Hopefully, the President will soon say to the cadets and others who serve: ??We need a 21sr century army that backs you up. We need an army of Americans and citizens from other nations that nation builds, as you have started to do. ?
Trapped without vocabulary, mindset, options
When problems arise in the world, our stale 20th century mentality generally turns to the military for answers. ??There's a crooked nail. Hammer it down. ? When problems arise at home, we turn to the National Guard. Both our military and Guard have recently been overburdened and in too many cases decimated. ??Our hammers and carpenters are breaking. ?
When our economy fell off a cliff decades ago, we turned to individual Americans under the umbrella of the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) and Workers Progress Administration (WPA) to pull the country back up. When New Orleans fell under a river of water, a mal-managed FEMA and private corporations were supposed to pull drowning Americans up. After the downfall, most Orleaneans felt Americans volunteering through non-profits were the most helpful.
Hopefully, the President will soon say, ??America and the world have a myriad of needs. Both need a jobs program.We are going to build one so that the needy at home and abroad, the volunteers, and the public and non-profit providers benefit. ?
Imagine the do-good strategic options the President would have if he had each year for the next generation an ever ready and serving army of one million American World Service Corps (AWSC) volunteers. Without an AWSC in his toolbox, the President lacks the essential tool with which to deal with American and world needs. Without the proposed robust AWSC, America has few options with which to learn, serve, and make friends in the world.
When 30,000 more troops enter Afghanistan, the hope is that they will not rain down missiles on the wrong villagers and thereby make 10-20 times more vengeful and hidden life-long enemies. If our troops peaceably pacify Afghanistan:
During the Iraq war, each military person was costing us over $600,000 per year. Today's warring estimates say that each of our Afghan troopers will cost $1 million per year. Who'da thunk it'd be cheap when, ??The Pentagon pays an average of $400 to put a gallon of fuel into a combat vehicle or aircraft in Afghanistan. ?
Yet the 911 terrorist criminals spent less than a hundred thousand dollars, financed by some Saudis, to break our economy. Our broken economy can't keep letting criminals, who hide in caves for a few thousand dollars a year, destroy our Middle Class, drain our treasury, and buy our companies by following Sun Tzu's art of fighting wars deceptively.
Imagine telling:
- World War II's rugged, fox holed GI Joes that we'd be paying middlemen private, non-American contractors like Halliburton and its subsidiaries to provide water, food, pizza parlors, cleaning, and gasoline to our troops at 10-20+ times the cost of having out troops do the same.- Privates earning $20-30,000 per year that they'd be guarding private mercenaries earning 5-10 times as much, who were trained by the same Master Sergeants.
- John Kennedy that today we want to trickle needy people up by having the International Monetary fund sign contracts for billions with mega corporations to do development projects, rather than send millions of Americans to do face-to-face, grassroots work with needy street and village people.
- Everett Dirksen that in just one week the previous administration lost $9 billion in Iraq, and our Senators and television news networks didn't even bother to investigate.
Hopefully, the President will soon say, ??For less than $40,000 per year, with no corruption pay-offs, Americans can work with other nations' Service Corps Volunteers to address our and the world's climate, poverty, health, and understanding needs.
2011 or Marathon
Recently, Rep. John Mica, (R-FL) criticized the President for announcing an 18 month Afghanistan timetable because: ??These guys wait centuries to get even. Eighteen months is nothing for them. ? Perhaps he is willing to embed our troops for as long as it takes, but our ignorant and wasteful use of money for wars ensures that our broken economy will soon crumble. What remains will not be the once glistening Camelot on the Hill. What remains will only have the capacity to meddle elsewhere if it is a nation filled with serfs.
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