When Boys Will be Jarheads

Of course, there is a third version of American wars that go like this:

Bad guys endanger the world. Average Joe joins the fight against the darkness, triumphs under great adversity from within and without, comes home and starts his life as an insurance salesman, raises a family of four and retires with eight grandchildren and another on its way..

Unfortunately, this genre never hit Chaudhry’s Hollywood radar screen since it is based on real life.

WWII.

Heroism, real life heroism, is not about typewriter angst or killing the enemy. Any idiot can write about pulling the trigger or pushing the button.

It is about ordinary people doing extraordinary things.

Lakshmi, Thank you for your insightful review.  Brings to mind memories of the many disaffected ex-grunts who sheltered and protected me from the bother of FBI surveillance in my underground days.  Also my ex-marine sniper roommate who always slept with his weapon of choice, a Browning 12ga. automatic with a 16in. open choke barrel. Sniping in Nam was different.  Living and dealing with his homicidal pathology was a real eye-opener.  He’s grown a lot over the years and is now a moderately successful independent trucker, a Buddhist, and working on his ninth marriage.

You’ve inspired me to re-read The Red Badge of Courage.  A book one of my literary friends calls the world’s first psychedelic novel.  I think it’s either Candide or Don Quixote

God, Jay.  You are such a putz.  You think Marion Morrison was a real soldier, don’t you?

Don’t know Marion.

But I was.

You know Marion, Jay-Jay my pet.  You just don’t know you know Marion.  Ooh-rah.

I was a Navy brat myself.  Enough of a taste of the military life for me.  When I lost my 2S draft classification my Dad, a Lt. Commander in the USNR, offered to buy me a plane ticket to Sweden.  I sometimes wish I’d taken him up on his offer, but I told him it was my duty to stay at home and face the legal consequences of taking a stand against that war.  Only time in my life I made my Dad cry.

So where and when did you serve? What branch? What rank?

Apologies for the female gender references I have made in the past.

Obviously I was wrong.

No apologies necessary, you silly goose.  The embarrassment and humiliation has all been yours.  For everyone, I thank you.  It has been fun.

Embarrassment and humiliation??

Again, you are a legend in your own mind.

Again and again, obliviousness is your most endearing quality, sweety.

So long as everyone is endeared of one another, for whatever reason, I am happy.

One thing that is rarely mentioned in talk about U.S. military might is the fact that we have enough nukes and delivery systems to destroy the world. Currently, it is U.S. policy that we may strike first with nuclear weapons---even in countries that don’t have nuclear weapons---if the nation is perceived to present a possible threat…

Aside from the culture of bonding by killing together (and its attendent aversion to risking individual American lives), what makes the U.S. a profoundly formidable threat to the rest of the planet is not the murderousness of army or marine troops (though they do much damage and inflict a lot of trauma and death (given enough bullets)), but the devastating power of the Air Force and Navy. 

As a veteran who spent a couple of years in nuclear forces, I am awed by the many expressions of desire to nuke countries “into glass” I have heard from my fellow citizens over the years. A society that openly expresses the desire to commit genocide and/or omnicide without fear of rejection or disapproval seems unlikely to disapprove of boys becoming men by killing “ragheads” indiscriminately or with a particular relish. It is certainly not likely that this culture would encourage a more enlightened rite of passage for males and/or females..

I’m afraid that the attitudes in military people is a reflection of our entire society.  When fighting in a war seems no different from fighting in your own streets, then it is not a giant leap to condoning civil war (at best) to nuclear annihilation out of hatred and an unexamined assumption that those who can dominate and destroy others are “superior” by virtue of their ability to dominate and destroy others; or from an unquenchable fear for a non-existant state of absolute security.

Without wisdom, inner strength, and honorable leadership that reveres national and international law and human rights in high ranking military and government personnel, then our military will naturally digress to the lowest common denominator, which might actually be at the top.

I’m afraid that the attitudes in military people is a reflection of our entire society.

Might makes right ... Kill ‘em all ... Death worship.

Cliches. Sad but true.

Wiley , that was a really great post. I keep reading it over and over.

Another old cliche : the enemy is us.

If we can call others a friend, it is not them that has changed for the better, it is us.

wileywitch - nice post. One might also remember the flip side of all this. Despite having nuclear weapons the US has never actually used them, other than to end a world war (full idsclosure, if not for that, i would not be writing this). While some might think that the US is superior due to its superior military might, i would venture that whatever superiority the US possesses is best exemplfied by its NOT using nuclear weapons. I rather doubt that any arab country would have had the restraint that the US has shown over the last 60 years (and hopefully over the next forever years).

I suppose we can all agree that war is bad. Perhaps the controversy lies in when is it worse NOT to engage in war, as opposed to making war. It would be interesting to have a debate of what the exact threshold for going to war might should be. . .

Why we used the bomb is debatable.  Nevertheless, the administration has attempted to escalate the nuclear war by producing more tactical nuclear weapons and by erecting SDI (what does that do but encourage an enemy to launch MORE missiles, since some may be shot down?), and by instituting a first strike policy.

I wouldn’t give us credit for not using nukes anymore than I would give someone credit for not raping a child.  Furthermore, the risk of accidental wars is actually greater now than it was during the cold war.  if you put “nuclear missiles” and “false alarms” in a decent search engine you would find all kinds of examples of accidents that could have been dreadful, and incidents in which we have been so close to a nuclear exchange that a General who once commanded NORAD has said that we are here “by the skin of our teeth”.

Whether or not we use nuclear weapons (and we do use radiologicaly weapons in the form of projectiles made with depleted uranium) the threat is always implicit. With George W. Bush, the threat is more prominent. Our new first-strike policy is shameful, and any leader who does not take it seriously is whack.

I would say that the U.S. war is mostly justified when a foreign army (which is a verifiable institution) attacks our country.

Terrorism is International police work.

I’m not a pacifist, but I do not condone declaring war on ideas or threats to corporate profits, or the perceived “need” to steal resources from another land cloaked as “protecting our interests”.

In fact, I would even back some police actions if it were truly for the goal of saving innocent civilians from slaughter----not part of some dueling ideologies----and the forces were trained specifically for such actions.

In most wars in the last part of the twentieth century and in the millenium, civilians are 90% of the casualties.  It makes no sense for us to kill so many civilians when our homeland is not being threatened by an invasion. It is morally reprehensible to rain bombs on cities.

Think about it. Is it “democratic” to kill tens of thousands of people to catch one man? Or is life just supposed to be this cheap for the uncoronated majority?

The best defense is diplomacy and fairness, not “a good offense"---though that may be true on the football field, in real life, no one forgets their dead family members. Starting on the offensive is called “aggression”.

When it would be worse not to engage in a war, it would be a bit obvious---the military of another nation would have breached our borders and fired munitions at us. The majority of American people would be running for their guns and signing up to fight. There would be little debate.

Soldiers swear to defend the constitution (not spread it) and to protect the homeland. Soldiers are ultimately under the jurisdiction of the Commander in Chief, but he/she too, has sworn to protect the constitution and is not legally or ethically above the law.

Our military is not supposed to be WORKING FOR THE PRESIDENT or the vice-president, or Exxon, or United Fruit....  The president is being paid to work for the people, and before all the lying hype began, most Americans didn’t give Iraq or Saddam Hussein any thought whatsoever. After 9/11, most Americans had Osama Bin Laden on their minds.

All our military soldiers should be well versed in the laws that pertain to them, including international law, and they should feel free to protest unlawful action without worrying about military punishment for political purposes or being shot in the back by a fellow soldier.

Why do you doubt that Arab leaders would have shown so little restraint? Israel has had over 200 nuclear weapons and the ability to fire them at any nation that is comprised mostly of Moslems for twenty years. Most Arab countries have not even started nuclear programs.

... another great post from Wiley.

I am a pacifist but have respect for soldiers and veterans like Wiley. Soldiers who will do their duty and not just blindly follow unlawful orders.

