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Your woman is fuckin' HOT.
I thought New Yorkers were smarter than that. They believed in the Iraq/9-11 connections?
Not everyone, but enough people to piss me off. Two female friends and one male friend in particular.
I think America in general just thinks everyone in that region of the world is the same. The four years since have disproved that again and again.
How many people had even heard the words "Sunni" and "Shia" before the invasion? Less than 1% probably. And I doubt many more than that know the difference even now. They think Ahmadinejad, Saddam and Osama had Death To America luncheons every Thursday.
That last sentence made me lol.
They're into the Chinese buffets with the green jello slices. Srsly.
I didn't want to be the first to say it, but I think your girlfriend's contacts might be irritating her eyes a bit...
She's an albino, her eyes are naturally red!
Thank you for that video. That was really fascinating.
That website (TEDBlog) is pretty damn cool. Been watching it all morning instead of working.
Someone else on my flist linked the one about the tube-and-string robots on the beach. That really blew me away.
I got about 20 minutes into the talk because yeah, I'm at work too.
It makes a lot of sense. I don't agree with everything he says but his overall presentation is very reasonable.
I especially liked that the put some of the organizational problems we're facing in the context of a 19 year old being asked to be a cop after spending several months being taught to apply overwhelming force to solve interpersonal problems and to call for obscenely overwhelming force when the dude's cousin shows up. Yeah, we just might want some people on the ground with slightly more evolved conflict resolution skills.
Yeah, I liked that too. I WAS that 17 year old and I know damn well I could not have been a cop. I STILL couldn't be a cop, but I could probably still be a soldier. (I know that's a fucked up admission, but it's true)
Never again, as long as it is convenient.
Never again, unless they're black.
![[User Picture]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/9826411/1024971) | From: ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) eruv
2007-10-30 07:56 pm (UTC)
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Who's under the mask?
(BTW, thanks for putting me in touch with your boyfriend; neat guy -we may make some money together)
| From: eruv
2007-10-31 08:47 pm (UTC)
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Glad to be of service, Squant.
Barnett's ideas are OK, and he is funny, but it presumes we'd be a colonial power (even though he doesn't like the term), which is a national debate that hasn't really happened yet. He also uses the model of Bosnia, which is a misunderstood disaster; he should be using the model of what Hoover did after WW-1 (and also the limitations therof -you know, like the development of fascism and international communism) and what Truman/Marshall did after WW-2 (and the limitations therof, like the development of the cold war). The fact of the matter is, history teaches that, well, sometimes occupations go well (Japan); sometimes they don't (Korea). No matter what kind of bureaucracy you stick on top, you don't have control of everything.
Can you tell me how Bosnia was a misunderstood disaster? I know a lot of people on the right and left (Chomsky) think so, but I don't see it.
Personally, I'm ok going places that attack us, are in the midst of genocide, or invade our friends. For me that means yes to late 80s Iraq or the first Gulf War, Afghanistan after 9/11, many African countries in the 80s to now, 90s Yugoslavia, and WWII Japan, but doesn't include 1950s Korea, 60s Vietnam, Iraq today, Iran today, etc.
And I'm not sure that the right is correct in saying that the Iraq War WAS winnable, but everyone is right in saying that Bush and co. fucked up beyond recognition. They did everything wrong. But he seems sensible. I'm going to go listen to some more of his shit and read more of his articles...
Bosnia, or, more properly, Kosovo: apparently the massacres of Albanians were made up stories -no large mass graves indicating genocide were ever found. We basically took sides in a Balkan pissing match. Instead of Muslims being persecuted, now orthodox Christians are being persecuted. In fact, we helped ethnically cleanse 200,000 Serbs from the region which has historically been a part of Serbia, not Albania. Decades after our intervention in Kosovo, the UN still can't make the electricity run more than a few hours a day. It's still NATO's biggest mission. 20 years later. The only good thing about it is it is one shitty little city instead of a whole country.
I'm not much of a do-gooder. I don't think it's our business "stopping genocide" -especially if Kosovo is the model. Humanitarian missions (sending in aid with helicopters and what not) is fine. Taking sides in a pissing match ... that looks a lot like Kosovo and parts of Iraq a few years ago when the likelihood of civil war was high. I'm only game for war if is in the national interest. Otherwise, let the UN do it. If the UN ain't willing to do it, I don't want rednecks from my country fighting to prevent some savages from hacking each other to pieces in some other country unless we get to steal their natural resources or something while we're at it.
My favorite colonialist statistic is that the British ran India, Bangladesh and Pakistan with less people than it takes to run Stanford's endowment. If Barnett were talking about that sort of colonialism and do gooderism ... it seems more reasonable to me than chopping the pentagon in half and claiming half is for colonial duty.
Sources for former Yugoslavia?
