MILNET Opinion -

MILNET Opinion
Invisible Threat : Leftist's Blind Spots, 02/25/2008

When the left wing media complains that the Military is spending money on last generation's war, when the pundits cry over strained budgets and when politicians claim the military would rather buy a plane, tank, or ship then put armor on our troops, you know it's an election year.

The problem with the Left extends from two seemingly opposing logic centers. They are voiced in back room statements like "We can't have the machines for war, we should not be a warring nation" and "But we cannot look soft on National Security". So how do you manage to ensure that the public's perception of your ideals matches your schizophrenic desires? How do you do that without getting caught in a lie? Simple. Create a bigger lie.

Example. For three decades the Left has managed to use its near majority to whittle down the U.S. defense budget in key areas. The Left has practiced obstruction on key measures and use of filibuster when they can't convince their colleagues. This has reduced the American government into barely adequate governance. When the Pentagon asks for more armored vehicles, they get fewer. When some in Congress point out more are needed beyond the budget, they are deemed politcally incorrect and marginalized. When faced with huge and costly program such as the Raptor, V-22 or Missile Defense, the Left somehow manages to make sure other parts of the budget requests get shorted well instead of simply increasing the budget to fill in the gaps. We all now that the military has to be fixed at 4% of the national budget right? Doesn't it? There is this notion that some fixed percentage each year is not acceptable but the norm. Some years, or even some decades are going to require adjustment of that figure.   And if balancing the budget against increased military spending requires cuts, then look elsewhere. The pork in our U.S. budget is horrendous, let's go on a diet.

When war does come, which inevitably it will in a world that has not yet signed up for peace into eternity, the Left, cackling with righteousness, speaks with two mouths saying, "bring the troops home" and "you've not outfitted them properly for the job". For instance there is the "bring them home in 2009" club. And the "This Captain says he couldn't get the proper weapons for his people" or better yet, "our soldiers are not getting the personal armor". And of course, "the <name your vehicle> doesn't have enough armor" or "there aren't enough armored versions of the <name your vehicle> available." This has been repeated in both the U.S. and the U.K., yet neither military subscribes to less armor or smaller purchases.

The two governments who are attempting to keep the nutcases from over running the Middle East and whose people have suffered the worst in response to their resistance to both the Nazi and the Jihad, the U.S. and the U.K., are also plauged with legislators and media hacks alike find ways to both under fund the military and blame it on everyone else except their darling Left. And who are these legislators and media types? Why they ARE the Left.

Sure the budgets are strained. Sure it isn't cheap to fund troops in Afghanistan and/or Iraq. But the Invisible Threat -- the one the Left cannot see is the Left itself.

If your objective is to stop war, the best way, they have discovered, is to have an unsuccessful capability to fight such a war. While 9/11 and 7/7* were wake up call to all the world's militaries and governments, the lesson has gone unlearned by the Left. And by the way, they are busy helping us forget, that would lead to questions about national security, yes?

Instead of ensuring a more capable and professional military, the Left, who can't see a threat unless it takes down a building or stops the "underground", has already decided for you. You can't use the military as a tool for political interests, so national security will just have to be lower priority So in order to stop the use of the military by these non Left leaders, they have figured out that if the military is weakened, they can gleefully point out their own back room shenanigans and blame them on someone else.

The invisible threat is also the Left's blind spot to ethnic or religious based dogma that wishes to kill anyone who does not subscribe. Since the Left is busy denying religion in our daily lives, they subsequently cannot see religious zealots with guns, bombs and plenty of young people ready for martyrdom as a threat. Not, of course, until it interrupts their daily routine. A war in a far off country is just that, a war somewhere else and we all know war is to be avoided at all costs, even if it might means peace at any cost. Whether it is Afghanistan or Iraq, it is a foreign problem and the military is once again being used as a tool of evil Right Wing nutcases, killing our boys and girls, so bring them home now!

The Left has never understood that fighting for true freedom, while less costly at home, cannot be done at home alone. Indeed defense at home does not occur to the Left to also include a strong military elsewhere in the world. The two somehow cannot connect.

