Category Archives: Foreign Policy

April 16, 2018 · 00:01

Mission Accomplished? Trump Evokes Memories Of Defeat and Shame

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

The Prussian military theorist Carl von Clausewitz wrote:

“No one starts a war–or rather, no one in his sense ought to do so–without first being clear in his mind what he intends to achieve by the war and how he intends to conduct it.” 

Friday night President Trump unleashed United States Navy and Air Force assets in a coordinated strike against alleged Syrian chemical weapon sites in Damascus and at an air base outside of Homs. A total of about 110 weapons were fired from U.S. and French Navy ships in the Mediterranean Sea, and from USAF, Royal Air Force, and French Air Force aircraft at these targets. It was the second time he conducted an isolated strike against the Syrians for using poison gas. In each case he seemed visibly upset about the pictures of the dead children, but cannot seem to understand that Assad does such things every day even when his forces don’t use chemical weapons, and that his lack of coherence on Syria is only helping Assad.

As the strikes proceeded the President announced his decision and reasoning for the attack. Honestly in his speech Mr. Trump said all the right things, but the well telegraphed actions gave time for the Syrians with probable Russian assistance move key components of their program out of the areas stuck by the military. They were also disconnected from any coherent military and diplomatic strategy for success which is a recipe for failure. If the President bothered to study history, especially the military history of the United States since the Second World War he would understand this, but he doesn’t.

The unfortunate thing was that his previous words pressing the military for a withdrawal from Syria had set the stage for the Syrians to launch their deadly gas attacks. The fact is that President, in thought, word, and deed has not cared enough about what happens in Syria or what Bashar Assad does when it doesn’t involve chemical weapons; nor what happens to the people who fought alongside us after we leave.

The President’s policy of stopping Syrian refugees, be they Muslim or Christian from finding refuge in the United States shows his callous heart. Not only did he prevent them from coming; he demonized them and urged other nations to reject them. It was a shameless reprise of the 1930s and 1940s America First movement that shut out the Jews and defended the Nazis.

His only consideration was the defeat of ISIS which from the time of President Obama the U.S. Military was doing. Unfortunately the decision to withdraw not only has emboldened Assad, but will help Iran, Russia, and yes even ISIS, which once free of U.S. Military pressure will rebuild and rebound from defeat just as Al Qaeda Iraq, its predecessor did in 2011.

Likewise the President began openly telegraphing his intentions days before the attack which gave plenty of warning and time for the Assad regime to work with the Russians to move anything of real importance away from the targeted sites. To add insult to injury the French Foreign Minister admitted that the Russians had been warned and given details of what was to be attacked and the American Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff talked about how we had worked to “de-conflict” in regard to battle space and air space to ensure that Russian units were not hit.

In terms of military effects the Pentagon described the attack as a “one off” and admitted that despite supposedly setting back the Syrian chemical weapons program by years that the Syrians still had the capacity to use them. While U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said that the United States is “locked and loaded” to resume strikes the language of the White House is somewhat ambiguous and equivocal. In Syria Assad’s supporters were overjoyed by the lack of force and American allies and opponents of Assad saw their hopes crushed. In Moscow pro-Putin demonstrators burned effigies of President Trump who on Saturday morning proclaimed “Mission Accomplished!!” on Twitter as he praised the actions of the military forces involved.

I’ve been in the military since 1981 and I am still serving, and I think that mission for mission we do our job very well, but our successes are tactical and not strategic. A “one off” missile strike is not a strategy for success. It may have been executed perfectly, but a multitude of tactical successes in absence of a clear strategy for victory and for what happens after it are meaningless in a strategic sense. The sacrifices for soldiers and national treasure for no reason other than to create a distraction from domestic problems is immoral, unethical, and under U.S. and international law illegal.

Meanwhile official Russian Troll and Bot propaganda activity on social media has increased by some 2000% since Friday. Many of those posts and tweets are being shared and spread by Trump supporters as well as insane leftist whose hatred of the United States and the West ensures that they cannot differentiate between truth and fiction. That is dangerous and it gives the Russians an upper hand because Putin’s intelligence services have succeeded in dividing Americans and the West far more effectively than the Soviets in the Cold War.

I believe that the manner in which the President launched the strike, the contradictory messages that the President sends in his tweets, the lack of coherent policy and strategy goals, and the failure to consult makes the decision to strike unwise and illegal and were more a product of his unformed mind and desire for self-preservation at all costs. When I think about these strikes and what might happen in the coming months as political pressure mounts I think of the words of the British military historian B.H. Liddell-Hart:

“I used to think that the causes of war were predominantly economic. I came to think that they were more psychological. I am now coming to think that they are decisively “personal,” arising from the defects and ambitions of those who have the power to influence the currents of nations.”

Don’t get me wrong, I despise Assad and his regime and believe that Assad deserves far worse that Gaddafi or Saddam ever got, he is as the President noted an “animal.” But these strikes in the absence of a comprehensive strategy do nothing to remove him, weaken his power, or help those people he and his Russian, Iranian, or Hezbollah allies oppress and terrorize; especially when the President advertises that the United States has no desire to remain in Syria, even to protect the people that the U.S. Military has shed blood to save. The President’s policy and actions bring dishonor to a nation founded on the principle that “all men are created equal.” I strongly believe that this attack was a result of the President’s personal moral defects as his policies do not seem to be linked to any coherent strategy.

