Media + army + perception

[Queso]

my paranoia rises.

 

just read an article:

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050609/ap_on_re_us/army_recruiting_woes

 

now, this is one of many articles i have seen over the past few months.

in different context in different places sources claim the army is falling short of it's recruitement whatever.

 

my paranoia rises.

 

is this the army's way of recruiting?

are they entangling themselves into the media so that some people feel as if they must fill this gap and serve their country?

why else would this be in the news? especially repeatedly for several months.

 

what do you guys think?

[bumab]

I think you're probably right on about the guilting people into joining. A draft won't happen now, so they've got to increase enrollment the old fashioned way- illusion and coersion.

[UncleAl]

War imposes economic hegemony and deletes excess young males. (Don't place girls amidst your warriors except as entertainment.) WWII was not about freedom or democracy, it was about IG Farben's patents strangling a suddenly industrialized America, and cashing in on Europe with the Marshal Plan as any mother country would exploit its colonies. We were actively if quietly negotiating with Hitler (via Joseph Kennedy) to divide up the world. Either outcome would have been satisfactory to Washington.

 

Bush the Lesser is the idiot son of a rich man. He paid dad's debts by making the right folks wealthy and more powerful - with war, when nobody checks the account books until afterward. The idiot should have gone in, kicked ***, sucked oil, and departed. Let the UN squeal and squawk, then dangle an unsigned annual contribution check in front of bureaucrats' eyes. It's the money, honey - always.

 

Bush the Lesser is killing whole towns of young people in front of TV cameras and accomplishing nothing while doing it. Vietnam redux. He has soured folks who would glady don a uniform and eat crap for the opportunity to lawfully hunt humans and flatten whole cties. He has soured honorable folks who would voluntarily place their lives between their country and its enemies, too. That pretty much leaves two alternatives,

 

1) Forced conscription to feed the bloody maw of goal-free war, or

 

2) Recruit those who have nothing - slum bunnies, retards, criminals - because risking death in the Army with three meals/day is better than what they have now. Welfare and social advocacies minimize (eliminate) this possibility. Living is free and jails have air conditioning plus Cable TV.

 

Economic boom follows good war. Economic depression follows bad war. WWI (bad), WWII (real good), Korea (bad), Vietnam (real bad), Reagan (kick *** good!), Persian Gulf I (bad), Persian Gulf II (real bad). Guess what happens when the $trillion bill for Gulf War II arrives due for payment concident with Baby Boomers retiring and demanding their fat free ride from Social Security.

[Biochemist]

...Economic boom follows good war. Economic depression follows bad war. WWI (bad), WWII (real good), Korea (bad), Vietnam (real bad), Reagan (kick *** good!), Persian Gulf I (bad), Persian Gulf II (real bad). Guess what happens when the $trillion bill for Gulf War II arrives due for payment concident with Baby Boomers retiring and demanding their fat free ride from Social Security.

Gee, UncleAl:

 

1) This is the first I've heard that Reagan was a war. I could have sworn he was a president. That cut taxes. And spawned the longest economic boom in US history.

2) It seems to me that you have defined "good" and "bad" wars by their economic aftermath. Your hypothesis is a syllogism.

3) Even by that measure, Persian Gulf (1) would have to be a "good" war, since it puncuated the second half of the Reagan boom, including the tech revolution of the 1990's.

4) The World Trade Center attacks cost the US economy over a trillion dollars. You can certainly be concerned about the cost of the war, but it probably makes sense to consider the avoided costs of incremental terrorist attacks. They are certianly not zero.

[niviene]

(Don't place girls amidst your warriors except as entertainment.)

 

Nice...

[Queso]

Guess what happens when the $trillion bill for Gulf War II arrives due for payment concident with Baby Boomers retiring and demanding their fat free ride from Social Security.

 

so what do you think will happen?

[Queso]

just another mess. just like this, just like all the rest. that's my prediction.