The reality of course, is that somewhere out there are people who want their freedom and they need our help. They've always needed our help. And also out there, outside the U.S. and U.K. are those who are more than willing to take advantage of our barely adequate military budgets to over run those starving for freedom. The U.K. and the U.S. have stood up against those who want to take away freedom for over 60 years now. And the Left hates it. The literally hate it. So if anyone has something nasty to say about the military, it gets plenty of attention by the Left. They'll even gripe about things that have no real substance, just the typical whine from someone unhappy about their particular little gripe. No evidence necessary, just listen to those gripes. In the process, they become the "party of change". You see how that works, don't you? People always grouse about how things don't work, or this or that as a "major problem". You go to find the facts and on occasion the gripe is real. Most of the time, however, it is whining based on any of a dozen other reasons and it really can't be fixed. This is human nature.

But when you are campaigning as the "party of change", you suddenly find everyone who wants a change is whispering in your ear with little tidbits that "the establishment doesn't listen to". Ideal for a "party of change", that is. Unfortunately, the party of change only applies to the party not in power, and that creates a new Invisible Threat. The threat of the non-existent threat created by the Left -- the most powerful threat of all. With this threat you can defocus the public from the real threats and make yourself appear to be the only one with vision. You can preach like a religious minister but deny religion in our lives. You can hate America or Britain yet aspire to their highest offices.   You can define yourself as the "party of change" and find non-existent threats to replace the real ones, and claim you have the vision no one else has.

For instance in America, a nation on the other side of the planet from the Middle East, it is extremely easy to look at the problems "over there" as someone else's problems. Or better yet, blame them on the very people trying to make a difference and walk out on them when they need our help the most. It is easy to say "bring our troops home". It has never been hard to make that cry, especially if you are replacing the real threat with your invented one. After decades of creating havoc through whining about this and that in order to steadily obstruct improvements and reduce the numbers of troops and equipment in the military, it becomes easy to then turn around and harp about the shortages and ineffectiveness of the military then add it to your list of "forward thinking" ideals.

The invisible threat then IS at home. It is an additional threat. Get that? It doesn't replace the other real world threats, it just adds to the chaos. It is politicians who look at the military as big dollar signs rather than the selfless people dedicated to the job -- the most dangerous of jobs on the planet. Strength in the military comes from Defense and Offense. Yet the Left, through it's "we want no war" idealism, has a blind spot for the needs of the military to build a front elsewhere, to place a lightning rod somewhere else so the American people don't have to watch their neighbors being killed on TV. The Left can only see gripes and whining and even then only in election cycles. They can't and never have been able, in the entire history of the United States and Britain to look ahead at what will be needed to keep the military not only capable, but the best in the world.

The Left turns that need into some sort of statement on military greed for toys. The Left says we don't have to have the best in the world, we just have to be adequate. Just like our schools and our students. Be adequate. And to be adequate, that goal to be overrun by the really strong denizens of the world those who are striving to be more than adequate, means listening to gripes instead of planning and building for both defense and offense against real problems. To be adequate means putting just enough money into the military to make it appear you are funding it. Is the right budget figure 4%, or 6%? The argument goes on despite the fact that with historical hindsight, the correct number might easily have been 8%. And had stopped bickering and really looked at what was needed we might have created that budget TOGETHER rather than made it difficult to just get a measure of the 6%. Thus we under funded even with the entire budget spent. Obstruction of needed military spending at all costs should be the Left's cry, it is what they are best at. Blame it on the Right.   Sure you can. Blame it on the Right's weakness in overcoming the power of the Left's fiction and obsfucation. You CANNOT blame the Right for not trying and CANNOT blame the Right for your putting the Left too close to levers of control By splitting the votes election cycle after election cycle, you, the peoples of America and Britain have created a government that is only just barely adequate, despite strong and truly visionary leaders like Maggie and Ronald, Tony and G.W.

Having vision isn't about making speeches about what the disheartened want but is about making sure the nation gets what the entire nation needs. If in your secret heart you hate America, if you hate Britain, then you are done before you start.

