View Full Version : You're Going Where???
Last night I had the chance to speak with a young man who is in the National Guard. He is preparing to ship out to...Iraq. Considering all the press coverage of the pull out and the fact that it was the Iraqis who asked us to leave that news was a little surprising, but he said they were relieving a unit completing transitional duties. Makes at least some sense, right? Here's the kicker, once they are done with their job in Iraq they are heading to one of two places: Tajikistan (north of Pakistan & northeast of Afghanistan) or Turkmenistan (north of Afghanistan & northeast of Iran), most likely the former. Their deployment is open ended, but usually they have been limited to two years.
Sure, the US has bases all over the world and considering how volatile the Middle East is it makes sense that we would have a presence there if anywhere. It just caught me off guard to hear that we are building/re-building a presence in the T-stans. Guess we need to keep Iran as close to surrounded as possible...
Just as a disclaimer, this young man is at pay grade E4 so I really didn't figure he was privy to anything sensitive. A quick Google check yields plenty of information regarding our bases all around the Middle East and central Asia. I wasn't caught off guard because he revealed a secret, but simply because I haven't been paying enough attention to what's going on. Anyone else?
I sure haven't paid attention. I thought they were bringing everyone home and I wondered how many would be discharged from service and be without work adding to our high unemployment ranks.
Gosh.........I can't imagine the fear one might have heading in that direction. I just wish we'd spend our resources on guarding our own borders and making our own nation stronger in areas like education, health, etc.
Best of luck to that young man. I hope he comes home safely.
Gosh.........I can't imagine the fear one might have heading in that direction. I just wish we'd spend our resources on guarding our own borders and making our own nation stronger in areas like education, health, etc.
Best of luck to that young man. I hope he comes home safely.
+1
ApatheticNoMore
1-31-12, 12:46pm
Guarding our borders from what? Illegal immigrants? They pose no real threat. Ok they probably do depress the low wage market, which is unfortunate, but they pose no *real* threat, the cure (when it involves the law enforcement branches of the federal government) is often worse than the disease.
I never really thought the troops were coming home (too many wars!), but I didn't know the U.S. was involved in those two countries. At a certain point noone has enough time to pay attention to everything that is going on! It is why (among oh so many reasons) I really don't think democracry works in an empire. Our government is nominally supposed to represent us, right, but if the U.S. is involved in military operations in dozens of countries, we can't possibly be experts on all that. We might be experts on what goes on in our own lives, in our local communities, hey we may not even be too bad on things like whether federal taxes should be raised to pay for more unemployment insurance or whatever. We may even have opinions on bank bailouts though we are not economists. But it is as LEAST things we can relate to and SEE around us. It is part of our lives (even though we aren't all rich or poor or business owners or etc. etc.). At least it is things we have *SOME* exposure to. But all experts on Tajikistan? Give me a break. This is beyond ridiculous. And ok if that was the only country we had to study and become familiar with it would be one thing but .... it's every country potentially. Democracy has no right making empire decisions.
It would be so wonderful to convert these enlisted positions to a domestic serice corp, and rebuild our infrastructure. THAT I would be happy to pay for.
Our embassy in Iraq has a staff of 11,000 people. That is a small city! Now we want to fly drones over Iraq to protect embassy staff as they travel around the country. The Iraq people hate use for violating there sovereignty and killing them. Why don't we really get out.
By "protect our borders" I mean only deal with threats if they reach our borders. We could be more careful about who gets into the U.S., and I do have concerns over the drug cartel in Mexico.
We (the U.S.) think we have to stick our nose in everybody else's business and be the world protector. There are better ways to handle the U.S. and its citizens. And we could spend more time and money on creating alternative energies so we don't have to stick our noses in various places under the guise of freedom when we're just protecting our oil interests.
We (the U.S.) think we have to stick our nose in everybody else's business and be the world protector. There are better ways to handle the U.S. and its citizens. And we could spend more time and money on creating alternative energies so we don't have to stick our noses in various places under the guise of freedom when we're just protecting our oil interests.
I do think there are semi-rational justifications for most of our actions rather than just butting in to the affairs of other countries. In the Middle East there doesn't seem to be any real debate that oil is the reason for our presence. The powers that be are acutely aware of what a significant supply disruption and the resulting price shock could do the the US economy. When you boil it down, having our troops there amounts to not much more than an insurance policy to that end. JH Kunstler and crew probably are a little far out there when it comes to oil shock ramifications, but OTOH most Americans are pretty clueless regarding what could easily happen with even a relatively small event (think Iran closing the Straight of Hormuz for a couple months). That lack of awareness makes it pretty easy to believe that costs will only increase a little and life will only be a little less convenient if oil becomes harder to get. That same thinking leads to the conclusion that we should simply pull every US citizen out of the Middle East and deal with the consequences. As with most things global it just isn't that simple.
