“Americans in general are extremely naïve, they don't want to understand there are actual people out there that don't like our way of life. You can't change their thought process.”
Yeah this is just the sort of people you want to have colonize your hometown, eh? Remember too these are the Muslims who are our putative allies. Not our enemies. If someone came pounding on your door in the middle of the night yelling that he was going to kill you, would you open the door and let him in?
-Jeremy
Jeremy, what strikes me as I look at this professional soldier, who is supposedly retired military, but still arming up and "going on mission" is that most Americans think we do not have combat troops in our uniform or in our pay in foreign lands, that we are "at war" even if it does not count the semantic definition. Two months ago I saw a casualty report buried in the back of a newspaper, which treated the slain "contractors" as if they were not Americans, yet surely the men who killed them saw them as Americans. You can tell this guy is an American military man—a marine at that—at a glance.
I recall reading a Time [or other mass media news rag] Magazine article in 2006 which listed casualties for Americans since the beginning of hostilities in Afghanistan. In this article a total of 30 or 31 nations were given for U.S. military Combat Deaths, but only Iraq and Afghanistan were named!
[Maybe BaruchK can help with this. is there a designation for these shadow nations among military men?]
In 2013, I saw an RT report that the U.S. had conducted "military operations" in over 40 countries—which is all most all of them—in Africa. I talked to a man that works for a military contractor at Baltimore eatery who described his current work in various African nations.
Most U.S. citizens don't read Jane's or Soldier of Fortune and have no clue that those 900-plus U.S. military bases have a function and that the U.S. is engaged in more deployments in third tier nations than the British Military was 150 years ago, when the "Sun never set" on the British Empire.
Why doesn't the God Emperor, just say, "Look, we have professional killers kicking down doors in thirty-plus nations so that your soft ass can sleep soundly at night. Don't go and negate all that by inviting the younger brothers of the guys we shoot in their beds into our homeland?"
I see a large part of the problem being that Americans don't realize that they have the highest standard of living on the planet because we are at the center of a de facto world empire. Part of that is that we see empires on the Roman and Napoleonic model, not the Athenian and Persian models, which fit better.
So, Jeremy, as a non-military guy who personally knows ex-military men who have been shot in Burma, the Philippines and Peru [nations where we have never been at war, by news or Pentagon definitions] while in U.S. uniform, I'm wondering why the Commander in Chief does not come out and say, "We've been fighting a global war since the days when you actually wanted a blow job from Madonna?"
Why not, and if so, how do you think it will go down?
-James
PS: The article below treats this guy as if he's not a soldier anymore, yet the U.S. had over 3,000 of his coworkers killed over the past decade and a half. He's an American fighting for American policy, yet he's not? This guy has "I sling lead for a living" stamped on his forehead, yet we have to pretend he's a construction worker?
IJR - Independent Journal Review |
On Wednesday, Marine veteran Steven Gern posted a video to his Facebook page that outlined his thoughts on President Trump's recent executive order on immigration.
Think Trump's travel ban is bad? Listen to this Marine in Iraq.
>[Maybe BaruchK can help with this. is there a designation for these shadow nations among military men?]
It's not a secret that the US military has been in combat in the Philippines, Africa (both the North and Subsaharan parts,) Yemen, Pakistan, Syria, etc. for a long time.
post-gazette.com/opinion/dan-simpson/2016/11/02/Six-wars-too-many/stories/201611010020
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_United_States_military_operations
These are low-profile operations, usually involving mostly support, advising, etc. Most of the people who die are killed not in combat but in work accidents, aircraft crashes, etc. My friend died in 2005 in North Africa when a tent collapsed on him in a sandstorm. An SF scuba guy had some sort of cardiac event on a water insertion in the PI. Etc.
“People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.” - George Orwell
OK James I’ll bite. As a retired military man I will reply to some of your queries. First off, James, you ask many different questions and in no particular order. Furthermore, given the nature and tone of the questions I must presume that they are mostly rhetorical. As rhetorical questions then you must believe that you already know the answers to them, much as a lawyer cross-examining a witness on the stand never asks a question to which he doesn’t already believe he knows the correct answer. Thus you pose these questions to provoke, shock and/or embarrass the person or persons to which you ostensibly direct the questions. Given that your questions appear to be rhetorical in nature I must infer, and not without cause, that America’s military involvement around the world, whether overtly or covertly, bothers you. That it bothers you a lot and on many different levels for many different reasons. That you care about what is happening. Therefore to answer your questions adequately I must first peal back the onion. I will begin by asking YOU this question James: WHY DO YOU CARE? Please James, don’t tell that you do not care. It is all too evident from the way you’ve framed your questions that you do care, regardless of your stated policy of non-involvement in politics and general enmity to the institution that is the USA. Quite frankly James many of your questions don’t make any sense to me. Therefore to answer them I must either restate them or ask for clarification on them. But I’ll play the straight man and endeavor to give you straight answers to them.
Next question (in no particular order) - .” Is there a designation for these shadow nations among military men?” What “shadow nations”? What ARE “shadow nations” exactly? Any U.S serviceman involved in combat anyplace in the world that is not Iraq (2003-2011) or Afghanistan (2001 to today ) is awarded the Global War on Terror (GWOT) Expeditionary Medal. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_War_on_Terrorism_Expeditionary_Medal Anyone who served on active duty within the USA or abroad from September 11, 2001 to this very day is awarded the GWOT Service Medal. The Afghanistan and Iraq Campaigns have the own unique medals. Servicemen who served in the initial stages of the Afghan or Iraqi campaigns may wear either those campaign medals or the GWOT Expeditionary Medal, but not both. U.S. servicemen currently serving in Iraq in the fight against ISIS are awarded the Inherent Resolve Campaign Medal. It IS a “global“ war on terror after all, so combat service everywhere in the world is currently recognized by the U.S. military. This is no secret even though many individual operations are undertaken in secrecy. As they ought to be. As I am running out of space I will continue on another posting, James. Stand by…