World Politics

[Semper Fidelis]

How much of that stuff did you buy? I hear it is really popular in Sugarland..(convicted felon Tom Delay's district).. I don't care where that unit was on duty..They should all get a DD.

No idea what your talking about "stuff"? Sugarland is Way to far out in the Burbs for a City Boy like me.

I am sure you do not care where the unit was on duty but you refered to them as Club Gitmo and well your all wet on that redtreviso.

 

[redtreviso]

No idea what your talking about "stuff"? Sugarland is Way to far out in the Burbs for a City Boy like me.

I am sure you do not care where the unit was on duty but you refered to them as Club Gitmo and well your all wet on that redtreviso.

You really are dense..They are wearing Rush Limbaugh's "club Gitmo" t shirts..It was like a pun on club med,,All your kind was going on about Gitmo being resort conditions and not anything to do with torture or such things..

 

[Alpe d'Huez]

US General says "They" plan to take over Arab and African countries for oil http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pyEJ6Aja-UQ&feature=player_embedded

That's Wesley Clark. He's pretty much dead on correct, most of the time. As I posted before, if it were about morals, justice and "doing the right thing" we'd go into Congo, Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea and "save" their people as well.

For those who don't know, Clark was a senior US General, and ran for President in 2004. He had been a Republican up until about 2000, was disillusioned with the GOP and Bush, voted for Gore and switched parties. As soon as he entered the Democratic primary race he was attacked as being too "conservative" for the party, and someone who had been a Republican all his life, etc, even though he really wasn't that conservative. He only won one primary state, the generally "red" state Oklahoma, and dropped out. Now he shows up on TV from time to time talking about US foreign policy. He's more outspoken than Andrew Bacevich, who I posted about before, but does know his stuff.

Hitch - I deleted the post because it was part of the argument about the Mormon faith that had completely run it's course. It had nothing to do with the causal off-topic banter and light bickering we're all used to.

 

[Cobblestones]

No time to post much here today.

Let me just link to two opinion pieces on Al Jazeera which I found relevant.

The false comfort of a liberal war

A comment on Guantanamo

 

[Semper Fidelis]

Enough of the Mormon talk. Stop now.

Any comments on Obama's speech, and decision/rationalization for going into Libya? Any thoughts on what will happen there?

Glenn, curious your thoughts on the Rolling Stone article, if we're going to discuss US soldier thoughts and actions against locals across the planet.

In reference to President Obama’s Speech. I think he made a good comparison with regards to developing a coalition before action etc. The President did not need to explain to me why he used force against Libya it was evident.

The RollingStone article is very disturbing. There is no way to describe how mad it makes me to see the chain of command fail in such a miserable way. These “murderers” should get Death by hanging which is still a authorized punishment under the UCMJ. Someone should have taken that PFC’s complaints and his Fathers complaints seriously. Whoever the Duty was that took the initial complaint and brushed it off should also be punished severely. That is not a accusation that you could just listen to and decide to sleep on.
Another disturbing part about the story is that these guys were actively using drugs while serving. I know in the USMC we had or would have a random drug screening about every 6 months or less if you were known to have been deployed in a region with easy access to drugs. My entire service I never witnessed anyone smoking dope in combat or otherwise. You would get your *** kicked out in a heartbeat. I do not know how the Army runs things but this shows a complete lack of discipline and integrity. EVERYONE involved is guilty of some violations of the UCMJ even if they did not participate. Just knowing or hearing the rumor is enough to run it up the chain of command and if nothing happens you have the moral obligation to request mast. That would be the process in the USMC am not familiar with the Army way but it has to be similar.
The commissioned officers in charge of this unit must have been some sloppy loose officers. They are not fit to wear a uniform that represents the USA. They have not been punished but any Officer worth his weight would have known what was happening within his unit.
Maybe this lack of discipline is a product of our overcommitment. We have committed to so much foreign meddling / nation building / terrorist hunts etc. We SHOULD cut the defense budget and get the hell out of these places. Iraq and Afghanistan has gone on for to long.

 

[Semper Fidelis]

You really are dense..They are wearing Rush Limbaugh's "club Gitmo" t shirts..It was like a pun on club med,,All your kind was going on about Gitmo being resort conditions and not anything to do with torture or such things..

See I have no idea wtf you was talking about. Club Gitmo????? I do not listen to that garbage. Maybe I should that way I would know what the hell you are trying to say.

What do you mean by "all your kind".

 

[redtreviso]

See I have no idea wtf you was talking about. Club Gitmo????? I do not listen to that garbage. Maybe I should that way I would know what the hell you are trying to say.

What do you mean by "all your kind".

Well I sure don't listen to it..

http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/200506170004

 

[patricknd]

In reference to President Obama’s Speech. I think he made a good comparison with regards to developing a coalition before action etc. The President did not need to explain to me why he used force against Libya it was evident.