Simply doing one off strikes do nothing to redeem him or his policies; his ignorance of history and national security policy should concern and disturb even his most devoted supporters. Unless he decides to couple military power with a coherent approach to overall national security and foreign policy rooted in American values, respect for law, and human rights then regardless of how long he serves as President he will be remembered as a disingenuous fraud who used a foreign crisis to divert attention from his own crimes. Even Hitler didn’t do that.

The situation remains terribly dangerous and no the mission, whatever it is, was not accomplished unless it was to divert attention from his present political problems. If so that lasted about twenty minutes if that. When I watch him and read the President’s tweets I can only think of Lord Balfour’s words about one of his opponents in the House of Lords “If he had a little more brains he would be a half-wit.”

So until tomorrow,

Peace,

Padre Steve+

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April 6, 2018 · 00:02

Look for the Liberal Label: My Journey to the Left

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

A couple of days ago I received a comment on my Political Commentary tab from an old baseball player who played with the Detroit Tigers in the 1960s. He made some comments that I took to heart as he noted some of the apparent contradictions in my actions, words, and beliefs over the years. He said that I was about as “liberal” as Ricard Nixon. Sadly what he commented on had not been updated since 2009 so I was still in the initial stages of my transformation from being a lifelong Republican to a progressive (liberal) realist in Wonderland.

I am definitely a liberal or progressive now, though I think that I am pretty moderate all things considered, and no I don’t think that my views are particularly Nixonian, though when it comes to foreign policy dealing with the Soviet Union and china he was pretty sharp, his record in Vietnam was quite the opposite.

However my views are probably more like Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, or John F. Kennedy. Of course saying that means that I will certainly contradict myself at times and that is part of life. That being said that while I was a Republican for 32 years of my life (1976-2008) I have been on an ever more progressive trajectory since 2008 and somewhere along the path from conservatism, to moderation, to progressivism I got labeled.

I got labeled with the “L” Word. no, not the Lesbian one, the other less socially acceptable one, the Liberal label…and to tell the truth though I consider myself a moderate in terms of my progressiveness I actually fall on the Liberal side of most parts of the political and religious spectrum; both in domestic and foreign policy.

It actually surprised me when I figured out that I had become a liberal. To tell the truth I don’t know how it happened. I cheered the demise of Jimmy Carter, Walter Mondale, Mike Dukakis and even Al Gore. I listened to Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity as much as I could. During his first term and early in his second I was defending “W” against what I thought were unfair assaults from the left.

But a funny thing happened between 2004 and now. It was a place called Iraq, where I began to question the unquestionable questions of conservative orthodoxy in a number of forums. I became a moderate and a passionate one at that, although truthfully I am probably better described as one of those nasty liberals.

I think being a moderate or a liberal, for those who really are moderates or liberals, is really a tricky thing. Back when I was in seminary during the pre-Fundamentalist takeover of Southwestern Baptist Seminary I remember hearing a big name Fundamentalist preacher say that “middle of the road moderates were only good to be run over.”  One of my professors who would be a casualty of the takeover of the seminary said that for many in the Southern Baptist Convention of the time that “Liberal means anyone to the left of me.”

Now I do have to confess, unlike a lot of people when they get older and become more conservative I have become more “liberal” in the way I do life. I am more accepting of people different than me. The late great manager of the Baltimore Orioles, Earl Weaver noted: “It’s what you learn after you know it all that counts.” That is a fact.

Because of that I am more willing to accept things that back in the days when I knew everything that I would attack without exception. When I worked up the guts to openly state that I questioned political conservative orthodoxy almost eight years ago I got thrown out of the church that I was first ordained as a priest.  That was less about matters of actual Christian doctrine than political orthodoxy masked in religious language. But despite that experience I still believed that I was somewhere in the middle of the political spectrum but I was obviously wrong. In fact today what I considered based on my more traditional Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy beliefs was no longer moderate but radically liberal and progressive, especially on social and economic issues.

So let me without equivocation in this age of Trump state:

I think that racism is still alive and well and that Jim Crow lives, thus the job of the Civil Rights movement is not done. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “dream” has not been fulfilled and it is in danger.

I think that gays and lesbians should have the same right to marriage and civil rights that heterosexuals have and that those constitutional rights should not be abridged based on the religious beliefs of their opponents.

I think that the bankers and the Wall Street people who practically destroyed the economy back in late 2008 should be in jail and I think that neither Congress, the Obama administration, and especially the Trump administration have done or will do enough to prevent the next economic implosion.

I think that multinational corporations that enjoy the benefits of all this country offers and that the taxpayers provide should pay their fair share of taxes instead of being allowed to make their money here and shelter it offshore. Sadly, because of the Trump tax reforms they will be able to do more of this.

I think that the environment matters and that we should do all that we can to protect it. Unfortunately the Trump administration, the GOP dominated congress, and their Evangelical Christian sycophants are doing their damnedest to promote the destruction of the environment.

I believe that the poor, minorities, the elderly and others with no power need the help and protection of the government from predatory businesses, banks and others that would seek to impoverish them even more.

I think that there is a place for strong organized labor to protect the rights of people who either produce the goods or provide the services that make others rich and this nation prosperous.

I think that the leaders of the Bush administration who took us to war in Iraq are war criminals and would have hung at Nuremberg if Justice Robert Jackson had had them in the dock. Likewise I think that the opposition of the GOP and the Trump administration to the International Criminal Court (ICC), other international organizations, and to our partners and allies around the world and cooperation with dictatorships and authoritarian regimes beginning with Putin’s Russia is damnable.

