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Afghanistan 18 March 2012

Posted by marisacat in Afghanistan War, Inconvenient Voice of the Voter.
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Kabul, Afghanistan: A man carries sacks of discarded bread on his cart as he sells balloons | Ahmad Nazar/AP

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1. marisacat - 18 March 2012

carrying this reply forward, to mx xeno

But looking at their discomfort with all those fresh young angry faces in Occupy, they may actually have enough hubris to think they can shut down anger in the lower orders by shipping future troublemakers off to gun down renegade Africans, or whatever.

… wow that had not really occurred to me. YOu may be right… I think deep down, no matter what, they’d LOVE a full scale draft… but they are not sure how to go about it.

And they know large swathes of the nation just barely pay attention to the wars or largely buy the crack pot propaganda of doing good… until their own neck was on the line…

I know it was largely tactical bullshit to ward off “soft of defence” attacks, but I sure noticed that the already drafted bills that popped up in the wake of 9/11 for old style draft were from Democrats…

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ms_xeno - 18 March 2012

Time will tell. :/

I am happy to see anyone who came home from their tour of duty willing and eager to say what a scam it all was/is. But when you consider how many people around the world have to die, be maimed, brutalized, robbed, displaced and driven mad, just to get that handful of radicalized folks home again and ready to work against the machine… [sigh] It doesn’t seem like a very efficient or humane road to reform.

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2. marisacat - 18 March 2012

hmm on this from diane (moved forward from previous thread)

I’d imagine that they are aware they’ve already ‘produced’ so many potential ‘McVeighs’ on the voluntary enlistment front

Oh yeah I am sure they know that…

I dropped upon a stunning fact a few years ago… McGovern (useless as he was in ’72 and thru the years) did a book with a counterterrorism expert, a descendant of Pretzel Polk, think it was simply titled, Ending the Wars…

Something like that… t was a look at various devices and methods of ending wars, that had taken place in the past, supposedly in hopes of a way to shorten our wars of acquisition… (good luck there!)

Anyway the tidbit was something de Gaulle did when he ended the war in Algeria… the government made a decision they did not want counterterror fighters coming home, who had engaged in hand to hand combat, torture, murder, whatever else.

de Gaulle released 16,000 names to the new incoming forces.

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diane - 18 March 2012

I’m taking it that he (de Gaulle) basically set them up in the ‘hope’ they would never return to France?

That’s so horrid, and horrid that I, for one of likely many, unfortunately at this point, would not put it past those running the MIC show currently …

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marisacat - 18 March 2012

well he set them up for retaliatory assassination in Algeria, no return to France.

I am sure France did not want so many trained killers loose in their own country…. and stability at home was supposedly one of the issues. I am not confident that is even a consideration here, as long as people kill one another, family members, the odd smallish massacre at home, the US gov does not care.

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diane - 18 March 2012

they may not care on an individual basis, but I kind of think one of the main reasons why there hasn’t been massive withdrawl of troops is that they fear the result back home, especially since there has been absolutely nothing significant done to create liveable wage, long lasting jobs across a wide spectrum of abilities, and they have allowed rents to fucking skyrocket in the face of all of the foreclosures, with not so much of a peep as to how immoral and base that is, as rents were already obscene in all but a tiny handful of rent controlled circumstances.

but yeah, as to small scale returns of those taught to be killers, I’m thinking of the missing Mom in Gilroy after that young hispanic ‘soldier’ killed himself and his eleven year old sister.

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marisacat - 18 March 2012

the killing in Gilroy only made it to the news for several days as the mother is missing and the timing with the dead in Kandahar.

The coverage is already waning fast.

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diane - 18 March 2012

I heard earlier that they’ve called off the search for her, though no mention of having found her.

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marisacat - 18 March 2012

The family organised a search over the weekend… I think the cops assume she is dead otherwise she would have managed some sort of contact, tho they have not said how MUCH blood was in the car, just evidence that she was shot there…

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diane - 18 March 2012

and then too, that young ‘soldier’ in south cali who murdered his friend’s family members and a number of homeless, as a matter of ‘honor’ …in being a killer.

As bad as the Viet Nam disaster was, I don’t recollect that same frequency of fatal snapping.

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marisacat - 18 March 2012

Police hire ex-Iraq Afghan vets, some return as contract on all sorts of levels from mercenary to driving trucks and working various service contracts, the MIC hires ex vets AND their families (hiring family members is one way they have kept a lid on dissent among families of the badly wounded and dead)… there are always wars, we have a global garrison of endlwss on-going proportions and they are happy to used fresh from the battlefield troops as they did in NO after katrina… thy put troops from the 82nd Airborne just home less than two weeks from Iraq combat onto the streets o an American city….

