Checking the Pulse

It's time to get our shit together. 12 Americans died in the past two days during one of the deadliest stretches since the conflict began. This cannot stand. It's not unjust when military members die for noble causes in the protection of ideals or person, but it is unjust when they die for what they are now.

Nothing.

They are dying for nothing. We are gaining nothing by the deaths of these 12 and the 3500 (or so) that have died before them. We need to come to grips with that. Quick.

And it isn't as if these fighters are dying storming some murky hill or attacking deft battleships in an open ocean. They're dying like cattle; prodded and herded randomly around a bleak desert until the locals seize the chance to drop the axe with a random bomb. There's no effective way for us to avoid this type of battle. And they know it, and we know it.

Perhaps, though, the most disturbing aspect of all of it is what the American military has become. They've turned into nothing more than a large group of mercenaries to our brass. Those at the upper levels of government seem to think that we can just use them for whichever conflict is currently convenient. To hell with a cause. We can just make one up as we go along. They've turned into hollow bodies to be shuffled around between the gunfire in a pursuit that we can't really define.

Democrats aren't much better than Republicans. We send them to do a job and they fail consistently. We send a message, they receive it, and then proceed to get spanked by a lame-duck half-wit president with a 33% approval rating. Somewhere, somehow, Nixon is laughing hysterically and rubbing his evil callused hands together.

Maybe it's our fault. No…it is our fault. Sure we sent them, but did we send them. Did we tell them to get this done? And don't talk to us about anything else until you do. These Democratic leaders are disgusting. Harry Reid has the balls of six-year old. How does such a weak easily manipulated politician rise to such prominence? Only in the Democratic Party…

Back on topic. Men and women are dying. There is no longer time for talk. In reality, both sides of the what-the-fuck-do-we-do-with-this-disaster-we-created debate are correct. There's no good solution here. But we seem to be discussing possibilities, that could potentially happen, sometime in the future. It's the kind of debate and indecision you get when MBA's and academics run the Pentagon rather then Clint Eastwood's and Attila the Hun's. Everything's just a big game of meaningless chess and semantics for the military now.

Watch the new special on PBS (which is basically an unreal set of interviews with the geniuses that sculpted this dickless Michelangelo) and try not coming to that conclusion. It's like Heartbreak Ridge come to a horrifying fruition. The pencil-pushers have taken over the Pentagon, and they are led by a President who avoided the Vietnam War to spend a few summers doing blow and traded Sammy Sosa in his prime.

Ye Gods. We are doomed.

I wish Truman were still alive. He'd be a man who could get this rabid bull under control. And then he'd cut its head off with a large blade and his bare hands. The buck stopped with him. He'd shake off the cobwebs and ask this current Pentagon staff some rapid fire questions that would need immediate responses. Did you try bombing the shit out of them? Yes sir. That didn't work? No sir. Have you invaded and killed many? Yes sir. And that didn't work? No sir. But Americans are dying and there's no actual threat to the American public nor any of our concrete interests? Not really, sir. Than what the fuck are we doing!

Get out. Time to pack up.

It's a dismal situation that we and this president have gotten ourselves into. To leave is a failure, and it may devolve into an even bigger failure. No doubt. But it's time to find out. There's no sense in just dying over possibilities, projections, and our pride. And it's a time the American public got its shit together. Stand firm in the face of political rhetoric. Demand that this needless death ends. Over 3500 of our people have died for nothing. Come to grips with that reality. Deal with it. But if there is one thing that these lives may have been lost for, it may be that we'll finally look at that large number and decide not to add anymore ghosts to it.