"Nothing is too good for the troops...

... and that is what they will get.  Old Army Saying

BHO says that he and Michele, love their soldiers and will always be there for them and their families, always.  Are we looking at a future attempt to change the constitution?  Politicians promise soldiers the world in wartime, but later...

Today BHO spoke to a carefully staged military audience from a hangar at Bagram air base.  It was a scene remarkably like "carriergate" in the time of the Emperor George II.  A very unrepresentative group formed a background behind BHO.  It was chock full of African-Americans, women, other ethnic minorities and other groups near and dear to the Democratic base.  The force, especially the combat  force in Afghanistan is overwhelmingly recruited from small town white America.  What a cheap political trick!

After BHO finished, Christopher Matthews, Jim Moran and Jim Vanderhei of "Politico" commented on MSNBC.  Matthews, a man so in love with BHO that he swoons at the thought of him went on and on about the "Commander in Chief" this and the "Commander in Chief that.  Moran was equally adoring.  Neither one of these bloviators ever served a day in the armed forces and neither did the "Commander in Chief."  Romney and Cheny should be added of course to the list of "chickenhawks."  At least BHO is not a draft evader.  Vanderhei was so foolish as to suggest that this "carnie show" might not be well received by the US public.  He was suitably chastised by the "faithful."

Earlier today, Colonel (Ret.) Jack Jacobs said that if the US stays in Afghanistan after 2014, our forces will inevitably continue to be involved in combat operations.  We will have to provide staff planning, materiel, target intelligence, airlift etc.  This will be true even if we say we are no longer in the direct combat role there and even if we adopt the CT strategy that we should have adopted a couple of years ago.  The time for that has passed.  The American people will not longer accept it.

The child-scholars of Washington thinktankery are still waxing optimistic on shows like the Newshour, but they should.  they are going to "go down" with the shrinking overseas missions and budget of the armed forces.  They are going to go down just like John Nagl did. 

More tomorrow on  BHO's speech tonight as a re-enactor of Marcus Aurelius.  It will be broadcast from the legions' camps along "the Rhine" to the Senate and People of the USA.  pl

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Moran

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Matthews

 

 

Comments

[jonst]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YV5ynRFzrIM&feature=related

[steve]

I can hardly abide mention of the name "Christopher Matthews" even in an article critical of him. Makes my teeth hurt.

[Will]

i can't stand Tweety Bird b/c he always interrupts before his questions are answered. Kind of reminds me of myself. Matthews is called tweety bird by his production crew b/c he dyes his hair yaller.

B/ i will say this for him. He served in the Peace Corps. And as far as Bishop Romney, he did serve his church as a missionary (in France). Not the same as being shot at, b/ it is a form of service & sacrifice.

[Mj]

It wasn't "chocked" full of anything. Some of the closeups of the crowd certainly showed the groups you mention but many other angles show a much more representative sample.

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-obama-makes-unannounced-visit-to-afghanistan-20120501,0,4166477.photogallery

[tequila]

FY 2011 U.S. Army profile:

http://www.armyg1.army.mil/hr/demographics.asp

Maneuver, Fires, and Effects demographic profile:

White - 75%
Black - 11%
Hispanic - 11%
Asian - 3%

Total population, USA
White - 72%
Black - 12%
Hispanic - 16%
Asian - 4%

[Trent]

From your lips to...

I'd prefer the Johnny Mathis version.

[turcopolier]

tequila

Nonsense. the demographics of the Army as a whole are meaningless. The infantry is pretty much white. Look at the pictures of the dead in the newspapers. African-americans in th eArmy today like the medical services and similar things. Non-white soldiers among the dead are usually people who were killed by roadside bombs. pl

[turcopolier]

mj

You must be blind. Look at the stage behind him. pl

[turcopolier]

will

Another blind man, You do notice that he was in France don't you? pl

[Tyler]

I knew two blacks in my paratrooper battalion serving as infantry. One was a machine gunner, the other was the scout platoon sergeant.

