Again, We Meet the Enemy and They Are Still Us.

The bridge strike was an accident, but our incapabilities is not.

We are even more of an enemy to ourselves than I thought.  It seems that we have destroyed our own ability to fix what we built.  I was busy when I found this and copy and pasted it to my notes but failed to save the source.

“China could have the Baltimore ship channel fully cleared in weeks but yesterday @POTUS said yesterday for the Army Corps of Engineers it will take months.  I blame the West Point Mafia and their budget demon. Please let me explain….  Truth is bridges are an Army Corps of Engineers responsibility but they are so unprepared they gave the job to Navy Salvage to lead. Navy salvage is so broken they had to outsource it to the US subsidiary/partner of a European firm which is chartering equipment from private companies at great expense. Equipment that's weak & small compared to what the European parent has overseas.”

If true, and I have no reason to suspect it is not, given what I have read over the years, then we truly are our own worst enemy.  Here we are, dropping bombs here and there on the thinnest of pretexts creating hate and discontent abroad while we have given up on keeping the resources needed to repair a single bridge.  What in the hell do they think will happen if we have a real war with Russia or China?  Have they forgotten how important bridges are?  Do they think that Russia and China will allow us to fight them only on their territories?

If I were to engage in conspiracy talk, I would be inclined to think this was a white hat, false flag attack to wake us up to the fact they were have been led into such a piss poor state of readiness for war that we cannot even repair a single bridge when thousands of them would be expected targets.    The Mississippi River alone has well over 100 bridges.  Not only would taking just one out interrupt all traffic crossing the River but also barge traffic.  The economic and military transportation disruptions would be immense.  Now imagine if several were taken out.  Any prudent war planner would have to take such possibilities into consideration and prepare accordingly.  Instead, we learn that we are wholly incapable of clearing away the wreckage of a single bridge blocking a single important port.

AND, it’s not like we have let young, able bodied, military aged men from all over the world enter the country, many from China, numbering in the 100s of thousands to millions.  Oh, but we have.  What could possibly go wrong?

In the 90s I there was a TV miniseries that covered at least part of this.  I saw very little of it, perhaps a few scenes of one episode only.  I do not recall the main theme of the series but I remember a western State, New Mexico I think, that was inhabited at the time with mainly American citizens of Asian decent, they being the dependents of naturalized citizens from that part of the world.  Completely assimilated, only their facial features and surnames betrayed their linages.  They were fed up with the massive numbers of illegal aliens pouring across the border and the Governor, who had a Chinese features and family name, ordered his National Guard to confront the onslaught and not just with fences.  The media, in the series, had a field day over the fact that sons of immigrants were against new immigrants, ignoring the distinction between the children of legal aliens who earned citizenship and illegal aliens.  At the border, shots were fired, people died.   Somewhere in the story, there was a discussion on why the national army could not confront the State National Guard.  The reason was that the US armed forces had outsourced much of its supply line to overseas procuring and the US had pissed off one or more of the countries that made components needed in most military vehicles who decided to keep the money but not send the parts.

I remember little else other than discussing it with classmates who thought it was creating hatred towards Asians and illegal aliens.  I thought at the time it was prophetic and that the beginnings of this problem were already visible.  30 years later, at least part of this has come to true in a fashion.

Well, on the bright side, when the US falls due to the inattention of its citizen residents I will no longer have to worry about my banks spying on me for them.  Perhaps, I should begin to learn Chinese.