 

I think that Fox News lies when it calls itself “fair and balanced” and that much of what it airs is nothing more than political propaganda designed to help its political allies and keep people riled up against that black man in the White House.

I think that the crass social Darwinism of the followers of Ayn Rand is evil, needs to be called what it is  and condemned by those who call themselves Christians.

Likewise, speaking of Christians I think that many American Christians have sold their faith to political hacks that call themselves pastors or religious leaders while pocketing the money of their followers laughing all the way to the bank. This is especially true of their relationship to President Trump.

Finally as a Christian I don’t think that the United States was founded as a Christian nation, and in that I am backed by the Founders and their Christian allies like Virginia Baptist leader John Leland. I think that we as a society have a responsibility to care for the least, the lost and the lonely.

So while I am moderate in the way that I do life, I am certainly a liberal, a progressive, and a realist.  I am okay with people that disagree with me because it is a free country but that being said I won’t be bullied.

So where did I go left?

Peace

Padre Steve+

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March 21, 2018 · 07:00

“My Oath did not Expire When I took off the Uniform” Ralph Peters Resigns from Fox News

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Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

I have called Fox News and many of its hosts a propaganda network for some time. At one time, back in the late 1990s and up until I went to Iraq in July of 2007 I watched Fox nearly nonstop along with my daily diet of Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity on the radio. It took a number of years of their listening incessantly to their propaganda before I became revulsed by it while serving in Iraq.

Sitting in a dining facility late one evening after coming back from an intensive mission I saw some Fox News talking heads discussing the war on a television. What they were discussing was pure propaganda and had no relationship to what was going on in that country. At that point I made up my mind that what I had tried to believe was true was all lies; lies spun by the Bush administration and aided by the supposedly “Fair and Balanced” team at Fox News. When I returned home in 2008 every time I heard a Fox pundit or saw them on the news I became very angry. To this day I cannot watch them and when I see the lies and propaganda that they spread today I can only compare many of their hosts to the propagandists of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, except neither the Nazis or the Soviets claimed to be ‘fair and balanced.”

Yesterday I was pleasantly surprised to find out that retired Army Lieutenant Colonel Ralph Peters quit his post as a commentator for Fox. I met him in 1999 not long after I had transferred from the Army to the Navy and was serving at Camp LeJeuene with the Second Marine Division. Peters was doing a book tour for his first non-fiction title Fighting for the Future, and I got to meet and talk to him at the bookstore in the Main Exchange. He had enlisted in the Army five years before me and was commissioned three years before me. Both of us had served tours in Germany. He was an Intelligence officer with a specialization on the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. I was a history major who in the wisdom of the Army assignment gods had been branched as a Medical Service Corps officer. Peters retired in 1998 as I was preparing to leave the Army for the Navy.

He certainly, like many military officers is very conservative but at the same time a realist. While initially supporting the war in Iraq he would become a critic by 2006 and in 2009 recommend pulling out of Afghanistan. He recently stated that assault weapons should be banned, something that is anathema to Fox and most of its loyal viewers.

Peters thought that President Obama was too soft on Putin and Russia, and despite being a big supporter of President Obama I had to agree with him. I think that while President Obama was in a no-win situation had he confronted and opposed Putin in 2016, he could have done more in 2015, and despite being in a no-win situation politically in 2016 that he should have hammered Putin and exposed the Russian attempts to undermine the country and elect Trump in 2016. His actions were too little and too late.

In his resignation from Fox, Peters showed something that is seldom seen in the media. He demonstrated courage and honor over personal gain. He had a good following on Fox and certainly could have stayed at the network and continued to make good money. But he finally hit the point with them that I hit in 2007, his honor and his commitment to his office would not allow him to stay.

His resignation latter was published by Buzzfeed on Tuesday. It is one of the most remarkable resignation letters I have ever read. It was an indictment of Fox and many of its hosts and commentators as pure propagandists “for a destructive and ethically ruinous administration.” I heartily agree with him. I have posted his letter in its entirety below.

On March 1st, I informed Fox that I would not renew my contract. The purpose of this message to all of you is twofold:

First, I must thank each of you for the cooperation and support you’ve shown me over the years. Those working off-camera, the bookers and producers, don’t often get the recognition you deserve, but I want you to know that I have always appreciated the challenges you face and the skill with which you master them.

Second, I feel compelled to explain why I have to leave. Four decades ago, I took an oath as a newly commissioned officer. I swore to “support and defend the Constitution,” and that oath did not expire when I took off my uniform. Today, I feel that Fox News is assaulting our constitutional order and the rule of law, while fostering corrosive and unjustified paranoia among viewers. Over my decade with Fox, I long was proud of the association. Now I am ashamed.

In my view, Fox has degenerated from providing a legitimate and much-needed outlet for conservative voices to a mere propaganda machine for a destructive and ethically ruinous administration. When prime-time hosts–who have never served our country in any capacity–dismiss facts and empirical reality to launch profoundly dishonest assaults on the FBI, the Justice Department, the courts, the intelligence community (in which I served) and, not least, a model public servant and genuine war hero such as Robert Mueller–all the while scaremongering with lurid warnings of “deep-state” machinations– I cannot be part of the same organization, even at a remove. To me, Fox News is now wittingly harming our system of government for profit.

As a Russia analyst for many years, it also has appalled me that hosts who made their reputations as super-patriots and who, justifiably, savaged President Obama for his duplicitous folly with Putin, now advance Putin’s agenda by making light of Russian penetration of our elections and the Trump campaign. Despite increasingly pathetic denials, it turns out that the “nothing-burger” has been covered with Russian dressing all along. And by the way: As an intelligence professional, I can tell you that the Steele dossier rings true–that’s how the Russians do things.. The result is that we have an American president who is terrified of his counterpart in Moscow.