Thanks for mentioning the nuclear weapons (aka depleted uranium = toxic nuclear waste) that are being used right now in Iraq and Afghanistan. Used in the Balkans too.

Good to have someone like you here Wiley. Thank you.

Thanks, David. I’m enjoying this forum and the focus on current issues.

If I weren’t so behind on my reading list I would get a copy of “Jarheads” to get one Marine’s point of view. 

It would behoove the American public to understand that soldiers are individuals and not interchangeable action figures in some romantic plot or unstained living symbols of all that is “great” and “pure” about America. It’s refreshing when someone on the inside defies such deluded clap-trap.

I’ll shut up for a bit. Time to go to work.

Good Grief, Wiley.  Don’t you understand?

We are all interchangeable action figures, with labels pasted to our foreheads which advertise the requisate affiliation: liberal, conservative, communist, fascist, patriot, traitor, friend or foe…

Halt!  Who goes there?

The reason that 90% of the casualties in modern warfare are civilians is that civilians no longer exist.

Tropes for the troops.

Left, right, left, right, left, right...lohadalo, hachalobrilo…

We are not. That we can be perceived this way or perceive ourselves and others as such is not because of who we are, it is because of how we allow ourselves to be treated and labeled and how we treat and label others. Behaving as such can be forced on us, but as soon as the force is withdrawn individual idiosyncracies come to the for and younger generations change. That’s why Germans aren’t goosestepping much these days.

(I’ll surely have opportunities to rake the public school systems over the coals later.)

I “get” the idea you are expressing, but refuse to give social engineering and corporatism that much credit. To surrender and say that it is already done, that the goal of dehumanization and commodification has been reached, or that the whole human race is inevitably speeding toward that goal is to support it and to ignore or deny the societies in the world that aren’t glued to the television.

WW -

Without wisdom, inner strength, and honorable leadership that reveres national and international law and human rights in high ranking military and government personnel, then our military will naturally digress to the lowest common denominator, which might actually be at the top.

Sort of vague.  Can you give us a specific example of USA high ranking government or military personnel violating any national or international law?  Try to remember that, for the USA, national laws are laws passed by the House and the Senate, and signed by the President.  International laws are treaties between sovereign nations, approved by the Senate, and signed by the President.

Laws passed by the European Union, Zimbabwe, Pango Pango, the defunct Soviet Union, or ancient Greece are not international law in the USA.

yes, scorpy, only the US counts.  But why doesn’t Hank the K go to Brussels any more?

google US war crimes.  31+ million entries.  Go ahead, scorpy, do some research, I double dip dare ya.

“Without wisdom, inner strength, and honorable leadership that reveres national and international law and human rights in high ranking military and government personnel, then our military will naturally digress to the lowest common denominator, which might actually be at the top”. ---WW

It is not “vague” scorp, it is a general statement and was intended as such. Surely you know the difference between dialogue and making a case in court.

The U.S. is required by Article VI of the Constitution to abide by all treaties it makes. The U.S. is a signatory to the Geneva Convention.

Anyone who can use a search engine can find chapter and verse of what constitutes war crimes, crimes against peace, and crimes against humanity.

A case has been made by a people’s tribunal:

http://deoxy.org/wc/wc-crime.htm

Anyone familiar with the Geneva Convention would recognize firing on electrical grids, communications grids, water treatment plants, hospitals and ambulances is illegal. The treatment for prisoners of war is well defined in the condition and the U.S. is clearly in violation of those rules (that are spelled out in a treaty we ratified). That is why the White House hired a lawyer to make a case that our prisoners of war are not really “prisoners of war”.

I, personally, think that it is important not to confuse sophistry with truth.

Whether you agree with or believe the charges is wholly up to you. I feel no need to convince you of anything.  I would like to point out, however (for the sake of the English language) that listing specific nations like Zimbabwe and Pango Pango does not lend any legitimacy to your argument, and speaking generally does not constitute vagary.

Germans aren’t goosestepping much these days because the Russians killed most of the people who practiced the two-step goose-step who, for their part, killed many of the Russians who practiced the one-step goose-step (20 million Russian dead, at a conservative estimate).  Of course, the English and American geese made it all possible by holding the line in the Middle East, and forcing the fascists to attack the communists—a convenient solution for all concerned, unless you happened to be German or Russian, and one which served them well for over two centuries.  The United States and United Kingdom are each a textbook example of successful imperial conquest which, through forced immigration, made European unity possible.

So now, finally, the process of European and North American industrialization is virtually complete, if only they can consolidate their control of the Middle Eastern oilfields, and encourage the former Chinese communists to attack the former Russian communists.

Unfortunately, modernization is neither inevitable nor irreversible.  Regressive de-industrialization is a distinct possibility.

WW -

Your link is to a “people’s tribunal” and the presiding officer (or administrative officer, or grand poo-bah, or whatever title he chooses to go by) is Ramsey Clark, a private citizen who has no standing and no authority, and has absolutely not been subject to approval by the US Senate or the President.  Clark is something of a nutcake gadfly, and he is no more authorized to establish a court than the last ten people in the Wichita phone book.

The U.S. is a signatory to the Geneva Convention.

There is no Geneva Convention.  There are four Geneva Conventions and two Protocols.  The USA is signatory to the four Conventions with reservations, but not to the Protocols.  The area in which you are interested is Convention III:

International Rules About Soldiers

In order for the distinction between combatants and civilians to be clear, combatants must wear uniforms and carry their weapons openly during military operations and during preparation for them.

********
The other exception are (sic) mercenaries, who are specifically excluded from protections. Mercenaries are defined as soldiers who are not nationals of any of the parties to the conflict and are paid more than the local soldiers.

Combatants who deliberately violate the rules about maintaining a clear separation between combatant and noncombatant groups — and thus endanger the civilian population — are no longer protected by the Geneva Convention. 

<a href = http://www.genevaconventions.org>

In plain English, if you are not wearing a uniform or if you are a mercenary, you are not protected by the Geneva Conventions.  That is every single terrorist in Afghanistan and every single terrorist in Iraq after May 7, 2003.

Since the failure to wear a uniform excludes all these terrorists from the protection of the Geneva Conventions, what is to be done with them?  Well, they can certainly be locked up until the end of hostilities, and this action is well within the Conventions.  If they are accused of crimes, such as a car bombing that kills civilians, they can be put in front of a military tribunal, and punished. 

The free-lance foolishness at abu Ghraib was well outside US law and practice, and the perpetrators are in the court system; as and when they are convicted, they will be punished.

You should be more interested in Convention IV, concerning protection of civilians.  Every IED, VBIED, suicide bomber, and mortar or rocket attack within a city threatens civilians, and by far the majority of civilians killed and wounded in the last thirty months were the results of terrorist activity.  Efforts to reinforce Convention IV would actually serve to reduce civilian casualties, besides being on a firm legal footing. 

There is a UN Convention against Torture which the USA has signed but not ratified, meaning it has no effect on US law or actions.  I do not wish to reopen the silly “morality of torture” discussion seen on another thread, except to say that the President takes an oath to protect and defend the United States of America.  The USA is under assault by terrorists, and the President is obligated by law and morality to do everything in his power to prevent more attacks.

You apparently are well studied on this topic. Good for you. I have other fish to fry, no time to research this topic in depth, no interest in arguing with you, and no apologies.

You have not changed my perspective on this war, and I have not changed yours. That’s what makes America great, right? Our perspectives are so fundamentally at odds that I see no reason for us to discuss this any further.

Perhaps we’ll find common ground on other issues.

I was, btw, perfectly aware that the People’s Tribunal was not legally binding. I posted it because it was a concise list of offenses.

Major Major--- “So now, finally, the process of European and North American industrialization is virtually complete, if only they can consolidate their control of the Middle Eastern oilfields, and encourage the former Chinese communists to attack the former Russian communists.”

