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Guest Post: War Pigs - The Fall Of A Global Empire
Submitted by Jim Quinn from The Burning Platform
War Pigs - The Fall Of A Global Empire
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security.” -Dwight D. Eisenhower
“How far can you go without destroying from within what you are trying to defend from without?” -Dwight D. Eisenhower
Generals gathered in their masses
Just like witches at black masses
Evil minds that plot destruction
Sorcerers of deaths construction
In the fields the bodies burning
As the war machine keeps turning
Death and hatred to mankind
Poisoning their brainwashed minds, oh lord yeah!
Black Sabbath – War Pigs
As Americans mindlessly celebrate another Memorial Day with cookouts, beer and burgers, the U.S. war machine keeps churning. As we brutally enforce our will on foreign countries, we create more people that hate us. They don’t hate us for our freedom. They hate us because we have invaded and occupied their countries. They hate us because we kill innocent people with predator drones. They hate us for our hypocrisy regarding democracy and freedom. Just when we had the opportunity to make a sensible decision by leaving Iraq and exiting the Middle East quagmire, Obama made the abysmal choice to casually sacrifice more troops in the Afghan shithole. We have thrown over $1.3 trillion down Middle East rat holes over the last 11 years with no discernible benefit to the citizens of the United States. George Bush and Barack Obama did this to prove they were true statesmen. The Soviet Union killed over 1 million Afghans, while driving another 5 million out of the country and retreated as a bankrupted and defeated shell after ten years. Young Americans continue to die, for whom and for what? Our foreign policy during the last eleven years can be summed up in one military term, SNAFU – Situation Normal All Fucked Up. These endless foreign interventions under the guise of a War on Terror are a smoke screen for what is really going on in this country. When a government has unsolvable domestic problems, they try to distract the willfully ignorant masses by proactively creating foreign conflicts based upon false pretenses. General Douglas MacArthur understood this danger to our liberty.
“I am concerned for the security of our great Nation; not so much because of any threat from without, but because of the insidious forces working from within.”
Economic Opportunity Cost
“You can’t say civilization don’t advance… in every war they kill you in a new way.” – Will Rogers
Any doubt that the Military Industrial Complex is as strong as ever should be removed after examining Obama’s 2012 Budget which has $900 billion dedicated to our military machine. We spent $370 billion in 2001, $620 billion in 2006, and now this liberal anti-war Democrat from Illinois is spending 45% more than that war monger Bush who was burned in effigy by the anti-war Democrats during Iraq War protests. It seems both parties are war pigs.
The Soviet Union collapsed in 1989, leaving the United States as the only remaining superpower on earth. Since 1990, the United States has depleted the U.S. Treasury of $11.5 trillion for spending on War. With no military on earth capable of challenging us why would there be a need to spend this much on the military? Over this same time frame the U.S. spent $500 billion on science, space & technology and $70 billion on energy, a mere 6% of the spending on invading sovereign countries. Military expenditures benefit humanity in no way. If these trillions had been invested by the private sector or devoted to energy and scientific research, our economy might not be a hollowed out shell, dependent on China for financing and oil exporting countries for energy. Neo-Cons argue the Arms Industry employs millions and benefits the country. These companies employ brilliant engineers and scientists who spend their days developing weapons that kill people more efficiently. If they had been employed manufacturing high tech goods to export around the world, inventing new technologies that didn’t obliterate human beings, newer safer nuclear power plants, a more efficient electric grid, upgrading our deteriorating infrastructure, or finding a cure for Alzheimer’s, would the United States be better off today?
The National Debt in 1990 was $3.2 trillion. Today, it is $15.7 trillion. This is a 500% increase in twenty-two years. What benefit has $11.5 trillion of spending on War produced for the United States or the world? In 2001, spending on Defense was 17% of total governmental spending. In 2012, Defense, Homeland Security, and war spending account for 25% of government spending. In the meantime, major cities experience blackouts due to an overloaded electrical grid, our 156,000 structurally deficient bridges crumble, one hundred year old water pipes burst under our streets every day, and we transfer over $300 billion per year to foreign countries for our precious oil. The 19 terrorist hijackers who implemented their plan with box cutters, spent less than $500,000 to pull off their 9/11 acts of terror – not war. The United States will directly spend at least $3 trillion on our wars of choice in response, while turning our country into a prison camp and stripping our citizens of their freedoms and liberties for perceived security and safety.
You would think we must be trying to keep up with our enemies by spending $900 billion per year on past and present military adventures. But one look at the following chart reveals the United States is spending almost as much as the rest of the world combined. The two countries considered potential rivals, China and Russia, spent $200 billion combined in 2010. This is 22% of U.S. spending. From a foreign viewpoint, one must wonder why the U.S. is spending such vast sums on our military. They can only conclude that it is for offensive intentions rather than defensive. The United States soil has not been attacked by a foreign power since December 7, 1941. Prior to that surprise attack, a foreign power hadn’t attacked the U.S. since the War of 1812. With this stupendous level of wasteful spending, our leaders feel compelled to interfere in the business of sovereign states and dictate how they should govern their nations . When you have an enormous hammer, every country looks like a nail.
Laughably, the neo-con hawks and Fox News pundits declare that our military is a hollow shell and needs much greater funding to insure our safety from attack by our many enemies. Other countries, such as China and Russia, feel they have no choice but to increase their expenditures on the military. On a percentage basis, they have more than doubled their expenditures in the last ten years, and still are a drop in the ocean compared to American Empire spending. The fact is that the U.S., China and Russia all have enough nuclear weapons to obliterate the world – mutually assured destruction. The United States could realistically protect itself from attack with only the 18 ballistic missile nuclear submarines we have in commission.
When did Americans lose their ability to distinguish between intellectual and moral pygmies like George Bush, Barack Obama and Mitt Romney versus statesmen like Dwight D. Eisenhower? The Bush Doctrine of pre-emptive war when our country was not threatened has proven to be financially and diplomatically disastrous and his blueprint is being followed by our Nobel Peace Prize President in his saber rattling with Iran. Following this policy puts them in fine company.
“Preventive war was an invention of Hitler. Frankly, I would not even listen to anyone seriously that came and talked about such a thing.” -Dwight D. Eisenhower
The U.S. borrowed $807 billion from China, Japan and oil exporting countries to wage a war in Iraq that was based on false pretenses. None of the terrorist hijackers on 9/11 were Iraqis, they had no links to Al Qaeda, and Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction. Historian Barbara Tuchman description of “war as the unfolding of miscalculations” was never so fitting. In 2002, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld estimated the costs of the war in the range of $50 to $60 billion, a portion of which he believed would be financed by other countries. The United States invaded Iraq to secure the 115 billion barrels of oil reserves, pure and simple. We traded the blood of young Americans for oil because we chose to not develop a cohesive logical energy policy in the last 30 years. Americans, not in the military, sacrificed nothing in the last 11 years of war. We bought BMW SUVs, 6,000 square foot McMansions, flat screen HDTVs, iPads, iPhones and Rolexes while less than 1% of Americans fought and died, with the cost passed to future unborn generations. We are a country of chickenhawks, willing to sacrifice the few so the ruling class can comfortably relax on their decks sipping wine, believing Fox News propaganda about terrorists lurking behind every bush, and filling up their Mercedes convertibles for their excursions to the summer cottage in the Hamptons.
“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.” – Dwight D. Eisenhower
As we spend $900 billion per year on instruments of destruction, 49 million Americans live in poverty, with 46 million on food stamps. There are 3 to 4 million people homeless in any given year. Military Veterans, who make up 13% of the population, account for 23% of the homeless. This is another example of Federal government politicians using young Americans to fulfill their agenda and then tossing them away like pieces of garbage. With the country supposedly three years into an economic recovery, tent cities of homeless dot the landscape across the nation. We pour billions into killing technology while millions of American families are forced to live in tents or sleep in their cars.
As the world spends $1.7 trillion per year on new methods of killing, millions die the old fashioned way.
- 13 million people per year die from starvation in the world.
- The FAO says that 925 million people worldwide are undernourished.
- For the price of one missile, a school full of hungry children could eat lunch every day for 5 years.
