Ending Illegal Immigration

I have watched, with some dismay, the ongoing crisis concerning illegal alien unaccompanied children over the past few months.


Let me start off with some personal background here.  I grew up believing in America, as the 'land of the free and the home of the brave', the nation that has sent its military out time and time again to make and keep other people free.  We earned our own liberty from Great Britain, against tremendous odds, and with a considerable amount of assistance from the French; we fought our bloodiest war, against ourselves, in order to make those held as slaves free; we kept Europe free of German domination twice, and Asia free of Japanese domination once.  We kept half of Korea free, and subsequently there is no clearer delineation between free and oppressed societies on the face of the earth than North and South Korea.  We fought the long, difficult, twilight struggle against oppression once again, during the Cold War, starting with the Berlin Airlift, and I was there for the beginning of that particular end, on November 9, 1989.


It is to America that those seeking freedom from oppression have come over the past two centuries, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, the opportunity to better oneself and to excel, and to make a better life for ones family, ones children, grandchildren, and for generations to come.


You may recall the Statue of Liberty; the statue's formal name is Liberty Enlightening the World, and the poem, by Emma Lazarus, mounted inside the pedestal, is "The New Collossus", which reads, in part:




                        "Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
                         With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
                         Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
                         The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
                         Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
                         I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"




I learned all these things, absorbed all these things, and believe in all these things.  To me, these represent America at it's best.


So, as one might imagine, I've been rather disappointed in our treatment of these minors who've arrived at our nation's southern doorstep, looking for safety and freedom.  As for me, I have volunteered to work with Catholic Charities here in Oklahoma; I've completed all their application process (which is rather lengthy) and they've contacted my references, and so I'm just waiting for a phone call.


[As an aside, over 600 of my fellow Oklahomans have also volunteered to help with Catholic Charities' relief work in support of these unaccompanied children.  It sort of reminds me of the story of the prophet Elijah, in 1 Kings 19, where after the showdown on Mt. Carmel, he flees into the desert, depressed and despondent that he has so little support.  But God appears to him, and among other things, assures Elijah that he is not alone; that there were 7,000 others in Israel who had not worshipped Baal.  Then, as now, there are far more people willing to do the right thing than what we might realize.]


But putting all that aside, and [finally] getting to what I was wanting to write about, the fact remains that no matter what punitive measures we might choose to put into place, how draconian and unfeeling, uncaring, spiteful, and even hateful measures we choose to adopt, none of them are going to work.  Unless we line them all up and shoot them, or herd them Nazi-style into death camps--something I cannot imagine even the hardest-line conservatives would even contemplate--no punitive measures are going to work.


We will only end illegal immigration when we remove the reasons why people choose to immigrate illegally.


Does the United States have legitimate security concerns with these people crossing our borders without authorization?  Of course.  This would probably be the easiest way for al Qaeda or other terrorist operatives to enter the United States in the post-9/11 environment.  So, yes, we need to secure our borders.


But we also need to make it possible for poor people to enter the United States.  Is anyone out there, that's an American citizen, really aware of what it takes for a foreign national to enter the US legally, and to work here legally?  Immigration law doesn't concern us 'red-blooded 'Mericans', because we're already citizens on the basis of having been born here, and generally to parents who were themselves US citizens.  So people don't pay attention to the niceties of US immigration law.


Well, it's worth a look if you actually want to be knowledgeable about the whole illegal immigration issue.  We've set up a system where you almost always are going to need to hire an immigration attorney in order to get that oh-so-sought-after green card.  Which means it's expensive.  And it also means it takes a long time.  Both of which make it difficult for the poor outside of the US to enter our nation legally.


So streamlining, simplifying, and making the process of obtaining legal resident alien status more affordable would go a long ways to reducing illegal immigration.


But beyond that, you'd need to attack the real reason 'all them foreigners' want to come here in the first place.


Conditions in their home countries are bad.  Very bad.  And while to us things here in the good ol' US of A may not be all happiness and light, in comparison we live in a paradise.  Our children have a chance to grow up, and not be shot, abducted, sold as child slaves, or otherwise abused and mistreated in a systematic way.  One of the constants among all humans is a love for their children, and the desire to make a better life for ones children is and has been one of the biggest drivers of progress since the Stone Age.  Guatemalans, Hondurans, El Salvadorans, Mexicans, you name it--they all are exactly like us in this regard.


And as long as those conditions remain as they are in those countries, and as long as things are immeasurably better here in the United States, we will continue to have illegal immigrants crossing our borders.  After all, even the slightest chance for a better life is better than near-certain death there in their home countries.


So, with this, there are two options--for things to improve in their home countries, or for things here in the US to decline to the state that exists in those home countries.  Of the two, I'd choose for things to get better there than worse here.


I'm not saying that we, the United States, should fund relief efforts in Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, or anywhere else, for that matter.  There are certain things that we, both as a nation and as individuals, to help make things better in those countries.


