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The Strategic Air Command had a slogan, "Peace is our Profession," but what they were really after was "pacification"-- that the peoples of the globe would be obedient to our directives, because, if they weren't we'd nuke them.
The Strategic Command is, of course, a subset of the Air Force and it's my sense that if we want to move our forces out of Iraq, it's the bases that have to be shut down. After all, the boots on the ground have been tasked with "protecting" the Air Bases from being shelled by insurgents who object to having four or five Manhattan-sized islands of death and destruction plopped down in the midst of their country. If we shut down the bases, the troops can go home.
Which is why I have been paying closer attention to the Air Force, an organization that's got grandiose plans about world domination, even as its core activities seem increasingly irrelevant. Besides, it's pretty clear that the goal in Iraq is to gain acquiescence to a long term presence for the Air Force by killing off all those who object. The Air Force is the key to peace in Iraq.
The following is a diary I originally posted on KOS, the political blog. My apologies, if you get multiple copies. In addition to peace, my purpose is to prompt a discussion of the morality of making assassination by remote control a standard component of our arsenal.
M/H
March 22, 2008 Our Writhing Whining Air ForceLast week I made a stab at outlining just a few of the problems the United States Air Force is wrestling with and suggested that, perhaps, a veteran of the service is stepping up to run for Congress in the First District in New Hampshire to lend a hand in securing its future.
This was, in a way, a follow up to an earlier diary on What the Flyboys Want. Today’s report on the plague of the Predators is sort of a follow up to that.
Gates, Air Force Battle Over Robot Planes
By Noah Shachtman EmailMarch 21, 2008 | 2:53:00There may not be an open war, quite yet, between the Secretary of Defense and the leadership of the Air Force. But there is serious, palatable tension. And a nasty game of brinksmanship over the use of drones in the Middle East has only made things worse.
[…]
Now comes word from L.A. Times’ ace Peter Spiegel that Gates “has ordered the Air Force to put nearly all of its unmanned Predator aircraft into the skies over the Middle East, forcing the service to take steps that officers worry could hobble already-stressed drone squadrons.”
The Air Force is worried that, like the ground forces, its teams flying 22 Predators in the air over Iraq around the clock, instead of the 12 they started out with, are going to get worn out. Still Secretary Gates demanded more:
In response, the Air Force has stepped up training. Next year, commanders will train 200 two-man crews to remotely fly a fleet of Predators that numbers more than 100, as well as a larger version called the Reaper, mostly out of a spartan air base in the Nevada desert. Trainers will turn out more pilots for Predators next year than for all other Air Force fighter planes combined.
So, what’s the problem? Flying drones turns out not to be quite as satisfying as might have been expected.
Then, as part of the January deal, Predator and Reaper crews were frozen. Even pilots who have been flying drones nonstop for three years will have to remain in Nevada for at least two more years. Many of them originally were trained as fighter and bomber pilots.
Air Force officials are acutely aware that their concerns may seem like whining, particularly compared with Army counterparts who serve 15-month tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. Still, Predator crews have been working 13-hour days, sometimes six days a week, for three years with no end in sight.
And then there’s the inevitable control question. Do they need a pilot’s license to wield a joy stick?
In the debate over control of the fast-growing fleet, the Air Force argues that only qualified pilots should fly airplanes that drop bombs and fire missiles. But Army ground commanders maintain they most need and use the streaming video to plan and execute their ground operations.
“I want to control it,” said Lt. Col. Adam R. Hinsdale, head of the Army’s unmanned aircraft program, which has its own family of smaller, short-range drones. Hinsdale said Army troops occasionally found that an Air Force Predator assigned to their unit had unknowingly flown off for other missions. “I don’t want it to be pulled away.”
You’ll forgive me if I’m not overly deferential. News that the establishment of an online facility to accept suggestions about uniforms is being touted by the organization that thinks it’s going to conquer the domain of cyberspace and add it along with air, land, sea and outer space to its belt is not reassuring. Neither is the information that every Air Base, anywhere on the globe has to be outfitted with a golf course. Somehow, when we are approaching a drinking water crisis for over a billion and a half people, watering putting greens seems a tad insensitive.
It wasn’t so long ago that sitting at a console in Nevada was considered a cushy job (close to the golf course?):
Typically, it takes hours, even days, to get an accurate idea of the damage bombs have caused in a war zone. GIs on the ground have to make their way to a target and report back. But Rogers can get the job done in minutes.