- One child dies every 5 seconds as a result of hunger – 700 every hour – 16 000 each day – 6 million each year – 60% of all child deaths (2002-2008 estimates)
What kind of a civilized society allocates 44% of the taxes taken from its people to war? Only 2.5% of your taxes go to science, energy, and environment. Only 2.2% of your taxes go to education and jobs. You produce the results that you would expect from your investments. A full 13% of our population doesn’t have a high school diploma (20% of African Americans & 43% of Latinos) and only 30% have a college degree. How do we expect to lead the world in technology and research with these figures? We do lead the world in government issued student loan debt with $1 trillion and rising.
Human Cost
Politicians hide themselves away
They only started the war
Why should they go out to fight?
They leave that role to the poor
Time will tell on their power minds
Making war just for fun
Treating people just like pawns in chess
Wait till their judgment day comes, yeah!
Black Sabbath – War Pigs
George Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Barack Obama are cowardly politicians who never had the “pleasure” of coming under fire in battle. The brilliant anti-war novel Catch-22 describes these men perfectly.
“Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and some men have mediocrity thrust upon them. With Major Major it had been all three.”
The world has been a huge game of Risk for these warmongers, with young Americans as the game pieces. Instead of conquering Kamchatka in a board game, these non-veterans sent 6,470 Americans to their deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan for a false cause. Their ideology of empire convinced them they could change the world into their image of how it should be, and their re-election campaigns were funded with millions from the purveyors of death – the arms industry.
“In modern war… you will die like a dog for no good reason.” – Ernest Hemingway
Another 47,545 Americans have been badly wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan. Three of these despicable politicians have written their memoirs, raking in millions for telling lies and half-truths. The 6,470 dead Americans won’t have a chance to write their memoirs or get rich. They will never get a chance to see their kids’ graduate college or walk their daughter down the aisle at her wedding. Their children will grow up with a giant hole in their hearts. Their widows will never recover from their endless heartache.
Politician chickenhawks who send our young people to their deaths for oil and ideology will receive their reward on judgment day if there is a just God.
As National Guard troops have been deployed over and over again to Iraq and Afghanistan, they must realize that Catch-22 is alive and well in today’s military.
“There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one’s own safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn’t, but if he was sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn’t have to; but if he didn’t want to he was sane and had to. Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle.”
”That’s some catch, that catch-22,” he observed.
”It’s the best there is,” Doc Daneeka agreed
American soldiers, who have completed their duty to country, have been lied to and had the rules of the game changed again and again. Their politician leaders have reneged on their promises by sending men and women back to the war zone or not letting them come home on the timeline that was agreed to. Meanwhile, their families have gone bankrupt, lost their houses, and saw their marriages dissolve. Politicians started these wars and are too cowardly and prideful to accept failure.
“The military don’t start wars. Politicians start wars.” – General William Westmoreland
Over 1,300 more Americans died needlessly when Barack Obama, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, chose to double down in Afghanistan to prove he was as tough as Bush and McCain. Another man who has never been under fire needed to prove his manliness to his opponents and his constituency. He should have studied the words of former Presidents who were under fire.
“I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity.” - Dwight D. Eisenhower
“My first wish is to see this plague of mankind, war, banished from the earth.” - George Washington
President Obama follows the standard Presidential game plan and dutifully gives patriotic speeches at military bases proclaiming the bravery and sacrifice of our troops. These are the words of politicians. The brutal reality for troops is much different. Representative Ron Paul in November 2003 described the early mistreatment of our soldiers:
- Fort Stewart, Georgia housed hundreds of injured reserve and National Guard soldiers in deplorable conditions who were forced to wait months just to see a doctor. These soldiers made huge sacrifices, leaving their families and jobs to fight in Iraq. They found themselves living in hot, crowded, unsanitary barracks and waiting far too long to see overworked doctors. This was hardly the heroes’ welcome they might have expected. Only an exposé in a major newspaper brought attention to their plight, prompting an embarrassed Defense department to rush additional doctors to the base.
- Some wounded soldiers convalescing at Walter Reed hospital in Washington were forced to pay for hospital meals from their own pockets. Other soldiers returning stateside for a two-week liberty had to buy their own airfare home from the east coast. Still others paid for desert boots, night vision goggles, and other military necessities with personal funds.
- Existing federal rules forced disabled veterans to give up their military retirement pay in order to receive VA disability benefits. This meant that every VA disability dollar paid to a veteran was deducted from his retirement pay, effectively creating a “disabled veterans tax.” No other group of federal employees is subject to this unfair standard; in every other case disability pay is viewed as distinct from standard retirement pay.
The Humvees that soldiers were forced to drive did not have enough protective armor. In December 2004, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld was giving one of his usual inspirational speeches when Army Spc. Thomas Wilson of the 278th Regimental Combat Team, a unit that consisted mainly of reservists from the Tennessee Army National Guard asked him a question:
“Why do we soldiers have to dig through local landfills for pieces of scrap metal and compromised ballistic glass to up-armor our vehicles?”
This set off what the AP described as “a big cheer” from his comrades in arms. Rumsfeld paused, asked Wilson to repeat the question, then finally replied, “You go to war with the army you have.” Besides, he added, “You can have all the armor in the world on a tank and it can be blown up.” I’m glad Donald Rumsfeld has a clear conscience. History will not be kind to this despicable excuse for a human being.
Rumsfeld also sent Americans into battle without protective body armor. Only after bad publicity did the proper protection reach the troops. The blood of dead soldiers is on Rumsfeld’s hands. While President Bush sacrificed by not golfing, terribly wounded soldiers were sent to Walter Reed Hospital to recover. Instead they entered hell on earth. Outpatient mistreatment was reported in 2004, but nothing was done. In 2004 and 2005, articles appeared in the Washington Post and in Salon interviewing First Lt. Julian Goodrum about his court martial for seeking medical care elsewhere due to poor conditions at WRAMC. A Washington Post expose in 2007 finally revealed the horrible mistreatment of our brave wounded soldiers. These reporters uncovered the following conditions:
- WRAMC’s Building 18 was described in the article as rat- and cockroach-infested, with stained carpets, cheap mattresses, and black mold, with no heat and water reported by some soldiers at the facility. The unmonitored entrance created security problems, including reports of drug dealers in front of the facility. Injured soldiers stated they are forced to “pull guard duty” to obtain a level of security.
- The typical soldier was required to file 22 documents with eight different commands – most of them off-post – to enter and exit the medical processing world, according to government investigators. Sixteen different information systems were used to process the forms, but few of them could communicate with one another. This complicated system has required some soldiers to prove they were in the Iraq War or the War in Afghanistan in order to obtain medical treatment and benefits because Walter Reed employees were unable to locate their records.
There was a tremendous surge in suicides by soldiers who have been pushed beyond their limits as they increased by 80% between 2004 and 2008. There are almost as many deaths by suicide as deaths in combat:
- Overall, the services reported 434 suicides by personnel on active duty, significantly more than the 381 suicides by active-duty personnel reported in 2009. The 2010 total is below the 462 deaths in combat, excluding accidents and illness. In 2009, active-duty suicides exceeded deaths in battle.
- Soldiers returning from long tours in Iraq or Afghanistan suffering from combat stress were sometimes met with scorn from their superiors and something bordering on neglect from some medical officials. As their largely untreated problems deteriorated, their marriages unraveled under the strain. They turned to alcohol and drugs and in some cases saw no other way out than suicide.
- Healthcare officials at various installations who are struggling to help say they’re overwhelmed by huge numbers of troops returning from two, three or even four deployments with acute mental problems from combat.
- Statistics on Iraq and Afghanistan veterans, obtained in 2011 through a Freedom of Information Act request by a San Francisco newspaper, found that more than 2,200 soldiers died within two years of leaving the service, and about half had been undergoing treatment for post-traumatic stress or other combat-induced mental disorders at the time.
- For five years, beginning in 2005, a service member died by suicide every 36 hours, according to the report by the Center for New American Security.
Nearly 20% of military service members who have returned from Iraq and Afghanistan — 300,000 in all — report symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder or major depression, yet only slightly more than half have sought treatment, according to a RAND Corporation report. Many service members said they do not seek treatment for psychological illnesses because they fear it will harm their careers. But even among those who do seek help for PTSD or major depression, only about half receive treatment that researchers consider “minimally adequate” for their illnesses. Recent studies expect PTSD to affect 30% of all returning veterans.