First off, civil society in large parts of these countries has just about collapsed.  Drug cartels have taken over, subjugating and corrupting law enforcement and the courts, even taking over schools.  First and foremost, justice--true justice--must prevail; all people must be subject to the same laws, and those who break those laws must be punished, as provided in those laws.  No civil society can stand, without resorting to dictatorship, without justice.


Second, there must be hope for the future.  A lot of that depends on education, and so that makes a perfectly good second step--establish free public schools, which will prepare their students for a better life than their parents knew.


Third, a fair and balanced (a tired, overworked, and in the case of Fox News, co-opted into something with an entirely different meaning) free market economy should be established.  NOT one that allows foreign (US or not) companies to come in and dominate these countries, but one that both protects the business owners at all levels, and the employees, and the consumers.


The United States has not been the best neighbor (Maj. Gen. Smedley Butler, USMC (ret'd), who was twice awarded the Medal of Honor, had a few choice comments to make in this regard) to our southern neighbors.  There's nothing we can do to change the past, but there's a lot we can do to improve the present and make a better future for us all.

What's Going On In Florida . . .

[OK, still don't know why Blogger's not letting me put pictures in my posts, but here's a link to the website where I got the picture . . . ]


Over on Facebook, I've been following Upworthy for some time now, and I ran across a quick article there about a map prepared by the Southern Poverty Law Center, showing by state the number of hate groups they're tracking.  On the map, you can zoom in and see little icons for the various groups, in roughly the locations they're active.  I posted a copy of this map to my wall on Facebook, and among those who liked/commented on this was my pastor, who asked, "Wow . . . what's going on in Florida?"  (BTW, Florida has 58 hate groups, according to the SPLC.)


Having lived in Florida for 5 years, more specifically in Jacksonville, I think I can comment on what's going on in Florida.


A lot of what you're seeing are echoes of slavery.  And the reaction to those echoes that still sound in our national consciousness.


You see, the northern Florida area around Jacksonville is where the term 'cracker' was coined, and in that area is not a pejorative term.  You see, it refers to the old-time white settlers in that area, and is in fact a term of pride, of belonging to that area, much in the way that 'jayhawker' refers to someone from Kansas.  Despite it's nearly universal status as a racial epithet elsewhere, 'cracker' is a term of some pride, at least in some circles, in northern Florida.


All of which wouldn't mean much.  Except that even today, nearly 150 years after emancipation, Florida is still a racial powder keg.


There weren't many Civil War battles fought in Florida, and there's only one of any real significance that I know of, the Battle of Olustee.  You see, when the Union established a blockade of southern ports, in order to ease the burdens on the fleet, the Union Army and Navy combined to occupy as many southern ports as they could, which meant that they occupied Fernandina, Jacksonville, and St. Augustine fairly early in the war. 


As the war progressed, the Union noticed that they didn't see very many Florida regiments in the Confederate Army, and took that to suggest that Floridians weren't very ardent secessionists, not being in the realm of 'King Cotton' like many of the hard-core Confederate states.  It was believed that with only limited support for the Confederacy, that perhaps Florida would be willing to return its allegiance to the Union, more so than the other Confederate states.


Well, this was a miscalculation of epic proportions.  In fact, based on a percentage of total population, Florida supplied more troops to the Confederate Army than any other state in the Confederacy.  Floridians were, in fact, very ardent secessionists, which the Union Army discovered in February of 1864 when it moved to seize a key railroad junction west of Jacksonville, near Lake City.


Once the Union troops left their enclave in Jacksonville and moved inland, the Florida irregular militia came pouring out of the woodwork, and what they lacked in military professionalism they more than made up in determination to drive off the hated Yankees, which they did in short order. 


Fast forward a hundred years, and take a look at Martin Luther King's efforts for civil rights in St. Augustine. In 1963 and into 1964, Dr. King tried to make headway with non-violent action for civil rights in and around St. Augustine.  However, there was a problem with non-violence, or more specifically a lack of acceptance of non-violence.  Determined to not die like Medgar Evers, some leaders in the civil rights movement called for and participated in violent counter-actions against the KKK, sometimes driving the KKK from their neighborhoods with gunfire.  Things were rapidly spinning out of control; some members of the NAACP were removed from their posts, the KKK kept up their attacks, and the local law enforcement frequently sided with the KKK, in turn further escalating the conflict.  Eventually Dr. King returned to Alabama where, despite an equally-determined foe in the local KKK there, non-violence was much more a viable option.


It seems that Floridians, native Floridians, know how to hate, and practice it often.


You see it in their most-extreme 'stand your ground' law.  If anyone feels as if they're threatened, for any reason, they can use deadly force.  Contrast that to Oklahoma's 'stand your ground' law, which is far more limited:  If one is in one's residence, and a person tries to illegally enter one's residence, one is authorized to use deadly force.  Now, 'residence' can mean a hotel room, a cabin, even a tent, as long as that's where one is living at the time.  The Oklahoma 'stand your ground' law goes back to the old saw about how 'a man's home is his castle', and is far more circumspect than Florida's version, which is something that wouldn't have held up even in the days of the 'Wild West'.  This is how George Zimmerman was found not guilty in the death of Trayvon Martin; under Florida law, approved by the Florida legislature and signed into law by either Jeb Bush or Charlie Crist (I don't remember who was governor at the time), Zimmerman was justified in using deadly force to kill Martin because Zimmerman merely 'felt' that he was threatened.  We may not agree (and I do not), we may not like that particular law, but that's what the government of the Great State of Florida has on its books.  And so far the people of that state have not seen fit to get their elected leaders to change it, either.