When I hear comments like "For the first time in my adult life, I am proud of America", I am really hearing "Hate America, but don't hate me" or perhaps "I have always hated America, but now that I have a chance to run it, it's a wonderful place!". And that is the real Left talking. Its the hate America message that is all too familiar to anyone who has lived more than a few decades. When I hear "Bring the troops home" and no rationale on how to fill the void they are filling, I am really hearing the "I hate war, make peace at any cost". That is the schizophrenic Left talking about their real goals -- to make a military we can all be ashamed of.

When I hear "You've broken the economy, but I can fix it", I am really hearing "Blame someone else, just don't blame me." That is the obstructionist Left creating a fictional cause to defocus us on what needs to be done. Economy by taxation is their answer, but the Left will never admit it. Economic cycles, unfortunately don't follow the timing of elections. Economies cycle on and can only be nudged one way or another in small increments. Yet, every campaign cycle, someone is either blaming the other party for the bad economy or taking credit for the good. Economy is about saving and spending. Take a course, they teach this you know. And who is the biggest spender in the U.S. and U.K.? Those crazy politicians we call the Congress in the U.S. and the Parliament in the U.K. More than adequate concepts, being misused and abused by those who really only want freedom to do what they want, not what you want. Being used by the "Let's be adequate" crowd who claim to have the only true "vision for change", yet haven't managed to demonstrate it in all of history. You want someone to blame, blame them, the "legislators" and those who really control the purse strings while blaming the Chief Executives of our nations.

In the U.S., we have F-15s literally falling out of the sky because their fuselages and wings are so old, metal fatigue has set in. Is this the fault of the GOP? You bet.   Never mind that Leftist obstructionists have dismantled the military by forcing the largest drawdown in American history.   The replacement aircraft, the F-22 is extremely expensive. But instead of working on budgets that replace F-15s with the F-22, the Left cries "wrong war, you're still fighting yesterday's war" and presses for fewer and fewer replacement aircraft. What started out at 381, an already far too low a number is now dwindling towards 100.

Never mind that Al Qaeda is a terrible foe but NOT OUR ONLY FOE. Never mind that the fact remains that without a replacement for the F-15, we will have only a handful of sir superiority fighters soon. And while that is not a problem in fighting Al Qaeda, what does it mean for real national defense or projection of our power elsewhere world? Those are issues too esoteric for the Left to consider important and anyway, the Left doesn't win elections by supporting foreign wars, do they?

Oh sorry, replacement aircraft? They cost too much. If we build those we won't be able to build those skateboard parks for disadvantaged kids in Detroit

Reality: The F-22 costs four to five times as much as the F-15 did. For good reason, it is a helluva lot more airplane. But because it costs so much, and our budget is strained making up for past under funding, we just don' t have enough cash. So instead of increasing our national outlay to sustain our military, we just assume that 100 Raptors will be "adequate". And who cares if the F-35, the replacement for F-16s and F-18s is a much more capable ground assault fighter, our real enemy is Al Qaeda right? So delaying that purchase year after year is fine, the current fleet of aging attack fighters remains "adequate". And Missile Defense? Clearly an idea left over from those horrid days of Ronald Reagan confronting the Soviets. Never mind that any two-bit country who spends 10 times its per capita in order to build ballistic missiles and hides their nuclear ambitions under a "peaceful nuclear industry" mantle can strike us in minutes. Reality: Even if Iran never gets a nuclear weapon built, everyone seems to forget that a warhead on a ballistic missile is not a firecracker. FACT: The ability to control your adversary is directly proportional to the threat to its population. If Iran can threaten to launch a missile at the U.S., the U.K. or ultimately more likely, Israel, then how can you blithely say there is no need for Missile Defense. That position is so naive it smacks of Chamberlain.

You see, by being simply adequate, you don't have to be anything more than adequate and can spend less. Indeed, you can just barely meet requirements and be barely adequate and save loads! By claiming Missile Defense is no good in today's world of suicide bombers, you somehow change the facts. By under funding basic needs of the military and allowing the under funding of replacement aircraft, you force the military to stay at home. By ignoring the age of your capital ships, which are used to extend our power away from our shores, you adequately ensure we won't be using that political power that the military offers. In other words, you can stop the wars by simply not going there anymore. You can stop the wars by gutting your military until it no longer is capable of such ugly acts as actually fighting and winning small battles, let alone big ones.

