Vietnam all over again? Obama sends "advisors" into Africa

 

According to a Wall Street Journal MarketWatch video (http://tinyurl.com/6yrjttx). the U.S. has about 100 "advisors" on the ground in Chad, Uganda, Democratic Republic of Congo, and South Sudan.

The "advisors" - in 12-person units - are to provide training and advice to armies in the host countries.

According to the WSJ's MarketWatch, the U.S. troops are to help the locals counter the Lord's Resistance Army.

The Lord's Resistance Army, LRA, is endorsed by Rush Limbaugh as a Christian army (http://tinyurl.com/3ksrclw).

“They are fighting the Muslims in Sudan. And Obama has sent troops, United States troops, to remove them from the battlefield, which means kill them. So that’s a new war, a hundred troops to wipe out Christians in Sudan, Uganda,” Limbaugh insists.

Reports from the area, however, suggest that these "Christian" soldiers are no more than terrorists.

According to the GlobalSecurity.org (http://tinyurl.com/8bvop), "The Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), led committed numerous abuses and atrocities, including the abduction, rape, maiming, and killing of civilians, including children. In addition to destabilizing northern Uganda from bases in Sudan, the LRA congregated in the Bunia area in eastern Congo. They linked up with the Army for the Liberation of Rwanda (ALIR) and other rebel groups that were battling with forces from the Rally for Congolese Democracy (RCD).

"The LRA sought to overthrow the Ugandan Government and inflicted brutal violence on the population in northern Uganda. LRA forces also targeted local government officials and employees. The LRA also targeted international humanitarian convoys and local NGO workers.

"The LRA abducted large numbers of civilians for training as guerrillas. Most victims were children and young adults. The LRA abducted young girls as sex and labor slaves. Other children, mainly girls, were reported to have been sold, traded, or given as gifts by the LRA to arms dealers in Sudan. While some later escaped or were rescued, the whereabouts of many children remain unknown."

The U.S. debacle in Vietnam, following on the heels of the French embarrassment, started off with Military Advisory Groups (MAGs) - U.S. military personnel assigned to advise the Vietnamese on how to combat the Communist effort to overthrow the U.S. backed government.

The questions that should be asked are

• "Why U.S. troops? Why not send in troops from the African Union?"
• Does anyone remember something called the Monroe Doctrine?

The African Union (AU) consists of 52 countries (list at end of entry). Even with the so-called "Arab spring," at least some of the member states could contribute troops and equipment to combat terrorist organizations regardless of their religious association.

To be fair, the question has to be asked: "Will a Moslem army treat non-Moslems civilly, humanely?"

If the U.S. must send in "advisors" let it send "advisors" into stable countries to train and advise those countries' troops. We cannot afford - in lives and in costs - to engage in another war.

What is going on in Africa is a disaster, but it is a disaster than should be ended by Africans, not Americans. If the U.S. must get involved, let it provide food and medical aid via a third party (and realize that a goodly portion of the U.S. aid will be diverted and more relabeled).

Food, yes.

Medicine, yes.

American presence, NO.

If European countries want to get militarily involved let them; after all, most of Africa was subject to European control at one time - Dutch, English, French, and German all had a presence - and the Europeans may bear some responsibility for the chaos in the continent.

Arab League members

Arab Republic of Egypt
Burkina Faso
Central African Republic
Democratic Republic of sao Tome and Principe
Democratic Republic of the Congo
Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia
Federal Republic of Nigeria
Gabonese Republic
Great Socialist People`s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya
Kingdom of Lesotho
Kingdom of Swaziland
People`s Democratic Republic of Algeria
Republic Arab Saharawi Democratic
Republic of Angola
Republic of Benin
Republic of Botswana
Republic of Burundi
Republic of Cameroon
Republic of Cape Verde
Republic of Cote d'Ivoire
Republic of Djibouti
Republic of Equatorial Guinea
Republic of Ghana
Republic of Guinea-Bissau
Republic of Kenya
Republic of Liberia
Republic of Madagascar
Republic of Malawi
Republic of Mali
Republic of Mauritania
Republic of Mauritius
Republic of Mozambique
Republic of Namibia
Republic of Niger
Republic of Rwanda
Republic of Senegal
Republic of Seychelles
Republic of Sierra Leone
Republic of South Africa
Republic of the Congo
Republic of the Gambia
Republic of The Sudan
Republic of Uganda
Republic of Zambia
Republic of Zimbabwe
Somali Republic
State of Eritrea
The Republic of Chad,
Togolese Republic
Tunisian Republic
Union of the Comoros
United Republic of Tanzania