And today Jacksonville is a powder keg of racial tension.  Jacksonville has Florida's highest murder rate, with more murders per capita than even Miami.  But there's little to no justice.  While I was there, it seemed that the only murder cases that attracted sufficient law enforcement resources to result in an arrest were those involving whites or at the very least either politically-connected minorities or were so heinous they could not be ignored.  'Run-of-the-mill' murders, especially those involving minorities, were just left alone.  I know; I had co-workers who lost family members, or friends of their families, in just exactly these circumstances.  In short, there is no justice there.


Exacerbating the problem is the local law enforcement's harassment.  That's a strong word, and it applies here.  What I'm referring to is traffic stops.  The Jacksonville Sheriff's Office would typically pull a car over for speeding, or perhaps a seat belt violation, and the deputy would be rude--but with the dashcam running.  They'd do whatever they could to try to get the driver to react, to act out, and especially to lay even one finger on the deputy--because that constituted battery of a law enforcement officer, which is a felony, and all caught on the dashcam.  So what had been just a routine traffic stop turned into a felony conviction.  And cops (and police departments) are as big into stats as the NBA All-Stars.  And felony convictions, and a good solid felony conviction rate, are great things to brag about within the law enforcement community.  It also means good, solid funding, too.


All of which add up to a great big picture of hate.  With roots in the past of slavery, the inequality and injustice of the distant and more-recent past, and the denial of justice in the modern day, Florida (despite it's name, meaning 'flowery land) has more than its fair share of haters.

Securing the Mexican Border

If you spend much time on Facebook, and associate with a goodly variety of people, inevitably you'll come across those who insist that we need to pull our armed forces out of every foreign country, and bring them back home to secure our borders--meaning, of course, the border with Mexico, due primarily to illegal immigration as well as drug smuggling.


Well.  Having served 4 years in the US Army as a tank crewman (including Desert Shield/Desert Storm, as well as 2 years in a 'Border Cavalry' unit in Germany--BTW, I was there when the wall opened--a fit subject for another post), I know at least a little bit about the technical aspects of securing a border against infiltration by dismounted/light infantry, which is the closest analogue to what these generally arch-conservative types advocate.


It wouldn't be pretty.  Nor would it be cheap.


In fact, it's not even feasible.


You got that right--the United States armed forces, as currently configured, manned, and equipped--cannot adequately secure our border with Mexico.


[I've been meaning to post about this for some time, to at least get some facts and figures out there so people realize the enormity of the task they're talking about.  It took me some time to find a good, reliable source for these, however.]


It's been a couple of decades since author Harold Coyle wrote his book, "Trial By Fire", which is a techno-thriller (well, sort of) in the Tom Clancy style, detailing a fictional conflict between the United States and Mexico.


Harold Coyle was a United States Army officer, an Armor officer more specifically, and if memory serves he reached the rank of either Major or Lieutenant Colonel before leaving the service to concentrate on his writing.  Having 'been there and done that', his writing is full of the hallmarks of authenticity; little phrases or sayings that were common to all who served in the Army of his day (which overlapped my own).  Being an officer, and having that type of training, and recognizing the way he writes as a man who knows what he's talking about, I have no reason to doubt what he refers to in "Trial By Fire", which I'll quote from here at length.


A little bit of a prologue:

The government of Mexico has been overthrown by a military coup.  Determined to rid their country of the endemic corruption that has marked Mexico for generations, the new military leaders set up summary trials, and executions, of leaders of various groups and at varying levels to root out that corruption and establish justice throughout Mexico.  This has the effect, however, of disrupting the drug cartels, one of which hits on the bright idea of provoking the Americans into invading Mexico to stop cross-border raids, orchestrated by the cartels but carefully disguised to appear to be done by the Mexican military.  This plan meets with considerable success after several well-publicized ambushes of US Border Patrol agents, inside US borders.  While Washington gathers intelligence and tries to determine the best response, the governor of Texas beats them to the punch, activates the Texas National Guard, and sends the 36th Infantry Division of the Texas Guard to the Texas-Mexico border.

The scene here is in a conference room at Ft. Hood, near Waco, TX.  A briefing is being conducted by the US Army 10th Corps staff, for the group of governors and staff members from the various southwest-US states.  The key players here are Maj. Gen. 'Big Al' Marin, commander of the 16th Armored Division, stationed at Ft. Hood and part of 10th Corps, his staff aide Col. Scott Dixon (Coyle's 'hero' of his first few novels), and Governor Wise of Texas.

