Hiring Process 2
With great power comes great something or other. I dunno, I just own a lot of guns, and they’re fun!
If you really want to claw at your skull, read this article by Dick Cheney about the current state of Iraq. It’s skull-splitting in cognitive dissonance. Written like a man who wasn’t, I dunno, a major driving force on the invasion in the first place. Blame Obama, that’s right.
Or you can read this veteran’s sobering thoughts in a righteously ragey diatribe.
Fuck that. Fuck returning to Iraq. We can’t afford it, not in the price of dollars, certainly not in the price of blood. If you want to argue with me on this point? Go enlist. If you’re unable to enlist, due to age, or medical conditions? Then sit the fuck down, have a coke, and shut the fuck up.
uummm, what if we already did our time? Can we debate then? Youir site. Got it? Very clear on that. *But*, since when do you or I or “Douchy McDouche, AMERICAN CITIZEN!” have to meet a qualification to voice an opposing opinion? Unless we are living in a Starship Trooper (The book, NOT that suckass sucky sucked on a huge level of suckiness movie) society where one must earn the right to be a voice in government?
Old Fart Retired Marine Rant off
(I do get your point, however)
I’d point out that “doing your time” has nothing to do with sending kids into this current conflagration. You were in other battles. This doesn’t give you a louder voice on these battles.
I would note that my suggestion to sit down, have a coke, and shut up is only me using my 1A rights, and nobody is under any obligation to actually do so.
Actually, that’s not a bad idea.
I’m gonna pop a cold one, sit my ass down, and shut my pie hole.
I’m tired of us pretending to be the worlds police force.
Bring our boys (and girls) back and let them ingrates fend the fuck for themselves…
I have read your stuff foe awhile now so I know your better than this. I’ve been there and both my sons have been there.
You’re pissed, got it. I’m not.
Neither of which gives us the privilege of telling someone to sit down and shut the fuck up.
Do i think we should return in force? Nope. But neither do I believe that if we drink our sitting asses into a stupor that this will remain “over there” and we will not be affected “over here”. That is the same thinking that believes that the “Gitmo 5” will be impotent and remain in Qatar or where ever.
Wrong, Mssr. Grant. Completely wrong. Couldn’t possibly be more wrong. Having stuck one’s neck out, having written that blank check to the nation payable for up to and including one’s entire life, absolutely gives one a higher moral standing on the subject – i.e. a louder voice – than those whom have not even tried to get off the sidelines.
I realize that this marginalizes your voice a tiny bit. Too bad.
I did my time. I do not have a louder voice than the civilians because we, as a nation, have CIVILIAN CONTROL OF THE MILITARY.
When I enlisted, I (and YOU), signed away a lot of our right to bitch about it. Now that we are out, we may be wiser, we may have better perspective, it me behoove people to listen to us, but at the end of the day we have no more rights than the guys who spend their teenage years working at McDonalds.
It was public service, not a damn thing else.
“It was public service, not a damn thing else.”
Like the County Dog Catcher?
Does that mean you also think Jim Wright of Stonekettle Station has higher moral standing?
“If you *want to argue with me on this point?* Go enlist. If you’re unable to enlist, due to age, or medical conditions? Then sit the fuck down, have a coke, and shut the fuck up.”
“I would note that my suggestion to sit down, have a coke, and shut up is only me using my 1A rights, and nobody is under any obligation to actually do so.”
But, if we want to argue with you, that was your prerequisite.
JS
Did 6 years regular (about £16k/yr), 10 years Section A Reserve (first on the list to be hauled back onto base, £20/yr) and a few months so far Long Service Reserve (still on the list of people they can haul back onto base and put back in uniform any time they want, no pay). Technically, I did enlist and I’m still in. I guess that means I’m allowed to express an opinion here.
Having read that veteran’s rant, I agree with that ranting veteran. I’d add a few names to the list of those who must be in the front line, though. I’d put the entire families of every MP who voted infavour of it over here into the front line, too.
