Spoke Lt. Colonel Dave Oclander, Task Force Fury, 1st Battalion, 508th Parachute Regiment, 82nd Airborne, at Kandahar City, to hear his summary of the death of four of his paratroopers on July 13th. Six Taliban suicide vest bombers penetrated security at an Afghan base, and two got through the wire to the innermost compound. One enemy attacker was stopped by a paratrooper before he reached the main force. Another was stopped at the wire. First Lt. Chris Goeke (left) of the 82nd, from Minneapolis, graduate of Apple Valley High School and West Point (sixth in his class) was killed by a gunshot to the head -- as the bombers came in firing automatic weapons. Colonel Oclander estimates the firefight lasted twenty minutes. Results were four KIA paratroopers, more than one Afhan translator KIA, several wounded, and six KIA Taliban. Dave Oclander emphasized the "heroic" conduct of his soldiers. Mention that Dave Oclander has lost nine KIA since his unit deployed last August 2009 at Zabul Province and then moved to Kandahar. The security situation at Kandahar is sub-standard and not helped by the civilian corruption (Karzai cartel) and the Taliban bloody-mindedness. Dave Oclander reports that his unit is coming home in August to Bragg, and that it will be replaced by three Army brigades from Fort Carson and a Military Police unit -- a sizable increase in firepower. However, Oclander emphasized that the solution in Kandhar is not firepower. He pointed to the civilian government as rotten. He also said that the Afghan police are wholly inadequate. Oclander finds the Afghan National Army acceptable and worthy. But the officials and the police are rotten -- and therein lies the tale of woe. Why did Chris Goeke perish? Doing his job: one of our best. Like the Italians (above). And the six KIA Taliban? Medieval men, living in a tiny, delusional worldview of only First Cause -- no cause and effect, no freewill, just slaves in a cemetery. They died, in their minds, because Allah willed it. How do we defeat such an enemy?
“How do we defeat such an enemy?” We beat them, pure and simple. We go in with all we’ve got and get the job done. We have the best fighting force in the world, bar none. If the Afghan government itself becomes a problem, there are strategies on a higher level to take care of that as well. Ditto, Pakistan. There is simply no excuse for America to lose any skirmish anywhere in the world.
What we lack is will. The Democrat Party has aligned itself with the anti-war movement for decades. They have politicized war and used it to keep Republicans from winning at the polls right here at home. They have thrown every conceivable obstacle in the way of any war effort for decades. They have been actively rooting for our enemies, especially under Republican leadership. They have struck words like ‘winning’ and ‘victory’ from the public debate. In the process they have succeeded in reducing our military to some ad hoc version of ‘meals-on-wheels’, a job it is wholly unsuited for.
If we decide to continue on our present course, we are guaranteed to lose. In fact, losing is virtually guaranteed if it is the aim, first and foremost, of our policy makers to lose (for whatever reason) as it now seems.
It has now been made clear that it is the aim of our present administration to reduce America’s influence around the world; that it considers American hegemony as the single most potent impediment to world peace. The obvious consequence of such policy is the demonstration of losses on the battlefield, the diminution of our dollar, and the seizing of political power over opponents here at home largely by the canard of blaming our losses on the opposition.
I’m as much a fan of conspiracy theory as the next guy. I was watching “The Fall of the Republic” just yesterday but couldn’t shake the feeling that what I was watching in itself might be nothing more substantive than propaganda. Conspiracy theories all follow a well-trodden path. There are heroes and villains and it all ends up in some kind of dystopian morass of dungeons and chains. I began to feel disgust and retreated to my history books. When it occurred to me that history itself is little more than conspiracy theory in reverse.
Which brings us to now. Clearly there is at present no will to win as far as America is concerned. All our efforts seem to be singularly focused on neutralizing the Tea Parties and their supporters. On the highest levels of our government it appears to have been decided that this is the only battle worth winning. All others - Afghanistan, Iraq, Israel, Taiwan, India, Central and South America - be damned.
http://peterkoelliker.blogspot.com/
http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/
Pre. Obama, Sen. Schumer, Sen. Gillinbrand, Rep. Hall
July 31, 2009
Dear Sir/Ma’am:
In the past six months I have witnessed various attacks on what makes up a thin and fragile line between order and chaos in a free society; from the Central Intelligence Agency to a local Massachusetts police officer. This must stop. The men and women of these agencies and services step forward, and serve this country in various forms without regard to their personal or economic well being; they do it because they possess an ember that provokes in them a desire to protect the American public, and by extension our way of life, that is, freedom. In short they have the “right stuff” and they prove it every day they infiltrate dangerous organizations hell bent on horror, or keep a once idiotic teenager, like yours truly once was, from violating the vehicle and traffic law. I think it is high time for a little reminder of what these men and women endure to get where they are to do their jobs, and maybe in doing this all of you who are in charge will stop dumping on all of them.
In order to become and remain a CIA agent one must continually lie to their family and friends, pass a vigorous background check, endure a training program that is psychologically as well as physically grueling, all the while living under a microscope for months where every emanation is recorded, reviewed, and discussed ad nauseam with people you have never met. Assuming one makes it to graduation, the new agents are then given assignments all over the globe in an effort to widen our intelligence net; to enable all of you to make wise choices as to how to react to the challenges this nation is, and will face. As far as a personal life or marriages, rarely do they endure, and children are difficult to have if you and your spouse are separated by continents for months on end. The penalty for detection in many of these regions is an excruciatingly painful death; the best these captured agents can hope for is to die while being tortured. You can bet Kim Jung Whack Job is not following the United States Army Field Manual.
In order to become a police officer and remain one, one must have and continue to live on the right side of the law and pass psychological testing. They must train for dangerous and unpredictable situations that they will most likely face alone. The men and women of the thousands of police departments risk their lives to enforce the law while simultaneously respecting the constitutional rights of citizens so that the law abiding can live freely. Every day hundreds of thousands of police officers kiss their wives and children goodbye; put on twenty to forty pounds of gear including a loaded weapon, and earnestly set forth to enforce the law and protect the public, sometimes even protecting a citizen from his or her own stupidity; all the while knowing that for a handful of officers this will be the last day they ever see their children, wife or husband on this earth. Recently a Massachusetts police officer was dispatched to respond to an alleged break-in in progress; this particular officer, arrived on the scene; proceeded in accordance with his training; to secure, apprehend potential suspects, and to every extent possible maintain the scene for a potential prosecution of as yet undetermined suspects - and he was viciously attacked for it.
How can all of you expect that we will attract and retain the best individuals this nation has to offer if you attack them? In the recent past Speaker Pelosi accused the CIA of lying or President Obama last week automatically assumed a police officer is acting “stupidly” after declaring he did not know the facts. President Clinton spent his terms in office declaring a world at peace and cashed the peace dividend on top of the CIA and the defense of this nation; that brought us the loss of lives on September 11, 2001; decimated our economy and brought us a war that has no end because we have not yet begun ramping up to attack the wider enemy; an enemy who you can all bet will attack us again. All of you at a bare minimum would serve this nation far better if you supported, and when ever possible, celebrated the efforts of all of these men and women in their efforts to do their vital jobs. As far as doing your jobs; any government that is accruing a Seven Billion Two Hundred Million dollar debt ($7,200,000,000) every twenty-four hours against a rapidly shrinking economy, while contemplating spending hundreds of billions of dollars on everything from taking over the health system to “cash for clunkers” is clearly not doing its job.