"While Big Al and Dixon stood and moved to the front of the room, the corps commander explained that the 16th Armored Division, with three active brigades and no units out of place due to training exercises, and because of its proximity to the border, was the best-prepared division to move to the border and would probably be the first to do so.  The governor of Texas cut the corps commander off, dryly reminding him that the 36th, the division that had spearheaded the first bloody attempt to cross the Rapido River in Italy during World War II, was already headed there and that the 16th would be second.

"What the corps commander did not tell Governor Wise was that the 16th was the only division that had taken this particular contingency seriously and therefore was the only division with complete and updated plans for such an emergency.  Besides, Big Al and Scott Dixon made an unbeatable pair when it came to conducting a briefing.  If they couldn't satisfy the Texans, no one could.

"While Dixon managed a blizzard of slides, charts, and maps with overlays, Big Al did his thing.  He started by stating that the United States Army, once deployed, had to consider the entire border with Mexico, not just the portion adjoining Texas.  That, he explained, represented a grand total of 1,933 miles, or 3,111 kilometers, which included mountains, desert, and urban terrain.  With that as a given, Dixon showed a slide that listed the amount of front a typical platoon, company, and battalion could defend, or cover, according to current doctrine, and handed out paper copies of the same slide to the governor and his adjutant general.

"Taking great care, Big Al explained the problems that the Army would face if it were sent to the border.  'As you can see, Governor, a mechanized infantry battalion, ordered to defend a piece of terrain, can effectively hold 10 kilometers of front.  To spread that battalion out further would mean leaving holes, or gaps, in the line.  Even with this density, however, you are looking at one combat soldier every thirty-three meters.  Were we faced with a mechanized foe, armed with tanks, armored personnel carriers, and such, that density, with the weapons available to the soldiers of a mechanized infantry battalion, would be able to stop the foe.  Unfortunately, we are facing a light infantry threat, a guerilla force not unlike the Viet Cong.  Even with extensive barriers such as barbed wire, land mines, antivehicle devices, active and passive sensors, and aggressive patrolling, the best infantry unit cannot prevent a determined foe from infiltrating through our defenses.  We ourselves train to do just that, and the enemy, whoever he is, has demonstrated that he is both a skilled and clever opponent.  Complicating this is the fact that in a typical mechanized infantry division, such as your 36th, only six battalions are infantry.  The other four are tank battalions.  In my division, I have the opposite mix, six battalions of tanks and four of infantry.  While tank battalions are the cornerstone of offensive operations, they do poorly, almost without exception, in a static defense.  The opponent we face would have little difficulty in finding weak points and infiltrating at will.'

"Shifting in his seat, Governor Wise grumbled. 'Opponent, my ass, they're goddamned murderers.  And it's my people they're murdering.'

"Big Al paused, allowing the governor to vent his spleen before carrying on.  When Governor Wise had settled back into his seat and appeared ready to listen again, Big Al continued.  'The orders we received from the 10th Corps state that my division is to be prepared to seal the border between the United States and Mexico from Laredo to Rio Grande City.  We assume that 'sealing' means preventing the movement of any hostile force north of the border.'

"Governor Wise again cut in. 'Brilliant damned assumption, General.  Did you come up with that on your own, or did you need some help from Washington?'

"Ignoring the governor's attempt to provoke him, Big Al carried on as if the governor hadn't said a word.  'Given that interpretation, we could not accomplish our mission given the forces at my disposal and the length of the border assigned.'

"The last comment, delivered in such a cool and unemotional manner, almost went over Governor Wise's head.  It took him a moment to understand what Big Al had just said.  'You mean to say that you cannot do what your own commander told you to do?  And that the United States Army cannot defend its own borders?'

"In the same controlled and unemotional manner, Big Al responded without hesitation.  'Yes, sir, that is correct.  Let me explain.  In order to seal the border, we would be obliged to deploy in the manner shown on this slide, using the deployments and densities we have just gone over.


[OK, Blogger's not working right; I can't upload the sketch I made of the illustration in the book . . .]


Now, not every battalion can be on the front.  We also assume that this will be a long-term mission, requiring the Army to be deployed for months, perhaps years.  You cannot keep a unit on the front line forever.  Therefore, some system of rotating units from the front to the rear would be necessary.  One way of doing this would be to have each brigade, with an average of three battalions, hold one battalion in reserve.  This reserve battalion, freed from frontline duty and the associated stress of that duty, would be able to rest, train, receive replacements for soldiers whose enlistments have expired, send some of its personnel on leave, and be ready to respond to any penetration of the frontline battalions.  This reserve battalion would give us tactical depth, a deeper sector that any enemy force would be required to traverse if it penetrated the front line, and a force available to deal with such penetrations.  Assuming each brigade was organized with three battalions, the division, in turn, would retain one battalion, the 10th battalion, as a division reserve for much the same purpose.  Using that system, a division would have six battalions forward deployed, allowing each division to cover sixty kilometers of front.'