We didn’t get told the reason, either, by the way.
Spring of 2002:
“It’s not about whether we go into Iraq or not. That decision’s already been made. What you’re looking for is anything we can hold up to the world and say: ‘This is why we have to go.'”
Oh yeah? So if the decision’s already been made and we’re looking for something the world will accept as a reason, whatever we find won’t be the reason and whatever the reason is isn’t something you think the world will accept. No, wait. It isn’t something The Powers That Be think the world would accept. The ditzy officer briefing us probably didn’t know the real reason either. Odds are nobody in the whole slimy Corps, commissioned or not, knew the real reason.
August 2002:
“The job’s cancelled. Go back to what you were doing before and forget this ever happened.”
What had we found? Let me quote Marvin, the paranoid android: “Not an electronic sausage.”
September 2002:
“Saddam has long-range WMD-armed missiles capable of striking major European cities within 45 minutes of the order being given.”
How the thundering blue FUCK are we only hearing about this now?
So, the real reason? I don’t know either. Whatever it was, it was nothing found, said or done after Easter 2002.
Maybe it was all about winning the 2004 election. They did delay the invasion so much that sandstorm season caught them halfway to Baghdad, didn’t they? That meant “Mission Accomplished” was fresh in the voters’ minds when the campaigning started.
Maybe the Chilcot Inquiry knows the real reason. I bet it’s not on the website, though: http://www.iraqinquiry.org.uk/
I love how he quotes St Ronnie in that article. What did that president do? Arms for hostages. Let’s negotiate with terrorists…1500 missiles for hostages. Oh, and when more than 200 Marines died, he tucked tail and ran out of Lebanon.
right now the only thing we are doing that would be “Returning to Iraq” is sending more troops to the Embassy. And maybe some special forces to act as force multipliers
While ISIS *MAY* have Stingers, that weapon can’t hit B-52’s bringing down the drone targeted pain on these muderous Islamo fascists who have zero air assets. Won’t get near all of them, but it will convey a message if we do it anytime they are in groups.
Have you enlisted, Mssr Grant? Have you *tried* to enlist? No? Then shut the fuck up on that topic – you’ve got zip-point-shit room to talk on the subject. None. Nada. Zilch.
One of the things those of us who HAVE served swore to defend, with our very blood and flesh, if necessary, is the right of folks in this nation to have an opinion, and to express it. You don’t like that? Tough shit. Sit down, cupcake – you don’t have ANY moral standing to be telling others what price they must pay to have an opinion.
And yes, of course, that means that those whom HAVE paid the price, have given YOU an license to be an ass, too. But before you go getting self-righteous, you might just wish to stop and consider what an ass you look like when you spout off like that.
Now – All that said, if you HAVE tried to enlist, or have served, then my apologies, and carry on with your grouchy self.
NEXT: We have seen before, and will see again, is that local problems DO NOT STAY LOCAL. Like it or not, the US is a target. Like it or not, the US has vital national interests in the area. Which means, like it or not, we DO have a stake, and that stake is indeed worth blood and treasure. How MUCH blood and treasure is open to debate, but your isolationist stance will not, DOES not, hold water – and it has NEVER held water.
Cheney may indeed be a total ginormous ass but like it or not, we’re entangled, and may NOT “choose not to play” – We’re in the game. Even if we try to sit it out, the game will not let us. The only proper, morally-defensible action is to figure out at what level we’re going to play.
“Cupcake”-chortle
MaskMan, just a couple of observations on what you said. (…and I think this is the closest I’ve come to disagreeing with you on anything you’ve posted ever, or vice versa, so I hope you’ll keep that in mind while reading my comments on something that you clearly and understandably feel strongly about.)
First, the suggestion that James Grant enlist is contrary to his point; his point is that if you support the war, you should support it by enlisting. The clear corollary to that is that if you don’t support the war (as he does not), you should not enlist. His choice not to enlist is consistent with his viewpoint (however else you may feel about it).
