June 19, 2003

I have become more and more perplexed at the actions of the Bush Administration as it pursues the PNAC mandated game plan of world domination.

One of two things has to be happening here. Either the Neocons are so ignorant as to the necessity of a strong hard charging military when it comes to winning wars or there exists a master plan to submit this country to domination of outside forces.

The neocons in their outline for world domination call for the following: An "American Grand Strategy that must be advanced "as far into the future as possible." It also calls for the US to "fight and decisively win multiple, simultaneous major theatre wars" as a "core mission."

The above stated goal is a physical impossibility with the current agenda now being pursued in the United States Military.

One must remember the eight years of destruction the Clinton Administration brought to our Armed Forces. The Clinton co-presidency brought the United States Military to its knees. A kinder-gentler training regimen was introduced. Clinton demanded through his socialist loving military service secretaries, coed basic training and women in military positions in which they did not belong. He created military commanders that were more dangerous to their soldiers, sailors and airmen than they were to the enemy.

Under the Clinton regime the military kicked out 37% of its enlisted personnel for misbehavior, performance shortfalls, obesity, pregnancy and physical problems before they complete a first enlistment. The Marine Corps was using retreads on its armored vehicles. Rising numbers of Air Force and Navy jet fighters were being grounded by spare-parts shortages and maintenance backlogs, and pilots fed up with repeated duty in the Persian Gulf were bailing out of military service in droves. At Army training facilities, commanders reported units arriving for exercises had shakier combat skills than in years past. Throughout the military, there was mounting evidence of erosion in America's combat strength and troop morale.

How could anyone forget the debacle that was Somalia? An idiot Coward-in-Chief who failed miserably at providing those men he sent in harms way with the necessary means to defend themselves.

In 1998 the AP reported; "The nation's top general said today that without more pay, benefits and new equipment, America's undersupplied and overworked military will go into ``a nosedive'' and suffer irreparable damage...Shelton said. ``The best tanks, planes and ships in the world are not what make our military the superb force that it is today. ... Our people are more important than hardware.''

Washington Times 01/01/99 Rowan Scarborough "Navy Secretary Richard Danzig says there is a morale problem among his surface-ship officers and believes the malady is tied to high deployment rates and relatively low pay. Mr. Danzig, a former Navy undersecretary who was sworn in Nov. 16 as the Navy's and the Marine Corps' top civilian, also said in an interview he is embarking on a program called "Smart Work" to reduce ship workloads. "I think there is a morale problem," Mr. Danzig said, referring to a recent survey of surface-warfare officers who man destroyers, cruisers and other combat ships. The Navy has known for months that aviators are fleeing the service in near-record numbers. The pilots are put off by high operational rates and enticed by better-paying jobs flying commercial airliners. Now the sea service sees those same disturbing trends among young officers who operate the 300-ship Navy. Commenting on a survey showing fewer junior officers want command jobs, Mr. Danzig said: "That worries me. That worries me a lot. Just as it worries me when I see the retention rate in the surface Navy among junior officers is 25 percent, where our desired retention rate is more like 38 percent." "What I find is they're concerned. They're concerned about their activities in terms of wear and tear on them during deployment. They're concerned about issues associated with pay and retirement. ... And they want to see a leadership that genuinely cares about them. And so for me, they are all issues."

USA Today 1/11/99 "The armed services are lowering quality standards and still falling short of recruiting goals easily met a decade ago. Equipment is aging. Airplanes are in disrepair, ships are undermanned, units go without vital training, and individuals spend too much time overseas. It's no surprise that thousands of good people leave each year."

Seattle Post-Intelligencer; 1/16/99 "Facing a shortage of sailors at sea, the Navy announced yesterday that it would lower educational standards for new recruits as part of a series of initiatives to increase enlistments. Since the end of the Cold War, the Navy has required that 95 percent of new recruits have a high school diploma, but for the first time in a decade it will require no more than 90 percent."

Navy Times 2/1/99 "Clinton's misuse of the military started Aug. 25, 1992, when Governor Clinton told the American Legion's national convention in Chicago: "As commander in chief, I will fight to ensure that our troops who must go into battle are the best trained, best equipped and the best supported in the world." ...* In each defense budget for the past five years, inadequate funding has clearly jeopardized national defense. Army Gen. John Shalikashvili, Powell's successor, warned Clinton that his budget for weapons procurement posed a national security threat that will "risk future combat readiness of the U.S. military." Based on recent testimony by the service chiefs, the president now concedes a readiness problem exists in our armed forces."

