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POPSHaving the ‘Best Military’ Is Not Always a Good Thing
So consider this a modest proposal from a retired citizen-airman: A small but meaningful act against the creeping militarism of the Bush years would be to collectively repudiate our “world’s best warfighter” rhetoric and re-embrace instead a tradition of reluctant but resolute citizen-soldiers. Becoming Warfighters I first noticed the term “warfighter” in 2002. Like many a field-grade staff officer, I spent a lot of time crafting PowerPoint briefings, trying to sell senior officers and the Pentagon on my particular unit’s importance to the President’s new Global War on Terrorism. The more briefings I saw, the more often I came across references to “serving the warfighter.” It was, I suppose, an obvious selling point, once we were at war in Afghanistan and gearing up for “regime-change” in Iraq. And I was probably typical in that I, too, grabbed the term for my briefings. After all, who wants to be left behind when it comes to supporting the troops “at the pointy end of the spear”
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POPS"Generation Kill" brings the Iraq war to the TV viewer From the producers of "The Wire" With its $550 billion budget and 1.5 million troops, the military might seem a mechanized colossus of precision-guided violence, give or take a few bad apples and errant artillery shells. But if you have served in the military or written about it from the inside, you know that on the unit level it is filled with men and women of vastly different motivations and skills. The Marines in Generation Kill are intelligent and dimwitted, panicked, sensitive, racist, comic, homicidal, brave. It is a wonder when things go according to plan. "You know what happens when you get out of the Marine Corps?" says one of the characters. "You get your brains back."
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POPSMoyers: Conservatives had their chance and Blew it! On top of such bungled calamities as Iraq and Katrina… GEORGE W. BUSH: Again I want to thank you all for- and Brownie you're doing a heck of a job. BILL MOYERS: The conservative regime sent spending into the stratosphere…borrowed trillions from the future to pay for their agenda, and rewarded their wealthy base with huge tax cuts. Earmarks and contracts fattened lobbyists on K Street, which Newt Gingrich and Tom DeLay honed into a ruthless shakedown machine exploited by conservative movement stars like Grover Norquist, Ralph Reed, and Jack Abramoff. JACK ABRAMOFF: Senator, I respectfully invoke the privileges previously stated. SEN. KENT CONRAD: And I'd say to you Mr. Abramoff, shame on you. BILL MOYERS: And after crusading for the impeachment of Bill Clinton, conservatives pushing family values turned out to be their own worst enemies. Some of their foot soldiers in politics and the religious right were outed for adultery, stalking Capitol Hill pages, soliciting sex. Be
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POPSSeeds of Current Propaganda found in Reagan Era Enduring Skills Beyond these individuals, the manipulative techniques that were refined in the 1980s — especially the skill of exaggerating foreign threats — have proved durable, bringing large segments of the American population into line behind the Iraq War in 2002-03. Only now — with more than 4,100 U.S. soldiers and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis dead — are many of these Americans realizing that were manipulated by clever propaganda, that their perceptions had been managed. For instance, the New York Times recently pried loose some 8,000 pages of Pentagon documents revealing how the Bush administration had manipulated the public debate on the Iraq War by planting friendly retired military officers on TV news shows. Retired Green Beret Robert S. Bevelacqua, a former analyst on Murdoch’s Fox News, said the Pentagon treated the retired military officers as puppets: “It was them saying, ‘we need to stick our hands up your back and move your mouth for you.’” [NYT, April 20,
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POPSElite US Army Academy Lures Kids With Mud and Duty this sickening; Kathleen Engle, 16, from Fairfield, California, said she had looked into the Peace Corps and other options but decided on the military. “I was in fifth grade when 9/11 happened and that’s when I decided the best thing I could do for my country was this,” she said, playing a video game called “America’s Army.” “I guess it’s going to be hard to kill someone, but if that’s your job and that’s what our commander tells us we need to do, I’m going to do that in order to protect my country.” Brainwashed at 16, or sooner
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POPSThe Amerikkan Beast Still Lives A significant number of soldiers are screaming that something is terribly wrong with the leadership and judgement of those who pushed us into this war — the false reasons for starting it; the slipshod manner in which it was begun; the lack of support for those on the ground; and the lies to the soldiers; not to mention the broken promises that Iraqis have suffered. And we at home are lied to when we are told that the US has "turned this war around." While hostilities have reduced, it is quite far from being turned around.
