Stupid Stuff We Ask The Military To Do

There's a new commercial that runs on sports talk radio advertising the virtues of the United States Navy. In it a deep baritone voice lists the things that the Navy is busy doing this very minute, everything from keeping an eye on terrorists to patrolling the hostile waters off the coast of every trouble spot on the planet. And then this:

"...and building a school for disadvantaged kids in the third world."

Wait...what?

Ok, listen...I love schools. I love kids. Kids going to school is about the most wholesome, feel-good optic ever. But, we're talking about the U.S. Navy here. What in the name of Admiral Nimitz are a bunch of sailors doing building a school, uh, anywhere? You want to know why our defense budget consumes a half a trillion dollars a year? You won't have to look much farther than a platoon of ensigns throwing up a school in the Sudan. This is what happens when Statists like George Bush and Barack Obama decide that our military should get into the business of "nation building." This puts the creep into mission creep.

Throughout its long and storied history, the United States military has proven itself adept at a short list of things, namely, killing people and breaking things. Frankly, that's all I want them involved in, and rarely do I want them doing even that. Besides, no offense to the Sudanese, but I can think of a couple of places in America that could use a new school or two.

Speaking of things the U.S. Military has no business doing... In light of the recent tragedy in the Mediterranian where over 800 souls perished trying to escape the horrors of Libya, perhaps we should ask ourselves how our intervention in the Libyan Civil War has worked out. Remember back in 2011 when then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told us about the horrible things going on in Libya, about what a horrible man Qaddafi was and that we just HAD to do something to protect innocent civilians? Yeah, well we helped the rebels depose of the autocratic man who had ruled that unruleable land for over forty years, declared victory, and split. Now the place is the very definition of chaos and is being run by an unholy alliance of cut-throats, people smugglers, psychopaths and ISIS shock troops parading Christians on its beaches where their grizzly executions are filmed for our viewing pleasure. Victory, indeed.

We can expect a whole lot more of this sort of thing because of the universally true adage about military adventures being the father of unintended consequences. Add Libya to the long and growing list of things that are none of our freaking business. Next year when you are trying to decide who to support for President, perhaps you should ask yourself, which one of these people will be least likely to want to ask the Marines to build a community center in Bangladesh.