USA Today 1/29/99 "The Army fell 20% short of its goal to enlist soldiers in the latest quarter, part of a worsening trend that threatens to leave combat units without the troops they need. From Oct. 1 through the end of 1998, the Army needed to sign up 12,420 men and women but sent only 10,075 to basic training. Unofficial estimates suggest that by fall, the Army could fall 10,000 troops below its congressionally required roster of 480,000. Unless the trend is reversed, Army units could lack enough personnel to do all the tasks needed for combat..."

Colonel David Hackworth in an article titled "The Way It Is And The Way It Was" August 1999

"During my basic training, the only officers I saw were on pay day and on the firing range. NCOs were gods, and they ran the show.

Now things have changed- not for the better. The officers and sociologists have taken over, and few have ever lead a squad in combat. These kinder gentler folks have gotten their learning from books and lectures, and few have a clue about what's needed to survive. No way can their "Consideration for others" training help a soldier drive a bayonet in his opponent's gut or give him the sharp reaction needed when a sergeant yells, "Knock out that machine gun."

I regularly talk with dozens of Army Drill sergeants, and they tell me this new, politically correct approach is creating an Army that's marshmallow soft. Here's what they're saying:-

"Road marches are now conducted at 4 kilometers an hour. My seven-year- old hikes faster. No wonder our new privates can't hump a twelve-miler when they get to a line unit."

"A sergeant was marching his platoon and he shouted at them to get in step. The brigade CO (a full colonel) locked his heels together and read him the riot act for yelling at the privates."

"The philosophy here is that the only stress the private should have is between himself and the task. If we can't create artificial stress, we're setting ourselves up for colossal failure."

" We have a new Sgt. Major and he told the privates if they think the Drill Sergeant is being too hard on them to bypass the chain of command, come see him and he'll take care of it." "Drill Sergeants are not allowed to make the privates do pushups, or run on FILL DAY (first day): a no-stress fill. There's almost no training on Saturday so the privates can take it easy."

"We have to let the trainees go to concerts, a mandatory mall visit in their 6th week of training, and we have to cancel a day of training so they can participate in the monthly retirement ceremony. Should I mention the mandatory museum visit during their 2nd weekend of training? All of this to reduce 'stress.' Yes Sir, we're training some warriors over here."

The new Army Chief of Staff better talk to his Drill Sergeants without any officers around and get the straight skinny. Or invest heavily in body bags and white flags."

Quotes such as those above are plentiful. The Clintons did all they could to destroy the military and its mission of protecting our country.

NEWS FLASH

Nothing has changed. In spite of his promise that "help is on the way," The Bush administration has done little or nothing to change the direction the Clintons started the military in back in 1993.

Again it was Colonel Hackworth who gave us the head-up with the direction Rummy and his neocons were about to take. The following is from his article titled "Basics Before Bells And Whistles" January 2001.

"Bush's new Pentagon team has taken over a military that's worn out -- not only materially but morally. Not exactly Desert Storm good-to-go, the force is more like a fire department with half of its fire engines sitting on flats while four-alarm fires rage in every direction.

Right now, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld is eyeballing a shopping list of missiles, ships, fighters and armored vehicles courtesy of the military-industrial-congressional complex, when his No. 1 priority should be rebuilding our force and fixing or replacing whatever basic stuff it needs the most.

Sure, all this dough's great for some of the heavies who dug deep to put Bush in the saddle. But ordering up more whiz-bang, gold-plated wonder gear -- unworkable Star Wars missiles, Cold War F-22 fighters, crash-and-burn V-22 helicopters and new armored cars that promise to make the U.S. Army capable of doing what the U.S. Marines already do well -- should go on hold.

The new SecDef's first order should be to hammer the nail back in the horse's shoe so we don't lose the horse and eventually the rider. Hopefully Rumsfeld, who comes from the old school of never seeing a weapon system he didn't want to buy, can steer clear of any big-ticket Cold War-type spending sprees for a while. You know, impose a shopping moratorium on the bells-and-whistles wonder weapons while he tends to the basics.

Warriors who are well-equipped, well-trained and well-led are far more critical to winning battles than most of that ultrahigh-tech, mainly unnecessary stuff on the wish list that's pretty much just more of the same-old, same-old pork for pals at corporate America."

Just take a look at this report from Soldiers for the Truth in 2002 about a storied combat unit of the U.S. Army, and remember the Bush Administration had been in office for over 18 months.

The 10th Mountain Division sure isn't the same tough outfit I saw in Northern Italy at the end of World War II or the squared-away unit I spent time with during the bad days in Somalia in 1991 or the liberation of Haiti in 1994.

