Since its birth in 1775, the United States Army has been given some pretty damn tough assignments by civilian authority in this country.
More than 30 years ago a less than enlightened president from the State of Texas led this country in a reprise of the defeat of the Alamo. This time our forces were penned-up and cornered on the roof of the American Embassy in Saigon. It was Lyndon Johnson's Alamo.
Now another president from Texas is attempting to lead us in yet another Remember the Alamo last stand in Iraq. But the current civilian authority in Washington underestimated the can-do ability and creativity of the United States Army.
This time around the leader is not an inept general as was William Westmorland in Vietnam. This time around the general is a piercingly sharp and brilliantly capable strategist by the name of David Petraeus.
General David Petraeus is a pure can-do mission-focused strategist with an amazing ability to know what his opposition is thinking. He's the general every army dreams of having. Under David Petraeus Iraq attacks are down to a two-year low, the tide has turned and we have the momentum.
General Petraeus is doing something thought impossible. He is winning. This good news comes on the heels of the new year's offensive, Operation Phantom Phoenix, aimed at driving al Qaeda and other extremists from safe havens in outlying provinces. Petraeus is relentless.
Part of the success is due to locals being more willing to turn over extremists' hideouts and weapons caches. Local citizens feel more secure. David Petraeus and the outstanding work of the American military are the reasons why local Iraqi citizens are coming forward with information on extremists' activities in their villages and provinces.
Concerned local citizens organized into neighborhood watch-type groups now number about 80,000 across the country and are helping fill critical security roles where they live, especially in areas where there are few Iraqi security forces.
Despite the most absurd orders coming down from civilian authority, the Commanding General, Multi-National Force Iraq (MNF-I), David Petraeus, and the dedicated, patriotic, talented and amazingly capable men and women of our all our branches of service are once again doing the improbable and the impossible. Despite the odds against them, our men and women in uniform accomplish their mission - at any cost.
It is such a shame that President Bush, like President Johnson before him, is committed to a strategy that eerily resembles a deep-rooted masochistic desire to symbolically defend the Alamo even though we all know that story ended in defeat. It's Wagner's Gotterdamerung performed on the world's stage and its pathetic.
Yet despite the weakness of the strategy coming from civilian authority, the talents of General Petraeus and the can-do attitude of the U.S. military is succeeding against enormous difficulties.
Can you imagine what our military could do for peace and security in the world if we used our worldwide military network to bring aid and assistance, medical care and medicine, food and education, stability and freedom to the peoples of the African continent, the Indian sub continent, throughout southeast Asia, in Latin America? Can you imagine what we could accomplish if we use our power for peace?
This is just one of the reasons why I support Barack Obama for election as Democratic Party nominee for the President of the United States. The Obama White House would use our military as instruments of peace.
Being an instrument of peace - that was the hope Francisco di Bernadone dreamed back in the thirteenth century when he put on the simple rough robes of a beggar and founded a spiritual brotherhood with the goal of bringing peace to every creature on the planet. San Francisco is named for that man. We know him today as Francis of Assisi.
Imagine: the most powerful army on earth being used as a Instrument of Peace. Imagine an army living, breathing and moving across the planet in the spirit of Francis of Assisi. Imagine all the people living in peace.
It's change we can believe in.
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.Imagine
John Lennon
Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today...Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religon too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace...Imagine no possesions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
In a brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world...You may say i'm a dreamer
But i'm not the only one
I hope some day you'll join us
And the world will be as one
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