Gary King on the horribly underreported conflicts of interest with former military leaders simultaneoulsy taking positions as Big Media war analysts and going on the take as contractors and investors in the military-industrial complex. Does anyone care that the Pentagon's coaching these slimy bastards went up to at least Rumsfeld (at the time) and porbably well into the Whitehouse itself?
Billions of USD are being wasted (and in fact borrowed from China, et al.) EACH MONTH lining the pockets of the people who go on TV and play up the war in order to attract advertisers and instill fear in the general population. Meanwhile baby-faced young men and women are losing limbs, their brains are shelled into jelly, and losing their lives.
I'll vote for any presidential candidate who promises to reinstitute the draft, without exceptions. That is the only action I can see ending this boondoggle in the next year or so. That is the only thing I can see getting enough people's attention to really care about the endless death and destruction and blatant robbery and profiteering. As long as the vast majority of our children are safe, we seem unable to care about those who chose to protect our _constitution_ and have wound up losing their lives and limbs doing anything but.
Why we've not gone up to the door of the Whitehouse and dragged the bastards directly into the courts ourselves is beyond me. Now excuse me, American Idol is on.
Oh and remember: the next president will likely nominate three supreme court justices. And you want McBush, er, McCain, to be the one for that? As long as you like the concept of the "unitary executive". W's men are already on the court putting this theory into practice.
2 comments:
Obviously the war was a horrible stupid mistake but it continues to bother me that no one seems to consider what will happen to the iraqis if we leave.
Sure sure some people think the situation will magically get better but sober analysis seems to suggest that if we pull out a full scale civil war or even ethnic cleansing is quite possible. That means hundereds of thousands of people dying, perhaps millions plus the rapes and other atrocities that tend to go along for these things. Is it really your contention that the lives of americans are worth so much more than the lives of iraqis that we have a moral imperative to pull out?
Of course I don't believe that victory is just around the corner or that anything as rosy as what the administration describes is possible. However, if we stay for long enough it's probable that some group/government (democratic or not) will consolodate enough power to prevent massive bloodshed. Maybe we should start looking for a slightly nicer version of saddam.
Hopefully we can implement the parts of the Baker report that everyone seems to forget, i.e., the parts about basically negotiating away iraq to the surrounding powers. Maybe if we can bring ourselves to not be so high minded as to reject non-democractic solutions we can actually get out soon but nothing about this or how stupid the original invasion was justifies inflicting the horrors of a civil war or ethnic cleansing on the Iraqis (yes it can get much much worse than it is now).
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Frankly I'm confused at how this relates to the draft. I assume this is supposed to have more content than merey asserting that a draft would convince people not to support the war. I mean so would our government randomly executing a hundred americans on TV every day until the war was over.
Perhaps you suggesting that a draft is actually the most politicaly plausible way to get out of Iraq? That's obviously not true. There is substantial public opposition to the war but not substantial support for the draft.
So maybe you mean something more like we should implement a draft because that would fairly place the burden on everyone so they could all see how bad it is. However, this is just total bunk (almost always offered by someone who is too old to be drafted). It's like suggesting that since some americans have to go live overseas to do janatorial/secretarial/whatever work in our embassies it's only fair to choose them at random from the population. But this totally ignores the fact that different people mind different jobs less. Many people in the military now actually like being in the military and in fact liked it sufficently that they found it worthwhile to sign up despite the risk they would have to go fight in some foreign land. Going and putting people at random in the military is like assigning sex partners at random because someone has to have sex. We are all better off if people choose the career they find most appealing. A fact that is unchanged by the observation that the poor are more likely to join the military. The poor are also more likely to become janitors in neither case are they coerced, if there is any wrong going on here it is in their original poverty not in letting them choose to join the military.
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Just because the administration behaves in an unscrupulous, immoral and idiotic way in oppossing the end of the war doesn't let one conclude an immediate withdrawal is good. Nor does the fact that things in iraq are really bad now tell us that they couldn't get much much worse if we pull out. If I'm convinced that independent impartial experts believe there will be less total deaths (including iraqis) if we pull out then I'm all in favor of pulling out but for the most part it seems most people who make that argument do so because they WANT it to be true.
"it continues to bother me that no one seems to consider what will happen to the iraqis if we leave."
(1) The Iraq government has already asked the occupying forces to leave.
(2) Their daily life is already f'd up, and we *there*.
(3) Why do people, when they hear "we should get out of Iraq", assume this means "we should get out of Iraq in the most irresponsible way"?
"Maybe we should start looking for a slightly nicer version of saddam."
And do what? The cat's out of the bag.
"So maybe you mean something more like we should implement a draft because that would fairly place the burden on everyone so they could all see how bad it is. However, this is just total bunk (almost always offered by someone who is too old to be drafted)."
I have one son who's draft age and another who will be soon. I don't take this lightly. But I do believe if the military just _begins_ hauling each of our sons and daughters over there there would be such a reaction that we'd find a way out real soon. No, I don't see anything else having the same force.
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