Generation Kill (2008)

Kuwait, 2003: The 1st Recon Battalion of the 1st Marines are preparing to invade Iraq.  Evan Wright (Lee Tergesen) arrives to accompany 2nd platoon of Bravo Company during the invasion.  The Marines are not exactly keen on having a reporter along but he is soon accepted.  Second platoon is commanded by Lt. Nate Fick (Stark Sands), but Wright is assigned to the Humvee commanded by Staff Sergeant Brad "Iceman" Colbert (Alexander Skarsgard).  Lt. Col. Stephen "Godfather" Ferrando (Chance Kelly) is a hard charging marine and quite eager to get his men "into the game" with plenty of action.  When he has an officer meeting, he invariably tells the men that they aren't being aggressive enough.  The narrative follows two aspects of the war.  First, there are the various battles, skirmishes, and encounters with the Iraqi fighters and civilians.  This is pretty one-sided, as the marines utterly dominate the battles and only have 1 interpreter to converse with non-combatants.  Second, there is the esprit-de-corps - or lack of it - of the marines themselves.  Questions of competence, issues of morality, second-guessing of tactics, and so forth are frequent topics of discussion.  The marines also trade insults and unflattering nicknames.  Despite their battlefield dominance, the behind-the-scenes action paints the officer corps as a mixed bag of good officers and incompetent ones.  Also, the marines often find they need to scrounge for equipment, be it batteries for their night vision goggles, lubricant for their gun turrets, or even food.  The rule is that the marines 'make do.'  To demonstrate the 'make do' ethic, one of the marines who lost his helmet finds himself wearing a motorcycle helmet for a while before upgrading to a helmet taken from an Iraqi soldier.

The series primarily follows Team 1 of the 2nd Platoon and is even more focused on the Humvee in which Evan Wright is riding.  During the driving scenes, the driver, Corporal Ray Persons (James Ransone), babbles incessantly while Iceman stares out the window at the passing Iraqi landscape.  Ray is the standout character who steals many scenes with his humorous banter and frequent singing.  In the backseat, Wright occasionally asks a question or - during battles - sits wide-eyed and silent.  There is also Lance Corporal Trombley (Billy Lush), who is perhaps too eager to shoot someone.

Despite being a series about war, it was light on action.  Sure, lots of things blow up, Iraqis get shot, and bullets ricochet off the vehicles, but it doesn't impact the characters.  They are inured to this from their time in Afghanistan and that insouciance makes the action seem more like annoying inclement weather than a dangerous firefight.

This is no Band of Brothers.  It offers a narrow glimpse of the Iraq War and a brief biography of a score of marines during a two-month window.  Just okay.

9/11 +15

It is now fifteen years since the 9/11 attacks that triggered our recent flurry of Middle Eastern engagements and, if anything, we have lost ground.

After the 9/11 attacks, the country was on guard.  In the rest of the Bush Administration, 25 people were killed in Muslim attacks and 14 were injured.  During the Obama Administration, 114 people have been killed and 373 injured in Muslim attacks.  This only counts attacks on American soil.  The success rate of the enemy on our turf has gone up.  Homeland Security failure!  Worse off.

Afghanistan was the host of al Qaeda and the Taliban were toppled during the Afghan War.  Rebuilding efforts have been mostly for naught.  The continued presence of US troops makes the region less hospitable to al Qaeda and its ilk but a lasting victory is not established.  Better off.

The anti-American Saddam was toppled during the Iraq War and had become a relatively stable pro-American democracy thereafter.  However, US troops were completely withdrawn in 2011 and ISIS and Iran filled the power vacuum shortly thereafter.  The successes of ISIS have resulted in US re-engagement in the region.  Trade Saddam for ISIS?  In 2010, we had clearly been better off but as of now, we might be at status quo ante bellum.  Break even.

 

In 2011, Libya was involved in a Civil War and the United States opted for the non-Gaddafi side.  Libya has become a failed state and a breeding ground for terrorist groups, including a branch of al Qaeda.  The bill for this came due in Benghazi, 4 years ago today.  Worse off.

Egypt's stable, though repressive, pro-American regime was toppled and replaced by the Muslim Brotherhood.  This was in turn toppled and made way for a new stable, though repressive, not so pro-American regime.  Worse off.

Yemen's pro-American government has been toppled and Yemen is another failed state with both al Qaeda and ISIS affiliates.  Worse off.