I don't think there's any reason to go to war other than stopping severe aggression, stopping genocide and fighting anyone foolish enough to attack us. To me, our record in the Middle East, Philippines, Vietnam and South America, which were supposedly informed by "national interest" were some of the worst national decisions we've made. They are deep black marks on our collective history, where as WWII is one of things that makes us a good guy.
The Western world looks like a bunch of assholes re: Rwanda, esp. France, the UN and us. We let nearly a million people get killed by machetes in a short amount of time. Children have every right to ask, "Why did you let that happen?" To me, that shit is easy, and everything else is bullshit.
A former girlfriend and several current acquaintances are Serbian. We talked about this shit A LOT. I wanted to know what you knew, but you went straight to dick mode.
And that last part: Are you serious? Are immoral and callous comments meant to impress? Or is that who you really are?
Regardless, what is the point in saying rancid shit like that?
Did the Jews deserve the Holocaust? Or the Russians the Gulag? Or the Cambodians their killing fields? Or the Sudanese their genocide? Were they all just "savages" from some "shit hole"?
Why do you act like a dick?
I rarely talk about this anymore (because now everyone agrees with me) but the lead up to the Iraq War made me want to go Incredible Hulk. I was constantly pissed off.
WORD.
And for all the reasons you listed too.
I am not proud to admit this, but the whole experience of being SO pissed ALL the time EVERY day just wore me right out of political literacy. I mean, every time I remotely picked up a newspaper or read an article on line or anyone even passingly mentioned politics, my blood pressure would double and I would start twitching. I stuck it out for a long time, but eventually, I just quit involving myself with the news. To this day, I can about handle The Daily Show, and that is it.
It is embarrassing and pathetic, but I just can not be that mad all the time.
You know, I'm so glad to realize I'm not the only one who did this. The Daily Show and Colbert are all I can take too. Just recently I tried watching Planet In Peril on CNN, and I couldn't take it anymore after the first hour and a half.
To quote John Adams in the musical 1776, "Good God, what are we all waiting for!?!?"
I stopped watching TV news and still, to this day, get pissed off if I watch TV news. The one fight my old roommate Molly and I got into was about TV news. She doesn't like to be told what to do and I made it clear that TV news would NEVER be on while I was in the apartment.
Fucking hate TV news. But I still stay abreast - but only through text.
She's hot alright. I just hope she doesn't suck you into her mouth and spit out your bones a la Kitana and Mileena from MK II.
What are you talking about? Mileena was awesome! We had a little fling after she got out of rehab in 2003 (her royalties ran out but she was still partying like a rock star in Williamsburg, 2001). She gave shitty head, but the one time she swallowed my head and spit me out was fucking amazing. Ultimately, it didn't work out, but I still see her, and still sort of love her, and she gets an undeserved bad rap.
And she's totally my type.
I left myself open for this, didn't I?
That's brilliant. I even like the role he carves out for my beloved Corps.
Yeah. I would have still fought tooth and nail to have prevented us from going into Iraq, but I like the model. I don't see how, after an act of war, and after a promise to leave in X amount of years, rebuilding a country could be considered colonialism. Rebuilding it as a Friedman-esque corporatist state might be a type of colonialism, but that's a different subject all together.
Yeah, this is pretty much what I've been saying for a while, only on a grander scale.
A few things I'd add.
I think the National Guard and Army Reserve should reverse roles. Currently, the Reserve is largely support forces (things like water purification, civil engineering, and most relevant to stability/nation-building operations, civil affairs), and the Guard is largely made up of combat arms - infantry, artillery, armor, etc. The Guard spends most of its time on State orders under the command of the state governors, while Reserve soldiers are under federal orders. With the Guard being a state force made up of citizen soldiers from their respective communities, I think the Guard should take over those missions most relevant to state missions (emergency preparedness, disaster relief, etc - which are skillsets that translate well into stability operations when they're deployed overseas on federal orders), and the Reserve should absorb most of the Guard's combat arms missions.
Another thing about the Guard - Barnett mentions the different temperments required for conventional war (pissed-off 18-year-olds) and "sys admin" (40-year-old cops). Um, the Guard is literally FULL of 40-year-old cops. The Guard is also full of people who spend their civilian careers in local, state, and federal government jobs. These are people who understand civil authority and can assist other nations in establishing accountable governments far better than the active-duty military can.
I'd also expand the size of our Special Operations Forces. Not so much the trigger pullers like Delta, SEALs, and Air Force Special Tactics, but the "soft skill" warriors like Army Special Forces, PSYOPS, and most importantly, Civil Affairs. I think the Gulf War is one of the worst things that could have happened to the US military - it established a cult of technology that produced a universal expectation among both the military and the American public of decisive results brought about quickly through the application of superior firepower. Every conflict we found ourselves in after 1991 - Somalia (the reason we didn't get involved in Rwanda and), Haiti, Liberia, Bosnia, Kosovo - none of them required massive amounts of firepower applied quickly. They required patience and nuance and establishing credibility with those were there to assist and those we were there to marginalize, co-opt, or destroy. It pisses me off that the military didn't attempt to learn the lessons of these missions and implement any changes.