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POPSCollateral Damage What It Really Means When America Goes to War Civilians and combatants, in the eyes of the beleaguered troops, merge into one entity. These civilians, who rarely interact with soldiers or Marines, are to most of the occupation troops in Iraq nameless, faceless, and easily turned into abstractions of hate. They are dismissed as less than human. It is a short psychological leap, but a massive moral leap. It is a leap from killing — the shooting of someone who has the capacity to do you harm — to murder — the deadly assault against someone who cannot harm you. The war in Iraq is now primarily about murder. There is very little killing. The savagery and brutality of the occupation is tearing apart those who have been deployed to Iraq. As news reports have just informed us, 115 American soldiers committed suicide in 2007. This is a 13% increase in suicides over 2006. And the suicides, as they did in the Vietnam War years, will only rise as distraught veterans come home, unwrap the self-protective layers of cotton wool that keep them
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POPSWinter Soldiers Hit the Streets A late April poll conducted by CNN/Opinion Research Corp. found that nearly three-quarters (68 percent) of respondents opposed the Iraq war. The strategy of the regional IVAW groups is clearly meant to capitalise on the growing opposition to the occupation of Iraq among the U.S. public. Christopher Diggins, a psychotherapist who attended the demonstration, reflected the feelings of many — that this strategy is important. “This tactic is better because you have to get the community involved,” Diggins told IPS. “You have to have community awareness and support.” “I want to show my solidarity for vets who are against the war, because it is the only way this war is going to stop,” he added. “It’s hard to have the war if nobody is going to fight.”
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POPSMr. Magoo Worse than Bush? I think we're past "victory" and " honor" now. all that's left is tragedy and suffering--for the returning troops and the dead and innocent families who "we" destroyed. 40'000+ US soldiers and Marines diagnosed with PTSD and many more sucides. For what--Bush's Ego and oil. AAAARRRRGH!
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POPSThe Sacrificer: Bush Quit Golf Over Iraq War When I saw this on the news (OLbermann's special comment was brilliant) I was flabbergasted...to think! Our Preznit had to give up golf 'cuz it wouldn't be proprewr! Such *solidarity* with the families of all the dead! **gag**
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POPSSchool Military Recruiting Could Violate International Protocol THIS HORRIBLE PRACTICE BY THE MILITARY HAS GOT TO STOP--OUR CHILDREN ARE NOT CANNON FODDER FOR STUPID OLD MEN'S WARS!! the U.S. armed services “regularly target children under 17 for military recruitment, heavily recruiting on high school campuses, in school lunchrooms, and in classes.” “The United States military’s procedures for recruiting students plainly violate internationally accepted standards and fail to protect youth from abusive and aggressive recruitment tactics,” said Jennifer Turner of the ACLU Human Rights Project. The increased aggressiveness of military recruiters is due in major part, according to the report, to the increased pressure to meet enlistment quotas caused by ongoing U.S. military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan to which nearly 200,000 soldiers and marines are currently deployed. The pressure created by current military commitments has not only translated into enhanced recruitment efforts among children under 18. The armed forces have also lower
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POPSIf We Really supported the Troops... Go to http://anysoldier.com/WhereToSend/ and then click on a soldier-contact's name, read the blurb he or she has posted about what his or her unit wants, and then click again to request a form (asking for your own addy and name) to get the appropriate address for that unit. You must not send porn, and you must not send packages that contain both food and soap/sunscreen/etc in the same box. No pork products. No anti-islamic tracts in bulk. No political content. No flea collars. No depictions of naked or partly naked people. No explosives, firearms, other shit that is illegal to mail anyway. Don't send chocolate, it melts. You must request the address to send your package to on the same day you mail it, so it's hard to really meet the requests. I am thinking of assembling a bunch of common cheap items, and boxing them up at the last minute. even someone as poor as me can spring for toothbrushes and lip balm, for crying out loud. Things particularly in need: * Personal letters from
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POPSThe Loathsome Smearing of Israel’s Critics The response? There was little attempt to dispute the facts I offered. Instead, some of the most high profile “pro-Israel” writers and media monitoring groups — including Honest Reporting and Camera — said I an anti-Jewish bigot akin to Joseph Goebbels and Mahmoud Ahmadinejadh, while Melanie Phillips even linked the stabbing of two Jewish people in North London to articles like mine. Vast numbers of e-mails came flooding in calling for me to be sacked. Any attempt to describe accurately the situation for Palestinians is met like this. If you recount the pumping of sewage onto Palestinian land, “Honest Reporting” claims you are reviving the anti-Semitic myth of Jews “poisoning the wells.” If you interview a woman whose baby died in 2002 because she was detained — in labour — by Israeli soldiers at a checkpoint within the West Bank, “Honest Reporting” will say you didn’t explain “the real cause”: the election of Hamas in, um, 2006. And on, and on.