 

The US became entangled in the Syrian civil war thanks to a red line.  The red line put US standing and reliability on the block.  Failure to do anything when the red line was crossed has hugely diminished US prestige in the world.  Russia, Iran, and Turkey have all moved into Syria and attacked the US-backed rebels.  Worse off.

 

Seeing the writing on the wall, Israel, America's staunchest ally in the region for decades, has recently had a high level meeting with Russia.  With American power waning, Israel needs to make arrangements should the decline continue.  Worse off.

 

Turkey has gone from a secular democracy to an Islamist state.  President Erdogan has viewed democracy as a tram that one takes until you reach your stop.  He reached his stop and gotten off.  Like Israel's Netanyahu, Erdogan has also made pilgrimage to Russia.  Though a member of NATO, Turkey is looking to improve bi-lateral relations with NATO's traditional enemy.  Worse off.

 

Iran was anti-American at the start and remains so.  The Iran Nuclear Deal, which has gifted hundreds of millions or billions of dollars to the Iranian regime, is a catastrophe that only gets worse.  Sanctions have been lifted and Iran is cheating on the deal, cozying up to Russia, and expanding its influence in the Middle East.  Much worse off.

 

As it stands, we are losing the war.  We may win skirmishes with various terror affiliates but such affiliates are popping up faster than we are stomping them.  Worse still, every candidate for the Presidency will continue to lose the war.  Trump, Johnson, and Stein would all wash their hands of the region (Trump talks about crushing ISIS but has little interest in the larger war).  Hillary helped formulate our current losing strategy and is likely to stay the course.  However, she is probably the most hawkish of the bunch and had disagreed with Obama on some policies where he proved more dovish.

 

Like the Cold War, we will eventually win this one.  However, it is going to take another 9/11-like attack against us (or a nuclear one against anyone) before we adopt the unconditional surrender posture that served us so well in WWII.

Trump for Saddam?

There is a stink about Donald Trump speaking well of Saddam Hussein, especially in regards to Saddam's ability to kill terrorists.  This is also a reason why Trump holds that the Iraq War should never have been fought and has led to the rise of ISIS.  Ditto the ousting of Muammar Gaddafi.  He has a point.

Saddam Hussein was an evil, miserable human being but one could argue that the political situation was much better under his tyranny than it is now.  That same case can be made for Gaddafi.  We have toppled tyrants and now have terrorist havens and a refugee crisis that is contributing to a crackup of the European Union.  Seeing how it turned out, how many politicians would have preferred to stick with the status quo ante?  Donald Trump has declared that, as bad as Saddam was, he was better than what we've got now.

 

Of course, though Trump has made this point repeatedly, it has only made big news lately because the propaganda arm of the Democratic Party needs to report about something other than 'Crooked Hillary' and the rigged system that let her skate.  Interestingly, Hillary voted to invade Iraq and was the architect of Libya.  "We came, we saw, he died!"  The anti-war crowd, which has been in the Democratic camp since Vietnam, may be wooed by a comparatively dovish Trump.

Tony Blair's Apology

Former Prime Minister Tony Blair has apologized for the Iraq War, even going so far to take some responsibility for the rise of ISIS.  I am truly perplexed at why he has done this.  There is nothing to gain by this apology.  If he thought he was hounded when he held that it was a good decision, just wait for the attacks now that he has admitted guilt for a bad decision.  Sure, he has no political future to protect but history will not be kind.

 

There was a brief period when Tony Blair was the leader of the Free World.  President Clinton was happily ignoring America's traditional leadership role that seemed so unimportant with the end of the Cold War.  Blair took up the mantle and pushed for action in Kosovo, dragging Clinton along.  President Bush resumed America's leadership role.  President Obama has discarded it and there hasn't been a Tony Blair to pick it up.  The Free World is currently rudderless and the consequences are everywhere.