As his plane passed over the site of the safe house, dawn was breaking - a clear, sunny morning that had yet to give way to the August heat. But for Rogers, it was after sunset. He was operating his Predator unmanned aerial vehicle - a drone - from a secure terminal at Nellis Air Force Base, near Las Vegas.
Tracking the feed from the Predator’s camera, Rogers could see rubble where the safe house had been. He and a sensor operator on his crew watched a crowd gather to ogle the destruction. Then a white Dodge pickup rolled up with a .50-caliber heavy machine gun in the back. Five men climbed out, ran into the house, and returned to move the truck to a secluded alley. They began loading ammunition and arc-welding the .50-cal’s mount.
Back at Nellis, Rogers wasn’t limited to just assessing battle damage. He could also inflict it; his Predator was equipped with two Hellfire laser-guided missiles. Rogers, who flew F-15s (call sign: Smack) before switching to drones, radioed for authorization to destroy the Dodge. He got it.
“We left their truck one big smoking hole,” he remembers. “My heart was pumping as we were doing our business. It felt just as real to me, however many thousands of miles away, as if I was sitting right there in that cockpit.”
However pumped the operator of that console in Nevada might have felt about blowing up a Dodge truck in Iraq, the question that doesn’t seem to have been asked is what laws of warfare this assassination by remote control complies with.
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Although the Air Force is obviously never going away, it is fundamentally an unnecessary organization. When the USAF was created after WWII, it was intended to eliminate the duplication of effort between the Naval and Army air forces. However, the Army and Navy continued to have their own air forces. (And the Navy has its own Army, the Marine Corps, which in turn has its own air force.)
http://www.fortbendnow.com/pages/full_st...
Paul Marks Iraqi War Anniversary With Renewed Calls To Withdraw
U.S. Rep. Ron Paul (R-Lake Jackson) has marked the five-year anniversary of the war in Iraq with a statement calling America’s actions a “march to war paved with false assumptions and lies,” and a renewed call to withdraw.
Paul made his remarks in his weekly column, “Texas Straight Talk.” He said that the Bush administration “manipulated” Americans into believing Iraq was involved with the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and that the news media was “complicit in this war propaganda.”
“Five years ago last week, the US military’s ‘shock and awe’ campaign lit up the Baghdad sky. Five years later, with hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and nearly four thousand Americans dead, we should pause and reflect on just what has been gained and what has been lost,” Paul said. “From the beginning, the march to war was paved with false assumptions and lies. Senior administration officials claimed repeatedly that Iraq was somehow responsible for the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.”
Paul also said the administration’s assertion that Saddam Hussein had control of weapons of mass destruction were a part of the false claims.
“They claimed that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. They manipulated the fear of the American people after 9/11 to further a war agenda that they had been planning years before that attack,” Paul noted. “The mainstream media was complicit in this war propaganda.”
Paul also pointed out that even before the terrorist attacks, he spoke out in opposition of military intervention in Iraq.
“Nearly ten years ago, long before 9/11, I requested the time in opposition to the fateful Iraq Liberation Act of 1998, where I then stated on the floor of the House of Representatives, ‘I see this piece of legislation as essentially being a declaration of virtual war. It is giving the President tremendous powers to pursue war efforts against a sovereign Nation,’” Paul recalled. “Less than five years later we were invading Iraq.”
The results of the war, Paul said, have been harmful for both Iraq and the United States.
“Five years into the invasion and occupation of Iraq, untold hundreds of thousands of Iraqis are dead; some two million Iraqis have fled the country as refugees; and the Iraqi Christian community, one of the oldest in the world, has been decimated more completely than even under the Ottoman occupation or the rule of Saddam Hussein,” Paul said. “On the US side, nearly four thousand Americans have lost their lives fighting in Iraq and many thousands more are horribly wounded. Our own senior military officers warn that our military is nearly broken by the strain of the Iraq occupation. The Veterans Administration is overwhelmed by the volume of disability claims from Iraq war veterans.”
Paul added that a study by Nobel Prize economist Joseph Stiglitz concluded that the cost of the war in Iraq could be as high as $3 trillion, and Americans are just starting to feel the impact of how those costs are damaging the economy. He also said that he doubts reports that the “surge” campaign is effective.
