Smart man, specially with his experience of having served our country.
Yes exactly that. Our military is full of: Native Americans and American Samoans for those reasons right there.
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100% agreed.
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I read an essay years ago wherein the author argued that the US could easily rule the world, not through military might, but through food.
He compared the cost of weapons systems versus the cost of commodities and found that beating swords into plowshares was, in fact, more cost effective. And this was back in the '70s when the âdefenseâ budget was measured in quaint numbers of only double-digit billions.
It made a lot of sense to me at the time. Still does. You can buy a lot more good will with a belly full of bread than you can a belly full of lead.
The Pentagon has NEVER successfully passed an audit. During its last audit attempt it couldnât account for $5.6 TRILLION of taxpayer money; so, naturally, Comrade Chaos would like to see its budget increased by $54 Billion.
Thankfully, ProPublica has constructed a game allowing you to spend $17 Billion that has been wasted in Afghanistan alone. Good times.
(Note: The game was constructed without government funding.)
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If it were truly âemotional aftermathâ we wouldâve gone into Saudi Arabia and ended both bin Ladenâs source of funding and driven a stake through the heart of the greatest purveyors of Wahhabism on the planet.
I know - it makes so much sense that a roomful of men arenât ever going to get it. Men have a gift for the irrelevant, at least from the female standpoint. Things that are too damn sensible just escape most men.
Women are taught from childhood to be nice to get what they want. Yeah it works - weâve been doing it now for millennia.
And thatâs actually how Osama bin Laden built a large network of sanctuary for himself and Al Qaea in Afghanistan and elsewhere - gave the people food, madrassas, medical helpâŚ
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Ya, well there was a lot of propaganda being spread - and the Bushies worked very hard to tamp down that very direct link to 911. Sort of like Trumpâs travel ban ignoring that elephant in the room. Access to $$ rulez!
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Yes, there was. And it was all aimed at one goal: Creating a footprint in the Middle East to gain access to oil.
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Thereâs a reason civilization developed around agriculture, which â no surprise here â was developed by women.
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Thatâs true - division of labor, hunter-gatherers the gatherers were women, lead directly to trying out a little casual agriculture and BOOM! Civilization.
And if the damn men will get out of the way, we can save this bitch too.
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It is hardly a seizure when the CIC questions nothing, and knows nothing about military operations. Itâs more him ceding control than the Pentagon wresting control away. Unfortunately the CIC isnât very curious about the details of anything complex, which all military operations are by nature. Donât blame the Pentagon - they will, as per norm, ask for what they want and it appears that the President is more than willing to let them have it if they promise a win.
As a 10 year veteran of the Army, a combat vet to boot, let me say this: If you let these clowns run the show it will turn into a world class cluster fuck. Has anyone asked these guys why we are trying to get ISIS out of Mosel when they took it right under our noses? Thatâs Army stuff. Thatâs what Generals do. As we said in the Army âfucking up by the numbers then by the ABCâsâ.
We have a civilian controlled military for a good reason. They work for us and if allowed to work for themselves theyâll cause catastrophic problems. To the military man chaos and catastrophe are âset backsâ that need to be fixed with more of what created them. Left to their own devices the Military would have us still fighting in Vietnam. But lets not fool ourselves. Trump isnât giving them leeway anymore than you would be if you let a neurosurgeon work on your brain without you personally overseeing the operation. You donât know squat about that so you leave it up to those that do. Trump doesnât have a clue when it comes to the military. He couldânt offer anything of value to them. He doesnât understand whatâs to be done or how to do it. He wantâs to âstamp out ISISâ for ego purposes. He wants to be âthe manâ that did it. You canât take that to a 4 star General. So he cuts himself some slack by âcutting them slackâ.
Only the Military can take a mess like Iraq or Syria and make it worse. Fucking up a steel ball with a rubber hammer we called it. Putting the guy with the size 14 boots and size 5 hat in charge. Its going to go down like that. Obama knew this. Trump never will.
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And Trumpy ran the other way a few times when he should have been drafted .
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It just keeps getting worse. An old familiar song is back.
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More raw intel and less analysis. But really short briefings. Thatâs going to turn out well.
And in another couple of years, when one of these stupid things blows back on us, it will be âwho could have knownâ again. With a side of martial law.
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What couple of years?
Trump wonât last through this year and weâre taking Congress back next year.
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Many of the people that have gotten the US into military adventurism only see our troops as nothing more than pieces on a map. They donât care that they may be someoneâs mother, father, sister, cousin, etc.
There is one party that has become completely divorced from reality when it comes to using our military, and are literally unable to realize that itâs not just machines and bombs, but real, living people that are also putting their lives on the line when they get sent all over the world.
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Because raw intel with less analysis worked so well with Dick Cheney and the Bush administration.
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A story was just posted here - that is much more detailed than the hill piece.
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The military will miss what they perceived as Obamaâs micro-managing because during Obamaâs presidency there was a responsible person in the WH who would accept responsibility if an operation he approved went wrong. Weâve already seen with the botched operation in Yemen that Trump craves the militaryâs adulation, but heâll be the first person to blame his generals when something goes wrong. The buck will always stop somewhere else. And I fear that with his approval numbers tanking, Trump will use the military to distract from the widespread corruption in his administration (of which Russia is only a part) and try to create a rally-round-the-flag moment to get himself back into positive territory. I imagine NK is the easiest target, and if I were Kim Jong-Un, Iâd be worried about Don Trump-Un.