Second, I strongly suspect jlgrant knows how much of a self-righteous ass he looks like. Looking like an ass has never been a problem for Mr. Grant; if anything, he revels in it. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t still call him out on it, mind you, merely that it may not have the effect you might like.
On the other hand, I completely agree with you as to the current necessity of being involved in the Middle East. Maybe if we could turn the clock back 100-150 years, it would be a different story, but as the US and the world stand now, it’s not an option. I do think we’ve pretty badly failed at decisions we’ve made both in regards to the Middle East and as far as fighting terrorism, but hindsight is 20/20.
Finally, and this doesn’t get said enough, thanks to you, Gunny, Dave, Sableagle, and everybody else who has served in the militaries of the US or its allies. It’s easy to take for granted the ability to have a negative opinion about decisions our government makes, but when push comes to shove, it’s people like you who are the reason we can.
We chose whether or not we were going to play this game when we took a miserable bloody bastard of a dictator, invaded his country and hung him high. And as much as I really don’t wanna send anyone into Iraq, whether or not we react and HOW all count as moves. Doing nothing and withdrawing are, as we have seen, signs of weakness. Invade or not invade the country, we need to make the bloody violent bastards who ARE invading the country fear OUR wrath worse than their god’s. Given the current state of affairs over there, I doubt there is any military response short of strategic nuclear bombardment that we can manage to deploy that will accomplish that aim.
> we need to make the bloody violent bastards who ARE invading the country fear OUR wrath worse than their god’s
Good luck on that.
Wow. Pretty noble of you to sign up to do all that military service without getting paid.
It’s a serious bout of ‘WTF?’ when the same group of pro-war people gave me raft of shit about all the (false, as it turns out) reasons we HAD to go to war, and then instead of fessing up later, and trying to clean up the mess in a logical way (say, NOT killing any more of the people who have to live in the places you chose to bomb), the words I hear instead are “like it or not, we’re entangled, and may NOT “choose not to play” – We’re in the game. Even if we try to sit it out, the game will not let us. The only proper, morally-defensible action is to figure out at what level we’re going to play.”
But no. Killing people leads to more people killed, and less moral high ground on our part whenever we say “but we HAD to, they were gonna kill some of us!” well no shit, and we were gonna kill some of them, and they had to, too.
Oh, and two tour vet, here. Made the mistake of thinking they’d let me KEEP that oath… The one involving something about a constitution, and enemies who may or may not be domestic…
I am enjoying my Coke sir.
and to be clear, I agree that we should sit this one out. It’s been a festering problem that the first world created the boarders after WWI. I do like a nice warm can of Coke though.
Woo hoo, a fellow historian! I’ll bet only the two of us (and maybe jlgrant too) understand the roots of the current fustercluck that is the Middle-East.
Now if only understanding the cause helped in figuring out how to deal with the modern consequences. That part I’m still working on…
What, using the boarders established by the Ottoman Empire that included built in instability and intended for their regional governors to control wouldn’t work as self governing entities? Naw, no one else is thinking about that.
Just a heads up: That video channel you posted happens to be very anti gun. I don’t disagree with the video itself, but it might not be the best idea promoting a channel that is vehemently opposed to what is, at the very minimum, your primary hobby, if not one of your sources of income. They also lied about their facts in the anti gun vids, which make me question their numbers in this video.
The entire Middle East has historically only been ruled by strongmen, meaning dictators. By getting rid of Saddam the power vacuum was filled with religious fanatics in Iraq.
Saddam was a bastard but have you seen the region? The whole area of the Middle East is full of asshole son’s of bitches that would kill you in return for their new found freedom. The Middle East does not have the same democratic principles and common law as the West.
What the Middle East has is religious not secular laws to fall back on. This is what happens all the time the secular dictator is removed the religious police move in and all previous freedom is lost. Saddam’s people did have more freedom back then because now under the religious police that are forcing everyone to pray 5 times a day and stoning woman that walk around without male escorts. I had no problems with Iraq because the area has always been awful and to expect anything else is foolish. Saddam tortured his own people but these very same people are now torturing and killing Americans.