Sure picked a bad time to start running out of oil. Since the Russian (are they officially “communists”?)military did joint naval military exercises with China off the coast of China (they’re getting to be awfully capitalist communists) this summer and are going gangbusters on the trade pack they made a few years back, and are now planning to run a joint space program, I’m thinking that getting them to go at each others’ throat is not likely.

And since Russia is about to engage in war games with India and planning to engage with Indonesia likewise in the near future, I rather doubt that the West is going to be doing a whole lot of “consolidating” control.

Rumor has it that the mid-east is drying out like an old cow, producing low grade crude that is too expensive to refine, and that most new deposits are in the Caspian Sea in Asia. It’s an interesting game of Risk. Russia seems to be forging alliances as fast as we are ruining ours.

Unfortunately, modernization is neither inevitable nor irreversible.  Regressive de-industrialization is a distinct possibility.

Perhaps there is a post-industrialization possibility that won’t be catastrophic or dystopian. I wouldn’t rule it out completely, but I wouldn’t bet on it either.

I’ve gone way off topic. Sorry.

The topic is military dehumanization, and those dystopian possibilities which it promotes.  I would like to believe that more utopian possiblities are present but, as you say, I wouldn’t bet on it either, at least not in the short or middle term.  Surplus populations are normally resolved by means of warfare, revolution, famine, epidemic and religous or ideological fundamentalism.

The oil in Iraq, incidentally, is high-grade crude and easilly refined.

When women are afforded opportunities, an economy is doing well enough, birth control is available, and infant and chilhood mortalities are low, there is a natural tendency for women to have much fewer pregnancies and fewer children.

I suspect, though that in the last twenty years or so in the U.S.  that many caucasions in the U.S. have started having lots of children from a fear of becoming a minority. There appears to be a little white baby boom in these parts. I’m seeing young white women hauling three to five children around on a daily basis.

Yeah, Iraq does have good oil. It will be piped to Haifa when hell freezes over. And if the Kurds are able to establish a state in northern Iraq, then all hell may break loose with Turkey. There are all kinds of costs. For six billion a month we could build a lot of freakin’ windmills.

But about that military dehumanization thing---the only way a people may triumph over a dictator, a totalitarian idealogue, or corporate hegemony is for the police and military to stand down.  It’s best that the police and military see civilian citizens as fellow citizens. Though I must say that when I was in the military, it often felt to me like we had more in common with other militaries in the world than with our “own” people.

Scorpy, the appropriate section of the conventions is under Customary Laws not the particulars of article III:

The following are rules applicable in all conflicts, regardless of whether the countries in question are signatories of the Geneva Conventions – and regardless of whether the warring party in question is recognized as an independent state.  Warring parties must obey the rules spelled out in the common article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, which requires that prisoners of war and wounded combatants be protected from murder; discrimination based on race, religion, sex, and similar criteria; mutilation, cruel treatment and torture; humiliating and degrading treatment; and sentencing or execution without a fair trial. 

In addition, the following are forbidden towards any persons in an area of armed conflict: 

Torture, mutilation, rape, slavery and arbitrary killing
Genocide
Crimes against humanity – which include forced disapparance and deprivation of humanitarian aid
War crimes – which include apartheid, biological experiments, hostage taking, attacks on cultural objects, and depriving people of the right to a fair trial.

That Ramsey Clark is without any authority or standing and something of a nut-case is a view popular among conservative demagogues.  The fact is, he is a former Attorney General of the United States of America, the son of a former USAG and Justice of the Supreme Court, a former president of the Federal Bar and a licensed attorney accredited in the State of Texas, The US Supreme Court and the International Court of Justice.

Scorpy, you are something of a nutcase, based solely on your misinformed ravings in these pages.

I don’t know of anyone, male or female, white or not, who decides to have more children for consciously racist reasons, although I do agree that the process is stimulated by fear (all those tv programs notwithstanding).  People afraid of becoming unemployed, or underemployed, may choose to improve their prospects by assuming more traditional marital responsibilities, especially when federal, state and local funding for education is dropping like a stone.  Federal funding for abstinence promotion programs is a great way to increase the birthrate.  Packing the courts with people opposed to abortion is another.  All of the above is consonant with a conscious conservative corporate project to outsource industrial production to more profitable foreign pastures.  Undereducated, unemployed children are therefore channeled to enlist in military organizations which provide educational or vocational benefits not normally otherwise available to them, and the cycle of de-industrialization is further reinforced.

Welcome to the brave, new world.  Same as the brave, old world.

I have to wonder if you live in the mid-western United States.  Everywhere else, most people are developing a serious distaste for the Republican-Neocon crowd.

I have heard blatant talk about the need for white people to have more babies, especially from the Christian right. I also hear a lot about how “they” (hispanics) are the root of all our problems and are “taking over”.

On the topic of obedience, would it cheer you up to know that in just three years desertion, recruitment, and fragging are already problems for the military in Iraq and Afghanistan? And this without an official draft (backdoor draft excepted). With a little luck people in the military will refuse to enforce orders against the American people--it’s not like everyone in the military is a cyborg.

Our assimilation is not complete. (Though I would worry about being knocked out for surgery---could wake up with a chip in my head. (kidding)).

One thing I’ve always found hard to get across to “liberals” (which I once counted myself among---now I am “independent") is that uneducated does not equal stupid. In fact, some of the most brainwashed people I’ve ever met went to college and can’t get over the idea that what they learned in college might be wrong or inadequate. I’d wager that you could put almost all psychiatrists and social workers in that category. They don’t listen because all they hear is what reinforces their training. The neocons are like that. Funny how they appeal to antiintellecutalism when their whole program is based on some doctoral theory.

ANYWAY, I don’t doubt that the efforts you’re describing are real, I just don’t think they’ll succeed. These Neocon Republicans are dead enders. Most of the rest of the planet (especially the South) is rejecting globablization. Our “service economy” will not last. Telemarketers in India are having nervous breakdowns because their assumption that it wasn’t really “work” has been proven way wrong, and a lot of work simply cannot be done over the phone. And a lot of foreign workers are afraid to come over here, and will probably (I fear) have more to fear as the U.S. economy gets worse.

There will come a time when we as a nation have to start manufacturing, or default and then start manufacturing. The WTO is a wraith. We may be kicked around by the wet dreams of some Republican think tanks for a while longer, but ultimately IMO we won’t have enough money even to finance them. You can’t get blood out of turnips and these wing nuts are not volunteers. If they can’t pay their private army (the Praetorian Guard) enough to keep them happy, then the Cons will eventually be toast.

If the Right did succeed in its ultimate goal, I think it would quickly collapse, because without being able to whip the congregation into the ridiculous belief that they are an oppressed majority, they’d fight amongst themselves, cannibalize, and fall apart. Ever wonder why there are so many different kinds of Protestants? Especially Baptists? They feed off the idea that they are martyrs. It’s like that old joke about masochists---if they ask you to hurt them, say “no”.

It’s not that I’m all Pollyanna Sunshine---I expect the human race will be extinct in a little under or over a hundred years, at most; but the neocon Republican plan is simply not tenable or sustainable.

But that’s my point: it’s not a neocon plan.  I’m sure the neocons have a plan—PNAC, and all that—but there’s no real or viable conspiracy to take over the government that I know of, other than the standard political strategies to which parties are historically prone to exploit, and that includes the entire spectrum of contrived alarms, obfuscated motivations and outright misrepresentations which impel the affluent to ensure their continued affluence.  My point is that cultural (moral) verities follow from economic necessity.  Corporations cannot consolidate their profits without outsourcing their production, from the cities to the suburbs, or urban regions to rural regions, or from affluent, industrial nations to indigent, agricultural ones.  Whatever progressive advantages we currently enjoy were achieved in that transition to industrial production which liberated a significant proportion of the population from manual labor and simultaneously condemned the remainder to serve and defend them, and the entire social construction depends upon the production and consumption of fossil fuels.  The social forces hereby described aren’t simply illusory, neocon claptrap, but hard, economic realities which compel people to compete against one another for a dwindling share of those resources which sustain them.  Germans didn’t become fascist, nor Russians communist, because their leadership possessed a pathological predisposition to oppress and abuse their subject surplus population. They had developed an industrial system of production, with no imperial market outlet for their products or the people who were displaced by the transition to industrialism, which thereby set the stage for revolution and the two world wars.