For all the glory and accolades of dying for chickenhawks like Dick Cheney, enlisted soldiers make between $17,000 and $32,000 per year. The military evidently does not prepare them well for the outside world as their unemployment rate is 12.1% versus the national rate of 8.2%. The pandering Obama gives speeches and the criminal bankers at JP Morgan have their PR maggots create TV commercials about hiring veterans, but the numbers don’t lie. A country can be measured by how well it treats its veterans. Our leaders talk a good game, but their actions prove they don’t care about the human costs of war. They are busy planning their next move in their game of Risk.
Moral Cost
Now in darkness, world stops turning
As the war machine keeps burning
No more war pigs of the power
Hand of God has struck the hour
Day of Judgment, God is calling
On their knees, the war pigs crawling
Begging mercy for their sins
Satan, laughing, spreads his wings
All right now!
Black Sabbath – War Pigs
Omar Bradley, the last five star General in the U.S. military, was known as the “soldier’s general” during World War II. He was portrayed by Karl Malden in the movie Patton as a thoughtful man who cared about his troops. He was one of the key architects of the Normandy invasion and led the 12th Army Group consisting of 900,000 men until the end of the war. After the war, Bradley headed the Veterans Administration for two years. He is credited with doing much to improve its health care system and with helping veterans receive their educational benefits under the G.I. Bill of Rights. He ultimately rose to Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. Contrast the words of the fictional Colonel Kilgore from the movie Apocalypse Now, with the words of General Bradley:
Kilgore: I love the smell of napalm in the morning. You know, one time we had a hill bombed, for 12 hours. When it was all over, I walked up. We didn’t find one of ‘em, not one stinkin’ dink body. The smell, you know that gasoline smell, the whole hill. Smelled like
[ sniffing, pondering ]
victory. Someday this war’s gonna end…
[ suddenly walks off ]
“The world has achieved brilliance without wisdom, power without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war than we know about peace, more about killing than we know about living.” - Omar Bradley
We need giants like Omar Bradley and Dwight D. Eisenhower to lead our country through the difficult times ahead. These men knew the horrors of war and didn’t act like it was a game of chess. Instead we will be led by intellectual and ethical infants, Obama or Romney. There are no wise men with a conscience and high moral standards in power today. Only those with no conscience and a willingness to lie are able to gain power in today’s world. General Bradley understood that morality was ultimately more important than power and strength in determining the progress of a country. His words are those of someone who knew we had failed in our moral duty:
“We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the Sermon on the Mount.”
Peacemakers are ridiculed and shunned in America today. Those who preach diplomacy and non-interventionism, like Ron Paul, are scorned and ignored. Old men who care more about their own power than the human race are willing to sacrifice the blood of young people for precious oil, phony nationalism, their own strategic interests or corporate interests disguised as philosophical agendas. The world is a game for these old men. They care about their personal legacy and rigid ideologies. War and militarism are a failure of passion over reason. Albert Einstein, whose discovery brought about this age of potential world destruction, had no love for these blind warriors.
“He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would suffice.”
The overwhelming cost of maintaining a global empire eventually bankrupted Rome and Great Britain. Treasures were wasted, young men were needlessly sacrificed in the name of the flag, and the morality of leaders sank to unprecedented levels. The U.S. had advanced financially and technologically for more than a century, but since the takeover of our economic system by private banking and corporate interests in 1913 we have seen continuous war, continuous currency debasement, and continuous moral decay. How far will we decline before a sufficient number of Americans are outraged enough to lead a new American Revolution?
Our current situation reminds me of the movie Planet of the Apes. The apes are divided into a strict class system: the gorillas as police, military, and hunters; the orangutans as administrators, politicians and lawyers; and the chimpanzees as intellectuals and scientists. Humans, who cannot talk, are considered feral vermin and are hunted and used for scientific experimentation. The United States is now in the control of gorillas and orangutans. If we continue down the current path of financial and moral decay, allowing the Military Industrial Complex, criminal bankers and corrupt politicians to push us into further world conflicts, we will experience the shock and horror that George Taylor, played by Charlton Heston, displayed in the final scene of Planet of the Apes .
George Taylor: Oh my God. I’m back. I’m home. All the time, it was… We finally really did it.
[ screaming ]
You Maniacs! You blew it up! Ah, damn you! God damn you all to hell!
The War Pigs must be stopped before it’s too late. The Military Industrial Complex, with the unwavering support of central bankers printing unlimited amounts of fiat currency, while controlling the scoundrel puppets in Washington DC, will destroy this country in their never ending quest for power and profits. One man fights a lonely battle against these forces of oppression. We must join his legion and take this country back from the war pigs.
“As many frustrated Americans who have joined the Tea Party realize, we cannot stand against big government at home while supporting it abroad. We cannot talk about fiscal responsibility while spending trillions on occupying and bullying the rest of the world. We cannot talk about the budget deficit and spiraling domestic spending without looking at the costs of maintaining an American empire of more than 700 military bases in more than 120 foreign countries. We cannot pat ourselves on the back for cutting a few thousand dollars from a nature preserve or an inner-city swimming pool at home while turning a blind eye to a Pentagon budget that nearly equals those of the rest of the world combined.” – Ron Paul
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the "I need a JAWB and college BENEFITS" is about as lame as they come.
so if one doesn't have an income, it's cool to go maim 'n kill 'n' poison OTHER people for a paycheck and bennies?
fuck anyone who believes this is a valid excuse, and perpetuating it amongst others.
oh, and by the way,
time to update yer flag waving.
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0004600.html
and of those women, about one third are raped by their fellow paycheck seekers.
Yeah right, one third. You have obviously never been in the military.
(if you have, then you are being exceedingly disingenuous)
http://duckduckgo.com/?q=American+women+soldiers+rape
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/dec/09/rape-us-military
http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3848/etc.
The fact that you would quote some lame MSM propaganda at me, speaks volumes. I know for a fact that (one in three) being raped in the military is a loony, radical femenist agenda driven TOTAL LIE, much like everything that comes out of your mouth. I know this from first hand experience. I been there. Where have you been? Getting indoctrinated at your women's studies seminar? Conducting the seminar?
Your article, like everything you spout I suspect, is written be people who have no military experience, to be read by people with no military experience, and used by willing dupes and active leftist "warriors for Che" or whatever you consider yourself.
You are not stupid, I am sure your IQ is higher than mine, and your government paycheck is higher than mine as a "diversity indoctrination comissar" at University or whatever you do.
But you are a total Commie, and everything you say is a total lie 100%
Lying for the cause is no vice for Socialists/Leftists, only serving the revolution is important, so I can't reach you for are a bought-and-paid for believer, but I can debunk and expose your lies one by one Charman Mao Cathartes.
Hasta La Victoria Siempre Comrade!
I see your military training kicks in - not only defending it but calling anyone who espouses logic, history or criticism that conflicts with yours a "commie" with a "100% lie" return.
Does service increase or decrease the objectivity?
actually no prole, I am not a "femenist" nor a professor leading seminars - I actually come from a family of higher education non-achievers, and I'm pretty much "self educated" since my brief foray into "university" was a such a total turnoff.
not a "leftist" nor a "rightist" - I don't vote, and don't entertain anyone's speeches to convince me otherwise - I've seen the lies in action most of my life, and want zero to do with "national" anything.
you can disagree with me, it's your right to have your own point of view, but do yourself a favour and sample some of the truths here that make you angry - you may find one that cause you to poke your head out of your turtle shell. doesn't have to be one of mine, just pick one that provokes.
Thanks for the links Cathartes. Very sobering. This line caught my attention:
"Worse, according to the Defense Department’s own reports, the military has been exacerbating the problem by granting an increasing number of “moral waivers” to its recruits since 9/11, which means enlisting men with records of domestic and sexual violence."
It's hardly a surprise there are so many rapes when they're recruiting rapists and wife abusers.
This is probably relevant as well:
"Two studies of Army and Marine recruits, one conducted in 1996 by psychologists L.N. Rosen and L. Martin, and the other in 2005 by Jessica Wolfe and her colleagues of the Boston Veterans Affairs Health Center, both of which were published in the journal Military Medicine, found that half the male enlistees had been physically abused in childhood, one-sixth had been sexually abused, and 11 percent had experienced both. This is significant because, as psychologists have long known, childhood abuse often turns men into abusers."
"Very sobering?" Are you joking? Are you kidding? Tell me someone is kidding me here and I just don't get it?