They will bring them home to do what they did in the foreign wars. And i just don’t think they care at all about the left over violence…

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3. diane - 18 March 2012

Oh jeesh, ….UUUGH, …. tried to listen to Karel, on KGO (Cali), …. mostly to hear what callers might be saying, but I just couldn’t. ……. I guess we are all supposed to believe that the Demorats are silent and muffled children to the abusive parent Rethugs? I mean, can’t say for sure whether he commented, but my bet is that he didn’t even have fuck squat to say about that prick Jerry Brown (& Wifie) appointing a fucking Banker as theCali Jobs Czar ™, let alone Obombster Droning Villages All Over The Globe, fucking initiating the Catfood Commission, claiming an out and out war on Whistleblowers, Lying through his motherfucking teeth on near all, if not all, of his prior campaign promises.

It’s so hard to imagine that anyone with a brain, and access to the goings on, like a Talk Show Host would presumably have, does not believe that the Demorats and Rethugs work towards the same agenda at the end of the day. Even a malicious child could come up with the idea of putting a Shack Bully, Ivy Leaguer Thug, African American in the Whitehouse as the perfect, Wall Street, MIC Owned, Trojan Horse, …..Teflon II Prez.

Bad enough to hear Karel constantly chide about how everyone needs to trade their car in for a motorcycle, like him of course, apparently he’s not at all capable of figuring out the many reasons why it might not be feasible for so many.

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marisacat - 18 March 2012

oh he is manic… which is boring… and long ago showed he is on the Dem party meal ticket

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4. marisacat - 18 March 2012

Hahahahahah from somewhere around the 5th to 8th ranked economy in the world – where Cali USED to be in the past – to, I just heard from an interview iwth a local member of the Business ROuntable, we are now…

wait for it!

19th.

But not to worry!!, we are back from the recession and “we are back STRONG”. Yeah he said that.

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diane - 19 March 2012
marisacat - 19 March 2012

Is that all about some random person that Mil Tracy – who is herself an all stars of delusional attention seeking people! – knows?

Who is it?

Yet another mil suicide?

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diane - 19 March 2012

I don’t have a clue, specifically, who it is, but I do think there’s a message there. Whether that was her intent, or not.

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diane - 19 March 2012

and honestly, anyone who has a “blog” seeks an ear/audience/attention, I prefer your “blog” to 99% of her comments, but, you once noted: condescension goes both ways …and it truly does ……

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marisacat - 19 March 2012

It is not a question of who prefers what diane.

There aren’t any rules here. People can use the language they wish to use, plop down whatever suits them, at whatever moment, whatever is on their mind – no rule to blog on topic, the 7 Carlin words are not a problem here… additionally people can post running nonsense in any state of mind or inebriation they may be in. Which some have done.

Not a problem.

However if what ever is here is burdensom, it’s a big sprawling progressive, liberal blog world out there…

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diane - 19 March 2012

It is not a question of who prefers what diane.

What is not a question of who prefers what????????? I was commenting about people desiring an Audience.

There aren’t any rules here. People can use the language they wish to use, plop down whatever suits them,

That is why I made my last post, but I didn’t know there was actually a hidden qualification (RULE) to ‘go elsewhere,’ if I might feel I didn’t quite agree: because a particular comment may feel burdensome, ….whether I might be inebriated, …or not (which, sometimes, appears to not make much difference anymore, to my feeble mind).

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BooHooHooMan - 19 March 2012

Well, it is sad when anyone dies…. a’course ~especially on a Pwog Blog, but it pales in comparison to all the sockpuppets and pseudonyms who gave their lives to the cause over the years. By my count, they’re down to about 15 people workin out of Cali , and a few apartments in DC, New York and Philly now.
Oh and the douchebag from Delaware.

IMO Frankly, it all went to shit after Dana Houle self immolated in Kansas.

Welp, of this we can be certain in Death; whoever casts off earthly bonds of kinship in extremis with Pwogwessive Dems, they are in a far FAR better place. No need for me to engage in thoroughly gratuitous evil here tho: May eternal Fest be granted unto them O Lord, Thy Blogdom Come and all that….
Sucks they’re gonna miss out on the Edwards trial tho. :shock:

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marisacat - 19 March 2012

I am guesing Edwards is warming his favorite bar stool…. again. From what I read after his separation he was quite the fixture in a downtown bar, small time southern grandee, poking the local talent…

Another former R, hardly ever voted in his life, never participated in a Democratic primary vote, and more, had never been to a party convention til 2000. A Dem gem!!

