Another Peril in War Zones: Sexual Abuse by Fellow G.I.’s – New York Times

In today’s New York Times we have several articles that give us a window into the ever-expanding and seemingly unstoppable American military presence in the Middle East.  We need to strap ourselves in now.  It is becoming more and more clear that we are simply not going to leave that region of the world, no matter what the people of this nation desire relative to deployment of American troops.  We are going to be there in a big way for many decades.  This much is certain.  The price will be high.

Well then, lets consider what grows out of that reality.  The first story, Another Peril in War Zones: Sexual Abuse by Fellow G.I.’s should not come as a shock to anyone.  It is worth considering since it is a very real problem and is now part of the military landscape.  This ain’t your grandfather’s armed forces!

Next up we have a story entitled U.S. Widens Terror War to Yemen, a Qaeda Bastion .  Great, just what we need, a new crusade upon which we can expend tens of billions of dollars and countless American and foreign lives. 

I was beginning to despair of a way to widen this senseless string of wars that have nothing to do with our national defense.  I should have known better, somehow I should have guessed that we would find a way to find yet another enemy to hammer. 

Now it is a fact that Al Qaeda is in Yemen and that they were the group that attacked us on 9-11.  So, logically we should deal with them.  However, the fact that we have found a new Qaeda stronghold does not seem to be allowing us to move out of Iraq very quickly or Afghanistan anytime soon or to stop the growing American involvement in Pakistan anytime soon. And now its Yemen.  I wonder where we will send our Crusaders next month?

Iran maybe?

In today’s Washington Post we find an article entitled Iran battles reinvigorated opposition .  It is not a stretch to say that Iran is at least as much a danger to our interests in the Middle East as Al Qaeda is to us, so is Iran next on the hit list for us?

I just seem to be naive enough to have thought that Americans not wanting these wars would be enough to reel them back in and bring the troops home.  How naive can an old man get?  I suppose that if in a year or so, we send troopers to Iran, that would give us military presence basically from one end of the west of Asia to the other all the way into central Asia where we have air bases already.  That gives us a huge footprint in that part of the world.

And all we had to do in order to gain this was completely destroy our own armed forces. 

We now have routine military suicides, multiple combat tours that number five or six combat deployments and their related "sociopath creating" pressures, common problems with rape in the service and a military industrial complex that is out of control.  It is now so completely sure of its position in American society that it wages Patrician wars with Plebian kids at will. It does this anytime, anywhere it wishes to do so.  It answers to no one. And our government machinery bends to its will every time.

And it has the President of the United States solidly in its corner.  This president, the "change president", the "yes we can" president, has no problem whatsoever widening an American footprint in a region of the world in which we almost certainly cannot now extricate ourselves without massive worldwide reprecussions.

Whatever is ultimately going to happen there, we are now there for the duration.  Can you say Plains of Megiddo?  It is happening before our eyes. 

Even I can see it.  And I have not been an active participant in any church activity for decades.  Normally, I find that stuff mythological and crazy.  But even now I can plainly see our march forward toward worldwide confrontation.  And we are in place exactly where we would need to be in order for the situation to take place as it was written.

Generally, I place no validity with this stuff and find it all to be silliness and magical.  But I have to admit, I see what I see.  About the only thing we do not have yet is tanks rolling in that general direction.  We are starting to encircle that place with a deliberate pace.  That is a fact.  Even a jaundiced eye like mine cannot ignore it.

And we are the aggressor, not these people who have essentially done nothing to us.  The Al Qaeda that attacked us is out of Afgfhanistan save maybe 100 people. The Al Qaeda in Yemen is a new generation that unfortunately we may very well have created ourselves.

We are now routinely using drones for air attacks inside Pakistan.  We are now doing the same thing, at the very least, inside Yemen.  We appear to be deeply involved with the highest levels of foreign local officialdom in cooperation with the drug trade in western Asia. And the uniformed muscle that we are using for all this provocation is being supplied by less than 1% of the American population.  It is being used over and over until it breaks. And there must be no mistake, it has broken.

Lets be clear about this, American troops in the field have revolted many times before.  That is not a myth, that is a fact.  We need to understand the dangers that come with that.

These broken young people will soon start organizing themselves into fifth column cells if for no other reason than for their own protection.  This is going to get very ugly here very quickly.

Don’t say I did not warn you.

CWO3 Tom Barnes, USCG (Ret.)