Geek Girl Davey jones you believe one in three military women has been raped? (I ignore Cathartes as I expect no honesty from a phoney like him/her)
Do you believe any military women would agree with above false "study?" Do you have any military women in your family/friends? Ask 30 of them if they have been raped by fellow soldier and get back to me.
Do you believe any women in America would be dumb enough to voluntarily join an outfit with a higher incidence of rape than male prison, which are themselves essentially rape factories?
Would you personally join an outfit if you thought that you faced a 30% chance of being raped?
Beam me up Scotty
.
http://www.salon.com/2007/03/07/women_in_military/
http://www.military.com/entertainment/movies/movie-news/sundance-documen...
prole, I see a lot of heat, but not much light. Did you read the articles Cathartes posted? And more importantly, can you respond rationally to the charges laid out in those pieces?
I don't expect to get accurate data out of the military. Working in the criminal justice sytem for 21 years and seeing people come in and out of both systems, I see a lot of similarities, a lot of mental destruction, a lot of sexual disfunction, and a lot of government lies.
I appreciate your taking the time to read some of these links geekgrrl - as you've noted, there is a lot of valuable "backstory" to what is happening, and there is also a long history of sexual exploitation by militaries globally - until the US flagwavers acknowledge just what truly does go down in their name, nothing will change.
and it's really important to also acknowledge that sexual abuse breeds more of the same, it's a vicious cycle, and while the majority of it happens to females, the boys are abused too, increasingly so in this hyper-sexualised culture.
you might find these links of interest, with regards the history of military prostitution, and how the US has actually negotiated to have "local women" set up around the bases occupying other nations.
Katharine Moon: Military Prostitution and the U.S. Military in Asiahttp://www.dmzhawaii.org/?p=1187
Military Prostitution and the Iraq Occupation -Privatizing Women
http://www.counterpunch.org/2007/07/11/privatizing-women/
government as pimp, who would have thought. (/sarc)
take care.
edit to wave at cross posting! *smiles*
This is a good point to bring up, especially when we got people yelling for the return of the draft. If anyone ever attempts to draft my daughter into the military (as well as my two sons) it will be over my dead body and my wife's tears.
Imagine having your daughter drafted and find out she gets gang raped by the males in her unit. People might questions these stats, but I never have because I know what great Apes men really are.
would that more fathers loved their daughters, and sons, to the point of keeping them OUT of the service of sociopaths.
/salute!
In which one of my 3 sentences did I push for a draft?
"In fact, I think the soldiers are the ones enabling the war because there's not nearly enough political will for a draft."
Yes, because going to Iraq or Afghanistan is purely voluntary, and once your rotation is up, you are free to choose whether to go back again or not.
Oh wait, that's not true; they've been stop-lossing people and sending them back year after year, and calling up reservists who are over 55.
I guess by 'choosing' not to disobey orders, they are enabling the war efforts.
Yes, because going to Iraq or Afghanistan is purely voluntary,
Yes, obviously the act of joining the military is 100% voluntary. Is this in doubt? Joining a fighting outfit whose theme songs brag about foreign wars, entails what it entails, is this in any doubt?
and once your rotation is up, you are free to choose whether to go back again or not.
Oh wait, that's not true; they've been stop-lossing people and sending them back year after year, and calling up reservists who are over 55.
Your post is confusing me sir. Did these people voluntarily, of their own free will, sign up, or not? Yes or no answer please?????
For the most part, I would say yes, people signed up voluntarily. But you are missing the point; you are essentially saying that if you signed up to be a reservist to protect your country 30 years ago, you are responsible for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan today.
Claiming that every soldier is somehow personally responsible for these wars is ridiculous.
Somebody else must have said that, but--
As a group they fully share the responsibility with our masters. You can't have illegal, unconstitutional wars of aggression unless you have willing "war fighters/storm troopers" and each one is responsible to the tune of 100% for his a$$ being over there getting blown up. And since the Philippine war112 years ago, that farce about being in the military (reserve, active, contractor all the same, "war fighter") being in the military to "protect your country" is a farce. It is a foreign legion, or mobile attack force for wars abroad.
Let me add: The US Navy's new motto is "A global force for good" Global Farce for evil would be more accurate. But that post-jingoistic slogan alone gives the lie to any volunteer to pretend he's signing up to "protect his country."
Why does every jingo war lover war defender have to construct a mountain of straw men to uphold his "Patriotism."
Where Liberty dwells there is my country
They would also seem to draft their marketers from the same talent pool as the Chinese, given their new glorification of the "Citizen-Soldier."
Political will has nothing to do with the lack of draft. They have it set up perfectly for what the MIC would like. Willing participants.
Draft would get them people like me. Who wouldn't fight, and be of no use to them.
Fuck Obama and Fuck the Military War Machine!
none of them inspires me to do so.
Maybe after a few more drinks?? After all they did pay for dinner and the movie. You really don't want to seem like a prude.
I remember this idotic rap from the sixties. If only we didn't have a military, the cops are pigs (until you need them), can't we just get along, kum-bay-yah, etc. A-a-h, the land of wish that maserati marxists live in. And no, that doesn't mean all wars are good or bad but living in dream land in this world or in any large american city is being one of V. I. Lenins useful iodits. Many of the large wars were faught because democracies didn't fight the small ones. War should be the last resort, but to believe that everyone everywhere is a guilty white liberal or a Ghandi is nuts. The rights that my wife (who grew up in a non kum-ba-yah dictatorship under martial law) and I are guaranteed by those in uniform not by by the NYT or the Constitution. When ordered into a conflict the those young men and women either in the military or the police forces can't go on strike to avoid saving your "sensitive progressive" ass.
you sound like a cop, my boyfriend is a state trooper and he says the same shit I just LOL and LOL
You know what? I might agree with you except for the fact that our military doesn't do a particularly good job defending our constitutional freedoms. Last time I checked, they had been fucked into a cocked hat.
Let's see. In other posts on this thread, you have advocated the arrest of authors and movie-makers with whom you disagree, and you have advocated the abolishment of the right to worship any God that you don't personally believe in. Have you ever read the Constitution?
I don't want the military to have a roll in deciding what my Constitutional Freedoms are. Or how to defend those freedoms.
If you object to getting fucked in your cocked hat, I suggest you find a different sort of costume party to attend. Or maybe find some leathers with a full ass pannel.
What you want is kind of irrelevant. The oath they swore is to support and defend the constitution, from enemies foreign and domestic.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Armed_Forces_oath_of_enlistment
save it from what? The boogeyman? You are probably collecting a pension from the military, the fed govt, and now work as a IC for the govt?
this is exactly how guys like you rationalize.
An Empire does.
Empire by Queensryche:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7RGTRAsZRRM
'An Empire does."
Bingo. Finally someone gets it.
I find this on YouTube with an ad for 'Mitt Romney for President' across the video window. ) :
War Pigs - Black Sabbath (Live in Paris 1970)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtqy4DTHGqg
$900 billion is a low number. The recent wars were paid for by borrowing. Trillions in debt. My nephew got injured in Iraq. He gets disability/medical for life. Plenty of others like him. Foreign aid is mostly bribes for bases. US ruling class regularly gave away our technology and made unfavorable (to US ) trade agreements for military purposes (i.e. Japan, South Korea, Taiwan).
I see you are not a good right winger. They hate the person that brings up military disability costs. Why do you hate America it's only going to cost three trillion to support those volunteers for there life times.
Writing direct and unsupportable lies is a poor tactic.
Ok, so exactly how much will the total lifetime cost of all the veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan come to, compared to how much they would have cost total if they had not gone there?
If the other poster's estimate of ~$300 billion per year for veteran healthcare and pensions is accurate, what are your projected costs going forward for the rest of the lives of all disabled vets from these two wars, including those who have yet to be wounded?
About 800,000 are trying to get benefits according to this:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/27/iraq-afghanistan-veterans-disab...
In my nephew's case, he gets 60K year indexed to inflation no tax. Plus medical for family. Plus education if he wants it. Let's say $70K/year. He might live 50 years so 3.5 million in today's dollars. 3.5 billion per 1,000. 800,000 trying to get it. Let's say 1/4 qualify. About 1 trillion.
<<Writing direct and unsupportable lies is a poor tactic. >>
If it's a good enough tactic for the POTUS (Obama, the Bushes, Clinton, LBJ immediately come to mind), why is it not good tactic for a lowly blog poster?
Not as poor as vague statements with no supporting contradictory facts.
