate it.)
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To: Rembrandt

When do you start doing that? So far you seem to have something on your mind, something angry but you won’t speak up, what is it?


46 posted on 12/31/2014 8:54:20 PM PST by ansel12 (They hate us, because they ain't us.)
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To: rlmorel
Thanks for your Service to our Country too FRiend!

I'm too old to stay up til the New Year, LOL!

But Happy New Year backatcha!

47 posted on 12/31/2014 8:54:31 PM PST by PROCON (Always give 100% -- Unless you're donating Blood.)
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To: Alberta's Child
Large wars have become pointless and expensive. The U.S. will never fight a war against China, just as we never fought a war against the Soviet Union.

If you had been in charge, and we had the American/NATO forces in Europe that we have today, and the little bit backing them today, then the Russians would have taken Europe.

Foreign leaders, including allies that live in dangerous neighborhoods, have not been watching us for the last fifty years without noticing how weak we are today, and how we have revealed that we are still splendid in a short race, but have surrendered the muscle and depth for the big ones.

48 posted on 12/31/2014 9:00:03 PM PST by ansel12 (They hate us, because they ain't us.)
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To: Jim Noble
I understand bitterness.
I could say I wasted eight years of my life on active duty in the Cold War years, and none of my dead peers and superiors, in and out of uniform, were acknowledged, much less widely mourned, by the general public, at the time.
I was spat upon at airports in the 1980s by leftover 1960 wannabe commie leftists.
Some people I served with committed suicide.Some died in accidents.
Some were killed in training missions.Some died on missions that were never publicly acknowledged.

So just to be clear, I truly do understand bitterness.
A few years after I left active duty, the USSR was no longer an enemy entity.It doesn't even exist today. There is no Berlin Wall. Yeah, we wasted all that time and hard work and our dead military and civilian members for nothing...

I say YOU should personally join hands with Jimmy Carter, Islamic terrorists and assorted murderous dictators and jump straight into hell together with them!

NONE of the USA and Coalition military warriors who died in Iraq wasted their lives. None died for “nothing”.

49 posted on 12/31/2014 9:00:15 PM PST by sarasmom ( Extortion 17. Obama's revenge on the DOD for the killing of Osama Bin Ladin.)
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To: 1010RD

check out my tag line....agree.


50 posted on 12/31/2014 9:02:10 PM PST by Recovering Ex-hippie (Bush won the War in Iraq, Obozo lost the peace..and gave Iraq back to the Terrorists!)
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To: PROCON

I’m a Vietnam vet. Our service & the sacrifice of our hallowed dead were not in vain until certain politicians decreed otherwise.

Finally a President said that all of us had “served in a noble cause”. Haven’t forgotten that day.

I was privileged to be called to active duty in 2003 for Operation Enduring Freedom. The reception we got in the airport upon our return brought tears to my eyes.


51 posted on 12/31/2014 9:04:11 PM PST by elcid1970 ("I am a radicalized infidel.")
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To: ansel12
You are flat-out wrong about that. If I were in charge I would have abided by each and every treaty obligation the U.S. had.

The U.S. never would have fought a major conventional war in Europe in the nuclear age. We won the Cold War by never fighting the "hot" one. We live in an age of fourth-generation warfare now, and a lot of the conventional thinking about military campaigns from prior generations has gone right out the window.

52 posted on 12/31/2014 9:06:18 PM PST by Alberta's Child ("The ship be sinking.")
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To: US Navy Vet
It is dickboys like this author that are the reason why there is a "tragedy" of the American military.

We LOST because of the LEFTIST infiltration of our armed forces, and our government.

When Dick Cheney said "Help is on the way", I thought the klinton purge was going to be reversed.

Then came the EP-3/Hainan incident. This compASSionate CONservative was going to lead off where is predecessor left off.

By 9/14/01, when Arbusto's government invited a "death to America" imam to speak at the memorial service, I knew the fix was in. Then came "infinite crusade"cluster--k, "Islam is a peaceful religion", the failure to secure the borders, the failure to reform visas...The PC leftist enemy of America was too entrenched in our government, and the goober cowboy disciple of kkkarl rove was too shielded from the conservative culture to understand. I suspect I will have a lot to answer for on Judgment day. I KNOW those in charge then and now will as well, but the charges will be INFINITELY greater and more serious. No matter how much "aw shucks, I love Jeebus, and I love Uh-murrica" horsecrap was thrown around

I predicted to myself how the Iraq war would go--fast initial victory, with eventual PC bullshit weardown of our forces. THAT is why we lost Iraq, Afghanistan, and will lose everything else important in the future...

