printThe collective IQ that was lost when the Chinook carrying 22 Navy SEALs was downed by the Taliban yesterday was greater than the scrambled brains of 434 House Representatives (Ron Paul excluded; he’d raise that number).
Dedicate your life to the state, and chances are that life will be squandered.
Navy SEALs are incredible specimens, both intellectually and physically. Every interview with members of this elite unit, following the slaying of bin Laden, demonstrated the superman qualities SEALs possess. Some even look like cut-out images from an episode of “The Unit.” It’s a shame these magnificent action men give their talents over to an entity that is wanton about the wealth and the lives with which it is (foolishly) entrusted: government.
Alas, as I’ve pointed out elsewhere, action men like SEALS have few fulfilling options outside the army, given the monopoly over defense held by the military-industrial-complex. Compounding this state-of-affairs is the feminization of our society. In a healthy free society, men made of this stuff would be perfectly suited to raising militia and leading a revolution, alas… .
Every sovereign state which enters any war does so admitting that it has no solution to the “threat” (perceived or real, lawfully just or not), and thus send their best to do by force that which it does not have the brainpower or strength of character to implement by other means.
May the citizens of the USA honor and remember their fallen. Salute !
I just joined the Patriot Guard to go with my new bike. It seemed like the best way to be able to harass my Congressman and still support the troops. The Patriot Guard will accept the individual that is anti-war; but, still stands beside a fallen soldier. I was hoping that joining the guard was only symbolic. But if one of these men is from northern Oklahoma, I guess a trip is in order. A link is provided in case the organization is unknown and someone is curious. http://www.patriotguard.org/
Sending brave and courageous Americans on a foolish mission does not make them heroes, it makes them victims – victims of both the Taliban who shot at them and the gutless politicians who sent them over for a senseless and undeclared war of Nation Building in Afghanistan.
Even when the SEALS were doing something that would have been sensible like trying to capture (so one could interrogate and then try and fry) bin Laden, it was botched because it was decided just to dispose of him Mafia style when apparently they could have taken him alive.
As an aside, I’ve gotten through the 1st two chapters of Into the Cannibal’s Pot and I have the sneaking suspicion it does not have a happy ending. I am sure there were many brave man in South Africa (like the American Seals) who sadly were forced by politicians to hopelessly watch as their nation was sliding into Zimbabwe-South.
It is hard to “serve the nation” when the nation is heading in the wrong direction.
The three basic responsibilities of government are: an impartial judiciary, an internal police function, and a military to defend the Republic.
It was in the last function my father, my uncle, my wife’s father, and all their friends fought in WW II. The focus of that war was much clearer than today’s professed focus.
Reasons and objectives for military actions are much more murky now than 70 years ago, but the one constant, I believe, is the existence of what is commonly called “evil” and its adherents. Men and women, brave and dedicated volunteers, are out there fighting to protect the rest of us and our “Family House”, i.e. the U.S. Remember, politicians direct their engagements, fund their engagements, and establish their engagement’s objectives. That is where the buck stops.
To those honorable warriors and all the others who have died: REST IN PEACE.
My deepest respects to all the GIs. They deserve better than the leadership, both civilian and military, that they must endure.