Further caveat, I have not served in the armed forces. However, I am a registered voter and I have been against every war except the Binny Ladin hunt. By the Way, I misspelled the coward piece of shits name on purpose as a sign of disrespect, because names have meaning and he does not deserve to be remembered.
I disagree.
Bin Laden was a reprehensible bastard, but he deserves to be remembered. He is a warning to every other dirtbag out there that even the most milquetoast president in 35 years will not stop hunting you down to make sure you get to go and meet your God.
I think he should be remembered as a warning to US, too. Stop training the people who you’re going to betray and/or leave hanging in the wind. They won’t appreciate it at first, and we won’t appreciate it, later.
While I tend to mostly agree with you James, I am somewhat nonplussed at you demanding a standard from those who disagree with you that you have notably failed to meet.
Please don’t point to the aattp.org pirate copy of Jim Wright’s excellent rant. They didn’t ask before ripping him off.
Point to stonekettlestation.com.
Unfortunately, Jim Wright has taken his essay down in protest of all the people who posted it without his permission.
Go ahead and go to AATTP, he took down the post from his blogsite after it got taken whole cloth and reposted without permission, as well as read in it’s entirety over the air on satellite radio by a complete asshat known as Mike Malloy, who claimed he could do that under “fair use” (which only allows brief quotes and excerpts).
He’s fine with AATTP having it up, as well as several other sites who actually asked persmission, and AddictingInfo, which pulled an unauthorized “in it’s entirety” article and then asked permission to repost it. His problem was people/sites taking his work without permission and reposting it whole cloth, getting siteviews/ad-revenue of which he got NONE.
The stonekettelstation version has been taken down, because the author is understandably angry at the extent to which his work has been copied all over the internet without his permission. The original stonekettlestation entry points to aattp, as well as two other places, as an “authorized copy”.
> The stonekettelstation version has been taken down, because the author is understandably angry at the extent to which his work has been copied all over the internet without his permission.
Apparently he’s unaware of how the internet works.
Jim has removed the post from Stonekettle Station at this point, and put links to three sites that have his permission to post it. Please note that aattp.org is one of those approved three.
To be honest, I’d rather not. At this time, he’s taken the whole article down in a “protest,” which is just silly. I get the anger over having one’s work reposted – lord knows, I do – but this really smacks of a guy who doesn’t understand how putting original content on the internet works.
Yes, people will rip you off. It happens. I’ve had it happen many times over the years. Yes, people will repost your shit with no attribution – in the case of comics, I’ve had people repost my shit after taking the watermark off of it, which is a really shitty thing to do, if you think about it.
But posting a snit of “people ripped me off, so now you can’t read it here” is not the way to go. It makes no sense, really. He could have just called these douchebags out and shamed them.
[edit] The more of this dude’s stuff I read, the more I shake my head. He’s got same damned good stuff to say – but he very obviously doesn’t know How To Interwebs.
The key to providing entertaining content to the internet and not letting the shitbags wear you down is: don’t pay attention to what your readers think.
“The key to providing entertaining content to the internet and not letting the shitbags wear you down is: don’t pay attention to what your readers think.”
Bingo!
Although, as an old fart, I will miss Omar
What makes you think Omar is gone for good?
Well, he will die in some sort of hyper sexed kink fest when his new wife proves too much for his mojo, right?
I mean, if *I* had a choice in how to go, that would be it.
Speaking of skull-splitting cognitive dissonance … that makes me want to split skulls with an axe … have you seen the worthless dogshit’s latest stink over here?
Oh, shit. Militants ‘planning UK attack’, warns David Cameron. Ever get one of those “Here we go again” feelings?
Ah, yes. Here we go, the latest stink from our own delusional dog-turd:
Tony Blair Iraq essay full text: We have to liberate ourselves from the notion that ‘we’ caused this crisis. We haven’t.
