The death toll keeps rising for everyone in Iraq. Worse, at home, the quality of the soldiers being hired as mercenaries continues to drop. Not only are the present military and the legions of US-paid mercenaries losing the wars they are waging, the military is drawing the dregs of society, seeking people foolish enough to sign their own death warrants. The volunteer army can exist only in peace time. And Bush and his minions all make it perfectly clear, they think we are at war. Arrest Bush for going AWOL during Vietnam.
The Seoul District Prosecutors' Office said Monday it has arrested two U.S. soldiers for beating and attempting to rape a female police officer in downtown Seoul last month.The soldiers, identified only as a 23-year-old sergeant and a 21-year-old private first class from a U.S. base north of Seoul, are accused of attempting to sexually assault a plain clothes officer in an office bathroom in Seoul on April 5.
All over the earth, the representatives of the USA are our soldiers who are stationed all over the planet because we want to rule the earth. Instead of sending out our best and brightest, we are reduced to sending out whoever we can. Throughout history, the majority of soldiers hired by various empires such as the British or French empires, have been exactly this sort of person.
The officer classes are still culled from second or third sons seeking to make their wealth via looting other nations while the eldest stays home and inherits the estates. Here in the American Empire, the officer class tries as hard as possible to stay home or do a stint in one of the former empires in Europe or Asia and if they do get sent to the hell-zones to fight, they have their little spiderhole in the Green Zone in Baghdad.
Four soldiers and a reserve police officer were arrested Sunday on suspicion of looting cigarettes and alcohol from a store in this tornado-ravaged town, state officials said.In a separate incident, two people wearing Red Cross jackets who were not members of the relief agency were arrested Sunday on suspicion of looting, said Sharon Watson, a spokeswoman for the adjutant general's office. She did not have any additional details.
The soldiers from Fort Riley Army base and the reserve police officer had come to assist on their own and were not part of any official detachment, said Maj. Gen. Tod Bunting, the state's adjutant general.
Unfortunately, the soldiers at home are going bezerk long before they go off to battle. Last week, a gang of soldiers in New York invaded another soldier's home and beat him and his girlfriend up. We are seeing our homebase debased by these wars. Now, in the event of a disaster, we will be beset by government paid thugs who will rob us? This is pretty sad. Indeed, it reminds me of the last days of the Roman Empire.
Like today, the ruling elites went AWOL and instead, played money games whereby they could strip the Empire of all its wealth and leave everyone in poverty. They couldn't hire their own to patrol the borders so they hired mercenary barbarians who then looted the empire. End of empire.
Sunday: 12 GIs, 1 Briton, 118 Iraqis Killed; 134 Iraqis Wounded
The death toll climbs, the soldiers go insane, the Iraqi elected officials are planning to leave the country for a few month's vacation in Dubai and the French Riviera. When Americans complained about this, they laughed. Our poor 'volunteers' in Iraq get no long vacations. And their deaths are futile and worthless. Like the names on the Vietnam wall, it may be entertaining for people to gape at this but I would imagine the dead would far rather be alive than be a name on a wailing wall.
The afterglow of WWII is very slow to fade. When millions of Americans and people across the planet demonstrated against this fatal war, we were ignored. After the invasion, we were told, 'Support the troops.' This dangerous demand is why Congress can't cut funds flowing like the Red Sea into the bloody sands. For no war lord or leader has EVER retreated or surrendered except if the troops revolt or run from the field of battle. Always, the rulers or leaders demand everyone keep fighting.
"There are going to be increased (U.S.) casualties during this surge because we're taking the fight to the enemy," said Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, 3rd Infantry Division commander who oversees four of the five surge brigades. "We're going to do everything we can do to preclude that from happening."But he added: "This is indeed combat operations. This is indeed war. And it's against a lethal enemy."
We are not at war. If we were, we would be more serious about this. The fact that a guy hiding in the Green Zone, planning his return to the Pentagon, thinks this is a war means he is either insane or is irresponsible. He is perfectly happy to send more and more and more of these dregs of our society into Iraqi homes and neighborhoods to die. He won't die! How many generals have died in this 'war'? None?