Google it, I did a couple of years ago. I would now but as before I would only get personal attacks and NEWSMAX counter links. The right wing can not handle the truth.
you said it mjk - disability of the YOUNG soldiers AND the fact that we can keep them alive at tremendous cost (unlike the past) is a big, big one
What Budget? Congress hasn't had a budget since Obama took office. So how can you provide such figures. Even Obama's recent budget was voted down unamously by both houses. I agree we should pull out of Afghanistan and pakistan and not send one more dime of our tax dollars. But I also believe we need a strong defense. I also don't believe that China is spending only 7% of their GDP on the military. How can you believe anything that comes out of China? Viet Nam was a clusterfuck. We won all the battles but lost the war due to the armchair Generals and politicians calling the shots and finally the liberal media calling us all baby killers.
We lost the war because we had no where else to go. We defeated the Viet Cong in South Vietnam and were winning in North Vietnam when we started bombing with Nixon.
We refused to invade North Vietnam due to it being an ally of China and from the events that unfolded in the Korean war.
As soon as U.N. forces turned back the North Koreans and headed north across the 38th parallel the Chinese unleashed their volunteer peasant army. The U.N. forces were then turned back by the Chinese and forced back south of the 38th. The war then turned into slug match the centered around the 38th parallel until the armistice was signed.
So, you see we had nowhere else to go except possibly Loas or Cambodia. If we had invaded North Vietnam we would have incurred the same problems we had in Korea, namely the goliath China would have sent in troops since it didn't want a capitalist state on it's border.
China's elites started the Cultural Revolution in the late 60's to keep the peasants in line. With a capitalist state on its southern border would have been anathama to the Communists.
So, what were our choices, expand the war into Laos and Cambodia, or exit.
Of course, one could state that the U.S. and China colluded behind the scenes to keep the war running for over ten years to the benefit of both their and the Soviet Unions war industries, but that's a different conspiracey theory all on its own.
winning the war in the south? ever heard of the TET offensive of 1968 and Hue surge? Even Napalming half of south Vietnam didn't win that back! It was stalemate and at very heavy cost; not victory.
Whatever are you talking about? The Tet Offensive was a military failure for the Viet Cong, though it may have been a psychological failure for the US public.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/1463099/Kissi...
everything amrkns are fed is toxic. including their history.
True but every country bordering China is aware of this. US has no chance of beating Chinese army on land in Asia for a sustained period. We can maintain enough air and sea power to keep them on the Asian mainland and out of Japan. And we can help countries like Japan, South Korea and Viet Nam build up their military. But they are rich. They can afford to buy the stuff. Places like Myammar, Cambodia, Laos - we could not do a thing if China invaded them regardless of how much we spend on military. We didn't do anything when they invaded Tibet. India got their butt kicked by the Chinese quite thoroughly but now that they have nukes, unlikely China would attack there. Pakistan is their ally. They would be crazy to go into Afghanistan after watching US and USSR get their butt kicked for decades. Best target for them is Siberia but nukes again. They will probably get it slowly by immigration.
mjk0259 said:
...they finance our military adventures.
Yeah, but the interest we pay them for those bonds is paying to equip and upgrade their military.
We are the suckers of the world.
Ironic that a nation that bankrupted itself battling the ideology of the centrally planned economy is now dependant on central planning for it's survival.
Thank you, Mr. Lincoln.
Freed the black man, enslaved the white man.
Did you know he invented the income tax? It was a wartime "emergency measure". Funny how that shit tends to hang around.
ha ha ha enslaved the white man when they took out the amerindian nation in thirty years? Lol, how enslaved the white man was from 1865 to 1890. Ask Buffalo Bill! Ask the ghosts of Geronimo and their ilk!
Your dixie blues drive you to confuse the truth with the sweet bird of cotton growing nigger whipping youth gone by!
Geronimo and their ilk were non-Christians. Christians believe it's OK (or better) to kill heathens. It's kind of like "Thou shalt not kill" really means you're not allowed to kill Jews.
"Thou shalt not kill" until you re-brand the human, then it's f'ng cool dudes, go for it, in my name!
Income tax didn't stick around after Lincoln invented it. It was such a hit, they brought it BACK after it was gone for awhile.
"The Fletcher Memorial Home"
take all your overgrown infants away somewhere
and build them a home a little place of their own
the fletcher memorial
home for incurable tyrants and kings
and they can appear to themselves every day
on closed circuit t.v.
to make sure they're still real
it's the only connection they feel
"ladies and gentlemen, please welcome reagan and haig
mr. begin and friend mrs. thatcher and paisley
mr. brezhnev and party
the ghost of mccarthy
the memories of nixon
and now adding colour a group of anonymous latin
american meat packing glitterati"
did they expect us to treat them with any respect
they can polish their medals and sharpen their
smiles, and amuse themselves playing games for a while
boom boom, bang bang, lie down you're dead
safe in the permanent gaze of a cold glass eye
with their favourite toys
they'll be good girls and boys
in the fletcher memorial home for colonial
wasters of life and limb
is everyone in?
are you having a nice time?
now the final solution can be applied
"Afghan shithole" ?
That was uncalled for.
right? tough motherfuckers
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DentE2ydnMI Afghan Star trailer
You dont know much about it
No utilities and no running water for most villages. Filthy people who cant bathe
Yeah. Its a shithole
Yeah, the good ole days when everyone stank and TP had yet to be invented.
Reminds me of the grunge years in Seattle.
Sounds like the early USA.
It sounds like camping.
WTF.
how many decades have they been invaded, murdered, occupied???
how long have these peoples been TERRORISED?
how long have they endured depleted uranium poisoning, and other experimental horrors?
jesus wept.
Ron Paul as POTUS with Christ himself as VP and the twelve Apostles on the SCOTUS might be enough to turn the tide. Most likely however, it would end just like it did last time............all the good guys die horrible deaths and evil marches on in the hearts and minds of the "enlightened" ones.
"with the modern invention called the tax code, we can eliminate the barbaric relic of war wearyness"
-- composite PTB: Alan Greenspan, Hank "tanks in the streets" Paulson, Mitt "14%" Romney, and never forget ... Timmah "turbotax" Geithner and his lords of the underworld.
"I want my $600 check before they start any new wars."
-- wisefool.
Ever since the US Marines were blown up in Beruit, we have been involved in a war for our very existence against a Ideology that will try to breed us out, kill those who wont convert and otherwise eliminate everything they hate.
What then is freedom?
Well, we are it. For better or worse.
I don't think we will be easily defeated by Military means, but we will defeat ourselves by obesity, selfishness and greed.
At the end of the day, anyone who walks into the Recruiter's and volunteers with a free will to serve you and me, possibly up to and including dying.
That is a good day.
They fight, serve and do whatever it is necessary to preserve the right to speak as a Anti-war.
Until we develop and establish a economy on something else besides Oil (Something that will take generations) we will and must preserve it.
Others don't have to come here to kill, they can simply burn the oilfields and sit back to watch us cannibalize each other.
Totally agree that Islam is a political ideology, masquerading as a sham religion. It's ruthless and sick and should be put down.
And yet, we only seem to fight the secular Arab states, and support the fundamental ones. Why is that, hmmmm?
In a post above you complain about the military not protecting the Constitution, but then you post this? Do you have any fucking idea what the Constitution says? Do you believe is the government's job to decide which religions (including religions practiced by more than a billion people) are valid? What fucking police state hell do you envision as paradise?
Personally I like the one where women are covered head to toe, their clitori are cut off, young men have sex with goats or young boys cause they never see a woman until they get married and its a sin for a woman to go out in public without being escorted by a male family member, where women can neither vote or drive, or where speaking against allah or mohammed gets your head cut off, or where young women are married off to their old goat first cousin, or where if a young woman tries to act western she is honour killed. I personally like the part where you're forced to pray five times a day, gets me out of a lot of work, or you wipe your arse with your fingers, wash your feet in the sink, and are led around by a bunch of religious fanatics wearing table cloths on their heads.
Of course, not that the jokers running the Western world are any better.
You'll get no argument from me that some versions of the practice of the religion are brutal and worthy of disdain. But don't forget the Spanish Inquisition, the witch trials (not the McCarthy one, but the ones in Salem where Christians burned women alive after show trials), the Crusades, the use of Christianity by the Nazis, and on ad infinitum. My point is that it is not our government's role to tell people how to worship so long as our laws are not broken. If you cut off a woman's genitals, that breaks a law here. If you stone someone, etc.
