Disrespect

"I must say, I'm a little envious," President Bush said in March 2008 to soldiers in Afghanistan. "It must be exciting for you ... in some ways romantic, in some ways, you know, confronting danger."

Yesterday was not the day to make any post on the futility of war or perhaps it was the exact day... But, I'll not show any disrespect to the memory of those who gave the last full measure overseas for "American Interests". Even though those in power seem to have no problem continuing the Bush Regime's policy of using and discarding Marines and other Troops for Interests.

9/11 is just another day now, thankfully, I'm not one to celebrate defeat. You reflect on it and try to ensure it doesn't happen again but how?

Well the REMFpublican Chicken Hawk Party of Deferments invoked 9/11 time and again to support their policies. Everything was tied to 9/11 including the necessity of keeping them in office. While the Bush Administration was in power, those who profited off of death made Trillions of dollars and anyone who questioned the Iraq War was accused of hurting the Troops and Treason against a sitting President. That second part is of course ignored now that Barack Obama is in office, "questioning" him during wartime and bringing loaded guns to rallies decrying his Presidency is now the height of Patriotism, of course, the money still flows to the architects of fear and death.



Lost in the homeland political squabbles is that average Marine. The Bush Regime and his defenders sought to quash all dissent by hiding behind Marines, Soldiers, Airmen and Sailors they also fought to shield the American people from the sight of any blood. Lest the people knew what their pilfered tax dollars were actually buying them.

The shielding from sight the cost of war was one of the lessons REMFpublicans Bush, Cheney, Tom DeLay and the Pentagon learned from Vietnam; to control the message coming from the battlefield. You can't let the American people see the consequences of the Warfare State. But, merely restricting official media members did not stem the flow of the ugliness and evil of War. Bans on cell phone cameras and soldiers blogs (until the blogs, like through amber lenses were silenced forever) were tried at various times while unceasing war propaganda was spewed by Chicken Hawk REMFers on Fox, CNN and every other news agency in order to ensure you Don't Mention the War!

The other lesson Young and Old REMFpublicans learned from Vietnam was let other people do the actual dangerous fighting abroad because their valuable pasty pampered flabby asses were needed to fight the propaganda battle at home convincing the American people of the costs, necessities, consequences, and benefits of war, while ensuring they would never fear having their balls blown off by an IED...

However, the Bush Administration did only a semi- effective job of hiding the costs of the war from the American people. Anti-war rallies were strong yet marginalized (Two-Thirds of the American people are against the war? So?) and the collapse of the US economy in 2007 was tied directly to the profligate war profiteering and Bush tax cuts for criminals who hid the money they siphoned off using Bush's government power into Swiss bank accounts. Of course, anyone who questioned Bush's competence was attacked as a traitor and faced daily Fox Attacks even while "The Decider" bungled Afghanistan, Iraq, the response to Hurricane Katrina, the economic collapse, the shrinking and battered American middle class, justice and the years from 01/20/01 to 01/20/09...

Now, Afghanistan is on everyones mind... Again. It's a fucked place. The area hasn't been effectively controlled since Tamerlane bestrode the land like a whirlwind of primal destruction. Since then it's been a crossroads of battle as time and again countries have moved into Transoxania in the pursuit of National Interests and the people have used the Panjshir Valley as a center for resistance against whomever the occupiers have been. But, controlling and administering the land should never have been our mission. It should have been Destroying AQ and killing Bin Laden and letting the Multi-Ethnic Peoples of Afghanistan figure out the rest. When it cam e to the kill/capture of Bin Laden the directed incompetence from the Bush Regime in failing the trigger pullers was detailed by the nome de guerred Delta Force Commander Dalton Fury who was given that mission, in his book Kill Bin Laden.

Delta developed an audacious plan to come at bin Laden from the one direction he would never expect.

"We want to come in on the back door," Fury explains. "The original plan that we sent up through our higher headquarters, Delta Force wants to come in over the mountain with oxygen, coming from the Pakistan side, over the mountains and come in and get a drop on bin Laden from behind."

But they didn't take that route, because Fury says they didn't get approval from a higher level. "Whether that was Central Command all the way up to the president of the United States, I'm not sure," he says.

The next option that Delta wanted to employ was to drop hundreds of landmines in the mountain passes that led to Pakistan, which was bin Laden’s escape route.

But they didn't do that either, because Fury says that plan was also disapproved. He says he has "no idea" why.

"How often does Delta come up with a tactical plan that's disapproved by higher headquarters?" Pelley asks.

"In my experience, in my five years at Delta, never before," Fury says.

Getting (Getting In, Getting Bin Laden, Getting Out) would seem to have been a better choice. Sure that plan may have failed and Afghanistan could have turned into another Somalia, or the Taliban could have reclaimed power or Gulbuddin Hekmatyar would have emerged as the next Dictator in the area but those things could happen even with American and ISAF forces in the country and we would be spared cowardly screes from Ralph Peters enticing the Taliban to kill captured US Soldier Bowe Berghdal.

And lest we forget Iraq is still festering threatening to burst forth with renewed violence after having been "won" so many times over the last 5 years just as Afghanistan has...