Saturday, June 18, 2011

Potential GOP Candidates' Commander-in-Chief Qualifications

Here is a Republican Candidate riddle for you; what do Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Herman Cain, Tim Pawlenty, Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum (+ Rudy Giuliani, if he were to run) ALL have in common? The only uniform any of them might have donned is for the Scouts! Of the GOP likelies, only Texas Gov Rick Perry and Texas Congressman Ron Paul have ever served, both were in the Air Force.

Perry was commissioned in 1972 out of the Texas A&M Corps of Cadets ROTC program and after completing pilot training, flew C-130 tactical airlift in the States, Middle East, and Europe. He left the Air Force in 1977as a captain.

Ron Paul, a medical doctor, was an Air Force flight surgeon from 1963 to 65 and fulfilled the rest of his military obligation in the Air National Guard until 1968. He served during but not in Vietnam.

Romney, Gingrich, and Cain (+ Giuliani, if he runs) are all in a special category because they were all of prime draft age during the Vietnam War but each piled deferment upon deferment to avoid any brush with danger. I would point out that draft quotas were assigned by draft board so when one man evaded, someone else, often less educated or advantaged and always less eligible, served in his place. Additionally, because many of the more capable natural leaders avoided service, we often had to settle for the LT Cally’s of the world for leadership. Think of how many American lives could have been saved if leaders of these folks’ potential had done their duty. Isn’t it ironic how correct President Clinton was when he used to say that “it’s the little guy who plays by the rules that always ends up taking it in the neck.”

As the Vietnam War raged, Romney (Born: 12 March 1947) received a draft deferment for 2 ½ years from July 1966 until February 1969 as a Mormon missionary in France and before and after his missionary deferment he received 3 years of college deferments. When his deferments finally ran out in December 1970 and he became draft eligible, he drew a high number in the newly instituted lottery system which ensured he would never have to serve. Mormon missionary deferments were very controversial in the late 1960s because the substantial number of them made the likelihood of non-Mormons going to Vietnam much greater. Romney has said he would have served if he had been drafted but in an interview had the gall to state: "I was supportive of my country. I longed in many respects to actually be in Vietnam and be representing our country there and in some ways it was frustrating not to feel like I was there as part of the troops that were fighting in Vietnam." There was an easy cure to alleviate his frustration -- sign up! It should be noted that avoiding Military service has been something of a Romney family tradition. Of prime age for WWII, his father skillfully avoided service (although a big VN War supporter) and his grandfather did the same for WWI. None of Romney’s five sons have ever served and when recently asked about his sons’ lack of service he responded: “they show their patriotism by helping me get elected!” How’s that for an answer?

Although the stepson of a career military officer, Gingrich (Born 17 June 1943) went through extraordinary machinations to avoid his service obligation. At age 19, Newt married his 26 year old high school geometry teacher who he had secretly dated while in high school and quickly had two daughters. His fatherhood and stay in college through a PhD kept him safely out the military during the entire Vietnam War. Newt hit the jackpot here because he not only had a “meal ticket” in college but a guaranteed perpetual deferment.

Cain (Born: 13 December 1945) took a little different route to his deferments. After losing his student deferments when he graduated from college in 1967, he immediately went to work as a Department of the Navy civilian employee so received occupational deferments until the draft ended. He was never in uniform nor in any danger of being shipped out to Vietnam.

Giuliani (Born: 28 May 1944) is another one that skillfully strung deferment upon deferment to ensure he never had to serve. He had student deferments through college and law school and when he finally graduated from NYU Law in 1968, so ran out of deferments, he went to work as a law clerk for a Federal Judge who used his influence to get his draft board to grant him a civilian occupation deferment. Giuliani safely sat out the Vietnam War hunkered down in the New York Federal Courthouse in Manhattan. Sure beat dodging VC bullets in a rice paddy!

As for the rest of the field: Pawlenty (Born 27 Nov 1960), Bachmann (Born: 6 April 1956) and Santorum (Born: 10 May 1958), none were subject to the draft nor have any first hand military or defense related experience. All could have served if motivated to by patriotism but none bothered. With the exception of Santorum who (with Ted Kennedy) tried to screw disabled and disadvantaged retired enlisted by hiding an amendment in an unrelated bill to require the Old Soldiers' Home in Washington, DC to almost give away property to Catholic University (see below for a full explanation of this fiasco), none have shown any overt hostility to the military but all would require extensive OJT on defense matters if elected. Then again, all have as much defense knowledge as President Obama had when he assumed the Commander-in-Chief Mantle.