“Iraq war supporters claim that the ‘surge’ of additional U.S. troops into Iraq has been a resounding success. I am not so confident,” Paul said. “Under the ‘surge’ policy, the United States military has trained and equipped with deadly weapons those Iraqi militia members against whom they were fighting just months ago. I fear by arming and equipping opposing militias we are just setting the stage for a more tragic and dangerous explosion of violence, possibly aimed at US troops in Iraq. There is no indication that the Iraqi government has made any political progress whatsoever.”
Paul also renewed his previous call to withdraw American troops...Paul added. “Interventionism has produced one disaster after another. It is time we return to a non-interventionist foreign policy that emphasizes peaceful trade and travel and no entangling alliances. We can begin by withdrawing from Iraq immediately.”
JEFFREY ST CLAIR ON THE CLINTON CAMPAIGN
"BLONDE AMBITION"
http://www.counterpunch.org/stclair03242008.html
Hillary Clinton can not win the Democratic nomination for president. The numbers tell the story. Even with robust victories in Pennsylvania, Indiana, West Virginia and Kentucky, Hillary will trail Obama in popular votes and pledged delegates as they enter the convention hall in Denver.
Any other candidate would have been shamed into dropping out long ago. But these are the Clintons and they have no shame.
So why does Hillary persist? Because she hasn't abandoned her aspiration for the White House. Not in 2008, but for 2012. Here's the perverse logic at work.
If Obama defeats McCain in November, it will take an act of treachery beyond anything even the Clintons have ever conjured from their grimoire of political demonology for Hillary to challenge him in 2012. She will be 69 in 2016, almost ready to move into one of the Beverly Nursing Homes, owned by a company she once represented as a corporate lawyer, aggressively protecting the bottom line against such extravagances as healthy meals, clean sheets and proper medical care for the elderly.
Hillary Clinton is the prisoner of an unimpeachable mathematics. So she makes the most of a remorseless situation by doing what the Clintons do best: commit political fratricide. Quite literally, in this case, by knocking off a brother.
In order to realize her vaulting ambition, Hillary must mortally wound Obama as candidate in the fall race against John McCain so that she can run against McCain in 2012.
2:46PM
wow, some of the raising kaine website posters are wild, I mean wild for hillary.
and I know some of them. scary. for me.
"The Clintons will allways be there when they need you"
Former Republican congressman Mickey Edwards writes in a Washington Post op-ed that he's finally had it with Cheney: "Cheney told Raddatz that American war policy should not be affected by the views of the people. But that is precisely whose views should matter: It is the people who should decide whether the nation shall go to war. That is not a radical, or liberal, or unpatriotic idea. It is the very heart of America's constitutional system. . . .
just wanted to say, I miss jc's voice here. her birthday would have been last Thursday - the first day of spring this year. I'm sorry I let it slip by me.
~*~*~*~* HAPPY BIRTHDAY, jc, WHEREVER YOU ARE *~*~*~*~
THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THE GOOD CONVERSATIONS AND YOUR ENDLESS WIT! YOUR INCREDIBLE GRAPHICS AND WONDERFUL RECIPES. YOU WILL ALWAYS BE THOUGHT OF WITH LOVE AND LAUGHTER.
and tomorrow's Oscar's birthday - I miss his links to the political 'toons....
While badmouthing the military here, remember that many of us have served, and are proud of our service. The military needs to exist. It needs to operate under rules of engagement that reflect our nation, but it does need to exist. Broad brush anti-military screeds do no good to promoting progressive causes and candidates.
another well-written thread topic, Monica, thank you.
rich - thank you for your service.
My dad was in the Army Air Corp in WW11.
They seperated into two groups. My dad went with the Air Force. You were well taken care of. Health care, etc. Pay was not so good but we made it.
Kids go in today for the same reason. Health care, support. It is almost like an upscale welfare society.
When I have to go onto base at Langley and go through security, the kids are nice but they are young and easily influenced. I think they like the "power" of asking for even you insurance i.d card and the fact you have to sign a form saying they can search your car if need be.
Meanwhile someone could have a boat and get into any area of the base cause it is surrounded by water.
Yikes.
12.
rich^kolker
Mon, 03/24/08
Reply to this
While badmouthing the military here, remember...The military needs to exist.
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Sorry Rich, I’ll nevertheless ask the stupid, “badmouthing” question “WHY?”
Why there is such a need for military to exist?
To fight the “enemy” our “professional representatives” will point at for you to defend and to keep their “professional” status forever?!
It’s time to redefine the enemy!