Promises vs. political foolishness

 

Obama's adventure in Libya

   vs. Medicare coverage.

Bush's misadventure in Iraq

   vs. Social Security benefits.

Presidential peccadillo in Afghanistan

   vs. education and other social needs.

OK, my ox is being gored. I admit it.

Surely, go after Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden and his cohorts, but do we need to send in thousands of military personnel on the ground and more thousands to support attacks from the air?

In a word: No.

The Iraq war has been over for some time; Bush II declared it over, remember? Unlike Japan and Germany after the second of the world wars of the 20th century, the locals are more intent on killing each other than they are in rebuilding their county, to which I add: Let the US remove itself from their country so that can get on with killing one another.

As for Libya, what is the US' interest there? Libya contributes only 2 percent of our inflated oil needs. Countries go to war for a purpose, the US' attacks on Libya are based on pure altruism - we have no business involving ourselves in Libya's civil strife. Unlike Egypt - where we managed to avoid military interference - the (Libyan) army has proven to be on the dictator's side; that has to say something to even the greatest Gaddafi hater.

Despite our growing deficit - the US is owned by China, which may account for the US governments continuing to allow dangerous goods from that country to find sales here - the political powers-that-be of both parties continue to make the US the world's policeman.

In the meantime, seniors and others receiving "entitlement" (remember that word, "entitlement") benefits from the US treasury are being squeezed from both ends.

Social Security Cost-of-Living (COL) increases will be smaller and smaller and the eligibility age will climb to - what?

Medicare benefits will be more and more difficult to receive, taking life and death decisions farther from the patient's and doctor's hands and making life-or-death a politico-financial decision.

As an aside, how is it that my Medicare payment that is given over to AvMed, a Medicare Supplement provider, buys me so much more than it would if I let Medicare keep the money? And why are medicines so much less expensive in Canada than in the US? Or how can Target and Wal-Mart and some others charge $10 for a prescription that until those companies' plans came into effect cost much, much more for people on Medicare?

If, as some insist, countries go to war for gain, what did the US gain from its incursion into Iraq?

What has it gained by its adventure in Afghanistan? What benefit will Americans gain from taking sides in Libya's civil war?

Is Gaddafi another Saddam Hussein who tortured his opponents and gassed non-Sunnis by the hundreds? Another Hafiz al-Assad of Hama fame, or his son Bashar al-Assad who carries on his father's "traditions." Perhaps Sudan's Omar al-Bashir of Darfur fame, whom the UN blames for “murdering, exterminating, raping, torturing, and forcibly transferring large numbers of civilians, and pillaging their property.” Bashir’s military campaign has been accused of driving 2.7 million people from their homes since 2003." Or on the other side of the word, is Gaddafi another Kim Jong Il or his despot-in-training son, Kim Jong Un. Never mind comparing Gaddafi with the ayatollahs.

For a list of Parade magazine's pick of the "Worlds Worst Dictators" (of which Gaddafi is at the bottom of the Top 10), see http://www.parade.com/dictators/.

At the beginning of this tirade I asked "do we need to send in thousands of military personnel on the ground and more thousands to support attacks from the air" to eliminate Bin Laden?

No, no, and no again.

What the US should have done - and perhaps should be doing - is sending in a relative few well-trained people to assassinate Bin Laden and his top associates. Navy Seals perhaps? Problem is, finding an American who can infiltrate Bin Laden's inner circle is more than a little difficult; perhaps "renting" an assassin is in order.