The RollingStone article is very disturbing. There is no way to describe how mad it makes me to see the chain of command fail in such a miserable way. These “murderers” should get Death by hanging which is still a authorized punishment under the UCMJ. Someone should have taken that PFC’s complaints and his Fathers complaints seriously. Whoever the Duty was that took the initial complaint and brushed it off should also be punished severely. That is not a accusation that you could just listen to and decide to sleep on.
Another disturbing part about the story is that these guys were actively using drugs while serving. I know in the USMC we had or would have a random drug screening about every 6 months or less if you were known to have been deployed in a region with easy access to drugs. My entire service I never witnessed anyone smoking dope in combat or otherwise. You would get your *** kicked out in a heartbeat. I do not know how the Army runs things but this shows a complete lack of discipline and integrity. EVERYONE involved is guilty of some violations of the UCMJ even if they did not participate. Just knowing or hearing the rumor is enough to run it up the chain of command and if nothing happens you have the moral obligation to request mast. That would be the process in the USMC am not familiar with the Army way but it has to be similar.
The commissioned officers in charge of this unit must have been some sloppy loose officers. They are not fit to wear a uniform that represents the USA. They have not been punished but any Officer worth his weight would have known what was happening within his unit.
Maybe this lack of discipline is a product of our overcommitment. We have committed to so much foreign meddling / nation building / terrorist hunts etc. We SHOULD cut the defense budget and get the hell out of these places. Iraq and Afghanistan has gone on for to long.

i think this lack of discipline is due in large part to lowering of admission standards, and that is caused by overcommitment. we had guys that had a hard time getting in that had a misdemeanor conviction, and these clowns had more than that and got in. i have a hard time believing that the officers and noncoms in that battalion were ignorant of what was going on there. a battalion is a pretty tightly knit community even in garrison, and you hear about and know what happens. unfortunately officers will be allowed to resign their commisions and fade away, i've seen that happen. ssgt gibbs will probably be the highest rank to get any punishment.

 

[simo1733]

I guess I'd rather have a mormon looking into Israeli/Palestinian issues than any of these people..


""Hours after declaring Sunday that he expects to be running for president within a month, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said he's worried the United States could be “a secular atheist country, potentially one dominated by radical Islamists,” in the foreseeable future, according to Politico.

Gingrich was addressing Cornerstone Church, a megachurch in San Antonio, Texas, led by the Rev. John Hagee, an influential leader among American evangelicals. Hagee's endorsement of then-presidential candidate John McCain in 2008 was plagued by controversy.

McCain ultimately rejected the endorsement over remarks Hagee had made about the Holocaust, in which he appeared to say that Adolf Hitler had been fulfilling God's will by hastening the desire of Jews to return to Israel, in accordance with biblical prophecy.""

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2011/03/28/gingrich-fears-atheist-country-dominated-by-radical-islamists/?hpt=T2

If he is an evangelist then why has he been on a pilgrimage to Mecca.Just asking.

 

[rhubroma]

Well I am glad someone told you what they are saying. I did not think you had any real first hand knowledge anyway.

Since 1948??? the US has been wrapped up in that mess and I wish we would stop pretending and leave it alone. Settle it for yourselves. Get the country that set up the trouble to "determine the fate".

I never admitted to having had first hand knowledge, as you call it, just that someone who did informed me. You know how it works in life, sometimes we find ourselves unwittingly in the possession of information we never intended, that we never willingly sought, to be able to inform people like yourself about, which is ironic.

Right...the US is so far into its commitment in the mess, which it actively sought and planned for, that its politicians have seen no other choice but to continue in this mess, which keeps getting messier, for decades to come.

And all your talk of lost discipline and punitive action and desecrated honor are old and thoroughly ridiculous notions about the so called virtues of the military code, which have about as much to do with real life as the photograph does. Yet you have actually come to believe it, the photograph, to be a truthful representation of reality. This is why you are so scandalized, but not me, when the soldiers behave in a way that's unbefitting of this ideal, but false, image of yours, when such actions show them to be seen as they actually are, as mendacious and depraved individuals, totally lost souls.

We live in two worlds, Glenn -- the real world, which is mean, depressing, and ultimately deadly, and the world of the photograph, which is thoroughly false, though it is regarded by most people as the real world. What the military really does is tell us it can destroy the real world and give us an image of something more settling through force, and what they demand of themselves is to create an ideal image of the world, and they will agree to anything which produces this ideal image, even the most dreadful distortion.

It never strikes me how appallingly they compromise themselves.

 

[Astana1]

I am not sure what the shirts were for. It looks like some type of reenlistment ceremony. You can see two of them taking an oath or something on the right side of the picture. We have no idea what the T-shirt color represents. Unless you have some link to a story etc.