Rich I don't think it is badmouthing it, just pointing out that the military industrial complex has become a monster.
All these planes and ships , for what? So they can bomb the civilians in iraq/
3.
Huron John
Mon, 03/24/08
Reply to this
Chickenhawk Cheney on the 4000 dead:
"They volunteered"
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I believe in karma.
FWIW
Perhaps there are many Hillary supporters reading this blog who would vote for BO if he's the nominee - but maybe not, since HC supporters are not welcome here at all.
It don't think it wise to make people unwelcome who just might support your guy later on. It's really a turn off to notice how you treated environmental blue; as well as Linda NM.
You guys are supporting a man who talks about coming together and being nice and calm and listening to all points of view...yet some of you don't reflect that at all.
Trashing HC supporters now and then expecting them to vote for BO later is a bit presumptious, doncha think? And then if BO loses to McC, you'll blame the HC supporters. Is that how it goes?
Just asking. Phil was he only one who made environmental blue feel welcome; and I too welcome her/him.
Anybody know where sam went? I loved his posts.
Thanks Monica for another thought-provoking blog front. You are the bestest of the writers here and often elsewhere.
~~~~~~~
Now the NEW pastor of Obama's church is catching h*ll -- well, sort of because it is by the corp. media. BO probably hasn't even met his new pastor but in any event he has no control over the new pastor's comments or sermons any more than he did the previous one.
I look for:
Obama/Richardson 2008
They would both bring to the plate some of what the other may lack a little bit of.
Al needs to step up to the plate himself and stop this bloodshed in its tracks. Wonder what he is waiting for. Edwards' endorsement is already mostly irrelevent.
If we'd get outta the ME and stop arming people, and put our own house in order, we wouldn't need a huge MIC.
Neither HC nor BO get that. Or if they do, they're being *pushed* to ignore it. Money and power talk. Our presidents have become figureheads, lead around by the powers behind the curtain..the big players...
We need many more women in politics who won't be so eager to strut and bomb and kill and maim.
Did anyone notice BO's posture during part of Richardson's endorsement? Or Richardson's reason (when talking with Keith) for endorsing?
Why?
Because other people won't necessarily play nice. A military should not be the only means of defense for a nation, nor should it be first, but it is necessary. Otherwise, you may find yourself on the other end of a gun, and all your protestations of its lack of necessity won't keep the other guys from imposing their will on you.
Just because the current administration has misused the military doesn't preclude its necessity.
What a surprise! I had to change our train tickets for the trip to NM in June and while the computer was on the battery, it shut down. Then, when I got it back, there was the post about the Air Force.
That really is a scary organization and Tim may well be right that we could do without it. i'm glad to see him posting here, btw. He's often a very amusing writer.
linda,
In places, Monica's piece is over the top. The Military-Industrial complex has become a monster. And who was the first to point it out (or at least the most well remembered?) Dwight D. Eisenhower, General of the Army, USA Ret.
But calling the folks who drive Predators "assassins" and referring the the USAF as "it's pretty clear that the goal in Iraq is to gain acquiescence to a long term presence for the Air Force by killing off all those who object" is objectionable to this veteran, and this citizen.
While badmouthing the military here, remember that many of us have served, and are proud of our service. The military needs to exist. It needs to operate under rules of engagement that reflect our nation, but it does need to exist. Broad brush anti-military screeds do no good to promoting progressive causes and candidates.
We should have a much smaller, less expensive military. Big enough to defend this country, but not big enough to be used to invade,smaller weaker countries. We should devote the same percentage of GDP to the military as do other countries. There's no justification to spend more than everyone else put together.
We are not the world's policeman, nor should we be!
"Meanwhile someone could have a boat and get into any area of the base cause it is surrounded by water."
Wanna bet?
The flight line at my old (SAC) base looked like undefended grass.
It wasn't.
I'm not saying none of our bases have any security holes. I'm just saying because something looks open, it ain't necessarily so.
The air force has killed a lot of Innocent Iraqis--and Afghans.
Huron John,
Although we probably disagree on how small is small, we don't disagree much on the big picture. We could get by with a smaller, smarter military so long as our goal is defense, as it should be.
It wouldn't necessarily be cheaper (discounting things like the War in Iraq) to maintain, because smart can be expensive.
sea, re: It don't think it wise to make people unwelcome who just might support your guy later on. It's really a turn off to notice how you treated environmental blue; as well as Linda NM.
