Hello Alice

I was extremely tempted not to venture down this rabbit hole of Iraq and Afghanistan any further, but then I happened to glance at your new post. "A prolific texter"... what an awful description of a thirty-something red blooded American male. Alright, fair enough. And I must add, your description of the Bund process, and the return you get on its' investment, was quite eloquent. I will reset my homepage to the Bund, and endeavor to check it daily. I can't make any solid promises but I think it adequate to depend on nothing more than the temptation to demonstrate how brilliant I am at routine intervals... hehe.

I have a few points regarding the shocked state I left you in regarding our dual Near East wars, but first...

I am somewhat consoled to see someone who's intellect I respect so utterly disgusted with the absolute lawlessness of the current administration, and congresses willingness to just whole sale hand over their status as a coequal branch of government, for I vehemently share in this disgust. Now when I say "lawlessness" I mean first and foremost via my own interpretation of the US Constitution (an interpretation which we seem to share), but not just that. Pick your scandal - the IRS; Fast and Furious (in which our AG was held in contempt of congress); the blatant lies about Benghazi, to the now 65,000 illegal minors pouring across our border. When you view these in their totality (and surely I'm missing a few) you're soon left mouth gaping, wondering who the hell is in charge up there. Furthermore, when congress won't act in a manner the president dictates he simply threatens to take his pen and phone and go home. He has taken to making recces appointments when congress in IN session. He uses the EPA to literally "come up" with ways to bankrupt coal, a legal and vital industry. And this Bergdhal "prisoner" swap, don't even get me started. Let me just say, I have enjoyed the first season of the AMC program "Turn." Those officer exchanges were legitimate swaps conducted by two responsible parties whom respected the rules (and yes there are rules) of war. What we did recently was exchange five savages for one deserter (at least). But what left me stunned about the entire affair was the blatant disregard for the law which requires the PoTUS to give 30 days notice to congress prior to any exchange. A legally binding rule that the president himself singed into law with the last Defense Reauthorization Act. Now you can disagree with the law and state that it unconstitutionally limits his powers as CIC, which the president did, but under this premise I can simply ignore the individual mandate in Obamacare. And what was the their response? "Oh, my bad." That was about it. And then Lindsey Graham (R) NC says that impeachment is on the table if the PoTUS does it again. So what are you saying Lindsey? Six Taliban commanders is worthy of impeachment, but five is okay? Dear Lord man, if it weren't for the starch in your shirt there would be nothing holding you upright.

My point being is that for any historically oriented conservative minded American the entire specter of DC seems fully disconnected from reality, the Constitution, and even the laws passed by their own hand. This applies to both parties as the GOP leadership is too scared of its' own shadow to make any meaningful moves. It's a nest of vipers. So Titus, I sincerely feel your pain when you state simply that you'll have done with them and no longer participate. But my friend we can not just cede the federal government to this den of thieves and reprobates.

Consider this - Ted Cruz (R) TX is there. Scott Lee (R) NC, is there. And I assume you're a fan of Rand Paul. These are just three senators of 100 and look at the waves they have made in terms of pressing real constitutional application of the law. Imagine if we sent them reinforcements. What's more, for the first time in the history of our nation the sitting House Majority leader lost his primary race - Erik Cantor in VA lost to David Bratt, of Tea Party backing. Here in my home state of Mississippi the third longest serving member of the senate, Thad Cochran, is days away from losing his primary race to state senator Chris McDaniel, another Tea Party favorite. Now to avoid to get too far into the weeds on these individual races, states and districts let me make my point this way - more and more of the GOP base is feeling as we do. Incumbent Republicans enjoyed an 88% primary reelection rate last cycle, it is now down to 61%. We are at a crucial point where we can push the old guard out if we press the electoral attack. My point being, yes be educated and involved on the local and state level, but then urge and support the guys (and gals) on the state level whom share your views to challenge the Party elders. We must push them out from the bottom up, and if people like you simply abandon the federal level, we can't make that happen.

Now to the Middle East (by the way, I interchange the Near and Middle East occasionally, but I am referring to the same region)...

As I adorned my arm chair military analyst hat these last few days I came to a conclusion. It's clear that operationally we can defeat any army on earth. My critiques were not of our soldiers, not by any stretch of the imagination. It was of the civilian leadership and the so-called experts they employ. Here's an expansion of the two-fold mistakes we made, in my eyes:

1) The ROE's were deplorable. It smacked of a civilian leadership not committed to the concept of total war. It is not only unfair but I believe immoral to send men into harms way so handcuffed in their ability to respond to bullets flying at their head. From embedded reporters (which made for a running real time PR campaign in the middle of war), to not being able to fire on Mosques, to having to identify the type of round being fired at you before selecting your return-fire weapon of choice, put simply the ROE's were a nightmare. Not to mention, we've entered into a era where civilian casualties trump tactics. This is not total war. I don't mean we need Roman rules of engagement, I simply mean to combat a 7th century fighter we at least need Patton. And if you're not willing to do that, don't go.