How much would I like to “liberate” that bastard’s smirking head from his sloping shoulders and the world’s stolen money from his bank account? A lot. A hell of a lot. I’d rather do it the other way round, though, and make him watch me donate his entire ill-gotten wealth to worthy causes he’d hate, £10 at a time, before I get out the pen-knife (I’m not getting that shit all over my axe).
Boris Johnson asks Tony Blair to ‘put a sock in it’ over ‘unhinged’ comments on Iraq crisis
Tony Blair is to blame for Iraq says Christopher Meyer, Britain’s former ambassador to US
Been there, done that. I don’t believe we should have gone in in the first place. I served. I lost very good friends in it. I find it funny though when someone who has never served, tells those of us that have served that we should not voice our opinion on a current conflict? Whatever. It’s your site, and you can determine who has what opinion here, but it does kinda make you seem a bit… douchey.
I think it would be a bit short sighted to believe that ignoring Iraq now won’t come back on us. Ignoring Afghanistan in the early 90’s did a world of good for us.
Served or not, everyone gets an opinion. But not all are right. If you think invading originally was a good idea, turns out people like me were right, and it was a horrible mistake. If you think GOING BACK is a good idea, you are doubling down on the stupid.
“Someone is.” – The Hound
Yeah. I have probably watched too much GoT lately. 😉
Aaanyway…
And if you think listening to Cheney et al, the ones who CAUSED THIS DEBACLE, is a good idea, there is no hope for you. btw, were you aware that the value of his Halliburton stock DOUBLED because of the invasion?
So…he’s a genius. We should listen to him.
If he had LOST money, THEN he’d be an idiot. But as it is…
I find it interesting that after fighting in the Middle East for several years now that people still seem to think that killing the extremists will somehow make them fear us. These extremists believe that dying in the service of their religion is the highest honour. Rather than making them afraid, it’s bringing them out in droves. However badly they may have corrupted the Islamic faith, they still carry the fundamental belief that to die defending your faith brings the greatest reward in the afterlife. They have no fear of death, so waving your big boom-stick hoping the frighten them away will fail spectacularly. If you want to fight them and win, you first have to understand them, and some of the folk on here (and I’m guessing a fair few in the government) clearly don’t.
Point taken.
However, they must, at times, gather to organize logistics or have a “team meeting”. And in this current battle, they are mounting assaults. Laser guided munitions have been very effective when intelligence and targeting combine.
All we need to understand you have stated.
“They have no fear of death, so waving your big boom-stick hoping the frighten them away will fail spectacularly. If you want to fight them and win, you first have to understand them, and some of the folk on here (and I’m guessing a fair few in the government) clearly don’t.”
Having no fear of death is not a force multiplier. Quite the opposite. Sooner or later, you run out of trigger pullers. And, as the British in WWI, the Russians and Japanese in WWII, the N. Koreans and Chinese in Korea found out, just pushing a mob of martyrs into a well prepared defense does not equal victory.
Fundamentalism in religious form does have a primary weakness. It must be able to breed fear. The question is how do we stop the breeding. Western thought does it through teaching that to live and learn from experiences provides a basis for continued living and learning. This is the primary reason that these Islamists shut down schools and only teach those things directly pertaining to the furtherance of Islam.
I understand all too well. We will never eradicate this violent religion, but we *can* weaken it enough so that it does not have the ability to be a substantial threat on the world stage. While the heart may continue to beat, when the extremities cannot function together, the body is ineffective in any endeavor.
I half agree and half disagree with you. In some of the cases you mentioned, lack of fear of death was at some point a force multiplier. The problem is that it isn’t a sustainable one. As the Kamikaze clearly demonstrated in WWII, you quickly go from “skilled people with no fear of death” to “unskilled people with no fear of death”; the former can pull off great things but are doomed in the long run, while the latter are nothing more than cannon fodder when facing skilled opponents (especially when using inferior equipment, which they often are).