I do not apply the above criticisms in full to Fox Business, where numerous hosts retain a respect for facts and maintain a measure of integrity (nor is every host at Fox News a propaganda mouthpiece–some have shown courage). I have enjoyed and valued my relationship with Fox Business, and I will miss a number of hosts and staff members. You’re the grown-ups.

Also, I deeply respect the hard-news reporters at Fox, who continue to do their best as talented professionals in a poisoned environment. These are some of the best men and women in the business..

So, to all of you: Thanks, and, as our president’s favorite world leader would say, “Das vidanya.”

The various oaths that I have sworn to the Constitution, first as an enlisted man and then as a Commissioned Officer in the Army, the Army National Guard, the Army Reserve, and the Navy are foundational to my life. I have served under six Presidents. I have agreed and disagreed with the various policies and positions of the first five, but never did I think that any of them were truly a threat to the Constitution and the foundation of the country as I believe that President Trump and his administration are such a threat.

It is my adherence to the Constitution; the radical proposition of the Declaration of Independence that “all men are created equal and endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” I could add the Gettysburg Address in which Abraham Lincoln gave new life to the propositions of the Declaration and the preamble of the Constitution. Now is the time for every American to be as recommit themselves to those ideals or lose them forever.

The President and his propagandists at Fox News are not patriots. One can place a thousand flags behind them or adorn the lapels of their suit jackets with American flag pins, but that does not mean that they are patriots. Patriots stand for those principles, and the Constitution; all of it, not just the parts that they agree with while working to undermine the protections of the Constitution to those who they may hate or disapprove.

In his book On Tyranny Dr Timothy Snyder wrote:

“The president is a nationalist, which is not at all the same thing as a patriot. A nationalist encourages us to be our worst, and then tells us that we are the best. A nationalist, “although endlessly brooding on power, victory, defeat, revenge,” wrote Orwell, tends to be “uninterested in what happens in the real world.” Nationalism is relativist, since the only truth is the resentment we feel when we contemplate others. As the novelist Danilo Kiš put it, nationalism “has no universal values, aesthetic or ethical.” A patriot, by contrast, wants the nation to live up to its ideals, which means asking us to be our best selves. A patriot must be concerned with the real world, which is the only place where his country can be loved and sustained. A patriot has universal values, standards by which he judges his nation, always wishing it well—and wishing that it would do better.” 

Ralph Peters is a patriot whether you agree or disagree with him on various issues. He did the right thing for the right reason. Some may think that it took him too long to do so, but just how many others in the Fox News and Right Wing media vortex or the Republican Party have stated the truth as Lieutenant Colonel Peters did? Even those who publicly disagree with the President, with nothing to lose, often equivocate and show that they are cowards when after they say that they will stand against him, simply slink away until the next time.

So until the next time,

Peace

Padre Steve+

 

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March 21, 2018 · 00:03

Iraq at 15 Years: A Warning of Lieutenant General Hal Moore

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Friends of Padre Steve’s World

My computer at work has been in the process of being remotely updated to Windows 10 for the past five days and even though I have been busy at work I have had some time to reflect on the beginning of the Iraq War on March 19th 2003. Like many in the military I was for it before I was against it. Yes you can call me a flip-flopper.

Even though I knew better at the time I had no problem being confrontational towards the courageous men and women, those in the minority who asked the hard questions about the Bush Administration’s justification for the war; which would soon be exposed as lies coated in distortions and wrapped in propaganda.

I knew people in the military who were against it and saw nothing good that would come from it. They were voices of reason, but despite my doubts I convinced myself that the President and the administration had to be right. Despite the evidence to the contrary I wanted to believe that the leaders of my country were right, even as the casualties rose and the failure of the war became apparent. It took going to war myself in 2007 in Al Anbar Province with the men who were serving as advisers to the Iraqi Army, Border troops, and police forces to make me realize how wrong that I was.

Despite the evil of Saddam Hussein and his thugs most Iraqis who I came to know were good people who had seen the United States destroy their country, set the stage for a brutal civil war and insurgency and were working with us because the alternative was worse and many still believed that United States would honor its word to help lift them out of what we had brought about. I left Iraq in 2008 hoping that the worst was over for my Iraqi friends but it wasn’t and I realized the truth of T. E. Lawrence’s words:

“We were fond together because of the sweep of open places, the taste of wide winds, the sunlight, and the hopes in which we worked. The morning freshness of the world-to-be intoxicated us. We were wrought up with ideas inexpressible and vaporous, but to be fought for. We lived many lives in those whirling campaigns, never sparing ourselves: yet when we achieved and the new world dawned, the old men came out again and took our victory to remake in the likeness of the former world they knew. Youth could win, but had not learned to keep, and was pitiably weak against age. We stammered that we had worked for a new heaven and a new earth, and they thanked us kindly and made their peace.”

It has been ten years since I left Iraq and I still feel an emptiness and try not to think about the war too much. I lost friends and comrades, and know too many others who wounded in body, broken in mind, and shattered in spirit have either ended their lives or struggled terribly as I have since leaving Iraq.