Bottom line, Rick Perry and Ron Paul are the only ones that wouldn’t have to learn how to salute upon becoming Commander-in-Chief!

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

A WaPo Headline so Misleading Weiner must have Written it: 70 percent of arms seized, traced in Mexico came from US

This morning (14 Jun 11) the Washington Post published an article entitled: US report: 70 percent of arms seized, traced in Mexico came from US -- a piece so misleading that it must have been written by Anthony Weiner! (http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/americas/us-report-70-percent-of-arms-seized-traced-in-mexico-came-from-us/2011/06/13/AGR2TlTH_story.html ) I would suggest that it should be a candidate for a WaPo Fact Checker column where it would certainly merit four Pinocchios! The first paragraph of the story states:

MEXICO CITY — About 70 percent of the guns seized in Mexico and submitted to a U.S. gun-tracing program came from the United States, according to a report released by three U.S. senators Monday.

Note the crafty (and misleading) wording of the first sentence that even contradicts the headline, or at least qualifies it: “About 70 percent of the guns seized in Mexico AND SUBMITTED to a U.S. gun-tracing program came from the United States…” At least this article reduces the allegation to 70%; in the past the Obama administration’s ATF has maintained “over 90% of these firearms originated in the US” but have had to back-peddle on this since U.S. Office of the Inspector General (OIG) made the ATF admit “the 90% figure cited to Congress was misleading because it applied only to the small fraction of Mexican crime guns that are traced and Mexico only attempts to trace guns that most likely can be traced to the US.” A Nov 10 OIG analysis of ATF data suggest a much lower percentage really come from the US and a recent Feb 11 STRATFOR (a widely respected global intelligence company) analysis calculated almost 90 percent of the guns seized in Mexico are NOT from the US.

In 2009, Mexico reported that they held 305,424 confiscated firearms, but only submitted 69,808 to the ATF for tracing. The gap between seizures and traces and the fact they only submit those likely to come from the US puts in serious question whether any significant number of illegal guns in Mexico really come from here.

It should also be noted that the most commonly recovered firearm is the old Soviet AK-47 type rifles which is NOT manufactured in the US and that most US military grade weapons are acquired by the cartels through the huge supply of arms left over from the wars in Central America and Asia. It has also been reported that there have been 150,000 desertions 2003-09 from the Mexican army (about 1/8th desert annually) and many of them take their issued automatic rifles with them.

Given all this, maybe we’re talking SIX Pinocchios!

Monday, June 13, 2011

Weiner Proves Lame-Stream Press is Gullible!

My question is why did it take the “Lame-stream” Press 10 days to figure out Weiner was lying when it was so obvious even Ray Charles could see it was this Sicko’s incredibly inept attempt to cover-up his obvious stab at “hooking-up” with women?

The dead give-away was when he refused to contacted authorities to launch an investigation after he swore to every TV camera he could find that his Twitter account had been hacked and “someone” was using it to send out lewd pictures which he couldn’t say with “certitude” was not of him. Even the “Right Wing Wacko’s” laughed when Weiner said “The police had more important things to worry about so he was conducting his own investigation …” They knew what Weiner knew, it’s no crime to lie to the press… it’s no crime to lie to the public… it’s even no crime to lie to your wife, BUT if you lie to the FEDs (even if you’re not under oath) you face 3 to 5 years in the big house as Bubba’s date to the annual Sadie Hawkins Day Dances – and from the looks of Weiner, he could be the Slammer Homecoming Queen.

And if that wasn’t enough, consider the fact Weiner had 54,000+ “Twitter followers.” -- BUT Weiner himself ONLY followed 198 Twitter users, most of them young, attractive women including stripper and porn actress Ginger Lee.

I hope the “Lame-stream” press learned a lesson from Weiner-gate. They’re gullible!

Friday, June 10, 2011

Dispelling any Myths about Marines Uniqueness!

Not withstanding the Marine Corps PR machine’s great job (with a lot of help from the news media) of brainwashing the American public, any objective study of US military excursions since World War II will confirm that the Maine Corps has become just another, abet smaller, ground army and their performance has been identical to that of regular Army Infantry units in every conflict. In his definitive account of the Korean War, The Forgotten War, the author Clay Blair proves this beyond any doubt for Korea and for all the hype, the 8th Air Force alone in WWII sustained more killed (27,000) than the entire Marine Corps (24,500).

