One of the major institutional victims of the current administration and its policies are the American armed forces. The decision to attack Iran is most important and only the latest act of misuse and abuse of our military.
The sudden attack on Iran at the behest and with the collaboration of Israel was intended to destroy its ability to make war and provide a shortcut to the realization of America’s desire to eliminate the development of an Iranian nuclear option. In other words, the Trump administration appeared to be too lazy to carry out the hard work necessary to achieve a diplomatic agreement and instead, attempted to impose a solution using our military as a shortcut.
The employment of this approach was not only in Iran, as the United States had already used our military to go into Venezuela and pluck out the President of the country and his wife for trial in New York as well as ordered our Navy to attack and destroy boats in the high seas without any semblance of due process.
When we began to hear about the military leadership’s expressions of concerns about these things, we also began to hear about our civilian authority attempting to enforce these illegalities and firing admirals and generals that questioned their methods. To date, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has fired or forced to retire over 25 admirals and generals at the highest levels of our military establishment.
Things got so bad that Arizona Senator Mark Kelly and other congressional colleagues put out a video informing, especially the lower ranks, that it was their duty to disobey illegal orders. It was important to remind everyone that when one takes an oath to the Constitution, one is duty-bound to live and act by its edicts and the laws passed for daily application.
The authoritarian approach to our national and international affairs as seen in Iran and our application of law within the country came to a vote before the American people last Tuesday. The answer was a clear message that we can no longer allow that orientation to torment our national and international relations. The American people voted to close an unfortunate and shameful chapter in our history.
The aftermath however, indicates a tarnished and diminished armed forces left in tatters in the Middle East. We are running out of bombs and missiles and China is looking at our disarray with a mild attitude that can turn ugly at any given moment.
Our international relations are also in tatters. Our friends, beginning with Canada, are leaving our side.
The war in Ukraine, which should be front and center, is instead being put to the side by an administration that seeks a close association with the aggressor.
The eyes of the world see a United States getting smaller and smaller. That is reflected in a military that is tired and overstretched.
Veterans Day is about celebrating our ex-soldiers and praising their dedication to duty by a grateful nation. That extends to our new highest ranking veterans that still should be in leadership positions in our armed forces and whose careers have been derailed by flawed and corrupt civilian officials.
For those veterans that still keep an eye on their active duty units and are concerned about the poor quality of our civilian leaders, they need to know that help is on the way. More than that, there is an expectation that our military will be stabilized and regain its footing on a new watch.
The views expressed by David Conde are not necessarily the views of LaVozColorado. Comments and responses may be directed to News@lavozcolorado.com.