Lieutenant General (US Army Retired) Hal Moore, who commanded a battalion at the Battle of the Ia Drang, the first major battle between the U.S. Army and North Vietnamese regulars in 1965, and was immortalized in the film We Were Soldiers and book We Were Soldiers Once…and Young told West Point Cadets in 2005:

“The war in Iraq, I said, is not worth the life of even one American soldier. As for Secretary Rumsfeld, I told them, I never thought I would live long enough to see someone chosen to preside over the Pentagon who made Vietnam-era Defense Secretary Robert McNamara look good by comparison. The cadets sat in stunned silence; their professors were astonished. Some of these cadets would be leading young soldiers in combat in a matter of a few months. They deserved a straight answer.

The expensive lessons learned in Vietnam have been forgotten and a new generation of young American soldiers and Marines are paying the price today, following the orders of civilian political leaders as they are sworn to do. The soldiers and those who lead them will never fail to do their duty. They never have in our history. This is their burden. But there is another duty, another burden, that rests squarely on the shoulders of the American people. They should, by their vote, always choose a commander in chief who is wise, well read in history, thoughtful, and slow-exceedingly slow-to draw the sword and send young men and women out to fight and die for their country. We should not choose for so powerful an office someone who merely looks good on a television screen, speaks and thinks in sixty-second sound bites, and is adept at raising money for a campaign.

If we can’t get that part right then there will never be an end to the insanity that is war and the unending suffering that follows in war’s wake-and we must get it right if we are to survive and prosper as free Americans in this land a million Americans gave their lives to protect and defend.”

Needless to say, Moore, a West Point graduate was never asked back. He passed away in 2017 at the age of 94, just a few days before his 95th birthday.

I think that all of us could stand to heed General Moore’s words but I don’t think that we will.  In 2016 we elected a man as President who can’t even think and speak in sixty-second sound bites and who threatens nuclear war abroad. We elected a man that openly praises authoritarian dictators; and attempts like Saddam Hussein to silence, intimidate, and destroy opponents at home while enriching himself and his family from the spoils of his political victory.

Sadly Americans are still dying in Iraq as Iraqis, divided by their tribes or variation of Islam, and played as pawns between the United States, Iran, and Turkey, suffer and struggle to rebuild their shattered country.

I will finish for now and I think unless something really more out of the ordinary than usual happens in regards to the travails of Trump, I will do some more writing and reflecting about my time in Iraq and my post war experiences and reflections.

Until tomorrow,

Peace

Padre Steve+

 

 

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December 3, 2017 · 23:59

Prepare for the Worst, Hope for the Best: Raising the Flag December 3rd 1775

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

There is a precept that I live by: “Prepare for the worst; expect the best; and take what comes.” That was once said by Hannah Arendt, but I take it as my own. I am not a fatalist, nor do I believe that God has predetermined what is going to happen in the future, except that he promises to “make all things new.”

December 3rd is a date that not to many people today remember for anything significant. But one event that happened on December 3rd 1775 is important to those who who follow American and Naval History. It was the day that Lieutenant John Paul Jones hoisted the Grand Union Flag, the precursor to the Stars and Stripes aboard the USS Alfred, the flagship of the new United States Navy. Some 242 years later the Stars and Stripes is still hoisted above United States Navy Ships. What happened on this date so long ago affected the course of history since then. Following his victory at Yorktown which was made possible by the timely intervention of the French Fleet, George Washington wrote to the Marquis de Lafayette:

“It follows than as certain as that night succeeds the day, that without a decisive naval force we can do nothing definitive, and with it, everything honorable and glorious.”

On October 13th 1775 the Continental Congress passed legislation to establish a Navy for a country that did not yet exist.  It was the first was the first in a long line of legislative actions taken by it and subsequent Congresses that helped define the future of American sea power.

The legislation was the beginning of a proud service that the intrepid founders of our nation could have ever imagined.  Less than two months after it was signed on December 3rd 1775 Lieutenant John Paul Jones raised the Grand Union Flag over the new fleet flagship the Alfred. The fleet set sail and raided the British colony at Nassau in the Bahamas capturing valuable cannon and other military stores.  It was the first amphibious operation ever conducted by the Navy and Marines.

Jones received the first recognition of the American flag shortly after France recognized the new United States.  In command of the Sloop of War USS Ranger his ship received a nine-gun salute from the French flagship at Quiberon Bay.

Jones would go on to to greater glory when he in command of the Bonhomme Richard defeated the HMS Serapis at the Battle of Flamborough Head. During the battle when all seemed lost and the colors had been shot away he replied to a British question if he had surrendered replied “I have not yet begun to fight!”

When the war ended very few of these ships remained most having been destroyed or captured during the war. But these few ships and the brave Sailors and Marines who manned them blazed a trail which generations of future sailors would build on.  The Navy has served the nation and the world as a “Global Force For Good” for more than 242 years.

That being said these are troubled times for the Navy. Sixteen years of war coupled with a major reduction in number of ships, mostly due to a decision to decommission more than 30 ships before they were due for replacement and the decision to shed 30,000 sailors to support the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, not to mention the loss of up to 30,000 sailors a month in non-Navy billets to support those wars has taken a toll on readiness and morale, not to mention ethical behavior. The results have been seen in the numerous accidents and incidents that have involved loss of life and major damage to ships over the past few years, as well as numerous scandals involving senior officer and enlisted leadership.

Please do not get me wrong, the Navy has many superb sailors, officers and leaders; I serve with some of them, but the rot has set in and it is becoming more and more obvious. I see it daily in what I read and with whom I talk. I was fortunate to serve aboard a ship with high standards and high morale after September 11th 2001. My commanding officer back then, Captain Rick Hoffman, now retired is frequently consulted when incidents involving ship handling and leadership come to the fore.