The 10th troopers still wear the Mountain tab - indicating they're mountain-trained - which the men of the division sported so proudly in Italy when they were a superbly conditioned outfit fighting on one of the hardest U.S. battlefields of World War II.

"We don't do mountains anymore," a division sergeant told me - which the out-of-shape battalions that fought during Op Anaconda proved in spades.

"We saved their butts during Anaconda with close air support while they stumbled around with 100-pound rucks, wheezing from the altitude, sucking up guerrilla mortar fire like magnets," says a Special Forces warrior. "No wonder the Brit Marines were sent in. And then the 10th returns home, gets a parade and 170 medals for coming under mortar attack?"

"Give me one (Special Forces) 'A' Team, and I could destroy a whole damned infantry battalion in this sorry division with one arm tied behind my back," says a division captain who served serious enlisted time in Army Special Forces. "The 10th Mountain was a great unit back when, but it's been slowly destroyed over the years by leaders who are more concerned about haircuts than hard training."

"This is my first experience with a light-infantry division," says a division captain. "I'm in awe at how poorly trained these troops are. In my two years here, we haven't done any mountain training even though there are world-class training areas right nearby in Vermont. We don't go out in the winter except to do PT, and in the summer the National Guard uses most of our training areas. Our big deal is to go out twice a year for two weeks and train up for the Joint Readiness Training Center at Fort Polk (Louisiana). All our training is geared toward passing the test there. No deviations, no special situations, just the same old canned stuff we always do. It's like having a copy of the exam and just memorizing that."

"After a recent battalion 5-mile run," according to a 10th soldier, "seventy-five soldiers fell out - including my 1st Sergeant." He added that his unit has a history of substance abuse and AWOL problems and that "morale is in the toilet" because heavy doses of political correctness and peacekeeping have dulled the division's combat readiness. "We've done peacekeeping missions in Bosnia, Kosovo and the Sinai until we're blue in the face. This combined with operations in Afghanistan has left only 30 percent of the division at Fort Drum (New York)."

Reports from the battlefield in Iraq will be horrendous in nature once we have heard the real "skinny" as our soldiers return. One brave PFC sent an email to Soldiers For The Truth. It should certainly make for interesting reading for the millions out there who believed the campaign promises of Dubya concerning the help he would bring to the military. "Our CO came to us from a maintenance slot (battalion motor officer) about seven months ago. Not only is he inexperienced in infantry, but arrogant as well.

It's a combination that has bred an atmosphere of total distrust and doubt within our company. Personally, I don't think he's fit to lead a latrine-burning detail. Back in the States, he was more worried about shined boots and razor-sharp creases than preparing for war.

For example, we deployed with eight out of 15 SAWs (Squad Automatic Weapons) broken. One of my buddies' SAW had no safety. Just a hole in the pistol grip where the safety was supposed to be. The only reason we haven't suffered more casualties is the result of a squared-away sergeant armorer who begged, borrowed and stole what parts we needed before we crossed the Line of Departure."

If anyone really believes the neocons, who have never served a day in the military but love sending other peoples Sons and Daughters to die so they can pocket the profits need only think about the travesty that befell the 507th Maintenance Company in Iraq. This under trained, feminized, poorly led unit made a wrong turn and encountered a numerically inferior force of Fedayeen. The ill-fated unit, a convoy of nine vehicles of ordnance troops met a force of the enemy in two pickup trucks. The end result was we got our butts kicked. (Nine dead and five prisoners-of-war.) Most of our troops did not even bring their weapons into action because they were jammed with dirt. None other than their company commander led the US troops not killed or captured in the initial action in a running retreat.

Even one of our most vaunted units, the U.S. Army Rangers, has come under the gun of the politically correct element in recent weeks. Major General Paul Eaton, Post Commander at Fort Benning, Georgia recently came down hard on the Ranger training corps. It would appear that some recent graduates took umbrage because some of the Ranger Instructors actually yelled and cursed at them and made them do push-ups! Can you imagine such cruelty? Others actually complained because of the difficulty of the training. (I wonder what they would think of combat?)

Well, General Eaton took care of that problem. He went to Ranger School, fired the Sergeant Major and gave the rest of the training cadre a good tongue-lashing. He let it be known that he would not tolerate any cursing in the presence of trainees nor would he allow any push-ups to be given as punishment. He also initiated a full scale investigation into the training techniques that have in the past provided some of the finest warriors in the U.S. Army the tools needed in places such as W.W.II, Korea, Vietnam, Panama, Grenada, Afghanistan, Iraq and many other places you never knew about as you went about your daily routine.

And just where is the man who said, "Help is on the way" as this historic, storied warrior element is being feminized and destroyed at the hands of an idiot with two stars?