1) I wrote a post about how I feel about Hillary & Co - that had nothing to do with envblue. when Phil carried it over to the next thread to respond to it, envblue attacked me.
2) I then responded to the zipcode situation from the night before - and again, he/she attacked me.
perhaps you missed that?
22.
Huron John
Mon, 03/24/08
On the subject of Israel, Bruce Dixon of BAR sums it up nicely:
http://www.blackagendareport.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=562&Itemid=1
And of course our "stalwart ally", as Barack called Israel, in fact a murderous apartheid regime in which Arab "citizens" are forbidden from owning land in much of the country, where their marriages are not recognized by the state, where Arabs are issued different license plates so their cars can be profiled from a distance, and many other indignities. And those are Arabs with Israeli citizenship. Palestinians, the owners of the land only two generation ago, are still experiencing wholesale confiscation of their remaining land and assets, penned up into Gaza and the West Bank, humiliated, starved and murdered at will by Israeli armed forces and death squads. Obama knows these to be facts,...
74.
Bob (NJ for Democracy)
Mon, 03/24/08
...prime democracies, like Britain, Germany, Sweden, Ireland, et al, have some measure of official religion. So labeling Israel as non-democratic because they have certain religious requirements isn't fair. So if that's the measure of what it is to be a democracy, then you can count the world's democracies on one hand.
11.
As for non-Jewish immgration: as of May 2006, Israel had 306,000 immigrants (approx. 4% of the population) who were not classified as Jewish.
So yes, Israeli actions are sometimes over the top (as happens everywhere). But considering that they're surrounded and outnumbered 36 to 1 by people who have been screaming for their blood since long before the 1967 war, it can be hard not to overreact.
===========================
John
Bob's post gives a good example of easy it is to mitigate the human rights transgressions of the Israelis and the present Zionist regime there. Along with the news filtering in this country, one can easily fingered as making much ado about nothing, and fabricating a case against Israel. It's not hard, especially with all the propaganda and cherry-picking thats pre-fabricated in books and on the web.
Add that to the invocations of the holocaust, and a few cliches attributed to Arabs and Moslems and you've got a recipe for political disaster for anyone who questions the actions of the right wing presently dominating Israel.
I think even a cynic like you can understand how a person must modify their language on Israel as a matter of practical consideration and avoiding offense to many Jews in America, even though they may not agree with or even be aware of, Israeli laws and practices.
There wasn't much sympathy for the southern blacks during Jim Crow from whites, even by the Northerner who were not nearly as bad or as vicious as the southerners. And you won't find too much sympathy for Palestinians in or around Israel. They will get the blame for many bad things beyond their power to change. Any smart politician here knows that you will run into an iron wall if you go there.
21.
rich^kolker
Mon, 03/24/08
Why?
....
Just because the current administration has misused the military doesn't preclude its necessity.
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Well, if to talk reality instead of hypothetical then primarily:
- It is us, so far who not play nice.
- It is others, so far who find themselves on the other end of our gun.
- It is us so far who imposing our will on the other guys.
Because not only current but (as we now know) previous administrations have made numerous misusages of military a regular, normal event does, imo, preclude its necessity.
seashell - any chance I can get an email addy for you - now and then it seems we might have a few things to discuss that could better be done off the blog. if I didn't care about your opinion, I wouldn't ask.
David A. Stevenson
Mon, 03/24/08
Reply to this
No doubt Oler will show up next
David, Don't you read Harry Potter???? ""He Whose Name Cannot Be Spoken"" !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
1. I like Hillary's new modulated voice - she no longer sounds like a fishmonger - or is it fishmonger's wife.
2. I heard Terri Gross at Noon and she was pimping a Frontline tonight and tomorrow night called Bush's War. I don't know if it is new. It sounded like right down our alley.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/...
3. Geek question - does anyone know if my MacBook will play a DVD from England (PAL instead of NSCB or whatever).
ink it is pretty obvious the capabilities of the equipment far exceeds the capability of those to control it.
In VN, when we took fire, it was great to call in an air or chopper attack on a position.
When coming into an area that looked bad (birds screaming for no reason, no people moving around a village, we would call in an airplane for a fly-over. When we were denied – which was often – we were really scared and sometimes shot up a place anyway. My view of close air support used to be it saves grunts lives. Now we abuse it. We call in air strikes on buildings where the occupants are unknown. In the example given, the guys who ran into the building may be in there with innocent people. Do we kill them all? What is the mission? For the remote pilots, who gives permission? The rules of engagement must not allow casual killing. Operating UCAVs may seem like video games, but real people die.