Sadly Colonel, this kind of thing has been going on in our beloved Army for quite a while now. The PAO's must have some directive where they're told to make sure to get plenty of good angles of hispanic and black females holding rifles at some "enemy" while making sure the majority white infantry company providing security for this dog and pony show is nowhere to be found in the photos.

I hear the Marines are going to allow women in the infantry now. I wonder what the 12 pieces of silver was to make that happen? Not turning them into two amphibious divisions of the Army? No matter, it'll be interesting in a horrifying way if that ever comes to fruition.

[Jake]

Will... Dodging the draft is dodging the draft. Romney did not go do mission work for the sake of desperate souls. He went so he would not become a desperate soul. While his Mormons peers went into service in record numbers.

By the way, next time your in DC stand in front of the Wall and say.....

"Not the same as being shot at, b/ it is a form of service & sacrifice."

Oh one last thing... Bishop Romney... If elected will be become known as, President Bishop elect Mitt Romney?

[Morocco Bama]

Obama brings the troops back in for Romney to send them back out against Iran. Don't think the Israeli lobby won't stop at anything to dethrone Obama after his plan of rapprochement with Iran. Israel will try to remove him with the next election, and if that doesn't work, perhaps a false flag to force a military response or an assassination. I think Israel, and let's face it, Bibi is more representative of the state of Israel than some care to admit, is that desperate.

PL, what do you think of Israel's odd, yet strategic relationship with Turkey, and the possibility that when push comes to shove, Turkey let's Israel use its base(s) for an assault on Iran via Syria? It could be why Syria is suddenly of such import, currently. It may be part of an approach to surround Iran and allow a strike by Israel. As part of that strategy, Turkey is promised a substantial part of the spoils. Sibel Edmonds and what she uncovered comes to mind here. It seems to fit. We'll see.

[Bobo]

Come on give the man some credit. He signed some sort of paper that will dramatically lessen our expense/exposure in this rat trap. He was the President on duty when we left Iraq, got Usama and now has us on the road to depart the rat trap. Yes, a carnival but at least he did not wear the uniform. As to the crowd you do remember what REMF's looked like.

[turcopolier]

Bobo

BHO's plan in Iraq was to stay there with the same kind of CT, logistics and training structure that is now declared to be our "program" in Afghanistan for 12 years more. Amusingly, the program he now wants is what I was pushing during the discussion in DC that resulted in the commitment to COIN. It's a matter of record. Unfortunately, there is a time and tide in affairs of men and the time when that policy could successfully have been adopted is past. Yes. That was by and large a REMF service support crowd. http://www.typepad.com/site/blogs/6a00d8341c72e153ef00d83451d3f569e2/post/6a00d8341c72e153ef0120a5faf54a970c/edit pl

[Morocco Bama]

Yeah Tyler, it's like my son's Hapkido class. Like Karate, there is a progression through the belt hierarchy, and that progression is based on alleged skill level. The problem I see with the system as it is practiced, is that a candidate can perform all the moves, and talk the talk, and that is enough to ascend to the next level, but it says nothing about the candidate's ability to perform IRL. To me, the candidate needs to be able to defend themselves, to the extent that is measurable, in a real-life situation, and you need to simulate that as closely as possible, otherwise no ascending belt is awarded. Instead, I see a seven year old, diminutive female with a black-belt, and I'm sorry, but that's a joke....it really is, and it diminishes the entire process. It appears this is very similar to what you are describing in the Armed Services, and quite frankly, it irresponsible, duplicitous and ludicrous.

It's a race to mediocrity, and mediocrity is winning that race.

[Fred]

Yep, missionary work in France. What a hardship compared to French speaking Republic of Côte d'Ivoire "… He arrived in Le Havre with ideas about how to change and promote the French Mission, while facing physical and economic deprivation in their cramped quarters." (I think those quarters were far less cramped than those submarines I served on, but then I'm not running for president).

