Category: Dumbass Bullshit

Chuckie Schumer, the US Senator who voted for cuts to the growth of earned benefits for veterans, widows and military retirees is lobbying in New York City for a “welcome home” parade for veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars according to the New York Post. Of course, socialist mayor of New York City, Bill deBlasio is on board;

“Senator Schumer … is very hopeful that we can get this done after combat operations in Afghanistan are complete,” said his spokeswoman Meredith Kelly.

U.S. troops are expected to withdraw fully from Afghanistan by the end of 2014.

Schumer (D-N.Y.) said the planning must begin right away if there is to be a parade featuring military brass, color guards, bands and flyovers.

He’s already got the support of Mayor de Blasio for a bells-and-whistles procession.

Somehow, slashing their benefits, jacking up their healthcare costs and not giving them the tools and means to accomplish their military goals is all balanced by a parade. I’ll just let Senator Schumer know that parades are for politicians, not for the troops. The troops hate parades, of course, we appreciate the sentiment, but parades aren’t for us. They’re for people who want to feel better about the way they treat the troops while they were engaged.

And, oh, by the way, combat operations may end for US troops, but they won’t end for the Afghan government. The war isn’t really over, so don’t pretend that it ended. You people unilaterally decided that the war was over, the enemy hasn’t ended their combat operations.

As if we needed another reason to oppose the idea;

“As the last troops return from Afghanistan, our community faces critical challenges, including high rates of suicide and unemployment,” said CEO Paul Rieckhoff.

“We hope a parade in New York City shines a spotlight on the sacrifices of veterans, galvanizes public support and inspires other cities to follow,” he said.

The troops don’t need a spotlight, Rieckhoff, they need jobs and the health benefits they earned. Like I said, parades are for politicians, and Paul Rieckhoff is just another politician. Parades are easy, the real problems veterans face, not so much.

Andrew J. Bacevich, some sort of military historian, a former Army Armor colonel, Gold Star father and George W. Bush critic, according to Wiki, writes in the Washington Post a piece by the title above. Mostly, he runs through the regular crap that you’d expect from a liberal, who isn’t a former Army officer, about the allure of war to American youths, the naivete of young American men in search of the “brotherhood” of war. After Bacevich runs down the seductive nature of military service, he punches vets in the gut with these paragraphs;

Reports of rampant sexual assault in military ranks have not dented this collective self-esteem. The same goes for Air Force officers cheating on proficiency exams. Ditto for the generals behaving with adolescent boorishness. No wonder vets believe that they should go to the front of the line when seeking employment. From their perspective, it’s only fair for the virtuous to be rewarded.

Speaking for myself, I believe that the troops would do well to ratchet down the self-regard. And when it comes to interpreting yellow ribbons and other “thank you for your service” testimonials, they might want to exhibit a bit more skepticism.

But there’s another question on which I’d be interested in hearing from younger veterans. It’s this: The world’s best military establishment didn’t win in Iraq, and it won’t win in Afghanistan. Why is that?

Hey, dingus, the vast majority of veterans of the current and past wars never sexually assaulted anyone, most of us aren’t boorish generals, many of us never cheated on proficiency exams that were related to combat readiness, so suck it!

In regards to your question about why the best military in the world didn’t win the current war decisively, go look in the mirror. Bacevich positioned himself as an opponent of the wars and took every opportunity to disparage President Bush and the reasons the country went to war. Aid the enemy much?

The troops weren’t allowed to win the wars from the beginning. Just like my generation wasn’t allowed to win against Hussein in 1991. The hand-wringers were afraid that we’d violate some nebulous international standard of conduct that forbids destroying completely your enemy’s army, using every method at your command. So we had troops who were sniped at from mosques they couldn’t secure, the enemy would slip across borders where our troops were forbidden to follow (they learned that from the North Vietnamese). The enemy could hide among civilians to avoid massive firepower which would defeat them (ask Will Swenson about that). In fact, troops were forbidden, for a time, to even carry loaded weapons in war (it cost us several score of unarmed troops to that brilliant idea). Even the only real effective campaign of the Iraq War, “The Surge”, was declared a failure by your side before it even began. Aid the enemy much?

In short, Andrew J. Bacevich, just like Vietnam, the most effective military in history didn’t fail to win the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the American people failed to win the wars. The troops won every engagement, even in the face of 20-to-1 odds and piss-poor strategy from politicians. How fucking dare you put this at their feet? How can you call yourself an historian when you won’t even glance at recent history? I guess you plan on starting a whole new classification in the Blue Falcon genre.

Thanks to Chief Tango for the link.