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POPSContractor Atrocity--It's Lying ... and It's Murder: How KBR Electrocuted US Troops "... and marines in Iraq and Afghanistan. These deaths did not come while the soldiers were on patrol or by unexpected encounters with downed "hot" wires. These "accidents" happened in facilities used as base camps for U.S. units, camps that were to have been completely refurbished - including the wiring - under terms of a $30 billion no-bid contract awarded to the one-time Halliburton subsidiary KBR (formerly Kellogg-Brown-Root). The deaths reportedly all were the result of shoddy workmanship in the grounding of electrical sources, both in permanent structures and in machinery when in use. The problem is not new: in 2004, Army units in theatre were alerted concerning the potential for accidental electrocution. American electricians working for KBR in the war zone observed and notified KBR and even the Defense Contract Management Agency (DCMA), the office that monitors contractor performance, of numerous instances of poor workmanship by undertrained and underpaid Iraqi and Afghan "e
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POPSMilitary Makes Mincemeat of Church-State Separation--Oh, JEEBUS! Military Makes Mincemeat of Church-State Separation This is nothing new to Mikey Weinstein, founder of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation and a former Air Force judge advocate general who also served in the Rea-gan administration. Weinstein says that he has collected nearly 8,000 complaints, mostly from Christian members of the military tired of being force-fed a narrow brand of evangelical fundamentalism. Weinstein, who co-wrote the book With God on Our Side: One Man’s War Against an Evangelical Coup in America’s Military, has documented how the ranks of our military have been infiltrated by members of the Officers’ Christian Fellowship and other similar organizations. On its Web site, the OCF makes no secret of its mission, which is to ”raise up a godly military” by enlisting ”ambassadors for Christ in uniform.” Weinstein says OCF recruitment is easy in a strict command-subordinate military where the implied message is: If you don’t pray the right way, your career might
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POPSWinter Soldier to be re-Broadcast If you missed this compelling program, listen in sometime. Very moving testimony from the soldiers who were sent to Iraq and Afghanistan by the Bush/Cheney criminals.
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POPS White House Announces Contest to Find More Specific Text For "Mission Accomplished" Banner Some of the early entries includes... "Huge Defense Contracts and Profits For Halliburton, Blackwater, other friends of Bush/Cheney Built On The Graves of Innocents Accomplished" "Generating a Smokescreen to Cover up the Disembowelment of Federal Departments and Their Conversion to Partisan Operations - i.e. EPA, Justice, Housing - Accomplished" "Protection of Osama Bin Laden by Diverting Resources from Finding Him and Those Who Were Actually Behind 9-11 Accomplished" "Increasing Foreign Tourism by Weakening the Dollar to the Point That it Is Cheaper for the French, English and Germans to Fly Here to Do Their Christmas Shopping Than to Go to Their Local Mall Accomplished." "Going to War With The President You Have, Not The President You'd Like Accomplished" "Bringing Together Families in Unanticipated Ways With Widows (And Widowers) and Their Children Get to Move in with Their Own Parents in Order to Survive Life as Single-parents as Well as Families Getting to Spend
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POPSCan Americans Stop Bush/Cheney From Attacking Iran? The Answer is Yes! An interestingg idea--a national strike...read the whole article to understand my comment: I think Mad Jayhawk, who is aptly self-named, not so subtly tells us why a strike in "Murrika might not be possible. "murrikans are addicted to war as well as oil. We are too diverse, apathetic and delusional as a populace to pull together in "solidarity". I doubt that haf the people know what solidaroity means or could fathom the idea of a national strike. We're too selfish and still haven't reached the crisis level needed. Unfortunate and a bit sad, neh? Sorry to sound so negative about a strike I would join in a heartbeat but that's the way I see this benighted nation. Sick, ain't it?
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