AN ASTERISK (*) ON THE BEHIND OF HISTORY!

AN ASTERISK (*) ON THE BEHIND OF HISTORY!

(FRAZER CHRONICLE)

(All the News That Nobody Else Will Print)

 

It was inevitable, the United States military had to show its muscle once Mother Russia begin flexing her sizable military prowess first in Crimea and then in the Ukraine. Using the age old ploy of military exercise, the message will be loud and clear in Eastern Europe; the U.S. has her back up so beware…..everybody.

It’s like the old “Boss,” Bruce Springsteen song, “here I go again, back on the stage again,” when will the United States understand that those days are over, the days when America’s military might was awe inspiring. Everybody who listens to a radio, watches television, or reads a newspaper understand that the U.S. has the mightiest military forces since the use of the rock and a stick were used to beat back an adversary…..everybody knows of this might.

So when I read an article in my hometown newspaper, the Green Bay Press Gazette about the First U.S. Troops Arrive in Poland, I am not surprised, it’s simply business as usual, and few people throughout the world were surprised. But when some jerk-water Army Colonel Steve Warren is quoted with “American actions are intended to reassure our allies that we are there for them,” I can do more than giggle, is this Colonel delusional, doesn’t he know what I know, what well over 50% of Americans know, and what in excess of 65% of the world knows.

Is this show of force supposed to frighten off Mother Russia, or Vladimir Putin, like it has the terrorists groups that are supposedly hatching plots to kill Americans because they “hate” our lifestyles even as I write this blog? You don’t really believe that bologna, do you? Exactly how hard is it to breach our borders…..think about it for a second, millions of people have crossed the Rio Grande River over the past few decades in attempts to better their lives. And to the north, Canada, God only knows who and what is coming into the U.S. unannounced.

Military exercises have been used for a long time to impress and deter any kind of military retaliation from those people who were supposed to be impressed. Sometimes it works, and sometimes, not so much. It’s like rating an athlete coming out of college into the professional ranks of baseball, football or basketball, if a kid has million dollar ability, but a 10 cent brain or heart…. you’ve just blown a 1^st round draft choice.

Now you take a chance on the kid who’s dirty, slows up early for practice, and stays long after everybody else is in the showers, you’d better take a chance and sign that kid; he’ll produce for your team for years and years.

Military might works quite the same way, like I’ve said, “everybody knows about the military power of the United States,” it’s impressive as hell…..but has it, or is it a deterrent for challenge and military skirmish, let me see, Iraq, Afghanistan…..no, I guess not, wonder what the hell the problem is with these upstart countries, or terrorist groups, don’t they realize that its suicide to piss the U.S. off…..what are these people missing anyways?

MILITARY EXERCISES

In some cases, when the United States is thinking about or is going to engage a prospective belligerent in a military skirmish, military exercises or war games will be orchestrated on the borders of the potential opponent. This is nothing more than a pissing contest to show which military force can pee the furthest, in today’s age, it is really unnecessary, and to be frank, childish. Everybody knows that bullets kill, booms blow things to smithereens, and that the civilian population involved ultimately is the biggest loser.

For a minute, indulge me, I’ve got a short story that’ll knock sox you’re off; I drove an ambulance from March, 1964 through June of the same year in a military war game called Desert Strike. The duty was in Arizona, and the California deserts around Needles, California, at the time, a population of 2,200. My duty was to be prepared for the ensuing war games that would take place in May and June of that year. In the end, the exercises involved 100,000 military personnel, utilize 900 aircraft and 500 tanks, and would cost the U.S. taxpayers $54,000,000. The individual cost of the military personnel would be $540 each, and as I mentioned, there were a little more than one hundred thousand men.

Now we fast forward to April, 2014, and we calculate what it’ll cost the U.S. taxpayer for a military exercises, or war games in Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia. The exercise will entail 600 military personnel, let’s use the 1964 scenario of cost per soldier…..only we’ll add the inflation of a dollar bill, which today would be $7.54 for every dollar spent back in 1964…..so, it’ll be costing the taxpayers $4,071 per man, or more than $2,400,000. My, my, how time flies when a guy’s having fun, especially when it’s not you’re dime.

But what the hell, the cost of muscle-beach showoffs doesn’t really matter, cause the U.S. needs that extra scare tactic that hopefully will be achieved with the war game exercise’s right on the back doorstep of Mother Russia, and that dictator, Vladimir Putin. However what happens if the ruse doesn’t work, do we go to war, I think NOT!      

Going to war in the 21^st century, for anybody is a foolhardy move that has, through the United State’s own experience, a no win situation…..it doesn’t matter what those silly neocon’s say, or think, war in  the 21^st century is a big loser. Even with all of the U.S.’s military expertise, and war machines, there has been a war in Iraq, (outta there in December 2011) and Afghanistan, (supposedly outta there in December of this year). Neither theater of operation went very well, and arguably the United States is leaving both countries in worse shape than when the wars started.

THERE IS NO CLEAR CUT SUPER POWER IN THE 21^ST CENTURY

For all the talk, and all the saber rattling, the U.S. has a spotty won-lost record actually since the Korean Conflict, 1950-1953 with regards to wins and losses in military confrontations. I’m not sure if that’s the right way to phrase it, I mean about wins and losses…..but somewhere, at sometime, somebody needs to tally the scoreboard.

The U.S. has been in ABOUT 76 conflicts, wars, or policing incidents mostly in an effort to protect other countries or to keep those people targeted from causing problems here in the United States. There have been some wins, and losses, but like the man said, “nobody wins in a war,” and it really applies to the United States.

Militarily the United States takes itself way too serious, especially if one considers the won-lost record, and the track record connected with America. I believe it’s time to take stock of exactly what we are allowing are military, the industrial military complex (oh yes, there is one), our elected officials, and the latitude that the president has with regards to his foreign policy authority.

Do we want a shooting war with Russia, you can’t be serious, Russia would be a worthy opponent, the U.S. found itself bogged down in both Afghanistan and Iraq…..and they were blowing themselves up because they had a serious weapons supply problem.

Russia can pretty much match the United States bomb for bomb, it would be, militarily, too close of a match, I think, for the United States war planners. I personally don’t see a war with Russia happening, it makes little sense, and I don’t think the world is ready for the blood and guts that would be spilled…..on both sides.

It’s getting to a time in history when there’s beginning to be a kind of changing of the guard, I think that the peoples of the world are getting a bit tired of how the United States runs in with their guns blazing, attempting to impress everybody. The world, and its historians will judge the United States, and I’m wondering exactly how well the grade will be, will we truly be an asterisk on the behind of history?

 

HAVE A NICE DAY!