“Sooner or later, you run out of trigger pullers.”
OK, trained “trigger pullers”. 😉
Fair enough. 🙂
Blaming the religion misses the point, too. Think of it from a government vs anarchy perspective. We beat Iraq’s government in days. We fought their countrymen for a decade. If there’s no leader to kill, no structure to collapse, it’s like trying to eradicate an anthill with a boot. How long do you think you’re going to stick around, to get to see them all? How many times are you willing to get bitten?
Think in terms of Blackhawk Down. In a situation where there’s nobody you can drop to make the fight end, your best course of action is just to gtfo and see how they act, without you. One possible scenario is we learn how little government actually adds to our defensibility… (Seriously, who pays a trillion dollars to a department of defense who can’t defend us against 4 unarmed airplanes?)
I already did my 20 and new the whole Iraq war was a total fucking joke of the private industry looking to invade for oil and other resources. Worse is that the looting and destruction. The museums of that country have been wiped out intentionally by greedy assholes for the sake of political views and religious hatred. There’s plenty of reasons why we should have never entered Iraq and that Haliburton made $45 Billion in profits from the Iraq war officially, while unofficially it’s closer to a Trillion and a half because of contracts that went to the whole region. Now the greedy fucks put it a pussy to lead and we’re stuck there. I say fuck it and nuke the whole region to save ourselves the pain.
I had the crazy thought today that re-invading Iraq could bring re-unification between Sunni Iraqi and Shia Iraqi.
You need to form an army of exclusively pale-skinned, blond-haired, blue-eyed, athletic young men, raised from birth with a belief in their own superiority to anyone with darker hair and vast superiority to anyone with darker skin and/or squidgier noses. In this case, it’s okay for them not to particularly despise the Japanese or Vietnamese. They do have to hate anyone at all dark-skinned, though, and all Muslims … violently. It would also really help for them to have delusions of entitlement to women’s bodies. Luckily, you already have FOX and the college football scholarship systems in place to help you create this Aryan Force.
Having built them up, you send them all the Iraq with crosses on their uniforms, and have them destroy every mosque and shrine they can find, build churches, force everyone to worship in those churches, kill any heretic caught praying towards Mecca, eating red meat on a Friday or working on a Sunday, kill anyone who refuses to drink the sacramental wine and, of course, take the wives and daughters of the dead as their own sex toys.
Not only will this re-unify the Shia and Sunni, but they’ll unify with the Kurds, the Druze, the Syrian Shia and Sunni, the Iranian Shia and Sunni, the entire populations of Pakistana, Kashmir, India and Bangladesh, the Muslims and Buddhists of Burma and a large percentage of the populations of Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana.
The problem is, obviously, that they’ll be unified against you, but hey, that’s the price your voters’ 18-, 19- and 20-year-old children pay for your money’s freedom from tax.
Let it burn.
All of it.
That festering shithole isn’t worth a single American or allied life, let them go to hell in their own fashion. And to those of you saying “we have to stop them now before they come and get us here”, do you remember what Al Qaeda’s goals are, and have been? They want the US and our influence gone from the Middle East. Attacking the US directly and engaging us in long term wars have been a tactic, not an objective. So here is my thought:
Let them have it.
Who are we protecting? The Saudis? Fuck them.
Israel? I think you have that backwards.
Oil? Look it up, we get something like 20% from there, most of ours comes from Canada and Mexico*
So lets get the fuck out, let the local governments who really understand the region deal with it. With the cravat that if they decide to get out of hand outside of their little desert playground that we will come back and kick the shit out of them, and then leave. No hearts and minds, just JDAMS and bullets and artillery.
Fuck ’em.
*oil isn’t a directly a factor, but our industrial interests in the oil industry is. Fine, let them hire Blackwater or Xi or whatever the fuck they are and they can deal with it.
**because someone will bring it up, I was serving before 9/11, and I was in country doing stupid shit that I wasn’t supposed to while many of you were still in high school.