In the over 8 years we’ve been in Iraq, losses (Mar 03-1 Jun 11 from all causes there and in the surrounding region) has totaled 4446: 3263 Soldiers, 1022 Marines, 103 Sailors, 57 Airmen and 1 Coast Guardsmen. In the almost 10 years we’ve been in Afghanistan, we’ve had 1583 military killed (Oct 2001-31 Ju1 11 from all causes there and in the surrounding region): 1162 Soldiers, 348 Marines, 84 Airmen and 70 Sailors.

There are 33 combat battalions in Afghanistan, 25 are Army Battalions while 8 are Marine Corps. If you do the math you will notice that the losses are proportional to the engaged combat forces and the performance of Army and Marine units has been almost identical.

With the emphasis on “jointness,” Marines routinely attend Army schools and all Marine officers get their Artillery and Armor (as well as several other specialties) training from the Army. Marine ground units for the most part even use major equipment developed by the Army (e.g. M1A1 Abrams Tanks, SP 155 and 8” Howitzers, etc.). The major difference is Marines do have their own integrated “Air Force” but even there the lines have become blurred with Navy, Marine and Air Force air support pooled and responding where needed, not just dedicated to a particular unit or service.

In Korea, Vietnam, Grenada, Desert Shield/Storm, Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as several other minor incursions, Marine and Army units have been totally integrated as a ground force with no distinction in deployment, tactics or missions and under a unified command structure.

Politically I recognize there is no combining the Army and Marine Corps into a single service nor am I advocating it but I do believe there could be a lot more integration and savings. In these times of diminishing Defense budgets we need to be looking for ways to economize and a greater integration of the Army and Marine Corps into a “Joint Ground Force” needs to be explored.

Thursday, June 9, 2011

Dep Sec Def Lynn Says Future Wars Deadlier - I (and History) Disagree!

It was reported in an article in the 9 Jun 2011, Washington Times (http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/jun/8/future-wars-seen-as-longer-deadlier/?page=all#pagebreak ) that Speaking on 8 Jun 2011 at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, Deputy Secretary of Defense William J. Lynn III identified what he called “three strategic trends” that are shaping “our future national security environment: lethality, duration and asymmetry.” He opined that “the wars of the future will be longer, deadlier and waged against a more diverse variety of enemies than ever before …. “

I would contend that only a guy who has never spent a single solitary day in Uniform could come to his conclusion that future conflicts will be deadlier. While I might tend to agree future enemies may be more diverse and conflicts longer, there is absolutely no rationale for concluding they will be deadlier! As a matter of fact, recent experience indicates otherwise and regardless, I doubt the American public has the stomach anymore for combat losses of even the magnitude of Vietnam so it may be a moot point.

Understand as a Vietnam combat Vet who spent 30 years in the Army (and was in Afghanistan as a civilian last year), I consider every service member’s life precious and I don’t wish to diminish the death of a single one but I wanted to put our present US Military Operations into a little perspective and refute our Deputy Secretary’s contention that future conflicts will be deadlier! I base my conclusions on my following analysis of the major US deployments since 1941.

Although theoretically the Vietnam War lasted10 years, 51,585 of the total 58,220 killed occurred during the real 5 years (1966-70) of the war when we were heavily engaged. At the height of the war in 1968 we were losing 50 a day killed!

The Korean War lasted 3 years and one month (Jun 1950 – Jul 53) and total US Killed was 36,516. That averages ~32+ killed a day

By comparison, in the almost 10 years we’ve been in Afghanistan (Oct 2001-present), as of the beginning of this month (Jun) we’ve had 1583 military killed from all causes in country and the surrounding regions (1106 Soldiers, 325 Marines, 83 Airmen and 69 Sailors). That averages less than ½ person lost per day but this year is shaping up to be the deadliest of the conflict. So far in 2011 we’ve lost 167 killed in 189 days or less than one per day.

In Iraq and the surrounding region we’ve been there for over 8 years (Mar 03-Present) and lost 4446 total to all causes (3263 Soldiers, 1022 Marines, 103 Sailors, 57 Airmen and 1 Coast Guardsmen). That’s less then 1½ lost a day. In the 210 day First Gulf War (1990-91) US losses were 148 Combat and 145 Non-combat for a total of 293 killed.