"Understanding where Big Al was going, Governor Wise cut in again.  In a briefing presented by his own military people a week earlier, he had been told much the same thing.  'Okay, so what you're trying to say is that the United States Army cannot accomplish its most fundamental mission, securing its own borders.'


"Drawing in a deep breath, Big Al looked at the corps commander, then back at Governor Wise.  'In a nutshell, yes.  We simply do not have enough troops and units, even with the National Guard and Army Reserve federalized, to totally close down the border between the United States and Mexico.'  Anticipating what was coming, Dixon threw up a slide that showed the total number of divisions and personnel the Army would require to secure the border. 'As you can see on this slide, to establish a defensive system like the one I just briefed, which I repeat is by no means solid, would require fifty-two divisions, or an army of approximately 2.6 million soldiers.  That figure is roughly five [nowadays more than six] times the current standing Army authorized today.  And that figure does not leave any units left to deal with other national and international contingencies.  Two divisions in Europe, one in Korea, one in the Middle East, and a rapid-deployment force of three divisions would bump the number of divisions up to 59 and the total strength of the Army to just under three million.


"Before the shock of those figures wore off, Dixon threw up another slide labeled 'Barrier Material'.  Big Al looked at the new slide, then at Governor Wise.  'Now, we all know we cannot simply put troops out into defensive positions without some sort of barrier to protect their positions and cover the gaps between those positions. Normally, a barrier combining triple-strand concertina wire--that is, barbed wire--and antipersonnel mines is used when the threat is primarily dismounted personnel.  This slide shows the amount of material needed to construct a simple, continuous barrier, from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific.'

BARRIER MATERIAL

Standard Barbed Steel-Taped Concertina                                                               611,830 rolls

Man-hours to Install Concertina                                                                              312,000 hours

Antipersonnel Mines in a 0-2-0 Density                                                            14,508,000 mines

Man-hours to Lay above Mines                                                                           1,810,000 hours

Truckloads Required to Haul above Material                                                           28,000 loads

"'Please bear in mind, Governor, that these figures are approximations only and are probably on the low side.  Various areas, such as the mountainous areas around Big Bend National Park, would require more material and time than a flat open stretch of border.'  The mention of Big Bend National Park caused the governor to wince, as Big Al had expected.  After all, the vision of laying mines and stringing barbed wire through a national park was, to most Americans, a very disturbing thought.  If anyone had missed the significance of Big Al's definition of "sealing the border" before, the last series of slides left no doubt as to the magnitude of what that task would entail, and, as a follow-on, what it would cost, both financially and, more important to some, politically."

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So, there you have it.  Given the fact that the United States Army is currently 'drawing down' to a force of 490,000 troops, and with further budget cuts planned, to drop further to around 440,000 total, a force large enough to secure our border with Mexico would require a United States Army that was nearly 8 times larger than what is currently planned in the 2016 timeframe.  And don't think that by adding the Marines to the mix you'll be much better off; they're going to be around 170,000 total at that time, too, for a total combined land combat strength of 610,000 soldiers and Marines--worldwide--or around 1/5th the total force necessary to secure our southern border.

And do we really want to buy, emplace, and maintain nearly 15 million new land mines along our border?  Also please realize that at least 1/4 of those mines will need 'anti-handling devices'--booby traps--to deter a potential adversary from disarming them or simply stealing them and using them for their own ends.

Just something I thought I'd throw out there into the mix on the immigration reform controversy.

Ukraine

Well, good ol' Vlad is up to it again.  Actually going a little further than he has before, this time around.  Putin is showing his stripes; a product of the bad old days of the Cold War, head of the KGB and all that, too.  And Ukraine was always one of the more important of the 'Soviet Socialist Republics', so I for one am not all that surprised that Putin would take such a drastic step, amounting to a forced annexation. 


But here, back home here in the U.S. of A., what are we going to do about it?  Anything?  We'll send a strongly-worded protest through the United Nations, I'm sure.  And it's not as if we can do much sabre-rattling, seeing as how we no longer have much of a sabre--more like a dagger, given how much we've cut already.  And that big, huge, bloated military budget that the Dems like to harp on?  We'll be lucky to have a paring knife left.


Our once much-vaunted, and by our adversaries, much-feared, military is largely a paper tiger nowadays.  So much of our budget went to fighting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that it stripped our 'conventional' forces to the bone.  And now we want to cut further.


Does anyone remember Desert Storm?  I certainly do--I was there, and two of my brothers also served over there (a third one was just a little too young, but did two tours in Iraq when he was older).  Does anyone remember how many troops the United States had in-theater?  Right around 500,000.  And we got the job done. (Well, in my mind, we left the job half-done, but that's only because the politicians didn't want the job done.  We did exactly what our political masters wanted us to do--liberate Kuwait and eliminate Iraq's military potential.)  AND one must also add in the hundreds of thousands of Allied troops that were there and went in with us, alongside us.


