Comments on: What War?

By: Jen Morris

Jen Morris — Sat, 29 Jul 2006 03:27:34 +0000

According to an article in today’s “Forward,” Ned Lamont has stated that he supports Israel’s current operations in Gaza and Lebanon.

For the full entry, go to:

http://www.forward.com/articles/8190

By: Jill

Jill — Sat, 29 Jul 2006 00:59:40 +0000

Now that Photochop is just TOO fucked up.

By: Terry Karney

Terry Karney — Sat, 29 Jul 2006 00:39:18 +0000

Nefarious Leslie: Forgive me my sensitive nature, as I happen to be in military intelligence.

Speaking from a grunt level use of it (as well as some views of strat, and intimations of levels above Corps, in the early stages of the present unpleasantness) we have decent intel, at least at the larger levels. We had variable intel at the operational level; not least because some places the intel collectors were being driven by the primary consumers, which skews all sorts of things).

These days, we probably have weak intel, on the ground, because we can’t build good relations at the lower levels, and so much of what we have is either suspect at the source (what is the providers agenda?) or inferential/collected from secondary sources.

Before the war, I am willing to say that V Corps did not think Hussein had any credible threat of WMD.

What we don’t have, and I don’t know that a draft will fix it, is enough people at the upper levels of the system willing to publically speak out about the things they see as wrong. As a middle NCO I agree with the late Col. Hackworth, in the first piece of writing of his I noticed, where he said the failing of the Commander on the ground in Beiruit was hisnot resigning on principle when he was told his sentries were to have weapons, but no ammo.

He went on to say (it was a Time Magazine op/ed piece) thatwe needed more resignations of such a sort; not only to make points to inept political leadership, but to maintain the integrity of the system by making it plain that while the military is subservient to the political, it can’t be slavish.

But I digress, as is my wont.

By: The Nefarious Leslie

The Nefarious Leslie — Sat, 29 Jul 2006 00:02:50 +0000

Have a good evening, everyone. I’ll catch y’all later.

By: sherocket

sherocket — Sat, 29 Jul 2006 00:00:21 +0000

She said, I guess you don’t care about health care, etc. etc.

really!! Wow. That is kind of an out-of-line tone to take with somebody you want to donate money.

By: bg

bg — Fri, 28 Jul 2006 23:57:55 +0000

I had a call this morning from some poor woman at the DNC asking for my money. Imagine the ranting I went into. I told her right off the bat that I am giving money directly to the candidates I am supporting, like Ned Lamont. I read the riot act on Lieberman. She asked me about the new Hillary “contract for America” or whatever the name is, might as well be the CfA. I told her we don’t have any money for anything good as the money we already did not have had already been spent/wasted in Iraq, and then started on the Israeli war with her. She said, I guess you don’t care about health care, etc. etc. I told her we need to get out of the war, and if the Democrats licking Bush’s a** don’t step up, forget it. She kept after it, we finally had to let it go. But I talked about the grassroots and how fed up we are with the lousy Schumer, Clinton, Lieberman lovin’ it up with Bush. She was on the kool-aide for sure.

By: The Nefarious Leslie

The Nefarious Leslie — Fri, 28 Jul 2006 23:56:14 +0000

Sorry, an addendum to my 171: I am speaking of kids choosing military service in a hypothetical future, in which we are not embroiled in the clusterf*ck that is the ME. Right now, of course, my hypothetical is about as far from likely as it could be.

By: The Nefarious Leslie

The Nefarious Leslie — Fri, 28 Jul 2006 23:52:09 +0000

John 168, yes, I see what you mean; I could have been clearer myself. I think if we had mandatory service, more than a small percentage of kids would opt for military vs. non-military service. Once they did, the various branches would be able to test and assign them appropriately.

Of course that last sentence assumes that “military intelligence” is not an oxymoron, but at its least dysfunctional (not what it is right now) the military seems to do a decent job of that. It’s not as though, practically speaking, we could take graduating high school seniors’ grades and test scores and then tell the military which ones they were going to use for combat.

By: Oklahoma kiddo

Oklahoma kiddo — Fri, 28 Jul 2006 23:51:47 +0000

Re: a reinstitution of the draft.

I absolutely support no exemptions for anything but CO and medical conditions.

The reasons for a new draft are for me, two: To facilitate stopping (un-necessary and illegal) wars, and to make military service fair (without respect to social, ethnic, or economic strata).

By: Terry Karney

Terry Karney — Fri, 28 Jul 2006 23:49:00 +0000

BC: I can understand that, I’m not sure about implementation. At the beginning that would make it seem there were those who were skating the risk of being shot at by heading to school.

Certainly any college deferment would have to be for such a purpose, and an honest deferment, not a chance to skate out becuase you won’t be picked up when the time comes.

Yes, BTW, I am in favor of a lottery, because the plain cost, in dollars; and the caustic effect of it, would be too great. We are not so small as Switzerland, nor so structured as the Soviet Union was (nor yet as France and Germany were prior to WW1) as to make the influx of millions doable.

On a more practical note, the scions of the wealthy could manage, in a system so large, to more easily game things to avoid any real risk.

I fear we shan’t again see the sacrifiices of The Great War, or even yet WW2, which speaks more of our elite, than it does of the vagaries of privilege which afflicted, for good and ill, England of those eras.