Now if you want to talk about deadly, the US lost almost half a million men in World War II. The Battle of the Bulge alone lasted 40 days (16 Dec 44 – 25 Jan 45) with almost 90,000 U.S. casualties; 19,000 killed, 47,500 wounded, and 23,000 captured or missing. The 36-day Iwo Jima assault resulted in more than 26,000 American casualties, including 6,800 dead while the 82-day Battle for Okinawa lasted from early April until mid-June 1945 and U.S. (5 Army and 2 Marine Corps Divisions) casualties were over 62,000 with over 12,000 killed.

Like I said earlier, every service member’s life is precious and I don’t wish to diminish the death of a single one but I want to put our present US Military Operations into a little perspective and challenge our Deputy Secretary’s contention that future conflicts will be deadlier! Hopefully, the trend will continue to be just to opposite, each conflict will be less deadly than the one before.

Santorun Is NOT a Friend of Soldiers!

Below I wrote a rather lengthy piece on why I feel of the 2012 Presidential contenders, Rick Santorum is the most dangerous for the military. Here is a short synopsis of why I feel that way but scroll down a few articles to see a fuller explanation of what Rick did to earn my ire.

In 1998 he (and Ted Kennedy) tried to screw disabled and disadvantaged retired enlisted by hiding an amendment in an unrelated bill requiring the Old Soldiers' Home to almost give away some property to Catholic University (CU). True Kennedy was the senior partner and member of the Armed Services Committee so was "leader" of the "screwing team" but Santorum was his enthusiastic partner in crime.  The Home is where enlisted members with no other options can retire and get care. Funded by a small pay deduction that Congress refused to raise although demand remained steady, the Home had a large budget deficit. They had some undeveloped DC land so it decided to sell some to the highest bidder to raise funds to continue its worthy work. CU wanted the property but didn’t feel like paying market price so got Santorum and Kennedy to sneak in the amendment forcing them to sell to CU for one-third its value. Outraged retired soldiers “outted” Santorum and Kennedy who quickly changed their tactics and gave CU the right of first refusal on any "high" bid which seriously depressed the bidding. In the end, Rick, Ted and CU still screwed the Old Soldiers – just not as bad!

If Rick were elected President, I expect the Military could look forward to routinely getting screwed. This is one Old Soldier that wouldn't look forward to that!

Saturday, June 4, 2011

Congressman Anthony Weiner - "The Rest of the Story"


Even Ray Charles could see what Weiner is doing here. It’s his incredibly inept attempt to cover-up his obvious stab at “hooking-up” with women.

The picture was addressed to a 21-year-old Seattle area female student who is one of Weiner’s 54,000+ “Twitter followers.” -- BUT Weiner himself ONLY follows 198 Twitter users, most of them young, attractive women including stripper and porn actress Ginger Lee. The Co-ed, Gennette Cordova, speculated that "Her name is Ginger, he (Weiner) might have mixed us up." A plausible explanation but raises the question, why is Weiner “following” Porn Stars?

When asked if he had contacted authorities to launch an investigation into the hacking of his Twitter account, Weiner said that he had not because “The police had more important things to worry about so he was conducting his own investigation …” It’s should be noted that it might also prove perilous for Weiner to call in the FEDs! It’s no crime to lie to the press… it’s no crime to lie to the public… it’s even no crime to lie to your wife, BUT if you lie to the FEDs (even if you’re not under oath) you face 3 to 5 years in the big house as Bubba’s date to the annual Sadie Hawkins Day Dances – and from the looks of Weiner, he could be the Slammer Homecoming Queen. Title 18, U.S.C. 1001, states: “whoever, in any matter within the jurisdiction of the executive, legislative, or judicial branch of the Government of the United States, knowingly and willfully — (1) falsifies, conceals, or covers up by any trick, scheme, or device a material fact; (2) makes any materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or representation; or (3) makes or uses any false writing or document knowing the same to contain any materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or entry; shall be fined under this title, imprisoned not more than five years.”

At least Congressman Chris Lee (also from New York) had the decency to immediately “fess-up” and resign when he got caught. How long will it take for Weiner to do the same?

This ain’t going away Anthony!