So, in Gulf War II, OIF, or whatever we end up calling the late unpleasantness in Iraq, how many troops did we have?  160,000, with comparatively little Allied support (thanks to W's 'my way or the highway' attitude, and none of his dad's considerable diplomatic acumen).  So we had enough to go in and defeat the Iraqi military, but not enough to actually control the country.  You know, you can argue all sorts of points about how the occupation of Iraq (call it what it actually was) should have been handled, but regardless it would have been a whole lot better had we had 3 times as many troops as we did in country in 2003--like we did in 1991.  But you know what?  We couldn't spare 500,000 troops to go into Southwest Asia not just because of operations in Afghanistan, but because doing so would have required removing all the troops from Europe and Korea and just about every stateside post as well. 


As it was, we ran our troops to the ragged edge.  Anyone with even the most casual, passing familiarity with our troops knows how badly the constant and repeated combat tours strained the troops and their families.  Yeah, we lost 4,486 troops in Iraq, and so far we've lost 2,315 in Afghanistan, but you also have to count those we've lost to suicide.  And the sacrifices go even deeper, even beyond the wounded and the maimed.  There's the divorces, the broken hearts, the wives (and husbands) and the children who have also paid the price.  Things would NOT have been so bad had we had enough troops to do the job right, not just in-country, but also back home in the States, so the combat troops coming home would have had the time to recover and recuperate.  An extra 340,000 troops would have helped tremendously.


And keep that 500,000 troop strength figure in mind here.


Has anyone seen the actual number of troops that DoD wants to cut the Army to?  The plan is to cut the total troop strength of the entire United States Army to around 440,000 troops--total.  With a force structure so small, we couldn't even pull off 'Gulf War Lite', a la 2003 OIF.


And let's not forget who those 160,000 American servicemembers had to fight.  The Iraqi military, having failed utterly to defend their country in Desert Storm (going, as one wag had it, from being the 4th largest army in the world to the 2nd largest in Iraq), and having 12 years of sanctions imposed upon it, was not exactly the most professional military force in the world.  (Not only did they epically fail in Desert Storm, they also singularly failed to prevail against the Iranians for 8 long years . . . )  Militarily, the Iraqi armed forces were a push-over.  They had a hodge-podge of equipment (one thing I remember from Desert Storm was the incredible variety of target silhouettes we had to learn--I was a tank crewman, BTW) which makes for a logistical nightmare, both for parts and for ammunition, and for training, too. 


[Even the Iraqi equipment we faced in Desert Storm was junk, for the most part--I had an up-close and personal view of several captured Iraqi vehicles, and they were just sad.  About the only thing their vehicles were good for was machine-gunning civilians--they certainly couldn't hold up to a full-blown stand-up fight, which is what we gave them . . . but I digress.]


Who knows where or when our servicemembers are going to be called to go into harm's way to protect American national interests?  Who they'll have to face, who will be doing their best to kill our young men and women? 


If you 'support our troops', have one of those little ribbons on your back bumper or tailgate, now, NOW, is the time to actually SUPPORT OUR TROOPS.  Either we maintain an adequate fighting force, of sufficient size, sufficiently equipped, and exquisitely trained, capable of meeting and defeating any potential adversary on any battle field any where in the world, or we need to re-evaluate the United State's role in the world.  'Supporting the troops' means very much more than just waving a flag or thanking a veteran from time to time; SUPPORTING the troops means making sure that they have everything they possibly could need to survive and win anywhere, anytime, and that includes making sure there are more than enough troops to accomplish the jobs that may need to be done.


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Going back to Ukraine, what can we do?   Not a whole lot.  You see, as the former head of the KGB, I'm sure Putin's taken everything into account, and he knows how weak we already are, and I'm sure he looked on our proposed FY2015 military budget with a chuckle.  You see, it's not just the Army--the Navy is very close to the same number of ships afloat as it had before World War I, at 285, and of those, only 189 are actual warships (during the Reagan era the US Navy peaked at 594 and 362, respectively).  The Marine Corps is looking to shrink down to perhaps 150,000 total, from around 202,000 today.


Has anyone else noticed that a number of Third World tin-plate dictators have started talking 'smack' to the United States?  They know how small our military has become, and know that they can get away with 'tweaking' us and generally being a pain in our butts.  Because we can't do anything about it.  Once upon a time the shadow of our 'big stick' was enough to keep these small-fry in line, but they're not scared of it any more.


Weakness in a nation invites problems.  While polite society does not allow individuals to act in this manner, nations do all the time.  It's a fact of life; it's not what things should be, but it is how things are.  And when a formerly strong nation becomes weak, the little previously compliant nations will take cheap shots at the formerly strong, because now they can.  And they do.


Moving back to Ukraine once again, there is one thing that comes to mind, though the ties between the United States and Ukraine are not as strong as the ones in the historical precedent.  Specifically, I refer to the Berlin Airlift.  In 1948, our erstwhile allies, the Soviet Union, in an effort to drive Western powers from Berlin, established a blockade around the city.  There was no road, rail, or water access to Berlin, cutting off around 2.25 million West Germans from food, fuel, and medical supplies.


Some military 'hawks' of the day urged the President to send armored columns to break through the blockade, which almost certainly would have led to war.  But a few other forward-thinking officers had a different idea.