And how do you propose that laws be enforced within religious compounds?
it's the same thing with communism; if you let people who are plotting to violently overthrow the government freely gather, what do you do once they are in power?
It's not like the communists were planning on getting elected and holding a referendum to re-write the constitution.
So the law is the only issue here? So female genital mutilation can commence if Sharia Law is implemented in this country? Seems to me some of the greatest human atrocities, wars, "hate crimes" have been committed and legitimized under all religions at some point in history...well may be not buddhism. Anyway, it seems to me it would be best if we toss all religions in the bin. I know I know... It's not religion that's the problem but those who misinterpret said religions and use them for their twisted evil purposes. My point exactly, all the more reason to flush them. I mean imagine a world with one less weapon the power hungry can use against the people. Oh well I can dream cant I? I guess religion is the opiate of the people.
Miffed:-)
They outlawed religion in the Soviet Union. Didn't work out. Stop watching Fox. Sharia law is not coming to America. If you don't want someone else's believe system imposed on you, then stop trying to impose yours on everyone else.
I don't watch fox. Don't watch any TV actually. I have a few friends in the Persian community and have heard enuf stories. Honor killings have been performed in this county, actually a possible one is been investigated locally but still is not proven. I impose no personal will on anyone, hell I can't even persuade my daughter to clean her room. I was just musing on a Sunday afternoon. Kinda like " what if they threw a war and no one came?" Shit like that. But you have a vested interest being provocative so carry on.
Miffed:-)
Yeah and since you dislike Moslems so much, you slaughtered a bunch of Christians for them, gave them an Islamic state in the Middle of Europe and called it Kosova.
So your post makes alot of sense.
while I'd be first in line to help put a stop to the ways women are mistreated as humans in any state that practises genital mutilation, honour killing, etc. - the beliefs behind these actions rarely get added to the discussion here.
young girls are genitally mutilated because those who they are to marry INSIST on having chattel that does not enjoy sex, and they are sewn up to GUARANTEE no cock has been there before the one who is entitled to use her by marriage. end of.
traditionally the older women, usually aunts, perform or are with the young girl for the procedure - they instruct her of her role in life, which is to be a sexual object for her husband, to serve and service his whims, and bear him children, preferably sons, for obvious reasons.
etc. etc. hence the "male family escort" and the denial of any means of escape (driving) or freedom. they are considered owned objects, not really human, only males are human.
sound at all familiar?
And, sadly, the women who are "past their prime" and have assumed their place among the social PTB in such a society are heavily invested in eliminating the potential competition that younger women might pose if society became free.
They're virtually all for it.
Similarly to US women, without whose silent complicity none of the civilized insanity that is America--particularly wars and radical social inequity--could continue.
Women could turn this country around in a minute if they desired to do so. Popular mythology about the "gentler, more caring sex" notwithstanding.
Most of the hostility you'll encounter in this "male dominated" community is driven by burning resentment of the convenient institutionalization of female victimhood that so distorts the putative "debate" about gender issues.
If you wanna really begin drilling down beyond the feminist dialectic that so clearly, to men, defines the debate, start asking men who they'd rather have a conflict with: A man or a woman.
I polled thousands of men on this question over a period of 10-15 years and only heard one answer: A man.
Most looked at me as if I were insane to ask the question--women kick our asses if we don't stay in line. And we all know it. Something about "women as victims" just doesn't add up for men.
If men weren't kept "barefoot and ignorant" via exlusion from the gender debate by being illigitimate by definition as the "abusers," there would be a "sexual dialectic" that the majority of both sexes could embrace.
And apparent feminist concerns would inspire a whole lot less knee jerk hostility from men.
believe it or not, I agree with most of what you're saying here Bob - which is why gender is an important distinction for me.
there are humans. there are human bodies presenting on a sliding scale from "pure" male to "pure" female - most are in between the polarities, body wise;
then there is what the culture needs from the humans, being - what the culture needs the participants to present, to be read as "either/or" - historically there has been many spaces for people to occupy and be seen as themselves - but we don't hear much about this in our "striving for appearance" oriented societies now.
culture is cartoonish now - gendered females (women) are expected to adopt a pose - plastic-tit porn babe, yummy mommy, power suit "exec" - it's just like barbie-dolls, each in their box with their title and uni-form. gendered males (men) are getting the full on push to adopt a pose now too - you can be a ken-doll, or GI Joe - metrosexual or hyper-man.
and all around the edges is where the interactions occur - the "women" are currently finding more attention as "victims" because the stereotypes encourage this, and the "men" get lots of props for being fucking angry (Rush, and the rest of the shouty ilk) - the beat goes on.
"feminists" are not uniform, they come with varying degrees of intelligence and awareness, and sexual organs too - I have male friends who call themselves feminists - and I myself do not use that tag as a descriptive, it's too loaded now, it's been co-opted by mainstream, like all things eventually are.
while I may argue from a point of view that picks at the sores of a lot of the bitter dudes that post from a stunted immaturity that gets the threads going, I'm honestly trying to point out the fallacy of "men vs. women" - I don't always get that point across, I'll admit. my personality is also prone to sarcasm, and it's provocative, I know.
but it's my firm belief that once one takes the red pill on cultural mythology - gender is the destination if you really want to see the depth of the storyteller's lies and manipulations. if we cannot pick at the sore of who we think we are, and who we've been TOLD we are, be it "americans" or any "citizen" who identifies with their nation, or taking sides in the man vs. woman artificial war story - then fold up the chairs 'n' tables, we're finished. baaaaa - baaaaaaa. . .
hope you're well, appreciate your post.
If you read history you would realize that the muslims were as concerned of their own decadence in the face of european renaissance. So when the Ottoman Empire died, the last remnance of Islamic power in the world ended. From 1920 onwards, the Islamic world went secular big time to play catch up ball; the best example being Ataturk. But he was not the only one : it led to Mossadegh and Nasser and Jinnah. All secular. Ask yourself who took them out and what they were replaced by : Fundamentalist wahhabist Sauds (not the Hashemites), Moslem brotherhood, Talibans and military surrogates who bred poverty at home, corruption, lived off the US aid and arms trade and encouraged drugs sale to US troops in Vietnam etc. ...
So this monster is a pure American construct to fight pinko secular islam in the context of anti commie crusade of the DUlles age; now the anti-moslem crusade of the NWO. Pure american machiavellian play; 60 years of it. Even Iran is a nationalist + ideological knee jerk to western colonial crusader rule as in Nam; aka Vietcong patriotism + commie ideology. It all went up like smoke once the Viet war was over, they lost the peace. If the ISrael/Oil war was over the same thing would happen in the Middle East. THIS WHOLE ISLAM FUNDAMENTALIST TREND IS ANTI-HISTORIC AND FEEDS OFF THE OIL COLONIALIST HEGEMONY OF USA. The day thats over Islamic fundamentalism will die. Just like VIetnam communisim is dying in front of our eyes. Aint life simple, when people think simple and forget hubris and empire play.
"Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful." -Lucius Annaeus Seneca (4?BCE - 61CE)
Great quote! Thx
Miffed:-)
"a war for our very existence" is a tad excessive, buddy.
"From the Halls of Montezuma to the Shores of Tripoli", remember? That's how it began, for the Semper Fi.
At what point did it began to be an "existential war" as Dr. Goebbels used to outline? You are using lines that rhyme with his boss's "it's either them or us, the better genetic setup will win".
Against one freaking billion people? ALL Muslims? That live all across the globe and, in 99% of the cases just minding their business? All of them hating the US because... Because... Damn, I keep forgetting the reason...
They hate us because of our easy access to tranny porn. When all you get to see all day is fully clothed women and goat anuses you have a tendency to get a little jealous after hearing that Americans get to master-de-bate themselves while viewing transgender tranny porn.
You can't make war against an idea.
Ever since the US Marines were blown up in Beruit, we have been involved in a war for our very existence against a Ideology that will try to breed us out, kill those who wont convert and otherwise eliminate everything they hate.
Sheesh. That's discouraging.
Despite our vastly superior ideology, technology, wealth, and numbers, we've accomplished absolutely nothing in this 30-year war.
We must SUCK at this stuff.
Hard to park by my house when the mosque two blocks away is doing something. They don't have to defeat by military means.
May be that's why we're sending all our fast food McCrap over to them. I think we've won Qatar at this point.
