Oct 23 2009
Justified Honor and Remembrance for not only Sgt. Yarosh but all who served and are serving in these two theaters, burned soldier portrait to show at Smithsonian!
This is and will be for a long time a great tribute to this soldier, and all the Fallen and Maimed of these two continuing occupations. And like “The Wall”, until we can build a Memorial for the Fallen of both these conflicts, it should be a Reminder to this Nation of what We Allowed “In Our Names!”!!
Oct 20 2009
Some Four Plus Decades of, Enough is Enough
We’ve been going through this for some four decades now, and it’s gotta Stop Now, but I doubt it will, because it comes mainly from those that don’t serve as they wrap themselves in the banner of a political party that’s “Strong On National Defense” while condemning all others as not! It’s in their political ideology to be used and accepted by those that claim that ideology, like they found great enjoyment wearing and laughing about “purple heart bandages” not long ago. Even some who serve, and do so in our wars and occupations of choice will use it, strickly as their political meme, disgracing their own service as they attack their brothers and sisters, never having real facts to back up their claims, and never apologizing especially to their brothers and sisters!
Oct 14 2009
There are many people benefitting from the current economic collapse. Some of them are well known, such as Goldman Sachs, who is preparing to dole out 23 billion dollars in embezzlement “bonuses” to its co-conspirators in the high-tech looting it’s managed to pull off …. then of course there are the other “too big to fail” banks which are simply gobbling up the “too small to be saved” banks, and therefore growing even bigger. Then of course there is the military industrial complex which I like to call “Corporate Welfare” because, well, that’s really all it is ….
But guess what the Military Industrial Complex needs? Cannon fodder, that’s what it needs. Gullible young men who are seduced into believing that joining the military is just like playing that ubercool video game. But this got a little tricky when in spite of the massive censorship imposed on our so-called “media” about how dangerous it actually was to join the military while we were raping invading two different countries that didn’t really want to be invaded, so recruitment sorta dropped off, to the point where recruiters were taking damn near anybody who could fog a mirror, including the mentally deficient, the morally deficient, the drugged, the mentally ill, you can pretty much name it.
Well all that has changed! And this is GREAT NEWS for the military, because now the economy has tanked to the point where nobody can get a job. And people need jobs. So what are the poor slobs doing who can’t even get a job at the local diary queen or Wal Mart these days? Why, they’re signing up with the Military!
And the military couldn’t be happier.
Bleak U.S. job market boosts military recruitment
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Aided by a bleak job market, the U.S. military met all of its recruitment goals in the past year for the first time since it became an all-volunteer force in 1973, the Pentagon said on Tuesday.Military services have been stretched thin by conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, giving added weight to recruitment efforts as President Barack Obama considers sending another 40,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan next year.
The United States already has 67,000 troops in Afghanistan and about 119,000 in Iraq.
Pentagon officials said recruitment gains were fueled by the deepest U.S. recession since the Great Depression and an unemployment rate nearing 10 percent.
“For the first time since the advent of the all-volunteer force, all of the military components, active and reserve, met their number as well as their quality goals,” said Bill Carr, deputy undersecretary of defense for military personnel policy.
Wow! Let’s Par-TEE! Woo hooo! I mean, this is great news, because Nobel Peace Prize winner Obama sneaked 13,000 more troops into Afghanistan without telling anybody and where were those supposed to come from?
WASHINGTON (AFP) – In an unannounced move, President Barack Obama is dispatching an additional 13,000 US troops to Afghanistan beyond the 21,000 he announced publicly in March, The Washington Post reported Monday.The additional forces are primarily support forces — such as engineers, medical personnel, intelligence experts and military police — the Post said, bringing the total buildup Obama has approved for the war-torn nation to 34,000.
“Obama authorized the whole thing. The only thing you saw announced in a press release was the 21,000,” a defense official familiar with the troop-approval process told the daily.
It is a DAMN GOOD THING that these men and women couldn’t get jobs anywhere else otherwise where would Obama have gotten these personnel?
It almost makes you wonder if the people who really run things think that this “downturn” business is actually good for business. I mean, the people in charge are doing just fine, and when else would you have a “buying opportunity” but during a downturn?