I see your point. There are certainly economic realities that are of great consequence. Part of the problem with the U.S. is that we have ignored the fact that matter is finite---even oil and water---for so long that most of the population will be shocked more than reason warrants.

For whatever reasons Germany became fascist and Russia became communist, they both had pathological leadership, as (I believe) the U.S. has at this time and I would say that the cultures did have a predisposition to embrace authoritarianism and totalitarianism when the chips were down.

In many parts of the world, with no electricity, people would be able to continue to live as they always have. Most of those parts are equatorial. Living in the nether regions was always dicey, but people survived in caves for thousands of years. Surely we have enough accumulated knowledge to adapt somehow. I’m not saying it is going to be easy, but I don’t think that warfare is inescapable---that’s an excuse.

As far as the western world goes, I think democratic socialism and a multiple party system is our best hope for adapting without massive trauma, civil war, or a failed state. Some people think that the U.S. becoming a failed state is inconceivable---I don’t.  I won’t argue these either. Feel free to convince me otherwise, if you will, but I promise that if what you say doesn’t make me rethink my position I feel in no way obligated or required to “defend” my position. Take that however you like (of course). If you do get me to rethink my position I’ll LOVE it!

I also think that it is possible that the U.S. CAN adapt and change without making everything an effing contest.  Cooperaters are statistically more likely to survive (if you buy into game theory).

It’s even conceivable that when the “New World Order” collapses and phony capitalism is seen for what it is that people in the U.S. might loosen up and start to see possibilities that they never saw before and start to behave intelligently according to what they need and what is instead of grasping for the unsustainable illusions of “the good life” or going into an every-man-for-himself panic mode and violating others.

Americans might one day, after getting enough sleep and having enough free time to get to know their children realize that most of the stuff we thought we needed was crap anyway.

Corporations can be reigned in too. Imagine a recording of Enron CEOs talking about screwing over Chinese grandmothers. Imagine heads on a chopping block. Corporatism is no more guaranteed an existence than any other idea or institution the human mind can produce. Though it is insidiously formidable, it is not a god beyond all human proportion.

Speaking of game theory, the headcrabs continue to attack me, even after I destroy the zombies who host them, as I attempt to reload my rocket launcher from the cache across the other side of the rubble-strewn roof, where my own medics constantly impede my attempts to destroy the spider-bots who attack us.

Of course, all this graphic activity tends to periodically lock up the computer, and kicks me into another predictable episode of a-fib, which further infuriates my doctor, who’s trying to minimize the coagulant levels in my circulatory system, and simultaneously treat the fibrillation, in order to reduce the possibility of another infarct.

I think I’ll call it a day, and hit the sack.

Mondays are a royal pain in the butt.

Scorp,
Your post about the US only having to observe its own laws is exactly the problem. For you and others that believe that the US has the god given right to go into any country they please and in the words of Michael Levien-’throw some crappy little country up aganst the wall’, the fact that the rest of the world is distinctly nervous about the exercise of US power abroad should come as no suprise.

What the ‘US uber alles’ crowd just don’t get, is that the view of the US they hold is not necessarily shared by the rest of the world-and not just by ‘crappy little countries’ - (I suppose that is code for -’brown and poor’ on the part of the disgusting cheerleaders for unaccountable power). The problem is that there are in fact international laws covering a whole range of things-including the treatment of prisoners of war, the grounds on which one country can invade another, and a whole raft of International Treaties that govern the behavoiur of the signatories towards others, including Conventions that prohibit torture, whether the torturer is a US citizen of not, strange as it may seem to you and others like you.

It has not gone unnoticed in the rest of the world, that the US reserves to itself the right to behave in any way it chooses, whilst exhorting (with force of arms if it feels like it) the rest of us to ‘do as we say, not as we do.’ Once again, the narrowness and insularity of much US comment even from people who otherwise appear literate and reasonably informed never ceases to amaze. The US is not the ruler of the planet-you simply don’t have either the troops or the money to do so unaided by others. You are fast running out of support from ‘respectable’ world opinion. If you don’t believe me, check the Zogby polls on the opinions of ordinary people across the world about the US.

The treatment by the US of its own poor, whether they are working or not, is a lesson not lost on people in other countries as well. Their leaders are increasingly having to defend themselves against the charge by many electorates that they want to make the rest of the advanced industrial world ‘like the US’. Trust me-except for the well heeled elite in the rest of the ‘West’ no one wants their polities to be or look like, the US. That is a big change from the situation thirty years ago, and it has nothing to do with whether people like Hollywood movies (which they mostly do) or not. The Cold war is over, but the US political elites think they can just carry on regardless. The world has moved on-it’s about time the US did as well.  It is both US behaviour and its values that the rest of the world is starting to question. If ‘might makes right’ where is the ‘rule of law’? Or does the law only apply to the US and the rest of us can just take a running jump. Get it?

Seeing your post sitting there unvindicated for so long was getting to me. I so agree. Our cultural lack of empathy is disturbing. How much is posturing, and how much is genuine pathology?  Regardless, there is no amount of remorse that will bring back the dead or erase the memories of those who take part in an aggressive war and have consciences to be disturbed by that fact.

In the U.S., most of the remorse and guilt will be felt by the troops who were most directly and viscerally involved in the killing. Is that justice?

“Regardless, there is no amount of remorse that will bring back the dead or erase the memories of those who take part in an aggressive war and have consciences to be disturbed by that fact.”

Is this not the nature of all wars, justified or not? After all, most of the killing is just ordinary people killing each other, with the leaders sipping brandy somewhere.

Perhaps we should never engage in war again? We can submit, rather than fight. Perhaps nothing is worth the price war extracts?

Wolfie, we can only resist the irrationality of war by creating the conditions for peace.  There is nothing to submit to, but our own ignorance.  It is not the path of least resistance, by any measure.

luminous beauty - nice thoughts. So can we then unilaterally avoid war, by creating the conditions for peace? Would this always be effective (maybe using WWII as one example), or just some wars? What should we do if there are cases where this approach fails?

BTW, where does the moniker “luminous beauty” come from? Is it your appearance or something else?

Ending war is like ending the public school system---it’s such a racket and so many people are entirely dependent on the “jobs” that are involved that a moneyed lot (especially the banks and industries that get monster rich from supplying loans and the factories that go into full protection making munitions and gear (sometimes for both sides) is going to invest heavily in brainwashing a good deal of the public that a war is necessary. These are the people who create “the conditions for war” most of the time.

Then the lemmings follow.

The soldiers follow orders.

And the news media sensationalize it so that ordinary people get a buzz from the drama.  If U.S. citizens were getting cheaper oil right now, the only dissent would be from pacifists and near pacifists (like me).

We (U.S.) don’t have the opportunity to loathe war the way that people who have lived with it in their country do. And if we couldn’t borrow money for them, we couldn’t afford wars.

Wolfie, We can only do what we can do. There is little we can do unilaterally.  Cooperation and the spirit of cooperation are essential.  Failure is no reason to stop trying.

If the conditions of the Treaty of Versailles had not been construed so punitively, WWII may have been avoided.  As I have said before what might have been has little significance in deciding what should we do now considering what has happened.