The military – and especially the USAF – is always planning for the next expensive war. The next expensive war is a fight with China. The Iraq/Afgan wars do not require expensive equipment. There is not much use for B2s, F22s and the rest of the expensive warplanes. They can get by with A10s and choppers. They still need to use them in a limited way because deaths of innocents must be avoided.
I still assert we had go into Afgan after the Taliban and bin Laden. We finish him off and leave. Even then, we used B2s, B52s and the rest of the big killing machines and killed a lot of innocent people. However, the constant combat flights are wearing all equipment out. The military has the problems of worn out hardware, the desire to prepare for war with China, and an empty treasury. It looks bad for the services for a few years. Eventually, a new series of scare tactics will cause a new group of sheep to allow their treasurey to be emptied for unneeded equipment.
The way to bring oversight to the military is to only fund what can be accounted for. The testimony can be done secretly because there are projects where people work in secret.
"the question that doesn’t seem to have been asked is what laws of warfare this assassination by remote control complies with."
Yeah, killing enemies with weapons, a truck mounted 50 cal machine gun no less, that's a close one. LOL
sea - now I think I understand why you think we treated he/she unwelcomingly - it's because hdqtrs has removed environmentally blues posts. I went back to try to see the comments from your point of view and they're all gone - there's only the snippets that foilks included in their responses to him/her. it wasn't pretty.
23.
Annilow
Mon, 03/24/08
I heard Terri Gross at Noon and she was pimping a Frontline tonight and tomorrow night called Bush's War. I don't know if it is new. It sounded like right down our alley.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/...
I think it is new and probably a good one (2 hours)
It starts at 9:00 - and if I know "Frontline" they'll have many of new facts we never knew before.
Yeah, killing enemies with weapons, a truck mounted 50 cal machine gun no less, that's a close one. LOL
yes, I'm sure anyone manning those drones from NV will be absolutely certain of their target, each and every time. they'lll probably even find Osama! no, wait, duh! they've been using them to look for him for HOW many years now? guess that's not gonna happen....
Timothy Horrigan
Sun, 03/23/08
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My husband (former Navy) agrees with you wholeheartedly.
Winter Soldier has been buried by the corporate media. I hope these brave people have the chance to testify before congress, as their predecessors (including John Kerry) did in 1972.
The fact is that the Iraq invasion was illegal and therefore a war crime. According to the Nuremberg protocols, all orders resultiong from the original crime are also illegal, and the miltary is obliged to disobey them or face prosecution for war crimes.
I know that many of us have served honorably in the armed services. That doesn't change the reality that serious crimes have been committed in our names, and so far, have gone unpunished.
IMO, assassination of people we deem to be enemies, without benefit of due process, is murder
Bombing guerrillas fighters in populated areas, or on a suspected sight, from the air, kills many innocents. The USA and Israel both do this. We cannot condemn the roadside bombs and Katyusha rockets which work on the same level of immorality with regard to innocent life - even if it a war.
As with all wars, the civilians suffer the greatest losses. Hundreds of thousands in each of France, Germany, Japan, Russia and Italy.
and Great Britain, of course.
The military motto is to defeat all foes at any time. That may mean multiple engagements.
The last great happy time for the military was during the Reagan years. The military had blank checks and an unlimited budget. They bought new stuff and trained a lot. Training cost money and equipment and the military trained constantly. There were no restrictions on stores used.
In VN, we had limited ammo for training. Which is one of the reasons so many newbees died quick.
Beware of thinking that base in the middle of nowhereis unguarded. Tons of money is spent on base security. There ar elapses but those who don't do their job are usually discharged with bad stuff on their records. Plus, htere are usually multiple levels of physical and electronic surveillance.
The military folks are being beaten to a pulp by a master that doesn't appreciate or understand them and paid for by a public that neither understands or appreciate the sacrifices made by career military people.
As far as I know, military people are the only ones who routinely get last rites before they do their jobs.
Anni - most DVD players are different in which formats they support - the newer they are, the better the chance. I'm not familiar with that format, but you can usually look up your user manual online - if you can't find it on the manufacturers website try googling the name model and "user manual".
Tom Hartman is saying that this primary is tearing the Party apart, and needs to be stopped.
He acknowledges that if the situation were reversed, Hillary would be back in the Senate now.