This is an Engineering Battalion in the US Army Reserve. Basically a bunch of POG’s who are tasked with construction and maintaining rear echelon supply duties. This is not a Gitmo unit of any sort. THEY are not in Gitmo for this picture....NOTICE THE DESERT UTILITIES THEY HAVE ON. Redtreviso you are misrepresenting this picture. You should acknowledge as much or take it down.
After I quoted it I noticed you went to the Lumbaugh site to get that picture. Nice work. Did they have a story for the picture or is the steriods / stupidity and Gitmo link something you come up with on your own?

Well, I can actually see the picture today as it is no longer a Red X. Every observation you are making is right. The unit is Headquarters Support Company (HSC) of an engineering battalion. These guys might be doing engineering stuff, or they may shuffling paper around, they even be acting as the Garrison Command for the base that they live on, which is what lots of Reservist Engineers seem to be doing. Worst case they might be doing some route clearance work, detecting and neutralizing Improvised Explosive Devices. Clearly these guys are the evil incarnate.

Also, that's a fairly old picture. Possibly older than five years, the Soldiers in question are wear the Desert Camo Uniform (DCU), which has been replaced by the Army Combat Uniform (ACU) for quite some time now.

I agree that definitely isn't Guantanamo as well. Look at the HESCO barriers throughout the picture. Gitmo doesn't have that threat.
Those are there to provide protection against indirect fire (rockets, mortars, etc.) Clearly this is a base in Iraq or Afghanistan.

 

[Astana1]

.

We live in two worlds, Glenn -- the real world, which is mean, depressing, and ultimately deadly, and the world of the photograph, which is thoroughly false, though it is regarded by most people as the real world. What the military really does is tell us it can destroy the real world and give us an image of something more settling through force, and what they demand of themselves is to create an ideal image of the world, and they will agree to anything which produces this ideal image, even the most dreadful distortion.

It never strikes me how appallingly they compromise themselves.

The military tells us this? How? Where, show me some sort of document that lays out this manifesto. You're incredibly entertaining you know that?

 

[redtreviso]

Well, I can actually see the picture today as it is no longer a Red X. Every observation you are making is right. The unit is Headquarters Support Company (HSC) of an engineering battalion. These guys might be doing engineering stuff, or they may shuffling paper around, they even be acting as the Garrison Command for the base that they live on, which is what lots of Reservist Engineers seem to be doing. Worst case they might be doing some route clearance work, detecting and neutralizing Improvised Explosive Devices. Clearly these guys are the evil incarnate.

Also, that's a fairly old picture. Possibly older than five years, the Soldiers in question are wear the Desert Camo Uniform (DCU), which has been replaced by the Army Combat Uniform (ACU) for quite some time now.

I agree that definitely isn't Guantanamo as well. Look at the HESCO barriers throughout the picture. Gitmo doesn't have that threat.
Those are there to provide protection against indirect fire (rockets, mortars, etc.) Clearly this is a base in Iraq or Afghanistan.

Them not being in Guantanamo was never the point.

 

[Astana1]

Well, let's just say I live in this world guy. Which I'm quite certain is different than yours. And I have strong positions on things, which aren't for the faint of heart, nor the patriotic, such as yourself.

But you misunderstand my hatred for my humanism, and humanistic background. But this is a subtlety, I'm sure you won't understand.

And now I have to go. Good day.

Really. How many trouble spots have you lived in? How many times have you risked your neck to help someone or make the world better?

I'm sorry, Soldiers who make up any military force will not be comprised of Oxford and Harvard graduates. That's just the way it is. Most of these kids come from small towns, and omigosh... some of them actually pray and believe in God. And of course, they aren't worldly, but neither is some dock worker in Liverpool or some guy in Kebap stand in Aqaba. They may not be the upper crust of society, but the overwhelming majority of them are good people who believe they are doing the right thing. You would expect a humanist the get that sort of thing.

You clearly believe you are superior to anyone who doesn't share your world view. That's arrogance. You and FOX News have some real common ground.

 

[Astana1]

Clearly you and glenn are equally ignorant..Them not being in Guantanamo was never the point.

Ignorant? You posted a picture of a bunch of reservists in a reenlistment ceremony in Iraq and Afghanistan. And then you mumbled something about Club Gitmo. I'm trying to see the link.

I think you just threw a picture that you believed to be inflamatory and now that you've been called on it you're just backpedaling.

If I'm missing the point, then why don't you stop being so cryptic and make it.

 

[rhubroma]

Really. It sounds like you live in a pretty sheltered world to me. How many trouble spots have you lived in Mr. Humanist? How many times have you risked your neck to help someone or make the world better?