The moniker represents my aspirations, it shouldn’t be construed as self description.

wileywitch - while i would not be against ending war (if i knew how) i would be against eliminating the public school system. I believe it is one of the reasons why the US (and much of the western world) has been so very successful. From what i can tell, it is a boon to the lower and middle classes - if anything, i would fund it better.

luminous beauty - i suppose the only true unilateral thing we can do is to control our selves. I hope you succeed in your aspirations.

wolfie,

I’d rather think we can free ourselves from the seemingly external controls of fear and dread (the dogs of war).  While liberating ourselves from our selfishness is something we can only do for ourselves, it would be a lot more difficult without the guidance offered by the many who have gone before.  Sometimes I am successful, sometimes I am not.  I only learn how by making ever anew the commitment to try in the conscious embrace of my own inestimable ignorance and unconscious fears.

May I ask the etymology of your nom de plume?

luminous beauty- “May I ask the etymology of your nom de plume?”

Of course. It comes from my middle name, Wolfgang.

Good luck in your pursuit of enlightenment.

Thank you, Wolfgang.  Best of luck on your own path toward enlightenment.

Wolf, so if we call you Wolfie (pronounced Volfie) you don’t mind too much?

I have a hardcore (pun) German middle name too : Gerhard.

Ah, what has Rabbit been missing.

Going down the thread, Jay DeCline, Rabbit and others, ask Dave, have been watching and commenting on your failure to have read a thread in which you were involved, and which settled the fact that Lume is an Male.  Indeed Jay may have posted his swansong and if so it is neither surprising nor dissapointing to Rabbit.  If however you should be lurking yet, it was not just Luminous Beauty, but others, Rabbit and Dave pointed out to Lume that you were trying to hump his leg in the belief he was of the opposite gender, and this was all done on thread, ‘write’ in front of your eyes.  You just proved your lack of comprehension and this too was being commented on, above your head. 

You are were and probably always will be a Troll.

Who has his brain in his arse and talks crap from the other end.

Ah, Scorpy, Ramsey Clark may well be a private citizen but he is hardly as unknown or disrespected, he is a former US Attorney General.  The moral is the point Scorpy and the situation is
fairly well put here

This is another aspect of Depleted uranium.

Read up you ill-informed
ScorpyWar Crimes. Fallujah

WileyWitch, the Rabbit asks you to tarry awhile.  This site is a kind of backwater, yet it seems to straddle the gap between mainstream and realstream.  The population is limited but enlightened, the house trolls are fairly tame, and worth the game.  Your views attract Rabbit who stands by you on most things, and others too are watching with happy eyes, knows Rabbit.  Stay and share with us. Rabbit is way down under your toes, which is why he posts lots of these in a row.  It isn’t like he makes up rhymes all the time, but he can’t help his Rabbity mind sometimes.

WileyWitch, raise up your firm manly hand and let Rabbit give you a high five plus a paw from his downunder land.

Major, the neo-cons, are just a pawn, Hitlery Clinton is the next US president and Rabbit has read these words better said this day.

In the end, Bushler was only a means to an end, and probably we will come to see Hitlery sacrificed on a pyre of her own supposed making.  All, probably, to pave the way for UN invasion of USA. By that time the UN will be the Organ of the NWO, as it is now, but withless ambiguity.  Americans will welocome them probably, in fact it is likely that those who will by then be most fooled by the game, are the same who are fooled beyond all reason now.  Scorpy, Jay, and many other of the morons will have changed there kneejerk tunes to worship the next emperor then, as the USA is swept from history.  Too late. 
Rabbit sees it too, and has had to watch it grown now for 30 years.

Of course you are right just limited in overview, no-one seems to be vying for control of the US government, it is firmly and unchallenged in the oil and multinational corporations control.  The real planners are the Illuminati, there may be another opposing group, but even the US and certainly the British and Oz and many other governments are just the visible organs of the real Them

Go Jane Doe, Rabbit is with you to.

Wack those stupid Morons, get up you stupid, lazy, cowardly Sheeple.  Look what is being done to you while your eyes are shut. 

Damned Fools!

Ah, Wolfie..................Who would the US have been submitting to, byNot attacking Iraq?

Wolfie, the reason you cannot see any way around wars, is because you are one of those who lives in fear.  It comes out of your words constantly.  All these what ifs which you and cowards like you keep using as excuses to brutalise everybody else and the planet.  You are so busy being scared of everything.  Is that what comes of Pillgaing a quarter of the Planet’s resources, are you starting to feel a bit vulnerable?  Been crapping on too many people for too long maybe and you know in your hearts that payday is coming?

however you look at it Wolfie, the whole crux of the argument that you and your type are pushing is one of craven terror, fear of people and ideas before they are even uttered.  Pre-emptive war makes perfect sense to such cringing worms, even pre-emptive nuclear war.  That is what it has come to, worm.

The USA, which has a military budget larger than the combined budgets of the next twenty nations, a military arsenal of more chemical, and biological , and Nuclear Weapons than the whole world combined, in all categories, is yet living in Terror of a small minority of idiots, in some of the weakest countries on earth.

You break all the rules of humanity, you are commiting genocide on the greatest scale in history, yet you are still living in Terror Wolfie, you are still soiling your pants everytime some loony with a towell on his head says you are the great satan, and deserve to be thrown into the sea..

Trouble is old boy, speaking as a former ally, from here you are looking decidedely Satanic too.  A really cowardly satan for sure, but a lying, vicious, thieving, mudering satan of a nation.

Oh, Rabbit! If anyone but me could make me blush, I would blush at your praise. Bet I disappoint you or come up with something you find wholly disagreeable in under a month. It’s my forte.

ANYWAY, I wonder what “the jarhead” would say about all this. I haven’t read the book or seen the movie. I would guess that Ms. Chaudry’s point in her review of the movie is spot on. Looks to me like American war movies that appear to condemn war on one hand, are always patting it on the back with the other.

Methinks the American audience doesn’t put itself in the place of the people being bombed. It’s always being invited into the pilot’s seat. As much as some Americans may fear a terrorist attack, it never worries about Buffy’s school being strafed, or cluster mines raining down on the supermarket. Or land mines in the Walmart parking lot.

It would be nice if we could take that great leap of imagination and ask ourselves why we would ever wish that on the families of other peoples and carry it out. There’s a great “MY GOD!!! WHAT HAVE WE BEEN DOING?!!” that is way overdue.

Methinks the American audience doesn’t put itself in the place of the people being bombed. It’s always being invited into the pilot’s seat. As much as some Americans may fear a terrorist attack, it never worries about Buffy’s school being strafed, or cluster mines raining down on the supermarket. Or land mines in the Walmart parking lot.

Or airplanes crashing into WTC and the Pentagon?  Or the bombs at the Embassies in Africa?  Or the tourists in Bali?  Or the wedding party in Amman?  All brought to you by your friendly neighborhood terrorists. 

Methinks you are full of shit.

wileywitch - i think it is worthwhile to try to imagine the things you write about above. But to be fair, one might establish a baseline of “normalcy”.

If our leaders could do anything they wanted to, such as shredding us alive, bombing us, using chemical weapons on us, etc etc it might make a difference in how we felt about our government being changed from the outside. If we were in constant fear of being killed or tortured, or having our children killed and tortured in our stead, it might make a difference as well. If our families were dying of lack of food and medicine, while our leader built more and more elaborate palaces, it might impact how we felt about this.

Clearly pre-war Iraq was not a happy place for most of its population. It still is not. But for some Iraqis, perhaps, there is more hope that it can become a “real” sovereign nation, as opposed to Saddam’s - or his children’s - personal torture chambers.

Scorps, methinks you are ill-mannered. Me also thinks that it is pompous and self-righteous to compare isolated terrorist attacks to months on end of carpet bombing in major cities in countries that have done us no harm.  Or haven’t you heard that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11?

Since you think I’m full of shit (based on whatever posts of mine you have read, I suppose) then I’m sure you have the intelligence not to bother yourself with “my shit” and have the self-control not to read my posts.

I don’t find your posts compelling, so It looks like we can agree to ignore each other.

