"Talking With Ted Taylor "

Our Military Leadership
By Ted Taylor
© 5-4-2008

We as AMERICANS should be livid and outraged
by the lies our military and the civilian leaders tell us about our troops.
We keep hearing that we support our troops but the evidence shows something differently. 
I just wonder how these people sleep at night
 although getting rapid promotions, recognition, and high paying salaries make them sleep a little better. Cowards, liars and hypocrites come to mind whenever I think about what is happening to our troops.

            The story last week of the unsanitary and decrepit conditions of the barracks at Ft Bragg
should have the entire nation turning their angst not towards the terrorists but towards our military. 
 There is absolutely no reason that returning soldiers have to stay in barracks,
that are not 20 years old , with massive peeling paint, mold and mildew,
disconnected water lines,  open sewer pipes and sewage on bathroom floors. 
 These troops were fighting for 15 months
 to return to a situation worse than their war quarters is just wrong.
We have spent lots of money for new quarters for Officers
and new barracks for Enlisted personnel but have not maintained what we have. 
 I am sure these barracks had to be inspected before they were occupied but nothing was done.

            I tried to call the Army IG and after being forwarded 2 times, they put me on indefinite hold.
The 82^nd Airborne IG would not answer their telephone. 
Of course the next day the Army said they had corrected the problems,
 which would be record time for all the issues.

My neighbor who works for the VA said the corrections included painting over mold and mildew. 
I would feel better if the unit commanders and the commanding General
were forced to live in these barracks for a month. 
They would report at 5 PM and not be released until 5 AM.

            My friend in Afghanistan replied to the barracks issue by saying:
“We have had similar experiences here, we were living in plywood sheds
and our unit was inspecting for dust.
We had doors that would not close, etc.
The AF vacated some actual barracks,
more like shipping containers with lights and ac/ heat units
 and we live in those now, just the stupidity is ever apparent.
Maybe if officers had something else to do like... lead,
 they might leave the rest of us to do our jobs.”

            Would you believe everyone I sent this information to, including myself,
 said they had similar experiences in their military experience.
 So the answer is for leaders to lead and make sure the small stuff was corrected
and the people who damage facilities are held responsible instead of punishing everyone.
Neglecting where our troops live should be a courts martial offense.

            On other fronts, the Secretary of Defense several weeks ago chided the Air Force 
 for not really contributing to the war effort.  In the latest Air University,
the Sec Def told a group of Air Force people how well they are doing.

            The latest edition bragged about following a person for 5 weeks
using a drone to see where he went. How much did that cost ?
Should they have been tracking our troop’s progress in towns, villages, and roads. 

They also were delighted in being able to reduce collateral damage
by taking 162 pounds of explosives out of each bomb
and reducing it to 30 pounds in a 500 pound bomb.
 Now they can direct the bomb to take out the “person”. 
 I imagine we could come up with that idea and save billions.
 Of course they had to use a pod on the bomb to direct it. 
How about smaller bombs, if they are so accurate,
then they could carry more of  them or let the drones carry them.
 But we are wearing out our airplanes flying holes in the sky.
Remember the couple of years we kept the Iraqis from flying.

            But in today’s newspaper,
the military used 3 guided bombs to hit a small mosque next to a hospital. Guess what???
The bombs destroyed part of the hospital and all of the ambulances.
I need to mention they killed and unknown number of people including children.
The Iraqi police would not let the rescuers
 take the wounded kids out of the area  so they could not be helped.
Of course the military said the mosque was used a command and control facility.
The people said the mosque next to the hospital was used
by the people from the hospital for prayer and to relax.

            It seems we use bombs for simple problems.
A couple of years ago an F-18
used several 500 pound bombs to get a single shooter out of a house.
 I wonder what happened to the house.

            The bottom line is we keep saying we support our troops
but most of the toys made for the troops are used for other purposes.
You would think with today’s technology
a laser would be made to take out a person without destroying lots of houses or people.
 The drones could support any troop movement
 and with detectors they could spot IEDs or electronically directionally neutralize electrical switches.

            The Air force needs to support the troops, not look for aircraft from Al Quada.
So having more F-22s at enormous cost does not help the troops. 
 The Marines actually did not buy vehicles that were more resistant to IEDs
so they could buy another vehicle way down the road.
I saw a show about the V-22 in Iraq.
All they did was carry cargo and troops to different places.
 Not one was in a fire fight so when they do, the V-22 will not auto rotate
 as a regular helicopter will when it loses and engine.

