Stupid Or Evil?

This pencil necked character in the White House is making me crazy, I'm afraid of getting as crazy as those who suffered from Bush Derangement Syndrome. It starts with my deafness. I do not listen to the speeches so I tend to miss the uplifted chin and the metronomic swing from one teleprompter to the other. Instead I read the words, words that simply make no sense.

If you like the insurance you have you can keep it. If you like the doctor you have you can keep her. Except, of course, that with all the added people, plus the inability to turn anyone down or to raise rates, no insurance company will be able to keep offering health insurance. Oh, and there is the little problem of many doctors just retiring as will my Neurologist. He's in his fifties, he's made a few bucks, invested it in ways that the Washington vultures have not manage to ruin, why put up with it? Why not spend time with his grandkids?

Now my Neuro Doc is hardly alone. Now I don't ask everyone but both my Neuro and my Cardio Doc plan on retiring if Obama Care passes. And that means the nurses, nurses aids, receptionists and a few lab people will be out of a job. Meanwhile, no one says that our system can't use a little work, but two thousand page bills? How many pages would it take to write a bill saying that everyone below an particular income level gets all of his or her insurance paid for? Everyone making a bit more gets ninety percent, etc through people getting just a little help? Oh and pre-existing? Go into the pool.

Or Afghanistan. A real good way to lose a lot of soldiers is to have almost as many as are needed. Hitler discovered that in Russia. The Soviet Union found that out in Afghanistan. I fear we are going to find the same thing.

The bad guys have discovered that they cannot really fight us. So they don't. Instead they put explosives everywhere. Of course, the bad guys don't have to fight us now. They know we are going to trickle three quarters of the men that MacChrystal asked for and then bring them back in 18 months. Well, bring back the survivors, anyhow.

I don't know much of anything about this fight, my fight was four decades ago. I know a lot has changed but one that that hasn't changed much is that if thirty thousand more troops are going, only a small percentage of them will be Infantry, actually fighting the bad guys. Well, there will also be artillery and some of the rotorheads will be fighting, too. Far more will be pushing paper or turning wrenches back at the bases. Not that these folks are unimportant, a helo or track needs maintenance, and lots of it. Someone actually has to look at the requests for supplies, more have to pull it out of the supply room and put it on the birds going to the men out in the boonies, etc. In my day it was about ten men doing "stuff" for every Infantryman in the bush.

In my war we had up to a half million men in country and rifle squads were going out in the bush with five or seven men. Rifle Companies were at just over half strength and still expected to do the same job. Is this still happening? For all I know, it's worse. In my day if things got too bad we could pull a few guys out of the motor pool or supply. I'm curious about what percentage of the guys, I think they call 'em Fobbits now, can actually move about with the loads our Infantry carries. Can you imagine a skinny little kid from a brokedown Texas farm like Audie Murphy being in today's Infantry? Much less being the most decorated soldier from this new war?

But, I digress. Again. My point, and I do have one, is that we aren't sending enough of the troops that MacChrystal asked for. And MacC is, like a good soldier, simply saluting and trying, like the Generals did in my war. Remember how that turned out? Lord, I wish we had Generals who, when asked for a strategy would resign if they did not get the resources they need.

Trouble is, in the back of my mind there is a nagging fear that this is all on purpose. Can the Administration be trying to kill off or make the really topnotch troops quit? The Army and Marine Corps we have today would refuse, and properly so, orders to go into American cities and subdue a population refusing to be government slaves. Thugs like those fat boys doing what they thought were military drills for Obama would run from a squad of Marines. But, suppose, suppose that the Marines and Infantry are killed or quit in disgust. Suppose those New Black Panther thugs from Philly had, instead of nightsticks, the body armor and weapons of a Marine Rifleman?

I know this is pure paranoia. No Presidential Administration would ever purposely lose a war and destroy the military while, at the same time, wrecking the economy. It's pure paranoia, right? Right?