Wolf, is it asking so much of the people of the U.S. to look at the effects of what our military is doing and calling on empathy to put ourselves in the places of civilians who are just trying to survive?  Do we actually have to have a boot ground into our faces in order to understand that when we grind our boots into people’s faces it hurts them?

What life for Iraqis was like before our illegal aggression is not our point to make. Killing the village to save it? Did anyone learn anything from Viet Nam?

How would you like it if China did to us what we’ve been doing to Iraq and then went on a campaign of telling us and everyone else in the world how much better off we are, in their opinion, instead of allowing the world to ask us how we are doing and letting us express it ourselves. Over 90% of Iraqis polled now say they were better off under Hussein.

I think you just unintentionally demonstrated why the world is angry with us.

We need to change our baseline of “normalcy” so that carpet bombing poor nations isn’t so “normal” that most people don’t give it a lot of thought.  And so that being the self-appointed, unilateral world police is viewed as the megalomaniacal and dominating behavior that it is.

Scorpy

It has been established that the Bali Bombings were staged by the Police or Military in Indonesia.  This has even been reported by the MSM here in Australia.  We do actually get a bit more news than you of course, so Rabbit will just update you on a few more things.

The planes crashing into the two WTCs and the Pentagon have not been proven to have been carried out by Muslim Fundamentalists by any normally accepted process of investigation, but it is hardly secret that more people believe the US government was at least complicit, so you’ll just have to stop harping on about those three thousand people.  If the government stops covering up and hiding the main evidence all doubt could be removed, but there is more than enough data to show the official story not only didn’t happen, it was not even possible.

We also keep coming back to the fact, that no Iraqi was involved in 911, and we now know Bush knew that by two weeks after 911.

What about the wedding parties bombed by the USA, Scorpy, I don’t suppose that seems like terrorosim to you, but it wasn’t your wedding party.

You just stick to worrying about the USA.  Africa is not your problem, and with the track record of these kinds of mostly false flag attacks these days, the wisest thing is not to jusp to conclusions based on the TV news.

No Scorpy you could never put yourself in anybody’s shoes, you are too selfish, hubristic and deluded. 

In time your own shoes are probably going to be a bit uncomfortable.  Rabbit has precognitive abilities, and they tell him you are headed for hell on earth soon, and you are one of those shovelling coal into the furnace as fast as any other mindless sheep.  Have you not stopped to wonder what exactly was going to be fed into this fiery furnace which is being prepared?  You think it’s going to be a bunch of brown people a long way from you don’t you?

Hee Hee, have you got an ugly surprise coming Scoop..

Wolf do you seriously believe it was Saddams Palaces which were starving the Iraqi people?  It was the sanctions you clown.  Saddam nationalised the country’s oil and was using the money to build roads, schools and hospitals among others.  All those are being destroyed now, while the people are dying at a higher rate than under the Baathists, and a new and even
more brutal, and fundamentalist regime is coming down harder than ever on the long suffering populace.

These are your doing.

You invaded because of lies by bankrobbers and dissenters, led by the CIA.

You used illegal weapons of war and are still doing so.

You say clearly Iraq was not a happy place before they were attacked in 2003.  That is not surprising you dunce, they had just been through ten years of the most strict sanctions, many of which deliberately targeted baby food and medicne, and it was admitted by Condi that this was the case, so don’t try crawling away from it. 

Previous to that, Iraq was a relatively decent place according to those who lived there, just as in the USA. some fall foul of the system.  Their system was corrupt and inhumane, so is yours, so what?

It is a lot worse now idiot and getting worse yet.  Thanks to Depleted Uranium, arsehole, things will never get better in Iraq, in fact they are going to become progressively worse as an estimated 26 million birth defects are visited upon them over the next decade.

Gee thanks uncle Sam.  With our new Iranian allied, fundamentalist Shiite government, most of our hospitals and schools bombed to rubble and our roads all ripped up by tanks and mines, a few billion years worth of high radiation and Ceramic Uranium Oxide poisoning is just the icing on the cake.

Wolfie, when America bites the dust, there will be no sympathy left in the world.  Who among the occupation troops you will be facing within a few years maybe, will feel anything but anger and contempt for the American monsters?  This is what would be scaring me if I was you now.  Seeing the inevitable collapse of the USA, under its present extraordinary scale of mismanagement, I would be getting concerned that by the time things go belly up, I might be among the most hated people on Earth, and facing terrible retribution. 

You want to hope that whatever control is around then, that they are more humane than you and your leaders are being.

Seeing what you animals do to the innocent and even little children, imagine what the victims families will do to you when their turn comes.  You will not be able to claim innocence.

Has it occurred to Wolfie that most of the rest of the world has long since reached a point of saying even if 911 was only Muslims, you deserved it, and Rabbit makes no apology for that, when you can’t even apologise for killing more than a hundred thousand innocent civilians.

Don’t forget that women were half the college and professional population and veils were not required. Women in Iraq have lost fifty years of secular progress.

It is hard to convince my fellow Americans of this. It’s nearly taboo in some circles to suggest that the U.S. military could make a mistake---suggesting that it is doing WRONG and having horrible effects is beyond the pale.

Are we not human? Don’t humans screw up? Don’t humans do bad things sometimes? Why is it so hard to face our faults? If you use a circle as a model, you can see the behavior of the severely insecure who dream of being the pit boss and the behavior of the megalomaniac who dreams of eating glass meet at a point so that they are hard to distinguish from one another. It’s uncomfortable wondering if I’m listening to an insecure person getting a vicarious feeling of power from U.S. military action or a sociopath.

It’s not a matter of the public being skeptical about news that reflects badly on us---there seems to be a general reactivity against anything that hasn’t been spouted out of a radio or television. It simply isn’t REAL. Howard Beale was a prophet.

This is not the country in which I came of age in and used to get along with so well. I don’t know this country anymore. I don’t get it. I don’t know how to make it better.

I especially don’t understand all these youngsters telling me how “we” are fighting terrorists over “there” when those youngsters are over “here"---talking about “we” being over “there”. If that’s what they believe, they ought to sign up and go over there to fight “terrorists” so that we don’t have to fight “them” over here, if that’s what they truly believe. Recruiting standards are dropping daily, I’m sure they’ll have no problem getting in.

Though I don’t wish that on the Iraqi people. THEY ARE PEOPLE! They are not the embodiment of evil---they are human beings.

Does WileyWitch know Riverbend?

Baghdad Burning

Here is Iraqi womanhood, in all her sophisticated, wise and wonderful beauty.  Rabbit knows that River is just one of many and what she has mostly which makes her noticeable is her fluency and sheer mastery of the English language.

As such here is the truth for those who have eyes to see.

Compare the gentle, practical courage of a people who have been demonised and are being destroyed through no fault of their own.  They are being bombed and forced politically back a hundred, two hundred years, not fifty.

This is insanity.  It is 2005 and we are involved in an unprovoked attack on Iraq, Baghdad for Gods sake, we are going the way of the crusaders and many armies before and since, into the desert which swallows up armies, and asks for seconds.

We are more incredibly poised to launch an equally unprovoked and ill concieved attack on Iran, PERSIA.  We are going to attack the Shiite capital. 

What a great idea.

Nobody but an American could see an enormous beehive and attack it with a stick, calling himself brave and justified in doing it, and without seriously considering the consequences.

It’s Thanksgiving Day here in the US. 

A day to reflect on our relatively brief national history.

A day to seek atonement for the legacy of genocide and slavery upon which our country has been founded. 

A day to celebrate the many small and large victories on the progressive path toward true democracy.

A day to soberly confront the substantial obstacles that we have yet to overcome.

A day to energetically renew ourselves in the difficult struggle that we must embrace until the day we can honestly say all men and women are free and equal.

A day to stuff our bellies and argue sex, religion and politics with our friends and families.

Ain’t life wonderful?

AND a day to........................KILL............... Turkeys!