2.) Let's assume we all felt as you did on Afghanistan (which is more accurate than not), and focus on the more controversial invasion - Iraq. I believe the Bush administration and its supporters (including myself) assumed that once Saddam and his minions were deposed that there would be a scene from Band of Brothers when they liberated Holland. Ok, we kicked out the fascists, here's your country back, go in peace. Only they didn't go in peace. The sectarian differences are so complex, the clans, the religious dedication so visceral that I could scarcely get into all the reasons why this welcoming parade didn't occur, but I can tell you this: we had no plan for what to do when it didn't. We entered into this WWI level of intractable progress which reminded me more of the ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestine rather than the US and Japan (which I always felt was the model to follow here). And when I say we had "no plan" for what to do next that is because pounding them into submission (as we did the zealots of Imperial Japan) was never on the table. In truth, once we realized that the Iraqis were incapable of congealing into a unified stable democratic state we were left with three choices as I see it (and this applies to Afghanistan as well).

A.) Pound them into utter submission, write their Constitution for them and install our own MacArthur style transition government.
B.) Leave.
C.) Engage in a piece-meal back and forth combat mission in which we see territory gained and then given back, in essence "hanging around" until the Iraqis get their democratic act together.

Now which of those sounds like what we opted to do? The problem is there is not a single, read ZERO, functioning democratic government (as we understand democracy) operating within the 22 Arab states of the region. None. The Israelis have been waiting around for a legitimate Palestinian partner since 1948. That conflict is essentially the model we've been operating under - hit the insurgents like whack-a-moles every time they pop up while we wait for democratic Iraqis to step up. And what does the Malaki government do as its' first order of business? It excludes Sunnis. Now guess whether ISIS is Sunni or Shi'ite.

In contrast look at what happened when Israel dealt directly, in open war, with other belligerent state actors, I'm writing now of Egypt and Jordan. They fought, they won, terms were agreed to, and there hasn't been a flair up in 50 plus years.

So my retroactive suggestion to Bush and our civilian leadership is either allow for a MacArthur style transition, along with sane ROEs, or get the hell out. The current PoTUS likes to remind everyone "I was elected to end wars, not start them." Uh huh, right. Remind me again, which CIC authorized the "surge?" Which one promised to close GITMO (which I am not in favor of). Which president is now contemplating military action to stop ISIS and contributed militarily to Qaddafi's overthrow? To a lesser extent he is simply continuing the Bush policies. Hanging around playing whack-a-mole hoping some indigenous band of patriots steps up and takes the reigns. This is a slow bleed. And what did Israel get for showing restraint during the last fifty years of their slow bleed as they played whack-a-mole rather than committing to total war? A democratically elected HAMAS. We are following the same path and we are getting the same result.

Now let me back up for a second and add this final thought which occurred to me like a light bulb going off above my head the other day as I pulled up a map of the ISIS advance towards Baghdad. I was looking at this regional map and saying out loud their name, the "Islamic State of Iraq and Syria" and something hit me. Let's set aside the fact that there would be rampant violence in the take over and subsequent imposition of Sharia law by ISIS or some similar group (and that's a big set aside, I know) and consider something. What happens if we (the West and especially the US) allowed an ISIS-like group to take over in the region and establish their caliphate? They would become a de facto nation-state, yes? A fundamentalist theocracy state like Iran. The same goes for the Taliban take over when we pull out of Afghanistan (which I feel is inevitable at this point). It occurs to me that we are much better at dealing with, fighting and containing actual nation states than we are insurgents embedded among the civilian population. They would suddenly have real borders to defend, oil reserves to protect, and administration buildings they wouldn't want bombed. In other words, we know exactly where to find the Iranian leadership if they chose to attack us. We could crush them in short order, much like Israel did to Jordan. Now the experts will tell you that it is unacceptable to allow the establishment of a nation state from which Al Qaeda and her affiliates could use as safe harbor to attack us from. But by that reasoning we must invade Saudi Arabia, right? 9/11 was funded and carried out by Saudis. At least in this scenario ISIS would offer up a bevy of rich targets - much like Iran - to US bombers if they did attempt to carry out a strike against us or harbor those whom did. We'd know where they were, when they met, who was in charge, how to disable them - they would suffer every exposure other nation states do. They would cease to be this deadly enemy mixed within the population that came out of nowhere, retreated, and then came back again. ISIS would suddenly have real, tangible ground and assets to lose, like Iran.

Look, it's just a thought. I was trying to envision a unique solution to this morbidly complex problem. I'm sure a half dozen Mid East analysts could blow security risk holes in the theory, but then again, they're the same ones who predicted the orange arm bands  hugging us and handing over bottles of Vat 69.