As a 30-years USAF veteran, 1955-1985, Col-Ret, soon to celebrate my 90th birthday, this article really hit home. In a related vein, a recent pronouncement by our SecDef Austin caused me to write the following: "Good Intentions...gone awry."
The December 28, 2023 statement by Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III of the shifting away of prosecutorial authority from military unit commanders to the “Offices of Special Trial Counsel” is, according to the statement itself: “…the most important reform to our military justice system since the creation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice in 1950.” On the contrary, because of its major provision, it has a chance of being the worst “reform” ever related to the UCMJ.
While the new reform is asserted to be only applicable to prosecutorial discretion for thirteen serious criminal offenses, it seriously diminishes command authority and strikes at the heart of a unit’s good order and discipline by arbitrarily removing the commander from consideration as a matter of policy, replacing him with an alternative, overriding decision-making entity under incompletely-defined circumstances. Shades of the “political commissars” of the old Soviet Union or Franco’s Fascist forces!
The Secretary’s statement asserts the reform is intended to “ensure our service members’ access to fair and impartial justice.” That is clearly the proper objective of the military justice system, but weakening the command prosecutorial discretion is a misguided, poorly-conceived way to achieve that objective. Furthermore, the Secretary of Defense’s statement did not clearly limit the offenses which will be excluded from the commanders’ prosecutorial discretion under the new reform. Doubts naturally arise about the fair and impartial application of the reform when one considers the Secretary’s strong views on, for example, the supreme importance of DEI principles. To appreciate those doubts, one need only recall the sad fate that befell Lt. Colonel Matthew Lohmeier, outstanding Air Force Academy graduate and experienced instructor pilot, who was summarily relieved of duty as Commander of the 11th Space Warning Squadron in the new US Space Force, May 14, 2021. As a result, he effectively lost his career for complaining about the progressive indoctrination his subordinates were required to receive and expressing his concerns in a book about how post-modernism and political correctness were adversely affecting the national security of the United States.
The new reform is clearly motivated by good intentions, but its methodology needs to rely on an effective solution, rather than a simplistic, ill-advised one. Otherwise, it will only add to the paving on the road to Hell.
Everyone seems to be discussing why we failed in Afghanistan as a whole, and I know that's a subject worth discussing, but I really want to see a spotlight blazing hard and hot on is WHY are we failing so colossally getting everyone out? WHO fucked up in planning this? Why did we close Bagram before we had our people and our local helpers on the ground out of the country? It is a complete and utter failure by our government that so many people have been left behind and that the evacuations have been so horribly chaotic. Some people need to be losing their jobs (at best) for this.
Why am I only reading this here and not in any of the US newspapers. It’s all over the English press but silence and zero criticism of Biden in any of the US papers
Brilliant interview with HR McMaster! You must listen to Bari’s podcast. McMaster demonstrates that not all of our so-called “leaders” are idiots and explains how and why we got to this catastrophic moment. And then, buy his book.
Not one mention of Ron Paul in all of this? The one person who observed, at the beginning, what would happen? Patriots, classical liberals and the shrinking group of educated laymen who have a fondness for traditional Western thought have all seen through the “War on Terrorism” for the shamless pretextual powergrab that it was and is. We were the unvaccinated of those times. Hated and reviled.
In 2011, Ron Paul said we would be in Afghanistan for another decade unless policy changed. He was literally correct. Then in 2019 the Afghanistan papers were leaked, and we saw that the war was a complete fake and failure all along. The fact that the war didn’t end that day is telling about the sheer apathy and autism of the voting public. They simple will not respond to facts. Ideology and tribal party affiliation trumps everything.
These essays remind me of Flowers for Algernon, especially the one by Amash. A brief, hopeful flowering of liberty, followed by the inevitable decline back to normal made more tragic and sorrowful by the flowering. To have known and then to have lost freedom. Unbearable. We shouldn’t have started the experiment, realizing we couldn’t control it forever.
The hasty, deadly exit, though. That’s on Biden. A stain. Dishonor. Weakness. Shame.
Lots of mistakes and blame to go around on this one.
Blame Trump and Pompeo if you want but it was Biden's decision to make and his plan to execute. He totally screwed up and it was obvious that he would.
All you folks who voted for Biden because he wasn't Trump need to own the fact that you elected an incompetent, incoherent and feckless President. This includes you Bari.
The interview with McMasters was awful and uninformative........when he scoffed at the policy of "Nation Building" and Bari retreated. Bari, agreeable always you are not tough enough to push your point.