Miffed:-)
Hmm.. Politicians, generals, soldiers...
No mention yet of the role of the banks in all this conflict.
I tried. but I am a doddering old fool and nobody listens to me. To their credit, I never made a deal with a bank that I did not agree to. The IRS is a completely different story.
I was just thinking along the line that the flow of credit and debt in and out of assets related to trade and the ever present banker manipulating and skimming from every angle is probably what’s behind all this. Religion, ideology, energy and food are all secondary issues to finance and trade.
If I wanted offend ZH, I'd laugh at their propensity to shiny metal. If I wanted to agree with you I'd have to write some tax code.
'till then. well met brother. DO NOT DO WHAT I HAVE DONE!
-wisefool. LLM tax.
Wish y'all could have been with me at a get-together of politically active Ron Paul supporters last week. It was not a group of college kids. We had old-time rock solid Republicans who see Romney as another Obama, retired military officers, members of law enforcement (including one who was wearing his Oathkeepers t-shirt), doctors, lawyers, ranchers, businessmen, nurses, young couples, and more.
Romney can't beat Obama. Ron Paul can. The Independents, Greens, 3rd's, and some Democrats wil vote for Ron Paul, but not Romney.
The GOP is suicidal for pushing Romney.
I like this post better than your other one, you only mentioned "marriage" twice! (OK I've never been married but serously DO NOT GET IT I really doubt I'd get a good deal from that arrangement so when people get all teary-eyed about its sanctity it's like ugh whatever) but agreed on the military machine, and those Dwight quotes are pretty amazing
In the words of Marine Corps Major General Smedley Butler, "War is a Racket," for the bankers.
In the words of Lovolution, War isnt Righteous Anymore (Battle Scars of the republic).
The Rockefellers and the Rothschilds fatten off it fer sure.
fantastic read, mr. quinn :-))
'tis a shame our country has gone so astray, as that of a rabid dog falling prey to his own game?'
Ps. "Stop-Loss Policy" : leading cause of PTS & Suicides -- deliberate, and cost effective way of ridding military cost overages
MF's !!!
question for y'all: How do you handle the veneration of ~our troops~, like I know they're people just like I am but on principle I don't want to support the war machine and but say you're at a basketball game (OR shit, I've seen this happen at the airport) and they come on the speaker rah rah rah support the troops give them a big hand I just stand there don't clap which gets me dirty looks sometimes I've been told I'm "rude" but what the hell it's so surreal
I live in the bible belt so idk if that affects things
first let me debunk a myth that may help you think this through. there is the story that gained wide acceptance during the anti war protests during the vietnam war that active soldiers and returning vets were spat upon for their service. put this in perspective. the vietnam war was less than a generation after ww2 and a few years after the korean war. everyone of the protesters knew someone who had fought and was injured or killed during those conflicts because almost every able bodied man had served in the military. everyone knew someone who was drafted and served in vietnam. no one in their right mind, because the military culture was so well known, would have spit in the face of a soldier, a cop for sure, but not a soldier. don't believe anyone who claims otherwise.
i recently counselled my daughter's friend who was bent on enlisting in the marines upon high school graduation. i implored him to sign up with the air force because it was the safest service. he had no where to go after high school and the military was his way out so he was going to sign up no matter what. as we all were at 18, he is naive and idealistic. he is a really good kid. i couldn't let some recruiter have his way only to have this kid blown up because he believed the recruiter bs. as it turned out he tested out to training with some meaningful civilian application. i think i was more happy for him than he was for himself.
you can support the troops without supporting their mission. support them. they need to know it.
Being in the bible belt I do like you do.
Sometimes if someone is receptive I will point out that traditional Republicans were against foreign adventurism
Do you consider Lincoln a "traditional Republican"? McKinley?
I live in Europe and have met hundreds of them here. Simple, I cheer them up, I buy them beers (while annoying them with my stories) and I tell them I hope they will soon have a cushy job back home. Whenever one of them writes back to tell me he's got a good civilian life it's really nice.
War is a beast that feeds on good young men, don't mistake the one with the other.
Pretend this is a free country and you have a choice whether to participate or not.
Anyone that is "for war" most likey never fought in one.
If I could mandate one thing in this country as to war, it would be that the MIC pay 100% of every single expense incurred by the troops involved in it - no matter combat or in the rear with the gear. Every fucking penny.
They want to profit from it? They pay ther freight to get that money.
The MIC can justify war all they want. Fuck 'em. If the MIC put as much effort, ingenuity and resources into peaceful, public works programs, we'd be in cars that could fly, and have high speed rail coast to coast - along with much less poverty.
It never ceases to amaze me that veterans have to beg for help post-service, while the MIC profits from it. Donations, volunteerism and weepy ads to get the public to give, when the MIC receives billions for their war industry.
Despicable.
Oh, and this from a vet - and one that knows many veterans, and FUCK both the God Damned Political Fucking Parties of slime, scum sucking douchbag asshat clamoring for more "war - or the next war. "Christians", chickenhawks, Progressives - whoever your sorry asses are.
Go fight it yourselves - you lying fuckers.
your an idot and your post is proof positive
What exactly is an idot good sir? I'm an old fogie so thusly I'm not up to date on the new hep jargon.
Nothing new here. The ordinary citizen's most basic power is his right to elect a representative in government. Not many seem to exercise that right, and those that exercise it don't do so wisely. They get the government they deserve,
Evolution is stress and opportunity driven. You want an alternative to oil? Price it high enough and you'll get it eventually. You want more peace and less war in the world? Promote secularism instead of religious bullshit.
I am appalled at the lack of wisdom of our species. And yet, you have people who can write films like Avatar, or WALL-E. Unfortunately, those that get it are too few and far between.
War didn't manage to scare the commies, though it scared the bejeebus out of me.
http://youtu.be/FEABsKGOCCI
The only defect in this article is not quoting SMEDLEY BUTLER! How could he have been left out, given his brilliant tome "War Is a Racket?"
dunno, I'm on page two of the comments, and so far no one has "noticed" his nine-eleven narrative. . .
I smoke two joints in times of peace
and two in times of war
I smoke two joints before I smoke two joints
and then I smoke two more
BITCHEZ
That is the perfect approach to seeing things clearly.
Is it likely to soon be added by the Pols to the dietary requirement with brocolli to receive a benefit check. Exrcise requirement will be to Run In Place.
Yeah, you're right. I need to get on that "exrcise" shit.
The salient geopolitical detail in war is probably aircraft losses during any major struggle. This WILL determine the nature of the battle and the outcome. The following was once considerd a military secret:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraft_losses_of_the_Vietnam_War
The biggest losses were helicopter shoot-downs. You climbed aboard a helicopter, got shot down, and that was basically your war as a sitting duck. Of course, the corpulent fascists no different than Hermann Goering in the Air Force and Marines were furious.
Anyone that manages to fend off America will obviously be bristling with anti-aircraft(anti-satellite) missile technology, otherwise regional wars are basically just a practise run for the big shoe.
But the present war reminds me a lot of JFK being killed followed by the Vietnam conflict. Very similar to now, though the controlled demolition of the World Trade Center followed by the crusade against Arab states is none too different.
The last thing we need in this country is more people that cannot think. People without the ability to put two and two together and get FOUR.
What's even worse is when we get hordes of them taught not to think and then given a gun. The military prides itself on the quote, "Ours is not to reason why, ours is just to do and die." What a crock! I definitely want the man with the gun to "reason why". We and they are fools to think otherwise. We have lived generations without questioning this philosophy of the military and it has cost us dearly.
They were told they were fighting for "freedom" and that made everything okay. The people back home were told their freedom was being saved by those fighting for it......somewhere out there. This country was never meant to have a large standing professional army. Free men don't need to be conditioned to fight. We only got the large DC army after the civil war to keep the citizenry in check. Worked so well here at home, we decided to expand the empire abroad.
My heart goes out to those who have died. But I will not swallow the lie anymore as to why they died. I have no ill will towards them but only ask the future military to use their own brain to make up their own minds about why they are doing something. If they can't do this, then stay out of the military. In the Nuremberg trials, we hung Germans who used the excuse of following orders of their commanding officers, yet because it is American troops everything they do and why they do it is somehow righteous. It is a complicated subject no doubt but at this point we must wake up and ask ourselves some serious questions about our current imperial status.
-Are we more free today than we were 100 years ago?