Despite the rhetoric of the President there has been no significant help regarding funding for operations, maintenance, and personnel, nor any let up in mission requirements. I hate to be the one who says it, but no organization can keep doing more with less for more than a decade without problems. The fact that the world situation requires more of a naval presence now than it did before 2001 does not seem to matter to Republican Congressmen who forced Sequester on the services in 2011 yet are willing to bust the budget by trillions of dollars to pay for tax cuts for the absolute wealthiest persons and corporations.

If worse comes to worse on the Korean Peninsula and if at the same time Iran or any other country decide to challenge the United States, things will go from bad to worse. We will lose ships and sailors for the first time since the Second World War and it will not be pretty. Sadly, I think that the President will blame the Navy (and the rest of the military) when the policies that he and his party have pursued lead to disaster.

These are dark times and I am a realist. I don’t live in the cloud cuckoo land of Trump supporters who think that things are going to turn out well. When I see the President and his top advisers and spokespeople continue to talk about the increasing chance of war on the Korean Peninsula I believe them. When I hear the President basically giving a blank check to the Saudis and the Israelis to do as they wish in the Middle East while basically appeasing the Russians and Chinese, I get worried. I lose sleep, and at the same time I prepare myself and those who I serve with to be prepared for the worst.

So with that in mind I wish you a good week.

Peace,

Padre Steve+

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November 27, 2017 · 23:59

“I Have No Idea What the Mission for General Westmoreland Was” Matthew Ridgway and the Questions We Need to Ask About Today’s Wars

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

Tonight is one of those nights where I want to write about a number of topics but cannot really figure out which one to do a deep dive into, so I will post a thought from David Halberstam’s great book The Best and the Brightest. In it Halberstam write of an encounter in the White House between General Matthew Ridgway and Vice President Hubert Humphrey in February 1968 when President Lyndon Johnson was distracted by a phone call. They had been discussing the situation in Vietnam during the Tet Offensive regarding whether to increase or limit further involvement in the war. Halberstam wrote:

Ridgway was sitting talking with Johnson and Vice-President Humphrey when the phone rang. When Johnson picked it up, Ridgway turned to Humphrey and said there was one thing about the war which puzzled him. “What’s that?” Humphrey asked. “I have never known what the mission for General Westmoreland was,” Ridgway said. “That’s a good question,” said Humphrey. “Ask the President.”

“I have never known what the mission for General Westmoreland was…” Think about that for a moment. Matthew Ridgway was one of the great field commanders and thinkers ever produced by the United States Army. He opposed escalating military involvement in Vietnam when John F. Kennedy was President. He understood that military action must be connected to a coherent strategy and that the mission has to be understandable not just to the military but to the public. It also has to have the chance to succeed. The policy makers have to understand what is happening on the ground, understanding the history and culture of where they are committing troops. The also have to speed out the ends of the mission, that is what the desired end state, the way they intend to accomplish it, and the means, the assets; military, diplomatic, and economic needed to accomplish the mission which in an ideal world would support the desired end state.

That didn’t happen in Vietnam and it hasn’t happened in some 16 plus years of war in Afghanistan, Iraq, Northern, Central, and Northeast Africa, not to mention Syria. Three administrations have failed the test of understanding what the mission was and what was needed to accomplish it. There appears to be no real idea how to fight these wars, and no appreciation of just how important that stable governments that have the trust of their people are even more important than all the troops we can put on the ground. We didn’t deal with that in Vietnam, and we haven’t done it in Afghanistan or Iraq. Instead we prop up unpopular and corrupt host governments and pretend that they represent what is going on in their country.

Now we have a President who is threatening other wars while a depleted military is still engaged fighting or supporting the efforts of various allies in the Middle East.

What is the mission? If we cannot answer that most basic question it matters not how many troops or how much of our national treasure we waste to accomplish goals for which we cannot describe the end state, remain committed to a coherent strategy to accomplish it, and yes provide the means to accomplish it. Playing whack a mole while insisting that we support the troops is not a strategy, it is not a plan, and it does not do anything but waste lives, prolong suffering, and weaken the nation to the point that when a real crisis comes that the government, the military, and the people will not be able to deal with it.

Honestly, it’s all basic stuff, but leaders have to be honest with themselves and the people. Presidents have to be looking out for more than what the polls say about them or how to please their base. That is something that we have struggled with for the past fifty years regardless of who was President or what party controlled Congress. We have had a great military which has done all that it has been asked to do, but the military is not the end of national power. Americans as a whole don’t understand or appreciate that fact.

We live in very dangerous times and someone has to start asking the hard questions, starting with “what is the mission?” If you cannot answer that coherently then nothing else matter because the military can win every battle and still lose the war.

So anyway, until tomorrow.

Peace

Padre Steve+

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October 6, 2017 · 06:30

“Calm Before the Storm… You’ll Find Out” The President’s Cryptic Message

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

Last night President Trump met with high ranking military officers at the White House. After the meeting where he pressed them, without being specific to his intent, pressed the leaders to be faster at providing him with “military options” when needed. He said: ““Moving forward, I also expect you to provide me with a broad range of military options, when needed, at a much faster pace. I know that government bureaucracy is slow, but I am depending on you to overcome the obstacles of bureaucracy.”

After the meeting at a photo op prior to dinner he quipped to reporters “You guys know what this represents?” Then remarked “Maybe it’s the calm before the storm.” When a report asked “What storm” the President said “you’ll find out.”