Pretty much every headline and first few sentences were said about vietnam. "We should never fight this kind of war again." "Liberty cannot be imposed by force."
Our leaders have become as stupid as any in history, repeating the same mistakes for the same reasons while bearing no accountability. it is incredibly disheartening that the dishonorable, the rapacious, the greedy, the unrestrained brutalists have been unchained to do as they will. I grieve the loss of our country and its honor. every day.
We have forgotten - or perhaps never fully acknowledged, that while in WWII our military won the war - MacArthur won the peace in Japan. If he had not - we would still be fighting there.
Why is anyone surprised that this is playing out this way. Joe insists that this is what the American people wanted. We are all stomping our feet yelling "bring the boys home". All 2500. But Joe continues to blame the Don. Because the progressive illiberal left loves that shit. Like many on this chain I'm sure they insist well he's not the Don so we had no choice to put Joe, a racist (I know this because Kamala Harris said so in the debate) in the white house. Joe Biden and many of you are trying to reason through this because you know in your hearts this was an evil decision. We promised those that helped us that we would protect them but many of you say things like "it's their country they need to stand up" and that makes you all feel better between sips of lattes. So now woman and children will be raped by barbarians. But many of you will stand by Joe and his Obama era retreads as they pretend to negotiate a nuclear deal with a terror cult. The Iranians. You will stand by Joe as he funnels thousands of woman across my border who claim to be escaping from spousal abuse because your toxic altruism demands you do so. Reason as you will but we should all hang our heads in shame for telling the woman and children in Afghanistan to go fuck themselves.
Bari, I'm writing to you here because I don't know how to get in touch with you otherwise. I have an important story breaking now right up your alley. Ken Kurson's prosecution announced today is a political prosecution pure and simple. I am acquaintanced and friendly with both him and his ex (and have been for years), and this story is a fabrication to prosecute him for the crime of working for Trump. He and his ex have a deep friendship, she comes over for Shabbat with his new wife, it's all copacetic. This is an American political prosecution. I don't think you need more from me, contact Ken or his lawyer and you'll find a shocking story, PERFECT for the kind of reporting you do. https://www.cnbc.com/2021/08/18/ken-kurson-kushner-friend-pardoned-by-trump-charged-by-manhattan-da.html
For most of the 20 million Afghan women and probably a majority of men, a stalemate was a positive result. The US, after way to much investment, had actually gotten to the point where 'not losing' was a win.
Getting taken over by the Taliban is a disaster. I'd gladly continue to pony up my tax $$ to give Afghans a chance to make a better life for themselves instead of a life of quasi-slavery they are about to return to.
To my surprise I find that Amash is the only one oy your interlocutors who has much constructive to say. The rest are hung up on tactics, maybe the details of low-level strategy, but Amash is the only one to come close to confronting the reality that the whole concept was based on a misguided, erroneous grand strategy that made the war unwinnable for the United States and its coalition, at this time.
We did not have any vital interest at stake except to deny Afghanistan as a base for operations against us. We did not have to recast their whole society to do that, and we were never realistic about the price we would have to pay (blood, treasure, and time) to even have a chance. So, almost from the beginning our goals were not consistent with our means, with means including not only technical and financial, but moral and the will to see it through. Almost from the start we signaled that we were only there for a limited period, even as we sometimes tried to keep them guessing as to what that time limit war, it was clear there WA such a limit, so they only had to be prepared to wait us out. The classic issue in counterinsurgency--the insurgents do not have to win, they just have to not lose and wait us out. A lesson we SHOULD have learned in Vietnam, but apparently didn't, or a new generation of military and govt leaders were ignorant of it or overcome by hubris.
It is nota matter of what more forceful measures we could have applied and won--beside most such arguments not being credible, we never had the will to do so.
The whole GWOT was much like this--Bush-43 swearing vengeance while telling us that we would not have to sacrifice much, and that the most important thing we could do was go out and shop (to avoid a recession)
Those are not serious people, no mater how they present themselves or think of themselves. And those Bush "Vulcans" were much more serious than the truly lame buffoons who followed them when Obama took office.
And this debacle was highly predictable--just look at the people in charge--Blinken, Sullivan, Milley (appointed to his current role by Trump, so let's be bipartisan about some of it), and so on. They are narrow, stupid, ignorant, and lack any background to suit them to conduct major operations, let alone conduct a shooting war.
As a nation we are no longer serious about anything except our internal fights. To the external world we are clownish.
As a 30-years USAF veteran, 1955-1985, Col-Ret, soon to celebrate my 90th birthday, this article really hit home. In a related vein, a recent pronouncement by our SecDef Austin caused me to write the following: "Good Intentions...gone awry."