The thing that irritates me the most about the military in the current conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq is that they demand that we know our allies and those we have sworn to assist, and the emphasis still seems to be on figuring out our enemy. Knowing the enemy is absolutely essential, but this isn't just about figuring out what the bad guys' next move is going to be. We are working with and for the people of Iraq and Afghanistan to help build their countries from the ground up, and as such, it would help if we understood their history and their priorities and their goals (short-term being just as important as long-term), and a few phrases in their native languages beyond "GET ON THE GROUND!" And I think Barnett's dual-force concept is something that is almost perfectly in line with it.
Check out Col. Thomas X. Hammes' The Sling and the Stone or Rob Schultheis' Waging Peace. Good shit by guys who get it.
I thought of you while watching it. I don't have much to say in response, because even though we disagree about some larger political issues, I think your military models sound, well, uh, "sound." (Granted, I don't know shit.) I think most Americans can agree that we want a robust and vital military that's able to handle the problems of today - and that sounds like a good way to go about it.
Pakistan is what scares me. It seems like we'd be in deep shit if Pakistan fell apart. And it seems like it's always teetering on falling apart. How does the current military handle a worst case scenario Pakistan? Iran seems easier to deal with - politically and militarily. Same with N. Korea. But Pakistan?
Yeah, Pakistan is a place I worry about. Nuclear-armed with an intelligence directorate that served as a sort of Don King to the Taliban's Mike Tyson. Militarily, I see Pakistan's military splintering in the event of any jihadist coup. I don't see the pilots and most of the officers going along with it. In terms of conventional forces, I'm not sure they'd present a threat worth fretting over.
Militarily, I think we'd have an obligation to destroy their nuclear facilities with conventional airstrikes. B-2s with penetration weapons. Tom Clancy-type shit. This would fuck up the balance with India and China, but it would minimize the risk of nuclear-armed jihadists. And speaking of India, I think a jihadist coup in Pakistan would lead to a much hotter war in Kashmir.
But outside of all that - shit. Pakistan is already a haven, sanctuary, and training ground for jihadists from all over the world. If Pakistan falls apart politically, it will only get worse. Afghanistan could become a very hot playground again, populated with an enemy we still aren't all that good at fighting.
So yeah. Pakistan is scary.
Yeah, I don't think any place in the world could face up to us right now. Not conventionally, anyway. We could destroy their nuke capabilities but could we get the shit that's already out there?
I'm hoping that our intelligence agencies have their shit together re: Pakistan.
I know a lot of people in the military, probably 50% of my high school class. (I was lucky enough to have parents who could afford to send me to college, and who thought it was a good idea.) One of my best friends is in Iraq now on his second tour, and I worry. It completely breaks my heart--last time he came back with PTSD which he treated by drinking way too much. The thing is, he still believes in what he's doing. He thinks that we're maybe not going about it the right way, but he still absolutely believes in the ideal of bringing freedom and democracy to the world, and thinks that's what he's doing. I can't fucking stand the way he's being used and then thrown away.
PS, topic change: I was near Goffs / Needles last weekend in the Mojave Preserve. I know you have Hometown Issues, but it's incredible looking out there.
Of course it's the administraion's fault, but the press bears a lot of responsibility too. At one point, over 75% of the U.S. population thought that Saddam had something to do with 9/11. Nearly everyone thought that Iraq had connections to Al Qaeda. That's the fault of the press - they didn't do their jobs. They failed on every aspect.
The new Vice Magazine (yeah, yeah, yeah, Vice sucks - whatever) had a bunch of inteviews with British soldiers who lost limbs and U.S. soldiers who went AWOL to Canada. All of them say that they're shocked that they were lied to. They all believed that there was a connection. What strikes me is that we are not supposed to be the bully. I mean, we've done it in the past, but WTF? You don't bring democracy with the barrel of a gun - you bring anarchy and despotism.
And yeah, the Mojave Desert is beautiful. I thought it was ugly when I was young, but now that I'm older I see the beauty.
Where are you from? Was it a rural lower-class place?
I agree that the press shares the blame--hell, lots of people share the blame. It's a big fucking mess, and all the wrong people are being trampled.
I grew up in Spotsylvania County, Virginia, and it was pretty rural for most of that time. In the last ten years (so, since I was in about 9th grade) it suddenly had a huge population boom, becoming a bedroom community for DC, and now it's a suburban bonanza, though where my parents are (toward the western edge) is still pretty rural. Accordingly, it's more middle-class than it was ten years ago. Lots of cows, lots of rednecks, lots of Confederate flags. My feelings toward it are complicated.
My town is just declining, declining. There's no industry there and most people work for the casinos (in nearby Laughlin) or the power plant. Or in some shit service job.
What was there originally? Was it a mining town? | |