After all of the President’s saber rattling with North Korea and Iran I truly am afraid. Could it be more bluster? Yes, but I always go back to history and history shows that words like Trump’s often bring about war.

So until tomorrow,

Peace,

Padre Steve+

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September 20, 2017 · 19:33

A Thought from Afar about President Trump’s UN Speech

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

I am still in Munich, and apparently based on the German newspapers that I have seen over the past day or so, President Trump made a speech at the United Nations. A speech that when I read it was frightening and not because he was threatening to obliterate North Korea and threatened Iran. Except from being over the top on his comments about North Korea, much of the speech could have been written by the speech writers of about every U.S. President since Harry Truman. There were appeals to human rights and condemnations of totalitarian states, but there was a major difference that I noticed that basically negated all the norms boilerplate in the speech.

What I mean was the American President basically laid down a new, or let us say an old rule down for nations. He basically said look out for your own interests and only work with nations that agree with your point of view. Of course if you look at history the worst times have come when nations have done exactly than. His words were not the smart or intelligent words of a leader committed to the principles of American Presidents since Franklin Roosevelt, or even the Presidents who had been a part of the generation that brought forth the Declaration of Independence, or the Constitution. Instead they were the words of Manifest Destiny and a green light for nations to follow their own manifest destiny regardless of whether it is just or squares with the principles of generations of American Presidents, statesmen, and diplomats. They were nothing more than the American President telling the world that I am going to do what I want to do and if you are with me then fire, but if not, prepare to be destroyed, and his words basically gave every despot in the world, even those in North Korea and Iran to do what they feel is right.

That is what I took away from his speech. It was over the top and frightening in terms of his threats to North Korea and Iran, but it unsettled long term and stable allies, while empowering Russia and China to do what the want. By every measure of diplomacy and statesmanship the President’s speech at the United Nations was a disaster. Of course neither he or his most devoted supporters will see this, but it is true, one only has to look at his Chief of Staff, Lieutenant General John Kelly during the speech to see exactly what I am saying today.

Since it is late my time and I am fairly tired after a pretty good day in Munich I will save my musings on what I saw today in Munich until tomorrow.

So have a great day,

Peace,

Padre Steve+

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August 11, 2017 · 06:30

Nuclear Giants and Ethical Infants


Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

Just a short couple of thoughts today since I was hoping that yesterday would see a ratcheting down of the war rhetoric coming out of President Trump, some of his advisers, and the Kim Jong Un regime in North Korea. But that has not been the case. On the American side the President upped the ante with his rhetoric even as some cabinet members seem to be trying to moderate those comments. Of course the North Koreans are upping the ante by threatening the American bases on Guam. 

With every new threat uttered by President Trump and the North Korean regime the stakes get higher and the chances of miscalculation that lead to war grow. Barbara Tuchman wrote in her book The March of Folly, From Troy to Vietnam, “To those who think them selves strong, force always seems the easiest solution.” That sums up the behavior of President Trump and Kim Jong Un, although the Korean despot is the one who is putting the American President on the defensive, in a sense allowing President Trump to back himself into a corner where if he doesn’t resort to force he will lose face. Both sides are playing with fire while standing in gasoline. North Korea would certainly be defeated, but the cost will be dreadful, especially to South Korea, and probably Japan, and yes, even to the United States, and we cannot assume that other nations will not become involved in a war should it occur. 

Over a decade before the first atomic bomb was used, Marine Corps Major General Smedley Butler wrote about the cost of war: “What is the cost of war? what is the bill? This bill renders a horrible accounting. Newly placed gravestones. Mangled bodies. Shattered minds. Broken hearts and homes. Economic instability. Depression and all of its attendant miseries. Back -breaking taxation for generations and generations…” Those words have a greater significance in the nuclear age than when he wrote them. 

There have been many times in history where leaders of nations allowed their rhetoric to take them to war when other options we still viable, but not between nuclear armed powers. It is the incredible destructive power of nuclear weapons and the real possibility that their use would be not be limited to so-called surgical strikes. The destructive power of this technology and lack of impulse control of the American President and the North Korean dictator are a recipe for disaster. It is no wonder that over a half-century ago General of the Army Omar Bradley said: “Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war that we know about peace, more about killing that we know about living.” 

In writing about the 14th Century Tuchman wrote: “For belligerent purposes, the 14th century, like the 20th, commanded a technology more sophisticated than the mental and moral capacity that guided its use.” Things have changed very little in regard to the humanity involved and we can only hope that cooler heads prevail. 

Anyway, that is all for today.

Until tomorrow,

Peace

Padre Steve+

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August 9, 2017 · 13:59

“The Unfolding of Miscalculations” With Fire and Fury…


Friends of Padre Steve’s World

While I have been on leave I have been re-reading Barbara Tuchman’s classic work on the outbreak of the First World War, The Guns of August. I find a a fitting read for our time, not because there are exact parallels between that era and today, but because human beings are remarkably consistent in times of crisis. Tuchman wrote: “One constant among the elements of 1914—as of any era—was the disposition of everyone on all sides not to prepare for the harder alternative, not to act upon what they suspected to be true.”

Yesterday after I got back to our friends house after taking Izzy on a four mile walk through Huntington’s Ritter Park I learned that President Trump had warned North Korea, following an announcement that it had now produced nuclear weapons small enough to be mounted on a missile, that if it did not stop threatening the United States that it would be “met with fire and fury and frankly power, the likes of which this world has never seen before…” 

Not long afterward the North Koreans announced that they were examine a plan to attack the American territory of Guam and the bases, which house some of the long ranger bombers used by the United States to buttress its defense of the Pacific it with ballistic missiles. 