The December 28, 2023 statement by Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III of the shifting away of prosecutorial authority from military unit commanders to the “Offices of Special Trial Counsel” is, according to the statement itself: “…the most important reform to our military justice system since the creation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice in 1950.” On the contrary, because of its major provision, it has a chance of being the worst “reform” ever related to the UCMJ.
While the new reform is asserted to be only applicable to prosecutorial discretion for thirteen serious criminal offenses, it seriously diminishes command authority and strikes at the heart of a unit’s good order and discipline by arbitrarily removing the commander from consideration as a matter of policy, replacing him with an alternative, overriding decision-making entity under incompletely-defined circumstances. Shades of the “political commissars” of the old Soviet Union or Franco’s Fascist forces!
The Secretary’s statement asserts the reform is intended to “ensure our service members’ access to fair and impartial justice.” That is clearly the proper objective of the military justice system, but weakening the command prosecutorial discretion is a misguided, poorly-conceived way to achieve that objective. Furthermore, the Secretary of Defense’s statement did not clearly limit the offenses which will be excluded from the commanders’ prosecutorial discretion under the new reform. Doubts naturally arise about the fair and impartial application of the reform when one considers the Secretary’s strong views on, for example, the supreme importance of DEI principles. To appreciate those doubts, one need only recall the sad fate that befell Lt. Colonel Matthew Lohmeier, outstanding Air Force Academy graduate and experienced instructor pilot, who was summarily relieved of duty as Commander of the 11th Space Warning Squadron in the new US Space Force, May 14, 2021. As a result, he effectively lost his career for complaining about the progressive indoctrination his subordinates were required to receive and expressing his concerns in a book about how post-modernism and political correctness were adversely affecting the national security of the United States.
The new reform is clearly motivated by good intentions, but its methodology needs to rely on an effective solution, rather than a simplistic, ill-advised one. Otherwise, it will only add to the paving on the road to Hell.
Richard G. “Duke” Woodhull, Jr.
Colonel, USAF -Ret.
Brevard, NC
4 January 2024
Everyone seems to be discussing why we failed in Afghanistan as a whole, and I know that's a subject worth discussing, but I really want to see a spotlight blazing hard and hot on is WHY are we failing so colossally getting everyone out? WHO fucked up in planning this? Why did we close Bagram before we had our people and our local helpers on the ground out of the country? It is a complete and utter failure by our government that so many people have been left behind and that the evacuations have been so horribly chaotic. Some people need to be losing their jobs (at best) for this.
Why am I only reading this here and not in any of the US newspapers. It’s all over the English press but silence and zero criticism of Biden in any of the US papers
I think Bari owes Mike Pompeo the opportunity to defend himself from McMaster's kneecapping.
https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/the-assault-on-pompeos-legacy/
Brilliant interview with HR McMaster! You must listen to Bari’s podcast. McMaster demonstrates that not all of our so-called “leaders” are idiots and explains how and why we got to this catastrophic moment. And then, buy his book.
Not one mention of Ron Paul in all of this? The one person who observed, at the beginning, what would happen? Patriots, classical liberals and the shrinking group of educated laymen who have a fondness for traditional Western thought have all seen through the “War on Terrorism” for the shamless pretextual powergrab that it was and is. We were the unvaccinated of those times. Hated and reviled.
In 2011, Ron Paul said we would be in Afghanistan for another decade unless policy changed. He was literally correct. Then in 2019 the Afghanistan papers were leaked, and we saw that the war was a complete fake and failure all along. The fact that the war didn’t end that day is telling about the sheer apathy and autism of the voting public. They simple will not respond to facts. Ideology and tribal party affiliation trumps everything.
These essays remind me of Flowers for Algernon, especially the one by Amash. A brief, hopeful flowering of liberty, followed by the inevitable decline back to normal made more tragic and sorrowful by the flowering. To have known and then to have lost freedom. Unbearable. We shouldn’t have started the experiment, realizing we couldn’t control it forever.
The hasty, deadly exit, though. That’s on Biden. A stain. Dishonor. Weakness. Shame.
Lots of mistakes and blame to go around on this one.
Blame Trump and Pompeo if you want but it was Biden's decision to make and his plan to execute. He totally screwed up and it was obvious that he would.
All you folks who voted for Biden because he wasn't Trump need to own the fact that you elected an incompetent, incoherent and feckless President. This includes you Bari.
The interview with McMasters was awful and uninformative........when he scoffed at the policy of "Nation Building" and Bari retreated. Bari, agreeable always you are not tough enough to push your point.