In a matter of a few weeks, the United States and our British allies established what became known as the Berlin Airlift.  Using military transport airplanes, called from all over the world, we managed to supply the needs of the cut-off Germans, only the very basic and very minimum needs at first, but over time, through a masterpiece of planning and organization (and largely still unrecognized to this day), eventually we scaled the operation up to where all of 'free Berlin' had adequate supplies of food, clothing, fuel, medicines--everything a modern city of that size needed.  No troops other than those necessary to control the aircraft coming and going were sent; no weapons were supplied.


And in the course of doing so, we, the United States, proved to the satisfaction of the German people that those Americans, who just three years before were doing everything we could to kill them, were now doing everything we could to help them withstand the Communists and remain a free people.  (We also had the 'Candy Bombers', started completely on his own by 1st Lt. Gail Halvorsen and for wholly philanthropic reasons of his own, who dropped small bundles of candy attached to parachutes fashioned from handkerchiefs to waiting children in West Berlin, which had the added benefit of further enhancing the image of the Americans to the German people.)


It wasn't bloodless, not by a long shot.  A total of 70 Allied airmen lost their lives in crashes and other accidents related to operating in some of the worst weather ever seen in Berlin.  But eventually even the Soviets had to admit defeat, and in May 1949, they lifted the blockade.  We, the United States and Great Britain, and West Germany, had won the first battle of the Cold War without firing a shot.  And so firmly cemented the people of West Germany to the United States and to Great Britain that they became one of our closest allies anywhere in the world.


Which brings us back to the Ukraine.


Could we not undertake something similar today?  Ukraine has wanted to join the European Union for years--and in fact the recent turmoil in that country was brought about by a decision by the then-president to reject that membership in favor of closer ties to Russia.  Were they to join the EU, they'd be on the far most-distant end of that organization.   An effort to bring them more fully into the European sphere of influence would be a good thing, I think, given Russia's more recent aggressiveness.  Add to the fact that four of Ukraine's neighboring countries are now members of NATO, an effort by that organization (which, by the way, grew out of the coalition that started the Berlin Airlift) to very visibly and publicly support the Ukrainian efforts to maintain their freedom and independence from Moscow would help those small, and formerly Soviet, countries as well.


50-plus years ago, President Kennedy committed the United States to "pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, to assure the survival and success of liberty."  These were fine words, and they established America's place on the world stage.  Do we wish to continue to play that role, to support our friends and oppose our foes, and ensure that freedom's light still shines out upon the world?  The choice, as always, is up to us.

Commonalities between the Good Ol' U. S. of A. and Nazi Germany?

Commonality between US of A and Nazi Germany?


I ran across this blog a few minutes ago, hoping to see if Nazi Germany had the right to recall elections (apparently not . . . ).


In it, the author, Rick Spilsbury, does point out one possible way the Nazis came up with concentration camps--the reservation system forced on Native Americans.  Of course, in typically German fashion they improved upon it--imposed much greater organization and added slave labor to the equation, and sped things up by adding gas chambers.


Remember a few years ago when someone in Congress decided, for whatever reason, it was time to jerk the Turks around a bit and accuse them of ethnic cleansing against the Armenians a hundred years ago or so?  (Not that this wasn't the case, you understand.)  Whatever this was about, I'd have no problem with it whatsoever--once the American government officially admits that WE engaged in a policy of ethnic cleansing regarding the Native Americans.


Maybe it's in being from Oklahoma, but here we grow up with these things, these histories of peoples whose ancestors weren't from around here any more than ours were, but were forced here against their wills.


Anyway, check it out if you want.  It also contains a warning for our time, and some good ideas on how to avoid a future that's meaner and nastier than our present is today.

Gun Control, the 2nd Amendment, and Tea Party nuts

It gets old, sometimes, here in Oklahoma, the land of my birth, and the reddest of red states (though perhaps Arizona is trying to give us a run for our money).  The incessantly shrill cries of the anti-Obama types does wear on the nerves.


Oh, don't get me wrong; I'm no Obama supporter--far from it.  I voted for McCain in '08, and didn't vote for either candidate for president in 2012, as I felt that neither of them deserved my vote.  And here in Oklahoma, the Republican Party is apparently so fearful of 'alternative' candidates that they managed to keep every other presidential candidate off our ballots in '12.

(For that matter, we Okies have always had a soft spot for underdogs and lost causes.  But there is perhaps no cause so lost and forlorn as that of the Democratic Party in Oklahoma.  Which really is unfortunate, and such a huge reversal of politics from the Great Depression/Dust Bowl days.  But I digress.)

The Tea Party types and the strict constitutionalists (usually one and the same) insist that the 2nd Amendment gives them the right to keep and bear arms in order to violently oppose a potentially tyrannical government, in much the same way as our 'Founding Fathers' did in the American Revolution.  (Or, as they usually fail to point out, the same way as the Confederate States of America TRIED to do, four score and seven (or so) years later.)