Turkmenistan shares a long border with Iran and another with Afghanistan. Afghanistan is important because it shares a long borders with Iran and Pakistan. Pakistan is important because of its border with Iran, because it has nuclear capability and because it has a significant Shia population (along with Iran and Iraq). Crossing Turkmenistan is also the most direct route to get Iranian oil to Russia. There are a lot of reasons for the US to keep a close eye on what happens there.
Tajikistan seems to be more of a listening post. Its small and high and rocky and there just isn't much there. It does border northern Afghanistan and the Chitral District of Pakistan. By all reports its a pretty remote place and not all that strategic, but they were apparently eager to get their main airport fixed up so we worked a deal.
ApatheticNoMore
1-31-12, 4:25pm
That lack of awareness makes it pretty easy to believe that costs will only increase a little and life will only be a little less convenient if oil becomes harder to get. That same thinking leads to the conclusion that we should simply pull every US citizen out of the Middle East and deal with the consequences. As with most things global it just isn't that simple.
It's rational perhaps but not moral. And so mothers lose their sons in the oil wars, and you have Cindy Sheehan. Who can blame her? The young men and their parents don't necessarily know it's an oil war they are really signing up for. And so the middle east sees their families and friends blown to bits for the oil wars, and a few of them become terrorists. At some level who can even blame them? So if Iran develops the bomb in self-defense who can even blame that (that too would be rational!). Afterall there are oil theives roaming the world demanding claim to decimate your country based on their military superiority alone and their self serving interest in your oil. Although I don't think the evidence is strong Iran is developing nuclear weapons (that is mostly propaganda), just that if they did it would be rational.
And meanwhile hardly a finger is even lifted to conserve energy or develop alternatives, to even appear like the U.S. wants other alternatives to the oil wars ..... (why do they hate us again?)
Gosh.........I can't imagine the fear one might have heading in that direction. I just wish we'd spend our resources on guarding our own borders and making our own nation stronger in areas like education, health, etc.
Best of luck to that young man. I hope he comes home safely.
Most people who voluntarily join the service aren't afraid to be headed into a remote country or hostile environment but look forward to it. It's often the very reason they join in the first place - "it's more than a job, it's an adventure" - and see it as not only a way to serve their country, but a way to do unusual and interesting work, travel the world and get paid for it. I personally don't know of anyone who ever joined the service who wanted to stay "safe" at home.
Maxamillion
2-1-12, 1:02am
And meanwhile hardly a finger is even lifted to conserve energy or develop alternatives, to even appear like the U.S. wants other alternatives to the oil wars .....
The oil companies wouldn't make money then.
The oil companies wouldn't make money then.
Actually most of the R&D investment into alternative energy is done by big oil. No one knows better that oil is a finite resource. Conservation is an entirely different matter and is basically the responsibility of everyone EXCEPT big oil. They merely provide a product, its up to the rest of us to find the best way to use it.
It would be so wonderful to convert these enlisted positions to a domestic serice corp, and rebuild our infrastructure. THAT I would be happy to pay for.
I always thought this would be a good idea too. It's what the Coast Guard does. It's one of the branches of the military (armed forces) and has the same military structure of the other services (same pay, ranking system, benefits, pensions, legal requirements, etc...) yet they do a "civilian" job most of the time. Search and rescue, maritime law enforcement, smuggling and contraban interdiction, environmental monitoring and clean-up, regulating the fishing industry, maintaining worldwide navigation and shipping lanes, vessel inspections, port security, etc..., etc... all while still maintaining military/war readiness and training - both within the CG and with other military forces. The National Guard also does alot of civilian work while maintaining their military readiness. Be nice if the other services found a way to combine the 2. Unfortunately it's often the civilian employees that suffers when the government/military takes over alot of the civilian jobs. For instance, years ago the Calif Prison System (which is huge) tried to institute programs that would have the inmates do all the jobs needed to be done in prison. Everything from building maintenance and repair, plumbing, electrical, food service, etc... would be done by prisoners rather than hired outside labor. The labor unions went crazy (and rightly so IMHO) and sued the prison system for taking away their jobs enmass and giving them to prisoners. The unions won and continued to retain their jobs, but it would have been devastating for the Calif economy - not to mention the millions of labor union employees - had that gone thru. So using military personnel to take over civilian jobs could be a touchy thing for alot of civilian employees.
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