I'm sorry, Soldiers who make up any military force will not be comprised of Oxford and Harvard graduates. That's just the way it is. Most of these kids come from small towns, and omigosh... some of them actually pray and believe in God. And of course, they aren't worldly, but neither is some dock worker in Liverpool or some guy in Kebap stand in Aqaba. They may not be the upper crust of society, but the overwhelming majority of them are good people who believe they are doing the right thing. You would expect a humanist the get that sort of thing.

You clearly believe you are superior to anyone who doesn't share your world view. That's arrogance. You and FOX News have some real common ground.

Not on the front lines? Why I'm out there every day, in the thick of it, making my contribution to make this a better world.

But I just don't do it with the force of arms, but ideas.

And it's when we have no more ideas, that we resort to the force of arms.

It's funny how arrogant people, who have an incurable insolence before anyone that challenges their accepted world view, immediately resort to branding the opposition as arrogant.

 

[rhubroma]

The military tells us this? How? Where, show me some sort of document that lays out this manifesto. You're incredibly entertaining you know that?

That's because you have no tolerance for my observations.

 

[patricknd]

That's because you have no tolerance for my observations.

this from mr. tolerance.

 

[Semper Fidelis]

Well I sure don't listen to it..

http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/200506170004

redtreviso you sure are just as thick as I am. Is it because you sit on top of that big shale? You know the one I am talking about.....the one that evil Halliburton has been fracturing with "unknown" substances to extract the hydrates? Is that what has you all charged up?

 

[Cobblestoned]

Just short question that is in my mind for some time now.
Can someone explain the Brits proceedings, regarding sports, to me?
I mean, for example, in Fussball they all play for themselfes (England, Wales, Scotland etc.), while in other sports they choose to compete as GB.

Do they (queen of England) decide Great Britain as soon as they need help from other countries ?
Or any other reasons ?

 

[redtreviso]

Ignorant? You posted a picture of a bunch of reservists in a reenlistment ceremony in Iraq and Afghanistan. And then you mumbled something about Club Gitmo. I'm trying to see the link.

I think you just threw a picture that you believed to be inflamatory and now that you've been called on it you're just backpedaling.

If I'm missing the point, then why don't you stop being so cryptic and make it.

I don't care if those soldiers are sitting in the lobby of the Ritz ...They have Rush Limbaugh's "club gitmo" t shirts on...They might as well put on Klan robes.
Conduct unbecoming at the very least..

 

[redtreviso]

redtreviso you sure are just as thick as I am. Is it because you sit on top of that big shale? You know the one I am talking about.....the one that evil Halliburton has been fracturing with "unknown" substances to extract the hydrates? Is that what has you all charged up?

Yea I am sitting on it.. I am listening to a compressor about a mile away right now.. I am glad I don't have a well..There is plenty to be charged up about concerning barnett shale. Since the city, county and state officials are Republican trash they signed leases for about 1/6th of what I got..Otherwise we could have had a tax reduction and had all kinds of things paid for.

 

[patricknd]

Yea I am sitting on it.. I am listening to a compressor about a mile away right now.. I am glad I don't have a well..There is plenty to be charged up about concerning barnett shale. Since the city, county and state officials are Republican trash they signed leases for about 1/6th of what I got..Otherwise we could have had a tax reduction and had all kinds of things paid for.

paying higher taxes is your civic duty.

 

[redtreviso]

paying higher taxes is your civic duty.

I pay my taxes and find better things to do than complain about it..Barnett Shale could have all but solved OUR state's budget problems.. Wanna hear how I signed for 5 or 6 times more than my right wing neighbors did?

 

[Semper Fidelis]

Yea I am sitting on it.. I am listening to a compressor about a mile away right now.. I am glad I don't have a well..There is plenty to be charged up about concerning barnett shale. Since the city, county and state officials are Republican trash they signed leases for about 1/6th of what I got..Otherwise we could have had a tax reduction and had all kinds of things paid for.

I agree with you. I am also convinced, that the barnett shale and others like it are very dangerous for the environment and for you folks sitting on top of it. From what I understand,,,,it is like sitting on top of a bomb.

BTW According to the Federal government Halliburton was ordered to disclose the chemicals they use in Hydrofracturing. I am "sure" they are following up on this. http://www.syracuse.com/have-you-heard/index.ssf/2010/11/halliburton_begins_disclosing.html

http://www.halliburton.com/public/projects/pubsdata/Hydraulic_Fracturing/index.html

There are many examples where the Hydro Fracturing and horizontal drilling is damaging the environment especially up in Pennsylvania.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/07/business/energy-environment/07frack.html

This is a very good documentary about some of the issues with this process. http://gaslandthemovie.com/

Hey my opinion is that we as a country should try everyway to become less dependent on foreign energy sources. But if you’re going to destroy / lay waste to the environment to get it then what is the point? Greed!