Category Archives: Military

Body-Parts Porn Again

Foreign Policy, Just War, Middle East, Military, War

OOPS, GI JOE’S BEEN BAD, AGAIN. Corpse desecration and other crimes against the occupied were said to be the purview of a “few bad apples” in an otherwise stellar American military. For a rarity, the body-parts pornography appears to be quite common. Naturally, every rational individual knows (NOT!) that blame lies with … the L.A. Times for exposing the latest incident of beastly behavior. All the better to deflect from the perps and the King’s comitatus that keeps them in blighted and benighted Afghanistan.

So what exactly are we talking about? Over to the LA Times:

The paratroopers had their assignment: Check out reports that Afghan police had recovered the mangled remains of an insurgent suicide bomber. Try to get iris scans and fingerprints for identification.
The 82nd Airborne Division soldiers arrived at the police station in Afghanistan’s Zabol province in February 2010. They inspected the body parts. Then the mission turned macabre: The paratroopers posed for photos next to Afghan police, grinning while some held — and others squatted beside — the corpse’s severed legs. …

As was remarked upon in “To Pee Or Not To Pee is Not the Question,” “…the truth about the people we are pissing on and pissing off in Afghanistan is quite simple. America’s indisputably brave soldiers have been ordered to, at once, woo and war against a primitive Pashtun population. These Pashtuns disdain the central government we desperately want them to obey. So it goes: We help local groups believed to be patriotic, but, at the same time, end up establishing an authoritarian protectorate they despise.”

UPDATE II: Flying in Perfect Propagandist Formation

Gender, Media, Military, Propaganda

Front men for the military-media-congressional-industrial complex swooped down in elegant formation after one of their own, “a student pilot and an instructor,” crashed “a Navy fighter jet,” Friday, “into an apartment complex in Virginia Beach, Va.”

Buildings were destroyed and a few lowly civilians hurt, but it was hard to ascertain the extent of the destruction or the identity of the injured by listening to corporate cable.

Shep Smith went weak at the knees, waxing orgasmic about the cool bravery of the careless culprits. The student pilot and his instructor told a bewildered home owner, “Sorry for destroying your house.” Shep thought that having survived the crash (never mind totaling an apartment complex), these careless sorts were the epitome of cool for apologizing.

For the better part of the day, various representatives, including Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, affirmed the community’s close ties with the assorted “military bases, including Naval Station Norfolk, the largest naval base in the world.”

Adm. John Harvey, “the head of U.S. Fleet Forces Command promised to conduct a complete investigation into the cause of this mishap.” At a press conference in Virginia Beach, Navy Capt. Mark Weisgerber chimed in too.

Little was heard from “the densely populated neighborhood where the plane crashed.” But, no doubt, these good folks view this kind of occurrence as part of keeping an imperiled America safe.

Needless to say, the malfunctioning media failed to float the question as to whether student pilots should be practicing over densely populated areas. The same perfect propagandist formation was galvanized after Army Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, the accused in the massacre of 16 civilians in the Panjwai district of Kandahar Province, did his deed.

UPDATE I (April 7): You forget, Myron, this important distinction, also the only one that matters. This was a fighter jet that crashed into a densely populated area, not a commercial aircraft which serves the public and is vital to the public. We all accept the dangers of commercial airplanes taking off and landing in proximity to our homes. This, however, was a military maneuver. It belongs away from civilization, where it cannot harm it. If these sacred cows want to play with their taxpayer-funded toys—let them do it where they cannot harm the good, peaceable people who fund their games.

UPDATE II: In response to TD Hunt, on Facebook. I have no doubt the military employs some of our finest men— where else can real men find employers who allow them to be men, and play with the kind of “toys” men naturally enjoy? My point in the post was to dissect the military-centered response of the special interests involved—media, military, pols, and yes, a compliant public. I heard the story as it broke. The first words out of the mouths of reporters, for hours to come, was to assure us all that the brave men of the military were safe and oh-so-cool. Not a peep about The People who might have been buried in the rubble of an entire apartment complex. The same military-centered reaction kicks in covering military atrocities abroad.