Oct 09 2009
For those that seem to have a problem with the facts of how we humans live and readily do damage to our environment, and really seem not to care, that around us as well as adding to what everyone else has done making it a global problem, this post, and the links etc. that it contains, may educate you some, and this is only about what our military does, knowingly or not, and corrects or not.
Oct 06 2009
Yesterday, the fifth of October, I posted up a Parade Magazine article I found on Max Cleland and his new book {on my site and a few open threads etc.}. This morning I heard a short, but real good, interview on NPR’s Morning Edition {below with links}, that should be added to the Parade article. This, while short, was a pretty good interview as Max hit’s on a number of issues but unable to delve deeper. Here’s hoping as he has started to promote the book that we get to hear and see longer more in depth interviews, I for one hope so, not only because of the brotherhood of us ‘Nam Vets and the whole Veterans community, but because Max doesn’t hold back, never did, and speaks with feeling and conviction.
Sep 30 2009
Duke University, 2006. 3 years later, how much more has been learned?
Blogging the future looks like it might be some scary shit.
Because, lets face it, invisibility in the hands of the Oligarchy means we WILL have Secret Police, and Secret Police means freedom is dead and thought crime is next. When you can crush political dissent, what can’t you do?
Sep 18 2009
That “Noble Cause”, which one “GoldStar Mom” asked to be answered very publicly and never was, comes when those who serve do everything in their power, and know those around them will do same, to save and protect those they are serving with, especially as they serve the Country and are sent into others Countries, wrong policies or right!
When the battles start that’s what’s on their minds, even before saving themselves!
With “Honor”:
Sep 17 2009
Conservative voices have continued to rehash, as part of the Reagan mythology, the military impotent of President Carter a la Iranian Hostage Crisis. They use this as their catch-all justification for and evidence of the evils of a weak military. Advocating for a strong military is the same kind of feel-good panacea as pushing for a strong local police force. Both of them promise security and peace of mind, when what they often produce is neither secure nor peaceful. A policeman on every corner will not necessarily keep young women from being violently attacked and seventeen police cars on the road at all time will not eliminate bank robberies or theft of property. However, many people like to entertain the delusion just the same. The facade of security is much more popular than the reality. For example, a sure-fire way to render yourself instantly unpopular is to propose a sharp reduction in money earmarked for the police department, no matter how justified one might be in requesting it.
In my own place of residence, the city has had to cut back funding for a variety of projects and departments. In particular, the school district has been given a much smaller share of tax revenue then ordinarily allotted it, while a far larger share has been allocated to the police force. As for me, I’d much rather have an informed and educated citizenry of our future leaders than the spectacle which routinely greets me when I’m driving around town—that of bored policemen and policewomen driving around to make their visual presence known, but seemingly not much else. While I do appreciate that most of the police vehicles these days run on flex fuel, not conventional gasoline, I still can’t help reflecting on how many tax dollars are being squandered on the latest state-of-the-art gadget or technique that is funded out of the paychecks of ordinary citizens and will be used infrequently, if at all. Many police purchases I have observed come across to these eyes as nothing more than expensive toys for grown ups.
On this same subject, a former Bush treasury official has stated in the Wall Street Journal that he fears Health Care spending will exceed military spending. Like the good Quaker I am, my immediate response is, of course, “What’s wrong with that?” A sure-fire way to render yourself instantly unpopular is to start talking about war as an immoral agent in direct contradiction to Jesus’ teachings—one that needs to be banished from the face of the earth. I suppose I’d much rather people be healthy and live long lives as free from pain as they can than for us to have the unfailingly depressing capacity to blow the hell out of our latest enemy. Not only that, I might even be enough of a dreamer to believe that improving the quality of life for all might be a far more unifying solution than violently ending lives in an inferno of evil.
To draw a parallel between a city police force and the U.S. military, all kinds of devices are utilized that give the facade of protection and safety. In reality, they are little more than window dressing and wishful thinking. As we have determined, a color-coded terror alert system does not keep us safe. An increased troops presence in Afghanistan has not interrupted the opium trade, nor prevented the reformation of the Taliban. Constant patrols in armed vehicles have not completely eliminated violent acts. Nor has this deceptively insufficient shift of soldiers from one troubled country to another prevented journalists from being kidnapped. My point in identifying these limitations of military force is not to inspire fear, but rather to illustrate a very difficult lesson: complete safety is an illusion.