And, in one respect, I will grant that they do have a point.  At the time the 2nd Amendment was written, that was almost certainly the case.  And at that time, a sufficiently organized 'militia' could have, possibly, successfully removed a tyrant's yoke from their necks.


But in case one hasn't been paying attention to military matters over the past 220 years, things have changed.  The flintlock smoothbore musket is no longer the state of the art.  Muzzle-loading horse-drawn cannons have also gone away.  And pretty much no one still uses the long 'pig-sticker' bayonet anymore, nor do they do anywhere near as much drill with the bayonet as armies once did.




And, by the way, there have been certain advances in military technology.  Like the percussion cap.  Like breach-loading rifles firing cartridge ammunition.  Like repeating firearms.  Like belt-fed, crew-served machine guns, and sub-machine guns, and assault rifles. Automatic pistols.  Dedicated sniper weapons.  Rocket-propelled grenades.  Chemical weapons.  Bombers and ground-attack aircraft.  Helicopter gunships.  Guided missiles and laser-guided bombs.  High-altitude bombing. Indirect-fire artillery.  Night-vision devices--not just the old 'starlight' image-intensification types, but the full thermal imaging ones.  Unjammable radios.  Digital data networks.  Radar, including types that map everything on the ground--and can track everything that moves.  Fully autonomous missiles.  And now drones.


OK, let's go all-out, and let's say you have a Barrett .50-BMG sniper rifle.  It's a big, bad, beautiful, heavy-duty, 'reach out and touch someone' rifle, with a muzzle brake and everything.  Massive kick too.  And let's say that you and your buddies are not about to sign up for Obamacare and are gonna go show them gummint men where they can go with their 'mandate'.


Yeah, you might get one or two of them.  If there's a bunch of you that can afford a $4300+ weapon and $3.50/$4.00 a round for ammo, you might get a few more.  But then what?


Assuming you and your buddies are deemed an actual military threat rather than just a bunch of nastier-than-normal criminals (probably a rather large hurdle to overcome), and the United States Army comes after you, what are your plans then?  They can track you and you'll never even know it.  You don't have the manpower, you don't have the technology, you don't have the logistics backup, and you almost certainly don't have the discipline necessary to withstand an army whose last defeat was at Kasserine Pass in 1943 (well, you could make a good argument for Chosin Reservoir in 1950, but US forces did manage to break out of the encirclement and withdrew mostly intact).


Even if--IF--you managed to do enough damage to attract actual military attention, you will not survive.  Your cause will not survive.  Want another example?  Desert Storm, Battle of 73 Easting (look it up).  US tanks engaged Iraqi Republican Guard troops riding into battle in BMP infantry fighting vehicles and knocked them out.  Survivors from those BMPs jumped out of their burning vehicles, and began to charge, on foot, the American tanks--3000 meters distant . . . firing their AKs at the tanks.  Full points for bravery, but none whatsoever for common sense.  The US tank crews didn't know what to make of them at first; clearly these Iraqis weren't in the mood to surrender just yet, but they also didn't pose a threat to them, at least not until they'd run better than 2500 meters.  So they called artillery on them, and wiped them out.


To make it clear, advances in military technology have rendered the 2nd Amendment, as a sort of final check and balance against a tyrannical government, obsolete.  Oh, you can talk about personal protection against criminals, and certainly that's still valid.  Or just as an expression of freedom--just as valid.  But as a check against an 'evil government' led by 'the prince of fools'--you're dangerously self-delusional, and if you ever try it, you'll die a fool's death.


BUT--having said all that, the concept of their needing to be an additional check on government power is just as valid as it was 225 years ago, when the Constitution was first adopted.  It's just that the mechanism for this, provided in the 2nd Amendment, is no longer functional.


This check that the 2nd Amendment USED TO provide is still needed, and always will be needed, as a check on government power.  It's just that we need a new mechanism to provide this essential check. 


Well . . . what could that possibly be?  (And you can keep your 2nd Amendment as-is . . . it's not harmful; it just doesn't work for what it was intended any more.)


I don't know.


But I do know something that would be a good start in that direction, of providing a check on government power.  The right to recall.


Only a few states have the right to recall elected officials, and even in those states, it only applies to state- and local-level officials.  No federal-level right to recall exists.  But it should.


For those who may be a little unfamiliar with the term, here's how Wikipedia defines it:

"A recall election (also called a recall referendum or representative recall) is a procedure by which voters can remove an elected official from office through a direct vote before his or her term has ended. Recalls, which are initiated when sufficient voters sign a petition, have a history dating back to the ancient Athenian democracy and are a feature of several contemporary constitutions."

It gives the people the power to remove an elected official from office WITHOUT HAVING TO ASSASSINATE THEM OR OTHERWISE ENGAGE IN ARMED CONFLICT.  No violence required.


This in and of itself may not provide a sufficiently robust mechanism to replace the inoperative one in the 2nd Amendment; I'm no constitutional theorist.  But it would undoubtedly help.  And, better yet, would help to restore some sanity to political discourse in this country.