UPDATE III: ‘Three Amigos Summit’ (CANADA IMPERILED BY US ‘PROTECTION’)

America, Bush, Canada, Foreign Policy, Military, Private Property, Trade, War

President Barack Obama, Prime Minister Stephen Harper, and Mexican President Felipe Calderon met for their North American summit. Yes, it’s their get-together; not ours. They spoke a lot about “trade,” managed trade, or, in this context, the “North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which seeks to more closely integrate the economies of the three countries.”

When people are herded by stealth into a supranational arrangements (the EU, or North American Union, for that matter), it is with a vision predicated on rigid central planning, homogenization of laws throughout the continent, and heavy taxation and inflation of the money supply.

Moreover, what was written on April 1, 2006, in the Ottawa Citizen—about a previous Summit in which Vincente Fox and his buddy George Bush officiated—stands.

… state-managed trade is never really free. And NAFTA is nothing but a mercantilist, centrally planned maze of regulations. Whenever I cross into Canada to visit my daughter, I’m compelled to declare and pay taxes on every paltry purchase. That’s NAFTA for you! Governments have only ever ‘freed’ trade by providing law and order, enforcing contracts—and then vamoosing.
… The free flow of goods across borders is not to be confused with that of people across borders. Over 40 percent of Mexicans live below the poverty line, compared to America and Canada’s 13 and 16 percent, respectively. This means that the U.S. is flooded by torrents of unskilled, illegal aliens. The costs to the nation’s schools, hospitals, and environment; health, safety and security are incalculable.
…So long as the U.S. and Canada remain relatively high-wage areas with tax-funded welfare systems, they will experience migratory pressure from a low-wage country such as Mexico.

Naturally, protectionist policies worsen this pressure. If people can’t sell their wares into foreign markets, they’re more inclined to relocate in search of better economic prospects. Unhampered trade, not NAFTA, might diminish this pressure.

UPDATE I: Huggs, Canadians are as socialist as Americans, maybe more. But their leaders are less treacherous than ours. Because of this, “Canada’s balance sheet is healthier than those of other developed nations,” the US included. naturally, Canadians prefer Obama to Harper, but that doesn’t change the fact that they’re doing quite well as we struggle.

From the Frontier Center comes news that in Canada, private property rights are better respected than in the US.

The Frontier Centre for Public Policy, along with the International Property Rights Alliance, today released the 2012 International Property Rights Index (IPRI). The 2012 Index, measures the protection of property rights in 130 countries. …On a worldwide ranking of one to ten—the higher scores reflecting a greater protection of property—IPRI scores ranged from Finland with 8.6, to Yemen with a score of just 2.8. In 2012, Canada maintained its position as the highest ranking country in the Western hemisphere and is seen as a model of stability, with increased scores in the Access to Loans sub-component of its Physical Property Rights (PPR) score. Overall, Canada was 10th. (The United States was 18th.)

In Brief:

* 130 countries were surveyed in 2012 IPRI.
* Finland scores highest in protection of property; Canada defeated by Netherlands for 9th place by only 0.1
* Canada, at 12th place, scores higher than the United States (at 18th)

UPDATE II: Canada’s center-right government plans to implement and austerity budget, raising “the retirement age and making major public service cuts. “Ottawa’s debt-to-GDP ratio remains the lowest in the Group of Seven industrialized nations. Canada is one of only two G7 nations to have recouped all the jobs lost during the global recession.” …

UPDATE III (April 3): CANADA IMPERILED BY US ‘PROTECTION.’ ‘Derek’s argument, below, about Canada not having the burdens of defending itself and the world because saintly Uncle Sam carries the load for her is a bogus argument, the premise of which is that American interventions protect Canada and the world from harm and reduce costs for beneficiaries of this ‘protection.’ To the extent that Canada has been our lap dog in war—to that extent it has harmed its standing and safety in the world. By the way, this false argument is routinely made at National Review too.

Who’s Killing Whose People Again?

Foreign Policy, Middle East, Military, Propaganda, War

Judging from America’s angels and demons foreign policy production, starring “the prototypical evil dictator who was killing his noble people,” one would never have predicted (NOT) this following development, in Syria, documented by Human Rights Watch:

“Armed opposition groups in Syria are committing atrocities. Abuses include kidnapping, detention, and torture of security force members, government supporters, and people identified as members of pro-government militias, called shabeeha. Human Rights Watch has also received reports of executions by armed opposition groups of security force members and civilians.”

Remind me who is killing whose people again?