....................................................^^................... .........................

It is wonderful, if you are not a Turkey.

mmmm ... turkey ... I can taste it now.

Turkey, with stuffing like my Mom makes, and mashed potatoes. All of it dripping with gravy.

We had our Thanksgiving here in Canada last month.

Click here for Canadian Thankgiving history.

Have a good Thanksgiving Day my American friends and give thanks for all things.

Rabbit ... a day to eat turkeys.

The proverbial killing of turkeys usually takes place some day before the eating day.

That’s enough, you stick to Pancakes, upon which you may spread “Maple Syrup, if such a delicay should be within reach, you Canadian.  You have had your Turkey slaughter already for this year have you not?

The proverbial killing of turkeys usually takes place some day before the eating day.

I’m sure THAT matters to a turkey!

So Turkeys do not live in fear of TRhanksgiving, but the day befofre thanksgiving.  They probably have a Turkey Term for it, The Day of Death, would seem apopropriate.

Anyhow, Rabbit who has had some experience of Turkeys has no sympathy for them.  They are stupid, hubris filled, posing nincompoops, who have disgusting habits, (Necrophilia no less), no common sense and a Penis for a nose.

Serves them right if Americans and Canadians feel an urge to eat them all at the same time, serves them bloody well right!

Gobble Gobble Gobble.............

It rains maple syrup, the real stuff , here.

Just like up on Big Rock Candy Mountain.

Dave

Kill it............ cook it............ gobble it.............Don’t wait

Rabbit feels if you are going to eat a Turkey, you should kill it, then boil it’s corpse for a couple of minutes. 

Now pull out all it’s big nasty feathers, especially the big ones around it’s bum, which might need pliars or vice grips to get a good hold.

Remove all it’s Turkey Guts. Cut it’s tummy and pull them out.  Now give the thusly prepared Turkey to the Kitchen who do Kitcheny things to the carcass.

The final act, Eating of the Turkey, (With Honey Baked Little Potatoes) Brun Kartoffler , can and should be performed on the day of death so to speak.  Unless one buys one’s Turkey from a shop, I guess they start the massacre a week or more in advance.

Enjoy your Turkeys people.  Those of you are who are Turkeys, be glad it wasn’t your turn this time.  Be thankful there are more of you than real people, even yet.

Where will you be next Thanksgiving?

Heh............ Dave, do you know the Ozark mountain Daredevils?

Yes, Rabbit---I read Riverbend.  I can’t say why, but her earlier stories remind me of Mark Twain.  She is gifted, no doubt. She has been robbed by “my” government. “This” government. I don’t even know if “government” is the right term.  You can bet that the cabal can count on racism and xenophobia to work in its favor. You would not believe the guffaws I’ve gotten from saying that bombing Baghdad is like bombing Paris---it’s a huge and densely populated city. What’s not to get?! 

Am currently reading Zinn’s “History of an American People”.  For a while there, the Puritans were feasting after every massacre. One of their leaders decided to set the limit to one feast per year. This model of restraint is our heritage.

Am just getting to the part in which he describes how racism was cultivated and institutionalized so that the slaves, native americans, and white servants were discouraged from rising up together against the wealthy few.

“It’s a sad and beautiful world”.

David, does Canada have that strange “pardoning” of two turkeys?  Would you have been surprized if Bush had pardoned Michael Brown for Thanksgiving? He’s a turkey.

That reminds Rabbit of a Turkey story he has saved up.  It shall be posted on his new Bloggy thing.  The bloggy thing will thus get something original.  Rabbit must work many hours tonight, cooking little boats, the Rabbit needs two more ovens and molds just to make Kayaks quick enough at the moment.  Everyone wants a little boat. 

Good insurance against the Tsunamis.

re:  Posted by Major Major on Nov 20, 2005 at 10:19 AM

and what you said----yeah. What you said. I see your point about the effectiveness of massive social engineering and agree that it is leviathon in its proportions. 

I would like for you to consider the possibility that the primary reason that you feel you must justify or accept war as a necessity for any reason other than self-defense under a direct and sustained attack (especially when a group has openly declared “war") is because this programming is so effective and you haven’t totally taken it apart yet.

I’m not saying that that’s the case----I don’t know you. I’m not sure why I think what I think sometimes. I’m just asking you to watch yourself on this issue, pay special attention to how global conflicts and “threats” to our homeland are being presented to you and question it majorly, major major.

Is that moniker from “Catch 22”? I love that book, especiallly Yossarian’s lament through war torn Rome.

Rabbit, never heard of the Ozark Mountain Daredevils until now.

Wiley, we don’t pardon turkeys up here. I saw one of your pardoned turkeys in a parade. It did not look very happy. That poor turkey would have been better off on someone’s dinner plate.

Was that turkey, like, Ollie North ?

Eidolon Lagomorph

On September 25, 2005, in a startling speech at the University of Toronto that caught the attention of mainstream newspapers and magazines, Paul Hellyer, Canada’s Defence Minister from 1963-67 under Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Prime Minister Lester Pearson, publicly stated: “UFOs, are as real as the airplanes that fly over your head.”

Mr. Hellyer went on to say that the USA might start an intergalactic war with the aliens visiting our planet.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/prweb/20051124/bs_prweb/prweb314382_1

Do you have any comments on Mr. Hellyer’s statements?

I wonder who is employing Mr. Hellyer. Aliens is as good a red herring as any. In a time when corruption rules, distraction and misdirection are absolutely necessary for cover for the outlandish thievery and brutalization by the dominating class. “The Alien Threat” is an eazy-peazy, low budget operation, I’m sure.

Why would he say that they are “as real as the airplanes that fly over your head”? Of all the metaphors.

Though it makes sense for an “ethical” race of extraterrestials to contact a Canadian, I can’t for the life of me buy the argument that extraterrestrials have managed to keep their presence unknown to all but military and government personnel with extremely high security clearances, for the last fifty years. That’s just way to convenient for all but the extraterrestials.

Tabloids love it.

The U.S. starting world war III on earth, and weaponizing space to get and maintain dominance from space and destroy, redirect, or disable the spacecraft and satellites of other nations, including our allies, is “the ball"---so to speak---to keep your eye on.

Though such drivel can be irritating, it also makes our demise a little more humorous, and a little less tragic. Thanks for the link.

whoa ... where did that question come from Scorp?

Did I miss some posts on this thread ??

Though it makes sense for an “ethical” race of extraterrestials to contact a Canadian

Wiley, As a humble representatvive of at least this Canadian, I thank you for the compliment.

We are not worthy but will do our best :)

Have you read the whole article Dingbat Scorpy?  rabbit has, and that little piece is taken out of context and very selectively quoted.  It gives a false impression of what Hellyer and others are saying and thus isn’t worthy of further comment Scoop.

When you’ve read the whole thing your self, and if you then have a point about what is being said by Hellyer, and not what is being said about Hellyer, go for it.

As for saying UFOs are real, well what rock have you been hiding under Scorpy?

Since your supreme ignorance is already well established it is to be assumed that if you have never seen anything youirself, and Bush hasn’t told you to believe it, then you will take no notice of anything anyone says and yet babble on as if you have an opinion about something you’ve never taken a scrap of interest in.

As for Rabbit not he has studied the subject now for many years and feels nothing but comtempt for anyone who ignores the massive prbability alone let alone all the witness and records for millenia.

Finally Scorpy, Rabbit has seen and done things which have left the Rabbit in no doubt, none whatsoever, not only that there are ET craft but they are of more than one origin.  There are also ETs in some of those craft.  This Rabbit knows and so is not interested in discussing it.  It is something I cannot prove, and therefore I am not interested in arguing it.  It does mean however that just because someone else also believes or knows that some of the UFOs seen are ET craft, does not mean Rabbit will see that as any sort of disqualifier. 