There's a write up from his last run for office:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/15/us/politics/15romney.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

[Bill H]

Yesterday’s stunt, and the date chosen to do it, was pure grandstanding, and it offends me that he uses our military in such a fashion, particularly those in a combat theater. To paraphrase Kenneth Roberts,

"They go to war, those young men and women, not to die for their country, but to place themselves, their precious lives, between their homeland and the forces which would destroy it."

These are men and women who are risking their lives in combat, not pawns to be used as a backdrop for this REMF’s reelection campaign.

[Matthew]

Col: Do you or Adam Silverman have any interest in a post about the Washington Thinktanks? Seems like there's a rich vein of material to mine.

[tequila]

COL Lang,

Those numbers are not from the entire Army - they are from what the Army classifies Maneuver, Fires, and Effects. It classifies these as:

https://www.hrc.army.mil/Officer/Officer%20Personnel%20Management%20Directorate

Infantry, Aviation, Armor (Maneuver)
Engineer, MP, Chemical (Maneuver Support)
Field Artillery, Air Defense Artillery (Fires)
Special Forces, PSYOP, Civil Affairs (SOF)
IO, PAO (Functional Area Branch)

Tyler,

No, women are still not allowed in the infantry. Please read further.

I served my time in the USMC infantry in a weapons company from 2006 on. Absolutely, the predominant group is white, as it is in the U.S. as a whole, but my unit was hardly monochrome, either in the junior enlisted or among the NCO leadership. Numbers vary across units - we likely had disproportionate representation for Hispanics.

[turcopolier]

tequila

OK, but you do not contest the fact that the infantry is heavily white. The marines attract Hispanics more than the army. BTW, I don't accept the idea that Hispanics should necessarily be considered something other than "white." It also dosn't change the phenomenon that that crowd was heavily REMFy. I suppose they rounded them up on the air base. pl

[turcopolier]

Matthew

You mean a kind of directory. I try to ignore them. There are think tanks like Stimson, CSIS and AEI. Then there are contractor companies like SAIC. Then there are federally funded research companies like RAND. pl

[Townie 76]

Pat,

Unfortunately REMF is not a term used much any more; the new term to belittle base dwellers is "FOBBITS" which of course is a take off on HOBBITS. No longer can find the site, but there use to be a really funny web site about FOBBITS.

Hank Foresman

[Tyler]

http://www.inquisitr.com/223200/marines-now-allowing-women-to-enroll-in-infantry-school/

From the article:

"
At this time it is still unclear how many women will head to the Infantry Officers Course in Quantico, Virginia, however those who are accepted will learn how to command troops in battle and then receive their marching orders. Women will also be able to attend basic infantry training although the Marines are still working out the finalized details for that scenario."

Women as infantry officers. Maybe there's a touch of byzantine protocol that only another Marine would understand, but that seems pretty clear cut to me.

[Tyler]

It really is. It comes from more officers being worried about their next collar dressing than being concerned about the troops they were going into war with, IMHO. The USMC already tried to integrate the male and female PT standards, and it was such a fluke they had to back off of it. You'd think they'd have learned something from that, but they're charging ahead all the same. I guess if someone's son dies on the altar of egalitarianism because his female comrade didn't possess the upper body strength to drag him out of the line of fire, then its all well and good if it is done in the name of Diversity.

As an aside, I ran into the same issues when I decided to attend a kung fu class as an adult. Spent a few months there and was absolutely destroying the majority of the higher level black belts based on the 'real life' experience you're talking about.

I found my way to Boxing and Brazillian Jiujitsu, and that covers all the bases nicely. You really can't argue with a knock out, and many BJJ places require you to compete in tournaments before they'll rank you. My experiences with both have been realistic and positive, by and large.

[Tyler]

Bagram was always very pogue heavy. I imagine that the poor bloody infantry filtering in enjoyed the lack of pogues for a moment. I'm sure the chance to use the PX or chow hall without being screamed at for having a 'dirty uniform' by some out of fitness regs NCO from a supply battalion was a treat.

(Pogue is deragatory slang for support troops. The modern form of REMF.)