Right! And of course, not only are the Bush twins not volunteering like the Prince in England, they are not even in the news and I think, not even in the country at this point. As the US tries to hitch all previous empires to our war wagon hoping this will allow us to continue down this stupid road for another twenty years: we will be bankrupt long before that.
Celebrating the right wing victory in France only means our miserable end will come all the faster. For the French tried to stop us from imperial follies. The new leader there wants more wars with the Muslims. And he will get them, in spades.
All of Europe wishes they could kill all the Muslims. They did try this, several times in the past. The wars between the religions in the Old World continue to burn. And this is exactly what our Founding Fathers feared: becoming entangled in religious wars. Especially proxy wars. The French love playing 'peace keeper' but we are stuck with the 'let's kill everyone first' contingents. Namely, we are everyone's front line troops and this is not a good thing, this is a disaster. Especially since we get to pay for all this.
A new report by two Israeli human right groups, released on Sunday, accused the Israeli Security Agency of routinely abusing Palestinian detainees, saying that in some cases the ill-treatment amounted to torture.The two right groups, B'Tselem and the HaMoked Centre for the Defense of the Individual, questioned 73 Palestinians from the occupied West Bank who were detained by Israeli forces between July 2005 and January 2006.
Most of those interviewed said they were routinely held in appalling conditions, subjected to “beatings, painful binding, swearing, humiliation and denial of basic needs” from the moment of their arrest to their transfer to the Shin Beth internal security service for interrogation, the report said, adding that the maltreatment was intended to "break the spirit" of those who were being interrogated.
The dark heart of WWIII lies in Jerusalem. Instead of debating this reality most people either ignore it or lust for it. Reagan's dairy expressed joy that WWIII might start in the Holy Land and be launched secretly by Israel. This sort of treasonous thinking is unspeakable. The GOP 'debates' on TV this weekend was a ridiculous competition for 'Who wants to start WWIII?' No one is calling for all religions to stand back and not dominate political life...except for Turkey. The maturity of that country seeking to keep liberalism and secularism puts us to shame.
We couldn't stop the ethnic/religious wars from erupting in Iraq because we are not a secular nation. We want ethnic cleansing and we boast about how god blesses America and we believe we have a right to torture or kill anyone who is not blessed by god, etc. This sickness goes right to the heart of this country of ours.
But the participants argue that the project, called DeVenCI for Defense Venture Catalyst Initiative, brings together two groups that have much to gain from each other and that have had trouble finding easy, efficient ways to work together. Those on the military side of things have adopted the Silicon Valley vernacular to explain the idea of systematically consulting investors to find new technology.“We’re a search engine,” said Bob Pohanka, director of DeVenCI, noting that the program is a chance for military procurement officials to have more intimate contact with investors who make a living scouring laboratories and universities for the latest innovations.
Venture capitalists “have knowledge of emerging technology that may be developed by companies as small as two guys in a garage,” Mr. Pohanka said. “These are companies that are not involved in the D.O.D. supply chain.”
For the investors, it is a chance to get closer to a branch of government with vast spending power that is a potential customer for the start-ups they have backed. That can be particularly valuable because the venture capital industry, far from enjoying the success of the dot-com boom, has languished in recent years and is looking for new markets and sales opportunities.
We export lots of military or civilian-repressing weapons. The ability to kill their own people is researched and then manufactured here and then shipped to people like Saddam. Next to Boeing exports, our military/industrial exports are the biggest on earth though the Chinese are undercutting us badly there, more and more.
The ideal, the dream of our rulers is what we saw in the Star Wars movies: armies of robots and half-human leaders with magic powers crushing all opposition. It is amusing that this famous movie series also says clearly that the people doing this are evil and will be defeated in the end!
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Be fair, the moslems invaded europe too. spain, the balkans,part way into france, and besieged vienna
Posted by: Big Al | May 08, 2007 at 09:30 AM
Yup. And this was because they were more civilized. But they did the same thing all empires do: they went bankrupt when they could no longer increase in size.
Posted by: Elaine Meinel Supkis | May 08, 2007 at 09:45 AM