-Is freedom the real reason we are in all of these conflicts? And can I answer that question with my own answer or do I have to have one fed to me by the propaganda mill?
-Are we more righteous when we kill someone because we are Americans? Are we the world's keepers of right and wrong of good and evil?
-Do we blindly put a stamp of approval on anyone in uniform because they are ........in uniform?
-Is the government that takes these troops and uses them around the world promoting the will and desire of the people in this country? Then how can we say they are fighting for us or OUR freedom?
God bless our troops and may they and their leadership wake up to the reality of the world they are in and their responsibility to the people and the Constitution, and may I never have to defend my freedom against the very ones charged with protecting it.
Could we simply airdrop you into South Waziristan with an alice pack loaded with tea bags so that you can reform the madrassas? Simply a matter of explanation and friendship until you accept the idea of screwing goats in the ass to be accepted.
Is it really goat-fucking you're concerned about?
'Cause, well....that's the kind of thing that can happen anywhere you have sex-starved boys and goats.
There's a different ancient religious text somewhere with all kinds of details about how you're supposed to sacrifice oxen, too, but I don't think people take it so seriously these days.
Not sure about the statement or sarcasm but I am sure that I don't want to "reform" anybody. That is why we have different countries and different states.
If I wanted to be different, I would live in a different place. The great thing about being an American is that we can live the way we want to as long as we mind our own business and not hurt others.
I could careless about Afghanistan or Iran or Iraq. Don't want to reform them and don't want them over here trying to reform me. I can't go around trying to kill every possible bad guy because he "might" kill me or the ones I love. Sadly people have to commit the crime before they are guilty and can be brought to justice. What we are allowing to go on in that part of the world in the name of security and freedom will end up enslaving us in our own homes. We have put a stamp of approval killing people by assassination without trial because somebody told us they were a "terrorist". Most people in this country believe it without question. They will believe the same about you when the same media tells them you were a terrorist and needed to be put down BEFORE you harmed anyone.
Reform? Not interested. Left alone to live my life in freedom.....all I ask......and I don't need some soldier boy killing someone halfway around the world to get that done.
There is no country on earth that has the logistical capabilities to wage a successful war on the continental United States - not one, nada, nothing. We are very susceptible to nuclear attack via ICBM's, however. Next time some dipshit politician waves a flag and says we need to attack such and such, ask him how they pose a threat? We have been conditioned since age 5 [public school] to be fearful of enemies that can attack us; that is an absolute impossibility except for a missle-launched nuclear attack. Ask your rep what he is doing to make sure that apocalyptical event does not happen.... War, I've been there - it sucks......
"There is no country on earth that has the logistical capabilities to wage a successful war on the continental United States - not one, nada, nothing"
Just wait until the accumuated cesium and plutonium from Fukushima kicks in in several years, you fuckwit.
This time Japan will have taken the US without firing aa single shot. Remember the jetstream has always dumped the majority of fallout on the US and not on Japan, and this continues today.
Live in San Francisco? You Inhaled 75 MILLION Plutonium Atoms In Just 4 days (EPA data)http://pissinontheroses.blogspot.ca/2012/05/live-in-san-francisco-you-in...
The Soviets can and will support a invasion force on our mainland.
It will require a bit of smash and entry to clear a path for what I think is their Airborne Army including Armor...
This aint Red Dawn anymore.
I probably will pick Fairbanks as a first base.
According to the UN charter its legal to drop nukes on invading troops located on your own territory.
I probably will pick Fairbanks as a first base.
Public school makes a good whipping boy around here, but I suspect the religious schools and home schoolers are incomparably more prone to "educating" children to blindly obedient killer "patriotism."
Think about it. Even in the public schools, the vast majority of future soldiers are products of such stupidly "partiotic" homes, not the public school system.
The corporate media is whole nother story.
Amazing at the shill populationon this thread. Can't say I have ever seen a greater effort of attacking the messinger. WOW
know your enemy - for they lurk here
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/6223518/French-s...
http://movies.nytimes.com/2010/07/23/movies/23fare.html?pagewanted=all
This story shows that the Soviets knew the US launch codes and had spies inside the Reagan White House. The whole farce is that Reagan wanted to bankrupt the USSR in an arms race and now the US is racing itself to bankruptcy. The whole Iraq and Afghan business is cover for the simple fact that Saudi Arabia owns Western politicians and plots against The West and is protected by their bought politicians as it finances Enemies of Western Democracy
I thought it was Israel that owns western politicians.
I didn't know how assbackwards I was until I read your post. Let's get the word out bro. Tonight at church im gonna tell everybody I talk to.
This article scores a perfect negative five stars.
"Support our troops" and that eager boy scout bullshit attitude would soon turn into "fuck off, I ain't going." if it were obligatory for all able men, like it was in Europe during Cold War and still is in some countries.
US Army was on the verge of all out mutiny during early 70's when it was almost mandatory for all American men, who were not in college.
The attitude towards army changed in the 80's with movies like Rambo and Top Gun. Easy to cheer along when "pros" did the killing...
It's this kind of mindless propaganda that demeans this site.... Seriously. stick to the market.
This is counter-propaganda judge. The propaganda is that which flows out of CNN/FOX/NBC/PMSNBC/NYT/WAPO etc etc and that which flows out of your mouth
Who the fuck are you to Judge ?
Fuck Off Asshole.
A perfect example of the irrational moonbat idiots this type of propaganda attracts. And further proof as to why such distorted propaganda shouldn't be on the site.
The only distorted propaganda is what is coming out of your mouth
Because it smacks against your reality it is "propaganda". Open you mind and you might find it to be the truth.
This article is just one of a thousand complaining about the problems in the US without getting at the root of the problem, the people electing these temporary politicos financed & enabled by our banking cartel. The current red/blue team duopoly is not going to fix these problems of never ending war & debt. The solution is for the electorate to wake up to the 3rd party, the Libertarian Party that is against these tragic wastes of people, treasure & eccentric ways of the duopoly. The solution is simple; educate the voters, remove the politicos at fault, open up the political system to end the duopoly & it's corruption. Stop grousing article writers, start showing folks the solution if you want change. I do.
RE: Lionhead
You have partially identified the problem. As to waking up the electorate - we are past that tactic. The fact is that the majority of US citizens, have tuned out of the governance equation. Frankly, we do not want to know what is really going on, because you know, - "it's really, very hard."
The sad reality is that we - it terms of fixing the issues that matter to the country - jobs, money/finance, trade, race and respect for each other, are clueless and virtually ungovernable. We have given each other a pass and left the hard stuff to the next person. Other than going to work every day and having taxes automaticly deducted, we have no skin in the game. We have outsourced most things to somebody else.
We pay homage to our veterans as long as its someone else child that gets killed. We love the trroops but ask few questions as to why they joined up.. We admire patriots, and assume all that those who join will be taken care of in their hour of need.
We givet them applause, discounts and motorcycle parades, but not what they need most, jobs, understanding and shared sacrifice by all Americans.
If only "educating" the voter was a simple matter!
It amazess me that paranoia reigns supreme with some folks who believe if they do not have the greatest, biggest WMD arsenal in the world, someone will get them.
Do these people not realize there are friendly countries on the Northern and Southern borders and two oceans seperating the mainland from the rest of the world?
How many of these military types claim to be Christian?
You know, the Jesus carrying an M-16 in one hand and grenade in the other while collecting coin for ammo?
Give me a choice between a BBQ and anti-war propaganda to celebrate Memorial Day and I'll take the BBQ, tyvm.
Prospective ZH members should have to pass an aptitude test while they're waiting on the porch; this thread has some of the most retarded gibberish I've ever read here.
There is $150 to $350 trillion dollars worth of oil in Iraq. 70,000 US contractors (mercinaries) are still in Iraq.
$150 to $350 trillion? That could fund the Fed Gov. for another 3-5 years. Our troubles are over boys!
"“In modern war… you will die like a dog for no good reason.” ...'
In the modern middle east - like vietnam - you will die like a dog for no good reason - tony bonn
fuck bush, obama, romney, rumsfeld, cheney and all other cabal of murder.
Fucking amazing to read all this mindless shit. ZH has slowly devolved into summer camp for idiots and assholes.
But come autumn they'll be wiser and come winter they'll survive.
"I'm sorry, I'm very sorry".....Dr. Who
America, land of the sheep, home of the easily distracted..l.