Two Bad Days

27 October 2009

The last two days have been real bad ones for American troops. Yesterday 14 lost their lives in two helicopter crashes. In one incident, one chopper crashed with 10 being killed, including 3 DEA officers in Afghanistan to address the drug trafficking. In the south, 4 Marines were killed when the two helicopters they were flying on collided and crashed.

Today, 8 more troops lost their lives due to several IED attacks. With four days left in the month, October is already the deadliest month of the Afghani campaign.
But is it this statistical fact that is really important? Of course not.
The pivotal point is the fact that two months have passed since Gen. Stanley McChrystal presented his recommendations to Obama, and yet the President has not made a decision to follow up on the campaign promise he made regarding Afghanistan or not. Taliban operation is getting more sophisticated and bold, and that I attribute to two facts.

First the improved Taliban use of IEDs is, in my opinion, being aided by the interference of one of America’s old “friends”: Iran. With the insurgency de facto defeat in Iraq, the terror forces of the Iranian government are now concentrating their efforts in Afghanistan. With the winter months coming, it is again time for the Taliban/al Qaeda forces to put in their last hits before they go hibernating in their caves or in Iran for replenishment and training. All to get ready for the Spring offensive.

Second is the lack of a decisive hand being so apparent in Washington. Having totally marginalized Sec. of State Clinton, Obama has tasked the worst possible politician to gain greater visibility over the efforts of the Military in Afghanistan: John Kerry.
This is a man that, regardless of the lies and histrionics he disseminated in 2004, hates the Military and has never, in the last thirty years, lost an opportunity to undermine the men and women in uniform. And the latest is the practical smack down of someone like Gen. McChrystal, a man Kerry should not even be allowed to be in the same room with.

The enemies of America feed upon the propaganda they can achieve by showing our country as a weak country. They are masters at exploiting everything that can be perceived as lack of determination by injecting their ideology of religious carnage into the image of decadence of western culture.
Besides being infidels and therefore deserving of death, the West is shown to the terror recruits as philosophically weak and morally inept. Religious tolerance, individualism, gender equality are causes of decadence, both moral and social, in the eyes of the Islamic fundamentalists.

Another attribute of our enemies is the ability to patiently wait for the right moment to strike. For eight years during the Clinton’s regime, the Islamic terrorists conducted small scale operations, from the first WTC bombing to the African Embassies to the USS Cole. They were just, in my opinion, probing actions designed to gage the national resolve and provided the enemy with the necessary answers.
The Presidential Elections of 2000 provided the catalyst: the voting controversy, the attacks against the elected President Bush, the vile behavior of Al Gore and his followers, gave our enemies the impression that the social fibers of America were strained, further weakening the national self defense resolve. The newly elected Bush was inaugurated in January 2001 after months of controversy amid accusations of having been selected, not elected (famous Liberal bumper stickers).
The enemies of America were able to capitalize on the ongoing controversy by telling their recruits that what it was witnessed in America was the result of one of Islam’s most hated aspect of the West: freedom.
The new administration in Washington was seen as one that would not have the strength of character nor the support of the American people, shown to be fractured by the election debacle. Hence the events of 9-11-01.

We are facing an enemy that is completely different from any of the foes our Nation has confronted in the past. This is an enemy driven by religious fanaticism, by willingness to martyrdom, by a grand scheme of Islamic control. This is an enemy as conniving as we have ever faced, an enemy that has already gained almost full control over Europe by gradually infiltrating into the social fibers of countries like Great Britain and France thanks to a political correct attitude that is spelling disaster.
The last bastion of freedom, which the United States still represents, remains the Great Satan for our enemies. We are also affected by the political correctness cancer, but the individual in America is still, on the most part, not willing to give up the freedom we enjoy.

Unfortunately, we now have a President who does not share the ideals that have made our country great. He does not believe in the image of America as a beacon of freedom and self determination. Obama believes that America has been an arrogant nation and he is determined to change that image by first destroying our economy and our Constitution, and then by using our Military for his own political goal.
Some may say that this is a strong statement, but, in my opinion, it is not strong enough. We have troops engaged in a war on terror in Afghanistan and the President is too busy working on a Hugo Chavez type of national take over to dedicate enough of his time to analyze his Generals reports and give them what is needed to see a victorious end in Afghanistan.

In my book, his actions are indicative of dereliction of duty.

And these are my thoughts!
Frank “Semperpapa”