Rabbit has no choice to believe, should he try and pretend he did not see these things?  That would be easy for you, but not Rabbit.  Rabbit could do what most do, and say nothing, that is easiest, after a while.  Rabbit cannot lie just to seem more credible to someone.  He has actually met people who debunk UFOs but who have themselves been very close to them a couple of times and these people know better than most.  Yet they adamantly refuse to believe, and have various methods of coping with what their mind refuses to accept.  For the two Rabbit knows, that is done by trying to say they saw, but since it cannot be true and they have lots of numbers to show why it can’t be, and therefore they were imagining it.  This is their argument, that everybody else is imagining it too.  They saw, they didn’t believe, and so they were imagining it.  You must be too.  I gues that sort of reasoning makes sense to you eh Scorpy?  Never mind.

WileyWitch

Upon reading your post, you ask some reasonable questions and Rabbit has answers to these he thinks.  The first thing to say is that much of what Rabbit wrote to Scorpy still apllies but without the underlying tone which is reserved for Rabbit’s....... Scorpy.  The article needs to be read in its entirety, and furthermore, without a good few days reading of contemporary reports, a bit of background, this will still leave you very much in the dark about a subject which nmakes debunkers about as intelligent looking as the average Bush supporter.  Truly the two have a lot in common.

Rabbit tells you upon his honour that they are here, they have been for quite a while, and this Rabbit knows.  If you are open minded you can soon find out that even without direct experience, it is pretty obvious that they are indeed real, and far more common than you could comprehend, yet.

The assumption that you are not well versed in the field is easy to make, because nobody who is, is sceptical, with very few exceptions.

The very idea that they are secret from all but government and some military or however you put it, is a fallacy.  They are not secret, there is a massive amount of information from whistleblowers and witnesses from many different spectra about Government (Sort of) involvement, and much more besides.  Even given that some of what is around is disinformation, like all things it is being unravelled.  In other words there are leaks, hidden evidence, and all the speculation etc that you would expect to be there, of course it cannot be kept a secret, but it can be denied.  Several governments have recently declassified their older stuff, and even it is the end of all doubt.

Next, there are plenty of private people, even groups who have some contact, most once but some repeatedly. 

You are in for a heck of a wild ride, if you are prepared to look over this horizon.

Thanks, Rabbit.

No prblems Scorpy, Did you think Rabbit didn’t know what you were doing?

Rabbit thought, now look at this, the Troll is trying to be subtle.  If a Troll is usually a brick in debating, a subtle Troll is like a brick wrapped in a tissue.

Rabbit thought “Do I take the bait?  Do I call him on it? That would be a pity thought Rabbit, the Troll is trying to be clever, and this would only convince him that being clever is no good.  So Rabbit decided, what the hell, being an honest Rabbit means that ducking issues out of cowardice is not an option.

SO What Scoop?  Since you haven’t seen any “Flying Saucers” and lots of other people have not, does that prove something?  All it seems to say to Rabbit is that lots of people are unable to accept something so paradigm shifting without solid proof in front of them, and even some cannot accept it then, let me tell you.

Rabbit has only a very few times been in a situation which while it was yet occurring he knew that this situation was making him alone for the rest of his life.  That it so changed his understanding of the Universe, that he could not only never go back, but that he could never tell anyone such that they could comprehend, even if they chose to believe him.  That is an exhilarating feeling at the same time as a despairing one.  No wonder so many people keep quiet.

Others too know exactly what Rabbit means, but for every one who will say it publically Rabbit will recieve five who will send a private e-mail to say thanks, and they too had had the following....................

Like many things Scorpy, if you haven’t tried it you can only guess what it is about.

If you are looking for a defence of anything here though you are wasting your time.  Some things are simply not in need of debate at this time.  The whole UFO thing is presently overtaking the debate anyway, and the time seems to be drawing nearer for some disclosures.  The first pilot releases of former classified information is happening around the world, and at this point these are governments who are saying yes, we have a lot of evidence, we have been observing and collating it for a long time, but we don’t have the answers.Those same governments are joining forces with researchers and they are jointly working towards more understanding. 

Sorry to tell you but the existence of UFOs, of unknown propulsion and various forms of cloaking devices etc, is not really a question anymore, but you can pretend it is if you want.  Many of them have been recorded by the military using infrared detectors, even though visual confirmation was not possible.  Some have been monitored flying beside Airforce Jets, very clearly on infrared imaging and radar, but without any visible presence.  These are the facts, you can try and find another explanation for thes things, the governments have been falling over themselevs and stretching credibility to the limit in try to do so, but more than enough cases are unable to be explained in any other way than to accept that these are advanced craft of a technology we cannot even begin to guess at in many cases.
Anybody who has trouble accepting this is a caveman. 

Concieving of the size and age of the Universe is impossible, there is no way you can comprehend it.  To suggest that we are either the only life or even relatively advanced life, is an incredible act of faith, quite beyond even the faith required of Christians, which is to all intents and purposes blind.  It is the ultimate delusion, the most magnificent and yet paltry arrogance.

If you wish to maintain anything different you will show only that your vision is like that of a worm.  Your comprehension of the scale and variety of the Universe, is little beyond that of a worm compared to races who ceased to exist a hundred million years ago.  That can be said with almost guaranteed chance of being right on probability alone .......the universe is so big and old.

Rabbit repeats for WileyWitch’s sake, that he is not intending most of this for him, if he is sceptical about any of this, Rabbit will naturally resond respectfully to reasonable posts, but Scorpy and Rabbit have much water uner the bridge, and Scorpy knows Rabbit bites, as well as Rabbit knows Scorpy shoots his own feet off on most issues within a few posts.  Nevertheless Rabbit loves Scorpy. He is Rabbit’s pet Troll.  Rabbit chose him to keep, when we were sharing the site’s trolls and morons among some of us.  Sometimes Rabbit has been less than carng about his troll, and this makes rabbit ashamed now.  The Rabbit had begun to envy Luminous Beauty, who managed to claim first dibs on Jay DeCline.  Jay didn’t seem like much, just simple bluster and run away, but he proved himself to be an uncommonly agile troll with nothing but magic in his head.  Scorpy, is usually quite pedestrian in his approach, and can be very boring about economic theories and history from ancient Greece to about 1954, when time appears to have stopped wherever Scorpy is.

This is why Rabbit was grumbling about not getting the best Troll only a week or two back.  We do all share our trolls, it isn’t like we actually own them, nobody can actually own a sentient creature.  trolls are sentient creatures, some say Trolls are mythical, but they are not, do you think Scorpy’s postings MAKE THEMSELVES?

Life is a big basket of shiny easter eggs, sometimes, and Scorpy is a shiny egg to be sure.  Here he is introducing UFOs and Aliens in an effort to spook the Rabbit out of the bushes.

The Rabbit, being the Rabbit, is already out and hiding in plain view.  The best form of camouflage, if you know the way.  Rabbit’s do.

Come and get the Rabbit, Scoop.  Rabbit has said he believes in Aliens and Spaceships, surely you have a plan to use this to wack the Rabbit.

Come and get the ............Raaaaabbit.

.........................................................^^..................... ...................

When our troops go to fight any war, legitimate, like WW2, or illegitimate like the present invasion of Iraq, there is undoubtedly a feeling that we are the ‘good’ people and the enemy is the ‘bad’ people.  This simple polarization leads to the type of thinking that makes some of our troops the bloodthirsty, self-righteous and disrespectful shitheads that they are.  Just as this kind of thinking makes some of our citizens the bloodthirsty, self-righteous and disrespectful shitheads they are when it comes to the death penalty at home. 

The logic is the same in both cases; it’s good to do bad things to ‘bad’ people.  Anything goes, as long as you have first identified your opponent as a ‘bad’ person.

Well two wrongs rarely make a right, and to me the attitude of the eye for an eye brigade actively promotes violence and is anti-Christian in the most obvious of ways.  Self-defense is one thing, but the invasion of Iraq had nothing to do with that, we just identif