[sanctus]

(Don't place girls amidst your warriors except as entertainment.)

 

Aren't here any men/women for equal rights who react to such a statement. But I have to admit I was laughing after reading it, you placed it well uncle al.

[Biochemist]

so what do you think will happen?

We will make economic choices like we always do. The choices always involve winners and losers.

 

Any way you look at it, Social Security will not be handled as it is now in 50 years. Neither will Medicare. They have a combined 60 TRILLION dollar deficit. Do keep in mind that GDP is about 10 trillion. The arithmetic is pretty simple: This cannot be funded. But it is anybody's guess what congress will do.

[bumab]

We will make economic choices like we always do. The choices always involve winners and losers.

 

There are alternatives to zero-sum game theory. Someone should start a thread on that...

[Biochemist]

There are alternatives to zero-sum game theory. Someone should start a thread on that...

Ooh, yes. Think we ought to start a thread on supply side economics?

[niviene]

Ooh, yes. Think we ought to start a thread on supply side economics?

 

I'd like to read about something like that.....

[rockytriton]

WWI (bad), WWII (real good), Korea (bad), Vietnam (real bad), Reagan (kick *** good!), Persian Gulf I (bad), Persian Gulf II (real bad).

 

I wonder what the outcome of Korean War II "Attack of the Clones" will be, good/bad?

[nkt]

I wonder what the outcome of Korean War II "Attack of the Clones" will be, good/bad?

Bad.

 

It is a war no-one wants. The Iraqis would do better if left alone to sort it out amongst themselves - and they would be, if Bush hadn't given away the oil rights to his mates, and promised to keep them in business.

 

Sure, the Iraqis might wind up having a proper civil war, and the country would be split along ethnic lines, just like it probably should be, but it would be a lot fairer, and it would stop making the USA look like the biggest bully in the world.

 

I mean, the US is still in Afghanistan! Why? Is it oil again? D'you think?

 

And all you hear from Washington is about how they need better war machines, armoured buses at $275,000 dollars a time, that, although they have the ability to get 60,000 (! many countries don't have armies that big!) men to anywhere on the planet faster than anyone else (often even faster than the target country) they want more, so they can get them there in a week to ten days. Bigger bombs, better guns, fewer laws for them, more laws for the targets...

 

Hitler passed laws so that, under German law, the extermination of the Jews was legal. He used war time powers for some of this, but for most of it, he simply used the bad laws passed years before, by his predecessors. Bush and Blair have done exactly that. Even if I trusted them, how can I trust the next clown? And the one after that?

 

Turning the law into the whipping boy of the legislature is a bad way to go. The mockery of international law, the corruption of the Constitution/Bill of Rights, removal of Habeus Corpus, and many, many more, leave us all more vulnerable to the next madman to take the reins of power.:rant:

[Biochemist]

...if Bush hadn't given away the oil rights to his mates, and promised to keep them in business.

Although often repeated, this is really not a rational argument. Bush's "buddies" would have done better if Bush did NOT invade Iraq. The oil market is global, and prices are set by supply and demand. Increasing oil output from Iraq decreases oil prices. A civil war in Iraq would raise them.

I mean, the US is still in Afghanistan! Why? Is it oil again? D'you think?

There is no oil in Afganistan.

 

The simplest explanation is that Bush wants to preclude terrorists. You can disagree with the strategy, but there is no reason to look for some more nefarious purpose.

[Biochemist]

...removal of Habeus Corpus...

No one removed Habeus Corpus. I assume you are referencing prisoner treatment. We are treating terror war prisoners as POWs, as we would under the Geneva convention. Since they were not uniformed combattants, they are not allowed this right, but we gave it to them anyway. Under the convention, it would probably be legitimate to shoot them as spies. Funny, that is not mentioned often. They could certainly be prosecuted for war crimes (like using civilian shields, fighting from churches, targeting civilians, fighting without uniforms or insignias, and the like) but no one wants to bother yet.