The President and others have talked constantly about the need to eliminate waste, graft, and corruption in the health care industry as a means to pay for the massive overhaul commonly known as Health Care Reform. I don’t doubt that the program will, as promised, pay for itself if serious efforts towards eliminated frivolity and superfluous procedures are eliminated. Living for the past fifteen years with a chronic illness have provided more than enough examples of that. Sometimes I wish I wasn’t as aware of the absurdity as I am. However, somehow we as a society haven’t quite confronted the subject of waste and needless expenditure as regards military spending. Though noting the negative impact of the military-industrial complex is a start, if we are committed to reduce our deficit and to streamline certain titanic segments of our economy, we might be wise to consider military spending reform, too.
Though I might be an idealist at times, I am far from a fool. If we thought that Health Care Reform inspired incredible hatred and spite from the Right, imagine what kind of missiles would be lobbed at us if we proposed ways to modify the military. The Republican response would be immediate. We’d be painted as soft on terror, soft on defense, and accused of inviting other countries to invade us. Uniformed people at Town Hall Forums would demand that they didn’t want a government-controlled military. The same snidely dismissive charges that greeted Candidate Obama when he advocated at least giving diplomacy with our enemies a chance would resume. In many situations, particularly this one, my spiritual beliefs are tempered by pragmatism. I do recognize that the only way war can be set aside is if every country gets on board and that for, a variety of complex and interlocking reasons, that is unlikely to happen any time soon. Even so, we have a distressing tendency to believe that our military always works flawlessly and that the more tax dollars we add to it, the better it functions. The same people who speak out against government incompetence or are the first to assert that “throwing money at a problem is no solution” notably do not extend these same scathing criticisms to our military.
I suppose could mention Abu Ghraib, enhanced interrogation techniques, Guantanamo Bay, the Iraq War, and others in my own defense, but spin and rationalization will always get in the way of logic. There will always be questions considered too dangerous to be sufficiently questioned or even sufficiently answered. I, for one, believe that there is far more to 11 September 2001 then will ever be revealed in our lifetime. Lest anyone misunderstand, what I am NOT saying is that I believe 11 September was an inside job. What I AM proposing, however, is my firm belief that this country was so woefully unprepared for the attack (strongest military in the world, natch) that the entire chain of command as established in the Bush Administration, on that tragic day, resembled nothing less than a comedy of errors. I believe that Vice-President Cheney and high-ranking insiders, not President Bush, ran our government for several hours, if not for several days in the chaos and confusion that ensued in the immediate aftermath; an embarrassing degree of miscommunication and incompetence reigned. Admitting that to the public and to the world would not exactly show us to be the sterling, confident superpower of which we like to portray ourselves.
Much could be learned from both our mistakes and our network of quick fixes. When we outsource our freedom and health to industries and specialized occupations, we effectively place our collective health and safety in the hands of others who might not necessarily have our best interest at heart. No Republican would ever wish to be labeled an anarchist, but their pervasive and recently adamant refrain that government is the root of evil, whether they recognize it or not, is just that. If conservatives wish to follow this line of logic to its ultimate conclusion, they ought to be finding ways to dismantle government altogether. They won’t do this, of course, because dismantling government includes dismantling the police and the military. Anarchy on one’s own terms is not anarchy at all. Those Republican politicians who believe that government is the problem, not the solution would be wise to question why they have made a career out this supposed cesspool of corruption and terrible things. They have had years to prune government down to some arbitrary, more manageable size and have found themselves indebted to the same corruption, out of control spending, and size-swelling as the Democrats they criticize. Quite hypocritically, they have increased the size of the government they agree with at the expense of the government they do not. This isn’t just hypocrisy, it’s also awful policy. That they can still make these arguments with a straight face might explain why they happen to be the minority party who has to embrace the lunacy of their fringes to even stay relevant.
