Torpedoes

A lot of global terminology and military ones, at that, lately! Wonder why? Because that’s mostly what readers of the media get these days. Oh, a big exception: celebrity news trumps just about everything but serious weather events. You know they do!

I caught an article this morning regarding the struggles Obama is having – has had long term – to cohere his policies in the foreign affairs and military spheres. This is his legacy he is attempting to engineer. He has good bones there but he has been frustrated repeatedly by events and political enemies.

Let’s forget that republicans have targeted Obama with a wish/prayer/hope for failure. They have been steadfast in that goal and have seemingly achieved it. There is one problem with that opinion, however, the tarnished and tarnisher are often confused by the public, and especially by history. Time will tell if history catches up with republican terrorists during the Obama presidency. I sincerely hope history does this. Then Boner and McConnell will be seen as the destroyers that they are. Maybe even traitors?

My point consistently has been they do this work at the destruction of the nation they have sworn to protect and defend. They have spent endless trillions on wars and military excursions sponsored only by republicans. The rest of America has paid the price, especially our military men and women. And of course those workers impoverished by such policies. And they are legion in this post Bush/Cheney Era.

As republican pols continue to paint all national failures and problems on democrats, they fail to realize the public and historians have no reason to believe them. In fact, the more noise they make, the more tainted they become because of the attention they are drawing toward themselves. That is the precise point of defeat. It will take time for this to become obvious.

So, torpedoes away! Strike any target that has an Obama connection and hope the fault will be associated with him.

So, we toy with targets regardless of their value to our people and nation. These include:

·         Economic matrices – unemployment, inflation/deflation, wealth accumulation, gap between high and low income groups, etc.

·         Military disruption of mission – unnecessary deaths of personnel in uniform, waste in materiel, logistics, support infrastructure for military operations, research and development for future military missions, etc.

·         Foreign policy with the global community – enemy lines redefined and made more complex, failure of reputation with allies, misery index raised for poor peoples throughout the globe, disruption of ‘normal relations’ among friendlies and unfriendlies, etc.

·         Education program supports for research and development that rewards industries partisans love; talk about dislocation of national resources affecting the future!

·         International welfare programs and Foreign Aid designed to assuage regional health crises (Ebola, AIDS, drought, starvation, etc.)

·         Allied military agreements and ability to follow through with established promises

·         And the list goes on…

The Iraq War was a major goof. Afghanistan was the target. Obama was straddled by both at the same time. Any pull out from Iraq was a disaster waiting to happen and to lay blame for; it was unwinnable in the first place; it had not limiting goal to define success; thus it was doomed to fail.

Same with Afghanistan’s struggles. It is a culture war not a military one. Yet we went in to find Osama bin Laden and to curtail the Taliban enough for Afghans to take control of their own country. The latter has failed regardless of which misguided friendly nation has volunteered to help Afghanistan over the decades. We are just the most recent. But we did locate and kill bin Laden. Mission accomplished. Finally! And now is the time to withdraw our troops and military support. It is Afghan country and it is up to the Afghans to run their own business.

But wait! Congressional meddling hobbles both the Iraq and Afghanistan missions. And who gets the blame? Obama, of course. Meanwhile our military personnel continue to die, our trillions continue to be spent, and military industries and vendors in America are getting rich at the expense of all the other worthy industries and priority programs.

While education, health care, economic stability and replacement of our crumbling infrastructure ought to be high priority items in America, they aren’t. Instead political folderol is the order of the day.

Are we citizens strong enough to defuse congress and get our country moving in the right direction again? I wonder about that. Congress just passed the authority for pension plans to be cut by up to 40% to restore financial stability to those plans. What about the workers? The families? The promise to future generations? Are employers to be trusted? Are governments? Are businesses, especially the financial industry?  Grave questions. Grave answers loom.

Why is this? Is it all because of politics?

If it is, what do we do about it?

December 12, 2014