blog.McEagle.com

Once many moons ago, I took photographs of two French helicopters landing in a clearing near a rice paddy to re–supply and air–evacuate wounded North Vietnamese soldiers from a battle which was raging on the other side of a mountain valley just across a border. The helicopters were clearly being flown by Frenchmen; at least they were speaking French to the Vietnamese and to one another. That was circa–1967.

If my memory serves me correctly, it wasn’t too many years earlier that the United States stood by the French and supplied them in their fight against the North Vietnamese up to and through the truce which resulted in the repatriation of French fighters who otherwise would have been lost to POW camps at Dien Bien Phu.

Also, my same memory is the CIA played a major part in much of that action, albeit covertly, as well as much of what lead up to it on behalf of the French. I’m making a serious point here, because that specific agency along with some others, has taken some serious historical hits for past actions in a number of countries vis-à-vis hindsight.

I’ve also looked through the lens of my camera and taken photographs of American GIs who at times appeared to be collaborating with the enemy. Were they? I haven’t a clue. But if I’ve learned one thing over the years, it’s this — things are never what they seem. If you believe they are, then you are probably naïve and the Intelligence business shouldn’t be your first choice for work. Secondly; just because I saw Frenchmen flying a helicopter behind the lines in Vietnam, didn’t give me cause to write off the entire country of France and all of the people in it.

I get hundreds of web sites recommended to me on a weekly basis as places to go to for the ultimate truth. I check a lot of them out because I do search for the truth, even knowing full well how illusive it can be. Few carry it. Almost without exception, they are selling something that appears to be “truth” wrapped in a very fine veneer of mystical illusions, slightly twisted half truths, and of course encased in a lot of very well crafted omissions. It is their version of how they would like you to believe it actually happened, when it is not that way at all. “You don’t believe me,” they say, “then check the facts” – and they give you facts that are checkable, but which have no actual bearing on the issues they are selling you — the true reality, the reason why it happened in the first place, or the context behind the act.

What you will usually find is that explaining something in hindsight is far easier than explaining why something happened in reality. All the proceedings leading up to the event or the action, the very nexus for actions causation within space/time are sometimes so complex as to defy explanation. They are impossible to understand, even if you were standing there and observing them as they occurred. If you doubt that, then try explaining how you happened to fall in love with someone on first sight. It just happens. There is no explaining it.

Actions are sometimes a nexus of events that come together only one time in history, a complex issue of events that result in something happening, usually under extreme duress or pressure of events at the time which cannot be explained even when all the facts are known. You cannot go back and study them in hindsight and say this is why it occurred and this is who is at fault. Unless you were standing in the room, or taking part in the action, you have no business commenting, and even then making a judgment call is a complete impossibility.

So, how, then, can someone say the President made a mistake invading Iraq?

There are a number of things America has had in its favor in the view of the world court. In the past, America has occupied and maintained the “high ground.” America has tried to work well with its world neighbors, never taking major actions without first consulting with its major allies. America has typically had a good foreign policy. And lastly; America has never taken any action of war without first debating it across the aisle within the House and Senate, and reaching a consensus.

In the case of the invasion of Iraq; America gave up the higher moral ground by invading a nation for no good reason (or at least a shallow manufactured one). Yeah, yeah, I too heard all the arguments — and even saw some of the pictures — the Spetsnaz moved them at the last minute. They were all shipped into Syria or Iran. What the Spetsnaz moved into Syria were munitions for use by the insurgents. And if anyone believes for a second that there weren’t special teams swarming all over the locations that WMD materials would have been stored in the second they crossed the borders . . . well, you need lessons in military tactics. There were NONE. They — multiple agencies — looked hard, before, during, and after the invasion and none were ever found. End of story.

We did so (the invasion) without the consent of our allies. And I know many of you are thinking — what? The French, Germans? Give me a break. All they knew how to do was drag their feet. Well, that’s an interesting attitude to take since they were staunch allies for sixty years against the Communist hoards across the eastern borders. They let us park our tanks, planes, and people in their countries, cities, parks, and towns, drink their wine, beer, and trash their pubs, marry their women, and call them friends and buddies for quite some time against a common European enemy. But, they suddenly don’t agree with us when their intelligence tells them the same thing our intelligence is telling us and we dump them very dishonorably on their asses in a major public way. I sat in mud holes with a lot of those guys. I’ll watch your back, you watch mine. And suddenly we have an attitude and we don’t need their sage advice anymore. Give me a break.

We’ve basically had no foreign policy, or at least no explainable one, for eight years; and the war was never debated across the aisle. It was forced down the throat of the minority membership of both the House and the Senate, outraging 48% of the American people.

We are now entering WWIII and the Administration hasn’t seen fit to alert the American People. I understand this, as I’m sure a large portion of my neighbors do.

But all that is a past nexus. Who the hell knows who was in the room when all that went down, or who was actually making the decisions? Alas, we do have another nexus coming. There has been nothing but an atmosphere of fear raised by the Administration and absolutely no action taken to give a positive direction to the American people on what they can do to help either the country or themselves to prepare for what is coming. The American people are waiting for guidance and there has been none forthcoming, just more in the way of directives on what is being taken from them — bit by bit.

I will wait and see how the Administration explains the sudden shift in gasoline from $3 to $6 a gallon, or perhaps explain why we’ve made the direct attacks on Iran? And I think the American people are just about pushed to the limit on what they are willing to give up in the way of personal freedoms. The raw edge of the Constitution is becoming a bit frayed. Maybe it’s time to take a serious look at what’s been taken so far under the odor of fear.