Tony Blair is not responsible for ISIS, not even partially.  This is post hoc ergo propter hoc logic.  If Blair must blame someone, he should be pointing his finger at Barack Obama.  Iraq had been won and was surprisingly stable after the US Surge in 2007.  The US Military was the foundation of that stability.  Had that foundation remained - as it had in places like Germany, Japan, and South Korea, ISIS could not have taken root.  Obama and Biden were proclaiming Iraq as a success of their administration in 2010!  Then we pulled out all US troops, collapse followed, and Blair is accepting some blame?  It almost reminds one of Vietnam where the US achieved success in the Paris Peace Accords - Kissinger received a Nobel Peace Prize - and then, in the wake of Watergate, the Congress cut all support to South Vietnam.  North Vietnam violated the peace accords and the US did nothing.  Collapse and millions of boat people followed.  Bush and Blair won the war but it was up to their successors to keep the peace.  Blair has inexplicably accepted blame for the failures of others.

 

Unless he has some terminal illness that has prompted this apology, Blair will live to regret it.  He did not learn from his contemporary, Bill Clinton: deny everything.  By apologizing, Blair has admitted guilt.  Imagine if Bill Clinton suddenly apologized to all the women who accused him of misconduct, if it apologized for not killing Bin Laden when he had the chance, for suborning perjury, or for lying to the American people about 'not having sex with that woman.'  Would he rise in esteem for having confessed his faults or fall for admitting guilt?  Imagine the campaign ads against his wife that would be nothing but Bill admitting guilt contrasted with Hillary blaming a 'vast rightwing conspiracy.'  Yes, it would be catastrophic.  But Clinton is too good a politician to ever do something so stupid; such is not the case for Blair.

 

Of course, Blair's apology will be used to bludgeon George W. Bush, the prime mover and shaker of the Iraq War.  Perhaps he expects to get the Colin Powell treatment.  Maybe from the US press but probably not from the British press.

The End of Pax Americana

In the Ancient World, there was a period that has come to be called the Pax Romana, the Roman Peace.  After two centuries of almost continuous warfare, Augustus brought about an era of peace in the wake of his victory over Antony and Cleopatra.  This extended period of no warfare was unknown to Romans but not unwelcome.  It lasted for two hundred years but came to an end with Commodus (Joaquin Phoenix in Gladiator).

 

Based on this Roman example, historians have picked out other similar time and titled them for the dominant power that secured the peace.  After Napoleon's final defeat at Waterloo, Britain became the dominant power around the globe.  Its mighty navy protected the seas and thereby promoted trade and comity on the waves.  This Pax Britannica lasted until World War I.  It was not until after World War II that the United States took the reins from Britain and established the Pax Americana.  Of course, there have been wars during this period but they have not touched the American mainland - terrorist attacks excepted.

 

Barack Obama has refused to maintain the Pax Americana.  From the very start, he apologized for America's past arrogance and declared that we had no business telling other countries what they should and shouldn't do.  He abandoned allies like Poland to curry favor with opponents like Russia.  He abandoned Iraq and is somehow bemused that ISIS arose in the fertile power vacuum he left.  He was a cheerleader for the Arab Spring which has toppled our former allies - though admittedly dictators - and provided more fertile soil for jihadists; that was not a good tradeoff.  The Middle East is in ruins and expelling refugees at an alarming rate.  Iran is on the rise and aligning itself with Russia.  Russia has become a firm supporter of Assad in Syria, a dictator that Obama long ago demanded step down.  Russia, whom Romney identified as our number one geopolitical adversary in the 2012 campaign, is securing a foothold in the Middle East while we retreat from it.

 

As happened with the Pax Britannica, America is finding it more difficult to pay for the peace.  With an economy that has stagnated for the better part of a decade and a rapidly growing welfare state to support, it is easier to cut the military than transfer payments to voters.

 

At the UN today, Vladimir Putin laid the blame for Middle Eastern turmoil on the West.  And he was right!  Obama has left a power vacuum and Putin is only too happy to accept this gift.  During the Cold War, we funded the Mujahidin in Afghanistan, a country with relatively little in the way of natural resources.  Now we are handing over the whole of the Middle East, a magnificent oil producer, without resistance.

 

I rather doubt we will have a Pax Russia to follow America's abdication. 

WMDs in Iraq

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/23/world/middleeast/thousands-of-iraq-chemical-weapons-destroyed-in-open-air-watchdog-says-.html?mabReward=RI%3A7&action=click&contentCollection=Energy%20%26%20Environment%20&region=Footer&module=Recommendation&src=recg&pgtype=article&_r=0

Yes, all these years later, the New York Times discovers that President Bush was not lying when he said Saddam Hussein had Weapons of Mass Destruction.  Not only were thousands of such weapons destroyed by the US Military during Bush's term, but many have been destroyed since Obama became president.  I would say that he must have known about the WMDs once he became President but it always seems he gets his briefings by reading the papers (e.g. IRS Scandal, Obamacare Rollout Fumble, Jonathan Gruber, etc.).