            Today’s newspaper also said that numerous soldiers have been shocked
and several electrocuted in swimming pools and showers due to a lack of grounding.
Everyone points their finger at the poorly paid, maybe $10 a day, Iraqi contractors
 as the expensive contractors we have hired  don’t fix the problems or inspect the work of others.
            Anyway we need to hound our Congressmen to actually support the troops
instead of the defense conglomerate who only want profits. 

PS       In the early 1990s my brother, who was a program manager for the Army, told the Army leaders they could get the ceramic vests for the troops. The response was it was too expensive for our soldiers. When do we see high ranking military people killed in action?
 

 Looking At Terrorism
(And how we know so little about its causes from a terrorist perspective)
By Ted Taylor
© 4-30-2007

After watching several hours of authors commenting on terrorism, and the books they have written,
I felt the need to write an article to summarize some of their study.

To start, we need a definition of terrorism. This is what Wikipedia has as a definition.
 Terrorism is a term used to describe violence or other harmful acts committed (or threatened) against civilians. Most definitions of terrorism include only those acts which are intended to create fear or "terror", are perpetrated
for an ideological goal (as opposed to a "madman" attack), and deliberately target "non-combatants".

To the surprise of many people, the 19 hijackers of 9/11 were not poor, brainwashed individuals recruited into Al Quada. They were all from the middle class or upper middle class. They were all educated and were not recruited into their role of hijackers. The author who wrote a book on them said he could find no evidence of recruitment. They had just volunteered to join the ranks of Al Quada. They were all very reasonable people until they felt the need to act as agents of Al Quada.

We wonder why anyone would do such a thing. It becomes fairly evident when you see many from the Moslem communities in Europe having no “country” they can call their own. As an example, in Belgium the most used name is Mohammed and this makes the locals feel uncomfortable that they are losing their country to foreigners. But many of these people have never been to a Moslem country but feel ostracized. In France the country has approximately 12% of the population as Moslem but 50% of the prisoners are Moslem. In the US, Moslems feel they belong and the average Moslem has a higher education
and is generally higher paid than the average American.
This is one reason we have not been attacked from within.

Americans are afraid of Arabic speaking people. The embassy in Iraq has over 1,000 personnel and only 6 speak Arabic. The FBI has 25 Arabic speakers but they have very limited skills as most received only 9 weeks of language training. To add to our failure to understand the Moslem world, the military stopped training personnel on Civil Affairs and other community lessons we learned from Viet Nam. The military leaders knew we would never get into another asymmetrical war so now the troops have to learn on the streets. To add to our problems, the troop units are swapped out by unit so there is no continuity of lessons learned. My friend spoke about this in 2004 when he witnessed old units who worked with the Iraqi people and the new units who infuriated the locals by their ignorance of working with the people to get their support.

Today’s military understands operational combat tactics but is ignorant on the people and culture so there is always a hesitation of the locals to help Americans. The authors recommended the military get some units who understand people relations and incorporate them into combat decisions. They referred to the Cold War where we had experts in the military and CIA try to understand the Russian military and civilian leaders and how they might react to certain situations so that war may be avoided.

Our favorite man, Bin Laden looks at historical opportunities and likes theater, carnage and symbolic gestures to be his stamp of approval. He ordered Al Quada to do whatever they wanted in killing and destroying people and objects from other countries but he had the final say on attacking American interests. Examples are the simultaneous destruction of the two embassies, the strike on the USS Cole, and of course the twin towers. He actually declared war in a cave in Afghanistan, the symbolic location as where Mohammed had his revelations.

So why are the Moslems enraged at us infidels? They are disparaged to see the Moslem world going nowhere especially if the oil was removed from their ownership, as most of the Arab world is very poor without oil. Everywhere Moslems look they see infidel aggression, military bases and their culture change from Western influences. Our western culture has corrupted their culture and youth. So following their fundamentalist religion is being destroyed by outsiders.

One author made a “friend” of a Palestinian who eventually immigrated to the US to work on a PHD. He thought that when his friend saw how well the people of America incorporate the Moslems into our society he would not have such bad feelings about the West. It actually went the other way. As they strolled through the streets of DC and talked about cooperation, the friend said he was even angrier about the US because of all the liquor stores and other temptations that were available everywhere he went. He was upset that Moslems would date people from other religions and avail themselves of so many things their religion forbad.

