STEVE PIECZENIK TALKS

“T.B.D. American Wars” Against Al Qaeda, ISIS!

Without An Effective War Strategy Against ISIS, we have created a tbd war—To Be Determined!

Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff, General Martin Dempsey, recently made a very revealing comment as he met with Israeli senior military/intel officials. When he was asked the question: “Will we have a more robust strategy in Iraq/Syria?”

He responded: “To Be Determined!” TBD?!.

Or maybe, wait and see what our American Generals will concoct “on the fly”.
Equally interesting and disturbing is the fact that there is no consensus between Dempsey and his General, Lloyd J. Austin III, Chief of Central Command. Austin sees the center of gravity as defeating ISIS by recapturing Mosul [Iraq]. However, Dempsey does not think that Mosul is at all relevant. To compound the American strategic quagmire, the State Department and the White House have chimed in with their perspectives of a non-existent unified military strategy.

For some time now, I have reiterated the fact that we have an army that cannot fight. We have civilian and military leaders going all the way back to Bush Jr who had no idea of kinetic wars and their consequences. For the most part, American citizens appear to be indifferent, if not disgusted with the unnecessary wars. Occasionally, we hear a draft dodger like Jeb Bush [who went into the Peace Corps in Mexico to avoid the draft] utter some regurgitated neocon statements about more force or ‘boots on the ground’. Yet still the same cycle of stupidity rears its ugly head.  Seriously, how many times have we screwed up in Iraq??  Afghanistan?  No wonder we don’t teach military history anymore.

Most of us war/terrorism veterans are completely disgusted by what is happening. As I wrote in my previous blogs, we have created our enemies, Al Qaeda and ISIS, through civilian/military incompetency; and now, we find ourselves bereft of any cogent immediate strategies. I am not surprised that we have entered this period of TBD wars all over the world. As someone who had been peripherally involved in teaching/advising our senior DOD, I have found that the brightest of the military officials –all the way from Captain on upward--- left the military to earn a hefty salary. Example: General Keith Alexander who now makes over $600,000 per month on one contract. In contrast, I encounter soldiers who are in the National Guard who complain that they are not treated on par with the regular full time army; despite the fact that they are doing most of the fighting and performing the necessary services to maintain some semblance of an effective kinetic warfare.

Our military/political leadership is completely incompetent in planning and executing an effective strategy yet we taxpayers are paying an exorbitant price to so-called ‘private contractors’ who basically out source the war. I guess that TBD means that we have no military strategy. It also means we do not have an effective tactical or implementation capacity.

TBD also means that CYA –Cover Your Ass—is becoming the new sobriquet for our non-existent U.S. military. Consider the Secretary of Defense, a civilian who never met a Hedge Fund or bank [Goldman Sachs] that he didn’t like; is far more interested in promoting an openly gay civilian official to head up one of our armed services. I am all for progress BUT when the military and the White House appear to be more concerned with celebrating LGBT day at the Pentagon than implementing a long term military/political strategy in global trouble spots than I start to get very concerned.  Our American military and political system has been degraded and corrupted to such an extend that it no longer functions at all.  YET we continue to fund this bloated corporation at the expense of public education, infrastructure and the environment.  Now these bloated, inefficient institutions must be DOWN SIZED. Get rid of the over paid, pension hogs who can not even “talk a good strategy” let alone execute one.