Unfortunately, defending America or Britain DOES require us to go elsewhere. And that means putting our military personnel at risk. It means having carriers and submarines. Not to fight the non-existent Soviets, but their replacements. Russia and China are not our friends. Detent has never meant being friends, it only means pulling back from the hair trigger of nuclear war. We did that.   Reagan was a big help, Jimmy Carter was a disaster in nearly every regard. Does getting a nobel peace prize mean you have made the world or your nation more secure? Of course not, it merely means you have pursued "peace at all costs" and "sacrificed national interest for a legacy as a peacemaker".   While lauded by some, the Nobel Peace Prize has become medal for traitors to their countries, Al Gore not withstanding.

If you think Putin is building a Russia to become an ally of the U.S. you are simply insane. And is China's building at incredible rates...is China chewing up all the steel and concrete the world can manufacture just so they can participate in the world economy as equals or to build a few Olympic venues? If you believe that -- if you believe China is just growing in the natural pattern of a future world contributor to free economies and peace, you are seriously naive.

Russia intends to be a world leader again. And since their own graft and arrogance appears to have clouded those pesky democratic ideals, they've turned back to their one party rules idea and soon will only have a few trappings of democracy left. If you believe Putin will not be running Russia after the "elections" you have mental illness, consult a doctor immediately.

China intends to surpass Russia as the world's antagonist.   China has more viable, deployable nuclear weapons systems than Russia has today. And China's entire military is undergoing a vast modernization while Russia is mired in keeping the rust at bay. Understand that. Russia's military has been undergoing a long term decline, but that is not true for China. The concrete and steel China is buying is being used to build bigger cities AND a much larger and even faster growing military manufacturing infrastructure. One day soon, we will wake up to find that China is no longer a poor sister to their partner in the Sino-Russian partnership, but the world's leading supplier of arms to everyone who hates Europe and America.

Never mind that every few years we expose yet another Chinese spy ring operating in key industrial areas stealing the secrets of the current world leader in military technology. Never mind that the world gleefully pockets the money paid to us by a nation building for a future that aims only at dominating us, not including us.

The Left's blindspot for their socialist brothers means they cannot see the dangers of socialist rule which is also governed by a one party system. Those kind of problems happened in the past, and the Left is the party of change, damned the past. Never mind that believing Ahmadinejad's peaceful fairy tale about nuclear fuel is just criminally negligent and naive. It is amazing, but the world's largest bleeding heart humanitarian organization, is also the guys watching over nuclear proliferation and somehow is the authority on nuclear weapons programs. How does that work? How naive can you get? Avoid confrontation at all costs, even at the expense of seeing the evil of denial and deception, that's how. Practicing the "we don't see it in plain sight, so it must not exist" theory of monitoring that's how. "We didn't find evidence, therefore there is none to be found!". If our criminal investigators operated in this manner, we could write off murder and rape as simply figments of our imagination.

Never mind that Russia and China's favorite mideast partner is Iran. Never mind that the enemies of our past remain the enemies of our future.   The Left's blindspot for the past and claims for 100% "vision forward" has no room for the ugly realities of the future. It is far easier to only see the Russians and Chinese as friends, far easier to extend detent into meaning a true and lasting friendship. If is far easier to see easier to buy into Putin's one party government as the hope for future than realize it is business as usual in the Kremlin.

An it is far easier to see Jihadists as misunderstood religious people and not such a real threat. After all, religion will be gone in a few decades, replaced by secularism. With religion gone, so will vanish the Jihadists. It's all part of the Left's vision. The threats of Russia, China, Iran, and yes even North Korea, are just mental disorders of the conservative right. These countries and their allies are not a threat to Europe or the U.S., it is all made up by the Right in order to scare you into getting votes and pouring money in to their friends pockets, that evil incarnation called the military industrial complex.

And the War on Terror is just a big money grab for the military and that new but severely useless Department of Homeland Security that was the idea of that Lieberman traitor and his friend George Bush. The Left, experts on obfuscation and tricks with mirrors, is busy now saying that is the Right that is playing the scare game. That it's the same old scare game. Yet, anyone who has lived for more than a few decades can tell you this is all a familiar pattern, especially in election cycles. A pattern of obsfucation and changing history to meet the needs of the Left's fictional world that serves only one purpose, to get them into office once again.