The rhetoric and preparations on both sides are continuing to mount and there is a real possibility that either Trump or his North Korean counterpart, Kim Jung Un could miscalculate the will of the other and provoke a regional, and maybe World War. Threats of preemptive strikes, which the North Koreans habitually make, and President Trump alluded to yesterday can easily cause on side or the other to want to strike first and precipitate a war that no-one can really win. As Kathy Gilsinin wrote in The Atlantic in April: “When two leaders each habitually bluster and exaggerate, there’s a higher likelihood of making a catastrophic mistake based on a bad guess.” 

Most Americans are clueless as to what that would mean and I don’t think that the understand how many millions of people would die, and how much the country would be devastated by such a war, especially if it involved nuclear weapons. Secretary of Defense James Mattis understands. He told CBS’s John Dickerson, “A conflict in North Korea would be probably the worst kind of fighting in most people’s lifetimes.” In June he told the House Appropriations Committee: “It will be a war more serious in terms of human suffering than anything we’ve seen since 1953… It would be a war that fundamentally we don’t want,” but “we would win at great cost.” 

Of course people from across the political, and even the religious spectrum are weighing in on the situation, especially the President’s words to meet future North Korean threats with “fire and fury like the world has never seen.” Of course some of his supporters like Trump’s de-facto Reichsbischof, Pastor Robert Jeffress are all in favor of war. Jeffrey’s said when asked about Trump’s remarks “God has given Trump authority to take out Kim Jong Un.” It is always comforting to know that prominent Christians like Jeffress and the other Court Evangelicals are the cheerleaders of any war party. 

Many others on both sides of the political divide including Senator John McCain, have pointed to the danger that the Presidents comments pose. McCain said:  “I don’t know what he’s saying and I’ve long ago given up trying to interpret what he says.” He added, “That kind of rhetoric, I’m not sure how it helps.” He observed, “I take exception to the president’s words because you got to be sure you can do what you say you’re going to do.”

In an interview the discredited Trump advisor, Sebastian Gorka, who has ties to Hungarian Fascist organizations, did what all good servants of totalitarian leaders do, paint the opposition as unpatriotic and disloyal to the country:

“It saddens me,” Gorka said. “We need to come together. And anybody, whether they’re a member of Congress, whether they’re a journalist, if you think that your party politics, your ideology, trumps the national security of America, that’s an indictment of you, and you need to look yourself in the mirror and ask yourself what’s more important: my political party or America. There’s only one correct answer.”

Of course the opponents of what the President said were not arguing against our national security but for it. The President’s words were dangerous, not because he drew a line in the sand, but because of the parameters of his threat. Instead of being specific and saying if the North Koreans conducted another nuclear test, tested another long range missile, or made a specific kind of military action, he threatened fire and fury if North Korea issued a threat to the United States, which they did a few hours later against the American forces on Guam, a threat that was not met with fire and fury. 


By threatening fire and fury the President continues to remind people that he is prone to speaking loudly and making great exaggerations, but doing little of substance. Throughout his business career and public life often makes bad “gut” decisions because he prefers to go with his gut rather than hard data or facts. His four corporate bankruptcies demonstrate that all too well. Likewise, his habitual tendencies to lie and exaggerate have already proven detrimental to U.S. foreign policy because world leaders do not believe that he can be trusted. 

Deterrence only works if people believe that a leader or country will do what it says. That was a hallmark of the Cold War, despite their threats both the leaders of the United States and the Soviet Union understood each other. That understanding was instrumental in defusing the threat of war during the Cuban Missile Crisis, and on a number of other occasions when computer or radar systems gave false alerts which could have resulted in missile launches and war had both sides not understood each other. 

The problem is that the Kim Jung Un and President Trump appear to be very similar in temperament. They bluster and exaggerate, they demand absolute loyalty, and they are paranoid and narcissistic. They are are not deep thinkers, their closest advisers tend to be sycophants who praise their greatness and refuse to give them bad news or present contrary views. History shows us that such tendencies does not bode well for peace. When I see them act out their drama I am reminded of Tuchman’s descriptions of Czar Nicholas II of Russia and Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany in the years leading up to World War I. Of Nicholas Tuchman wrote:

“The regime was ruled from the top by a sovereign who had but one idea of government—to preserve intact the absolute monarchy bequeathed to him by his father—and who, lacking the intellect, energy, or training for his job, fell back on personal favorites, whim, simple mulishness, and other devices of the empty-headed autocrat.”

Of Wilhelm she noted how he told 300 visitors at a State banquet in Berlin, that his uncle, English King Edward VII was: “He is Satan. You cannot imagine what a Satan he is!” As Tuchman wrote: “The Kaiser, possessor of the least inhibited tongue in Europe, had worked himself into a frenzy ending in another of those comments that had periodically over the past twenty years of his reign shattered the nerves of diplomats.” 

Character and temperament matter more than anything when nations teeter on the brink of war. Neither Trump, nor Kim Jung Un possess an ounce of character and their mercurial temperaments only add to the danger of war. On the American side we have to hope that some of the President’s more level headed advisers can reign him in, as far as the North Koreans, one doesn’t know what to hope for or expect. Tuchman wrote in her biography of General Joseph Stillwell that “History is the unfolding of miscalculations.” 

I only wonder what miscalculation will be next. 

Until tomorrow. 

Peace,

Padre Steve+


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