The Unexpected and sending the wrong message

Submitted by Leonard Markowitz (United States), Jan 17, 2012 at 08:28

The Soviet Union was not defeated on the battlefield. That nation fell apart due to financial insolvency. We should benefit from that lessen. While the US should maintain the best fighting force in the world, which is capable of preventing &/or controlling our Islamic enemies, we should no longer maintain a fighting force designed to combat the Red Army or the Wehrmacht. We should no longer fund programs, such as the Osprey or Sgt . York tanks, which are toys for generals and admirals. We need to effectively tailor our military to combat present day threats from our Islamic enemies. That includes commando and Seal-type operations and more attacks by drones.

This would be the most cost effective way of combating our enemies without bankrupting this nation, which would benefit neither us nor our alleged allies. When push comes to shove, the only ally that we can depend upon in a crisis is Israel.

What we need most is a change in the top brass at the Pentagon, whose sorry record in our recent conflicts with the enemy indicates an urgent need for change. What we need is a Forrestal-type at the head of the Pentagon, who has the capability of cleaning house and designing an armed force capable to combat present day threats by the enemy.

Our campaign in Iraq was faulty from the beginning. Our intelligence was wrong. We sent our valiant young men into combat without adequate training and armor. Now that we left that battlefield, I have no doubt that Iraq will implode into three separate countries. A Shiite south, a Sunni midsection and a Kurdish north, that is if Turkey allows a Kurdish north. In addition, how will the petroleum profits become allocated. In short, that civil war will go on for years and all of our previous efforts there will have been in vain.

We needed to be in Afghanistan to punish Al-Kaida for 9/11. However, our military bungled the initial effort to capture and punish ben Laden and we spent a decade there in futility. Afghanistan is and has always been ungovernable. We should have gotten ben Laden eight years ago and then gotten out. Now that we are out, the Taliban will again resume control of most of the country. Again, the was a war fought in vain, except for the capture and death of ben Laden.

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