Jul 29 2009
Multiple Bombings Slowly Destroy US Soldier’s Brain – He Commits Suicide
CNN has a heartbreaking report of a U.S. soldier who served in Iraq and Afghanistan and was subjected to multiple bombings………
Jul 28 2009
Last week the Colorado Springs ‘The Gazette’ had another very disturbing report, in two parts, following up previous reports of soldiers of OIF and OEF who committed murders. These, from all I can find out, were just regular teens, no trouble out of the ordinary prior to their military service. But once sent to these occupations, sometimes more then once, they returned like many of our brother ‘Nam Vets, very troubled and not getting the help needed or not seeking because of the nature of military service, added to their situations of multiple tours, longer tours then we served and little down time between, their nightmares caught up to them by abusing drugs and alcohol, by acting out in rage, by loosing control.
Jul 22 2009
Those crazy “Birthers” are getting an awful lot of ink and air time lately, offering good comedy fodder for late night television while occasionally making regular people turn away in revulsion. Like the “Teabaggers” weren’t hilarious enough to use the name of a sexual weirdness as their moniker, or to publicize their racist rants and ridiculous charges against the President, after being the very same wackos who accused those who questioned any illegal act of the last administration of being traitors.
CNN commentator Roland S. Martin has a piece up today (July 22) entitled, Obama birth issue is nutty that proceeds to make good fun of the wingnuts. But since one of George W. Bush’s first serious actions as President after 9-11 was to arrange the biggest government overhaul since the New Deal – by inventing the so-called “Department of Homeland Security” – there are Americans out in the hinterland who are suddenly quite confused about their legal status. I’m one of them, and so is recent Republican Presidential candidate John McCain. Who, like me, actually wasn’t born in the United States of America.
McCain, like me, was a Navy brat. He was born in the Panama Canal Zone, I was born in the Philippines. There used to be a clear law on the books that held the children of American citizens born in a foreign country are indeed ‘natural born’ American citizens, even if they automatically get dual citizenship for the country in which they were born. I had that until I was 18, though after that I would have had to formalize, and I was never very fond of Ferdinand and Imelda “Shoe-Lady” Marcos. So I let it slide. Still, if nobody questioned McCain’s citizenship qualification for POTUS, the fervor with which wingnuttia rants about Obama seems even crazier. I mean, even if Hawaii hadn’t been a state when he was born, did not all Hawaiians receive automatic citizenship when it WAS made a state? It was a territory, after all. Like Puerto Rico. Which apparently some wingnuts in Congress think is a foreign country too, thus Judge Sonia Sotomayor can’t be a citizen either. Weird.
Jul 12 2009
This is an essay about observations, so it’s not going to be sourced to the Mainstream Press that has served as propagandists and gatekeepers to the political status quo for too damned long. These are observations of political trends I’ve noted over more than 40 years of certifiable adulthood, strong interest in all things political, several oaths to protect and defend the Constitution (thus Laws of the Land), and a 40-year marriage to a political sci-guy who is even more obsessed with politics than I am.
The last time the left side of the political spectrum wielded significant political power was back during the dark days of VietNam in the late 1960s and early 1970s. It gained effective – though not much status quo – political power through the efforts of activists who motivated the young in high schools and on college campuses across the country, where the cannon fodder for the right’s dirty little opium war could be Shanghai’d by the draft. This meant that your average Mom and Pop America had a personal stake in the war, and they were darned sick of flag-draped coffins and burying pieces of their children shipped home from rice patties in a far-away country they couldn’t even find on a map. For no better reason than somebody’s terror of dominoes that might interfere with the drug supply and the M-I complex’s desire to make a fortune battle-testing cool shit like Napalm and 2,000# bombs and fancy new fighter jets. Hey, they’d been shafted by the end of the space race, and had to do something to justify their incestuous existence.
Oddly enough, it turned out to be Tricky Dick’s very own generals (plus spooks) who ended up taking him down, even though he made a valiant effort to save himself by abruptly ending a war nobody on this side of the Pacific ever could have ‘won’. That was back in an era when most of the military old-timers – the career officers who served at the Pentagon and commanded the conscripted troops – still took their oaths of service seriously, and they didn’t like what was going on any more than the students who had no choice or their parents did. You don’t really believe it was just a “third-rate burglary” at the Watergate that did Nixon in, do you?