And why would so many people become Jihadists when they should be following the Koran. It was simple, the people are very proud of their history but have a warrior subculture who knows that if they give up their lives, the rewards in heaven will make their death worthwhile. They have the conviction and courage to die. So dying for their beliefs is honorable.

How will this terrorism end? The only way is for the Moslem world to confront the terrorists and put a stop to it. Otherwise we will have terrorist attacks for our future.

Religion And Iraq
By Ted Taylor
© 4-22-07

Talking about our involvement in Iraq from a different perspective

I hope to discuss our presence in Iraq and whether we might not be successful from a different perspective you have not heard before. I can do this because of a five week lecture, of which I could attend only four, given by a recently retired Navy Chaplain. His lectures should have been attended by all interested people in the congregation and others who might want to learn more about war.

As a professor in history, he discussed the involvement of religion and its influence in wars from the Crusades to today’s involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan. I was disappointed to see the lack of interest in the congregation’s attendance. As each week passed, fewer people attended and only a few asked questions directly related to war. I wish I had taken notes but my memory will get the gist across to you. I apologize for any misstatements.

I will try to help you understand our involvement in Iraq or any other Islamic country as a total lack of understanding their religion and the intense devotion shown by its members. We Americans look at our elected leaders as the guiding force behind democracy but others use their religion to guide them in their actions. Think about it, those people that pray five times a day and believe every word from their religious leaders have an advantage over Americans. So here is some of the lecture that got my attention about Islam.

In order to become a Muslim all you have to do is to say out loud that there is only one God and it is Allah. You also have to say that Mohammed’s divine revelations were given to him by Allah.

The Koran is the word of Allah and since Allah’s words are perfect, the Koran is not to be translated as it will change the words of Allah. As devoted believers of Islam and the Islamic religion are basically pure, the world should be united into an Islamic sphere and everyone should be converted to Islam. The believers of Islam need to make a personal fight against those who are non-believers. So if people do not want a pure religion, they are unbelievers and need to die.

What is worse than being an infidel is to be a practicing Muslim and not follow the word of the Koran. This apostolic pattern is what is causing the civil war in Iraq. The Sunni believe that the person selected as the religious leader has the moral support of the religion. The Shia on the other hand believes they are waiting for another prophet. So the difference of opinion makes them hate each other more than the infidels of other religions.

One fascinating point of Islam is that the religion has priority over politics or man’s law. The Supreme Ayatollah has the last say in internal and foreign policies, control of the army and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, control of state broadcasts and other important state functions. The President of Iran, who we seem to have the most opposition to, is elected by the people but has few executive powers.

An example of this religious power is from my conversation 35 years ago with a person who worked in the Iranian embassy. While riding a bus to work, he saw a man riding a bicycle get run over and killed by the bus driver. As the person lay in the ditch, the driver backed up, threw money on the person and drove off. When the person asked a friend to explain the murder he was told that the person was supposed to die and the money made sure the dead person would get into heaven. The bus driver had not committed a crime.

Another example is a recent event that six men charged with killing five people in 2002 was overturned by the Supreme Court. According to the Supreme Court's earlier decision, the killers, who are members of the Basiji Force, volunteer vigilantes favored by the country's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and President Mahmoud  Ahmadinejad, considered their victims morally corrupt and, according to Islamic teachings and Iran's Islamic penal code, their blood could therefore be shed. The last victims, for example, were a young couple engaged to be married who the killers claimed were walking together in public.

Several people have recommended that the country be divided into three separate states. The Kurds would have the North, the Shia the East, and the Sunnis the West. If you look at the oil reserves, the Sunni have no oil in their sector so dividing the country is out of the question. To make matters worse, Iran is mostly Shia and Saudi Arabia is mostly Sunni so they have an interest in the control of the country.

The Chaplain said the involvement of Americans in full war fighting gear on the streets, acting as policemen; do not make the locals feel comfortable in their safety. The number of civilian deaths has outraged the populace and their comfort level is well below the norm before the war. They lack electricity, water, sewage and other conveniences we promised when we entered the country.

As an after thought, and I’m sure many would disagree, what if after 9/11 the US had paid for rebuilding the towers, taken care of the people affected by the disaster, and sent special troops after those who actually committed the crimes and brought them to trial, would we be in such a situation we have today.