When enemy prisoners get hot water and 5 star meals while our troops eat MREs and resort to bathing with a garden hose, then we know what the problem is.

When the ENEMY and their BUILDINGS are considered more important than our soldiers, we know the score.

TOTAL annihilation of Iraq would have taken 4 months. NO media embedding, unless we plan on letting a couple meet "accidents"--I have no problem with that. Wholesale public slaughter of men over 18 who are suspected of enemy allegiance. Wood chipper pointing into a pig pen in the center of town. Send a message of brutality, fear and submission to the mooselimb/scuzzlim world. No passing out candy. No god damned schoolbooks and "get jihad jane into class" pc bs, either. No "winning hearts and minds".

It would have cost 1/10th of the money and lasted 1/14th of the time.

53 posted on 12/31/2014 9:06:51 PM PST by Captainpaintball (Immigration without assimilation is the death of a nation)
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To: ansel12

“...you seem to have something on your mind, something angry but you won’t speak up, what is it?”

If you think I’m angry and have something on my mind, what are you thinking?


54 posted on 12/31/2014 9:09:05 PM PST by Rembrandt (Part of the 51% who pay Federal taxes)
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To: elcid1970

Thanks FRiend for your Service; I got spat on in SFO in 1971 on the way back to Seattle; decked the son of a bitch and got on the airplane; a couple of gins and tonics later I forgot all about my crime...:-)


55 posted on 12/31/2014 9:11:57 PM PST by PROCON (Always give 100% -- Unless you're donating Blood.)
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To: Alberta's Child

I see, all push buttons, we millions of troops and 539,000 Americans were just there for window dressing.

I sure wish you would have explained how wrong we all were, and that a ground war was impossible, it sure would have relieved some of the tension we and the world felt.

For some reason, we were all on pins and needles, every single day.


56 posted on 12/31/2014 9:12:56 PM PST by ansel12 (They hate us, because they ain't us.)
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To: sarasmom

That reminds me, under Jimmy Carter some of us in 1979, (me for instance) were predicting the Russians would attack around 1984/5, when their conventional advantage would peak, and before our long term developments and preparedness plans could close that window of opportunity, in other words, move in 1984/5, or it would be at least the mid 90s and probably longer before such an advantageous window would open again for Russia.

Thank God that Reagan won in 1980, he jumped in with both feet and big budgets and destroyed that time table.


57 posted on 12/31/2014 9:20:29 PM PST by ansel12 (They hate us, because they ain't us.)
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To: ansel12
No, you were there as part of a legitimate show of force.

And I hate to break this to a lot of Europeans, but U.S. troops in NATO countries are there as a benevolent occupying force as much as they are there as a protective force. The French figured that out a long time ago, which was why their relationship to NATO is on their terms, not ours.

For some reason, we were all on pins and needles, every single day.

That's how the military works, isn't it? When my father's family lived in New York City during World War II they had air raid drills in the city -- basically shutting all the lights off to prepare for a potential bombing raid.

I imagine he was pretty disappointed some years later when he found out that none of the Axis nations in World War II had any aircraft capable of reaching New York City, and that the "air raid drills" had nothing to do with air raids.

58 posted on 12/31/2014 9:20:34 PM PST by Alberta's Child ("The ship be sinking.")
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To: Alberta's Child

Good luck with your imagination, but Obama/Jimmy Carter won’t last forever so enjoy it it while you have it, hopefully we sane people can get in a Reagan next time.


59 posted on 12/31/2014 9:23:24 PM PST by ansel12 (They hate us, because they ain't us.)
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To: rlmorel

“We did the right thing in both places. I am sick of the “We should have turned the desert to glass” people.”

We should have turned the desert to glass.


60 posted on 12/31/2014 10:08:10 PM PST by DesertRhino (I was standing with a rifle, waiting for soviet paratroopers, but communists just ran for office.)
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