Apparently someone in Washington had the same idea; in the May 2nd blog entry, Bin Laden is reportedly killed by a team of Navy SEALs; see http://tinyurl.com/3tsyhmd.

I cannot see the US getting involved in internal conflicts such as Egypt or Libya or Iraq or the Balkans. Iran, because it threatens the world, yes. North Korea the same answer for the same reason. But Saudia or Syria?

It does nothing for the US and after things settle down, the US is hated no matter which side prevails.

And my ox lies bleeding, dying for presidential misadventures.

Why Gadaffi?

 

The U.S. and the tired old ladies of Europe are supporting the overthrow of Libya's government.

In fact, they actively are supporting the rebels.

If Communism was still America's bug-a-boo and if someone would suggest the rebels were Communists or Communist tools, the Red, White, and Blue would be solidly behind Gadaffi.

No one will argue that Gadaffi is unbalanced or that he once, if not now, supported terrorists and terrorism - Pan Am 103's explosion over Lockerbie Scotland on December 21, 1988 has been laid at is door (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan_Am_Flight_103) - but of late, he's behaved in an apparently acceptable manner.

If the United States is to war on Gadaffi and the Libyans who support him - an undeclared war at that - why not attack other regimes that pose a greater threat to world peace and human rights?

Shall we start with Iran that is - no question - a threat to all its neighbors, a place that supports terrorists worldwide, and a place where human rights are trampled?

Of course not.

What's the difference between Iran and Libya? Oil.

What about Syria? It's despot's daddy wiped out a whole village because it failed to support Hafez al-Assad. completely (see http://www.newsmax.com/deBorchgrave/Assad-Syria-Facebook-protests/2011/03/09/id/388872).

The current despot, Bashar al-Assad, has so far refrained from killing his own people, but supports Hezbollah in Lebanon, a small country that, before Hezbollah, was a cultural center that thrived on Christian-Moslem tolerance.

Syria is the place that Iraq sent its weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) while the world waited for an agreement to remove Saddam Hussein from power, WMDs that suddenly never existed if Washington is to believed.

Moving to the east of Iran, we have North Korea, The only differences between Iran and North Korea are (a) Iran has oil and (b) North Korea has the bomb.

In neither location is dissent tolerated.

But we don't attack or even seriously threaten either Iran or North Korea.

And then there is China.

China has the bomb; it has severe human rights violations and does not countenance dissent; it conquered Tibet and suppresses its culture. It also has designs on Taiwan, a small Chinese island where the U.S. set up another despot, Chiang Kai-shek to counter Communist Mao, reportedly the Chinese people's choice.

Why doesn't the U.S. and the old biddies of Europe remove China's leadership and institute "democracy" (but whose democracy - Europe or the U.S.).

Actually, if repression and general human rights violations are legitimate causes for war, then most of the Islamic regimes and many African states - the worst offenders seem to be Moslem dominated - should be again taken over by the more humane and democratic countries. Surely no one has forgotten French, British, Dutch, Spanish, and Portuguese rule and how these advanced nations treated their foreign subjects.

A quick aside: The U.S. allegedly is in Afghanistan (and Pakistan and ...) chasing Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden. For that the U.S. does not need armies of thousands; it needs a few highly trained assassins who can infiltrate bin Laden's court and behead the snake. But the U.S. is reluctant to target individual terrorists (although it does that), preferring to send in thousands and collateral causalities be damned. Someone in Washington seems to think bin Laden and Company are soldiers and deserve Geneva Convention rules. They are not and they do not.

Let Gadaffi alone.

What is going on in Libya is a Libyan affair.

There is little likelihood it will spread to "the world," even the Arab world where open displeasure with governments probably will be a short-lived thing.

Unless the U.S. and the European pantywaists are prepared to put down every despotic government in the Moslem world, the U.S. lacks the moral high ground to interfere in any way with what is transpiring in Libya.