She can't win by he numbers, and the only way she can remotely win is to beat and bloody Obama daily with spin so he appears to be unelectable to the Super Del's.
He will be unelectable to the Supers and everyone else if this is allowed to go on.
I find myself agreeing with Hartman and others. It is time for Howard, and maybe Gore and Edwards to have a little heart to heart with the Clintons.
There is a military action of some sort looming in Iran, and for us to present to the GE ring someone who has been smeared to
to the point of unelectability would be one of the stupidest
things we've ever done as a Party. We all know there have been a few.
The next four years are far too critical to our country to put
them in question because of the Clinton ego. She is fully
aware of the damage that could and already has been done, and evidently doesn't mind taking that chance.
environmentally blue disappeared from the old threads, what's up with that?
Britain was able to achieve peace with the IRA because the Irish wanted little more than for the Brits to be gone. The IRA never threatened to destroy Britain. If that's all that the Palestinians want, Israel would have a peace deal rather quickly. The problem is that Hamas, Islamic Jihad, PFLP, etc. aren't interested in peace with Israel. They're interested in wiping it off the map.
"It's our land. Nobody among our sons and grandsons will accept Israel as a legal state...Israel is a foreign body. Not in this generation, not in the next generation, will we accept it here."
"We do not recognize the Israeli enemy, nor his right to be our neighbor, nor to stay [on the land], nor his ownership of any inch of land...Our principles are clear: Palestine is a land of Waqf [Islamic trust], which can not be given up."
-- Hamas leader Dr. Mahmoud Zahar
And let's not forget gems like:
"The Jews are a virus spreading like AIDS, from which the entire world suffers…. Listen to the prophet Muhammed, who tells you about the evil end that awaits Jews. The stones and trees will want the Muslims to finish off every Jew."
-- Ibrahim Mdeiras, weekly sermon on Palestinian Authority Radio
The British and northern Irish never said anything like this about the other:
(See -- I promised no more pics of Hitler today.)
So I'm not saying Israel should use Islamofascists like these guys as a reason not to pursue peace. All I'm saying is that when Israel overreacts, this is why.
I like the idea of a hellfire carrying predator cruising around looking for bin Ladin and would be happy to pull the trigger myself.
Phil wrote "environmentally blue disappeared from the old threads, what's up with that?"
It looks like that took place right after you thanked her for coming back and telling her she should feel welcome.
let me just point out that when Salon did a story on the predators, the people interviewed took pains to explain that the legality of destroying people with missiles from a drone was debatable. From the stories not coming out of Nevada, it seems that the squad leader can give the ok on the spot. I don't happen to think that the possession of a weapon, even a machine gun, is sufficient reason to kill people on the spot.
The U.S. military is engaging in all kinds of mental gymnastics to define anyone who opposes the occupation as an enemy or insurgent and only those people who submit to the pacification agenda without contradiction are considered to be a civilian. The fact is that the only iraqi military forces are those the U.S. has stood up and everyone else in the country is a civilian. An irregular militia is not an enemy since there's been no declaration of war. The U.S. is not at war with anyone in Iraq. It is an occupying power which has taken it upon itself to segregate the population into ethnic enclaves and kill off those it can't corrupt.
It may be argued that since the U.S. has no interest in actually ruling or controlling the country in the long term and merely desires to enjoy the use of 'its' bases from which to monitor the region in peace. But, none of us necessarily get what we want and in my book the U.S. has forfeited even being a guest in the country by displacing and killing five million. Al Qaeda in Iraq is a figment of the imagination; less real than the Iraq National Congress which the CIA created out of whole cloth.
former, just one more thing (I have to get back to work):
I never called anyone a "traitor" for taking an opposing viewpoint. Do not put words into my mouth, I really don't appreciate it.
And Israeli human rights groups like B'Tselem ("Have Mercy") indeed do a good job bringing to light when the Israeli government harms Palestinian civilians.
The equivalent Palestinian organizations that oppose terrorism.....Oh, wait. There aren't any.
I find myself agreeing with Hartman and others. It is time for Howard, and maybe Gore and Edwards to have a little heart to heart with the Clintons.
Audrey,
I don't believe we will ever see that happening, especially Clinton/Howard. There probably isn't much good will left between Gore and the Clintons. And Edwards has no prominence to tell the Clintons how to act.
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By Reed in V T on Mar 23, 2008 7:28 AM EDTI declare Howard Dean to be 1st