Unfortunately for us, the scare is not a game, it is not fiction. Jihadists (not just Al Qaeda which really only exists in the minds of Jihadists like bin Laden) have one goal. Radical Muslim governments that get along without the need for such silly trappings as women's rights or personal freedoms have specific targets in mind. Constitutional Law is okay as long as it first meets the tenets of Shara, Islamic Law.   Democracies are okay if they are subservient to the Mullahs. And the only responsible owners of nuclear weapons are those nations whose peaceful needs are met by ensuring Israel is wiped off the map. Repeatedly, just to make sure. Then peace can reign.

Unfortunately, if you look at constitutional law and Islamic law, you realize quickly quickly the two cannot co-exist. There are three concepts that cannot exist under Islamic Law, perhaps not the most important in some minds, but clearly indicative of the division. Woman's rights, religious rights and the right to free and unfettered elections. I've only named the three, but the list of unresolvable differences between Islamic Law and Constitutional is much, much longer.

So let's add it all up. A worldwide caliphate, a one party dictatorship calling itself a democracy, and the world's largest population ruled by a band of generational Communists. That's the world of the future if we go along with the Left's program. And the Left can't see any of this and remains in denial. This is due to their blindspot, and they want everyone in America and Britain to join in that denial. All you have to do is fail to recognize the real enemies of freedom and personal choice in the world. All you have to do is ignore the fact that a few countries still house the people who want us all dead and are willing to go to their god as a martyr to make it happen. All you have to do is forget that a one party system means a dictatorship. All you have to do is buy into the idea that Communism in China is just a phase the socialists are going through and they really mean us and our economy no harm.

Oh yes, remember that Al Qaeda would be dormant and Iraq would be doing just fine if we only hadn't gone over there trying to make a new democracy in the Middle East. We really don't need soldiers in Afghanistan and we should have told Musharraf to go screw himself in Pakistan, that country is no threat and our ideals leave no room to befriend a strongman like him.

And then there's Kosovo. If we'd only let the Russians park their tanks there, there would be no pesky little fledgling nation trying to escape their proper deaths at the hands of genocidal Serbs. There was a war there? And we had a hand in it? Impossible! Bill Clinton would never have allowed such a thing to happen.

These unreality if these things are self evident, yet year after year, the Left trots them out. We simply cannot let the Left's madness continue any longer. We need to take back our government of 50-50 split and put it back to work with a clear majority of realists and true visionaries -- those who don't apologize for murder and stand up for countries far away like Iraq and Kosovo. Elect governments that build world class militaries, simply not merely or even barely adequate militaries.

If the peace dividend is a failure to adequately fund a military that, as a result, cannot wage an urban war in one country and a frontier war in another, both against foes using suicide bombers and machine guns manufactured in the 1960s, then there is a fundamental problem in our governments. It is not blindness to the need, it is the blindness of the Left and its viral effects on the people and the government. Peace activists want us to "stop the madness". I agree. Only don't view the military as some form of madness, rather, the madness is the idea that peace at any cost is acceptable. That is the real madness. The blindness that allows us to elect people who by design, cannot see a strong military in the future is our deepest mistake, and our darkest secret. It is the secret that promulgates more American and British deaths, and yes, even for all of the globe.

If we cannot see the obvious rationales for being in Iran, fighting in Afghanistan, and yes even freeing Kosovo, then how do we expect to lead the world? How do we expect we can help Africa? How do we expect to maintain a strong nation against nutcases like Ahmadinejad in Iran or Chavez in Venezuela? The real problem, you see, is that the Left likes these guys. They want ever so bad to be friends with these guys. The blindspot for past lessons and the Lefts very real socialist desire make those two denizens look like world leaders and persons to emulate. That is the threat to our national security, the Left and its blindspots.

* many Americans do not understand the significance of 7/7. It stands for July 7, 2005 when Islamic Extremists killed 52 people via suicide bombings on the London Underground and an aboveground bus. For Britains, 7/7 has as much meaning as 9/11 does to Americans and solidified for many, the necessity for the U.K. to partner in the War on Terror.