If our leaders would have read any novel by Paul Bowles, we could have avoided all this pointless waste of lives and money.
Pretty much every headline and first few sentences were said about vietnam. "We should never fight this kind of war again." "Liberty cannot be imposed by force."
Our leaders have become as stupid as any in history, repeating the same mistakes for the same reasons while bearing no accountability. it is incredibly disheartening that the dishonorable, the rapacious, the greedy, the unrestrained brutalists have been unchained to do as they will. I grieve the loss of our country and its honor. every day.
We have forgotten - or perhaps never fully acknowledged, that while in WWII our military won the war - MacArthur won the peace in Japan. If he had not - we would still be fighting there.
Why is anyone surprised that this is playing out this way. Joe insists that this is what the American people wanted. We are all stomping our feet yelling "bring the boys home". All 2500. But Joe continues to blame the Don. Because the progressive illiberal left loves that shit. Like many on this chain I'm sure they insist well he's not the Don so we had no choice to put Joe, a racist (I know this because Kamala Harris said so in the debate) in the white house. Joe Biden and many of you are trying to reason through this because you know in your hearts this was an evil decision. We promised those that helped us that we would protect them but many of you say things like "it's their country they need to stand up" and that makes you all feel better between sips of lattes. So now woman and children will be raped by barbarians. But many of you will stand by Joe and his Obama era retreads as they pretend to negotiate a nuclear deal with a terror cult. The Iranians. You will stand by Joe as he funnels thousands of woman across my border who claim to be escaping from spousal abuse because your toxic altruism demands you do so. Reason as you will but we should all hang our heads in shame for telling the woman and children in Afghanistan to go fuck themselves.
Bari, I'm writing to you here because I don't know how to get in touch with you otherwise. I have an important story breaking now right up your alley. Ken Kurson's prosecution announced today is a political prosecution pure and simple. I am acquaintanced and friendly with both him and his ex (and have been for years), and this story is a fabrication to prosecute him for the crime of working for Trump. He and his ex have a deep friendship, she comes over for Shabbat with his new wife, it's all copacetic. This is an American political prosecution. I don't think you need more from me, contact Ken or his lawyer and you'll find a shocking story, PERFECT for the kind of reporting you do. https://www.cnbc.com/2021/08/18/ken-kurson-kushner-friend-pardoned-by-trump-charged-by-manhattan-da.html
For most of the 20 million Afghan women and probably a majority of men, a stalemate was a positive result. The US, after way to much investment, had actually gotten to the point where 'not losing' was a win.
Getting taken over by the Taliban is a disaster. I'd gladly continue to pony up my tax $$ to give Afghans a chance to make a better life for themselves instead of a life of quasi-slavery they are about to return to.
To my surprise I find that Amash is the only one oy your interlocutors who has much constructive to say. The rest are hung up on tactics, maybe the details of low-level strategy, but Amash is the only one to come close to confronting the reality that the whole concept was based on a misguided, erroneous grand strategy that made the war unwinnable for the United States and its coalition, at this time.
We did not have any vital interest at stake except to deny Afghanistan as a base for operations against us. We did not have to recast their whole society to do that, and we were never realistic about the price we would have to pay (blood, treasure, and time) to even have a chance. So, almost from the beginning our goals were not consistent with our means, with means including not only technical and financial, but moral and the will to see it through. Almost from the start we signaled that we were only there for a limited period, even as we sometimes tried to keep them guessing as to what that time limit war, it was clear there WA such a limit, so they only had to be prepared to wait us out. The classic issue in counterinsurgency--the insurgents do not have to win, they just have to not lose and wait us out. A lesson we SHOULD have learned in Vietnam, but apparently didn't, or a new generation of military and govt leaders were ignorant of it or overcome by hubris.
It is nota matter of what more forceful measures we could have applied and won--beside most such arguments not being credible, we never had the will to do so.
The whole GWOT was much like this--Bush-43 swearing vengeance while telling us that we would not have to sacrifice much, and that the most important thing we could do was go out and shop (to avoid a recession)
Those are not serious people, no mater how they present themselves or think of themselves. And those Bush "Vulcans" were much more serious than the truly lame buffoons who followed them when Obama took office.
And this debacle was highly predictable--just look at the people in charge--Blinken, Sullivan, Milley (appointed to his current role by Trump, so let's be bipartisan about some of it), and so on. They are narrow, stupid, ignorant, and lack any background to suit them to conduct major operations, let alone conduct a shooting war.
As a nation we are no longer serious about anything except our internal fights. To the external world we are clownish.