President Bush crippled himself and his party by not disclosing this at the time.  The constant refrain of "Bush lied, people died" was left unchallenged and it took hold.  I have spent years saying we found chemical and biological weapons.  It has been to no avail since I have changed no minds.  The story that none were found sank into the consciousness of America and now, even after this revelation, I don't think that will change in my lifetime.  It is too late.  Much like Joe McCarthy has been tarred as a villain despite being proved correct in his claims of communists in the government, the WMD story will remain Bush lied.

Foregin Policy Blunder

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/islamic-state/11156264/Iraq-asks-for-US-ground-troops-as-Isil-threaten-Baghdad.html

As many predicted, pulling every US troop out of Iraq meant it was virtually certain that all the gains achieved would be reversed.  Such has come to pass.  Unfortunately for Obama, he is still in office.  He withdrew the troops, he proudly ran for re-election on the fact that he withdrew the troops, and now Iraq is crumbling.

We stayed in Germany after World War II until... oh, yeah, we're still there.  How is Germany doing?  We stayed in Japan after WWII until... still there.  Japan doing okay?  What about South Korea?  Still there and it is prospering.  Let's look at the places where we didn't stay.  Vietnam?  It got pretty ugly after we left.  How about Haiti?  We've sent troops to Haiti many times but they always left.  Haiti is a basket case.  With this sort of record, why would we choose to leave?  It was a virtual guarantee of disaster.  But it made for a good campaign slogan for Obama's final election.

 

There are two strategic options for dealing with ISIS.  The first is to fight to win.  That would mean ground troops, tanks, re-established bases in Iraq, and a real war.  The second is to wash our hands of the matter and let the locals sort it out.  Either you want to beat them or you don't.  Now, there are also political options.  Strategic option 1 is anathema to the Democrat-base in the run-up to a midterm election.  Also, option 1 lays bare the blunder in removing troops in the first place.  Strategic option 2 is unacceptable because the American people demand some sort of action in the wake of beheaded Americans.  Thus we have the political option.  We go to war just enough to be 'doing something' but not enough to actually win.

 

The president's rhetoric has sounded hawkish, claiming we will destroy ISIS.  He says that is the goal but he does not provide the means of achieving that end.  He is all talk.  As the saying goes, actions speak louder than words.  Obama's actions, be they with regard to Russia's invasion of the Ukraine, Syria's use of chemical weapons, or a desire to defeat ISIS, always show that his threats are idle.  The thugs of the world have a couple years in which to seize power and territory because Obama isn't going to commit to stopping them.

Obama Achievement: Iraq Collapse

Three years ago when the President pulled the entirety of US forces out of Iraq, Vice President Biden declared this a great accomplishment of the administration.  We skedaddled and left the Iraqis to fend for themselves; mission accomplished.  Well, as Reverend Wright might say, those chickens have come home to roost.  Mosul has fallen to a branch of Al Qaeda.

Whether one agreed with the mission or not, thousands of Americans died to secure a democracy in the heart of the Muslim world.  I myself did not like the plan.  Short of a McArthueresque dictatorship, I view nation building as a doomed project.  Nonetheless, we spent years doing it and had more success than I expected.  Then we left.  By leaving, we abandoned whatever 'investments' were made and we see the result.  After WWII, we stayed in Germany.  70 years later, we are still in Germany and it is a functioning Western democracy.  After Korea, we stayed in South Korea.  We are still there.  It is a hugely successful country compared to its neighbor, North Korea.  Look at the difference between the part of Korea where the US stayed and the part that we lost.  After Vietnam, we left South Vietnam.  Catastrophe followed.  The record is pretty clear.

The US has lost prestige under Obama and no one can trust us.  Obama has betrayed allies and appeased enemies.  He has abandoned the idea of US leadership in the world.  Putin has made a fool of Obama and Obama appears not to mind.  Here is a president who was dealt a Straight Flush, discarded it, and asked for 5 new cards.  It is hard to credit this as mere incompetence.  Is the destruction of US foreign policy intentional, thus crippling future efforts?  Who can trust the US now?  We might just elect another Obama and abandon whoever counts on us.