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5. marisacat - 19 March 2012

fwiw, from one of the AP reports

[C]ourt records and interviews in recent days have revealed that Bales had a string of commendations for good conduct after four tours in Iraq and Afghanistan.

But he also faced a number of troubles in recent years: a Florida investment job went sour, his Seattle-area home was condemned as he struggled to make payments on another, and he failed to get a recent promotion.

Legal troubles included charges that he assaulted a girlfriend and, in a hit-and run accident, ran bleeding in military clothes into the woods, court records show. He told police he fell asleep at the wheel and paid a fine to get the charges dismissed, the records show. …..

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BooHooHooMan - 19 March 2012

The good ole U.S.of A personified.
A “regular Joe”, a “family man” you see.
Fighting for Us.

Oh the record is clear, so clear that one could almost agree with the shaved-head mouthbreather base commander they trotted out (full coverage of the controversy on NPR!) reiterating that deployment screening is “adeguate”, it WORKS, indeed, they are unaware of any P R O B LE M S

We must take them at their word! Yep Indeedies, we must! :roll: :vomit: :disgust::

These Things Happen in War!
We want Peace! But We’re at War!
It all makes sense! Sociopathologically!
We’re…… WINNING!
:roll: :roll: :roll: :puke: :puke: :puke:

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marisacat - 19 March 2012

The TV media reporting is very pro forma and the government line, but interesting things have surfaced in print and much wider take on him and the details…

So very sad, Democracy NOW reported the families used t live farther away, lost their homes to NATO bombing and moved closer to the base hoping to avoid that…

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6. marisacat - 19 March 2012

Oh snicker.

[G]eneral Electric CEO Jeff Immelt, the head of President Obama’s Jobs Board, plans to vote for Mitt Romney, Fox Business’ Charles Gasparino reports (via Bloomberg).

If true, the news would represent a major embarrassment to the Obama administration, which had elevated Immelt in their pursuit of private sector employment growth.

Gasparino has not spoken with Immelt, but said sources close to the G.E. chief said he was leaving Obama’s side.

The president named Immelt the head of panel of economic advisers in January as a replacement to Paul Volcker, the former Federal Reserve chairman. . . . . .

Love’s labor lost?

Immelt signing on with Mittens.

Kiss GE again, kiss it good-bye I guess?

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7. Madman in the Marketplace - 19 March 2012

Two American Killings and a Creeping Paranoia

This is what the local sheriff, a man named Bill Lee, whose job it is to be the ostensible real law enforcement officer for the area, had to say about the incident over the weekend:

Police Chief Bill Lee said that although police do not encourage watch program volunteers to carry weapons, he recognizes a citizen’s constitutional right to do so. No arrest was made, Lee said, because there was no evidence to disprove Zimmerman’s account. He has cooperated with the investigation and never retained an attorney, Lee said. His phone numbers are disconnected and no one answered the door at his home or his parents’ home. His in-laws shooed a reporter away. After death threats and an avalanche of hate mail, Lee said Zimmerman went into hiding. Local station WFTV Channel 9 reported that he showed up with a truck last week and moved out. “We are taking a beating over this,” said Lee, who defends the investigation. “This is all very unsettling. I’m sure if George Zimmerman had the opportunity to relive Sunday, Feb. 26, he’d probably do things differently. I’m sure Trayvon would, too.”

Got that? The victim would have “done things differently.” What things, exactly? Going for the Doritos instead of the Skittles? The Snapple instead of the Arizona Iced Tea? Yes, I am sure that, given the opportunity, Trayvon Martin would do things differently. For example, he would not have gotten shot. But he won’t have the opportunity because he’s dead, and he’s dead because George Zimmerman shot him in the head.

You can see the enveloping ambiguity in both cases begin to soften the edges of the actual events, so as to make them easier to live with. There’s a creeping paranoia at the roots of both events. For Bales, it was another trip into a war zone where the lines between friend and foe were utterly blurred, and the search for someone to blame. For Zimmerman, it was the fear of crime that seems to have seeped into that neighborhood like foul water up from the earth, its source the very real economic dislocation abroad in the land, and the search for someone to blame. Someone who “seemed” to the professionally paranoid to be on drugs. Someone who “seemed” to the professionally paranoid to be “looking at” people’s houses. Bales and Zimmerman are already halfway to being, if not victims, then people just like the rest of us who simply “snapped” due to circumstances we can all understand, if not excuse. There, but for the grace of god, and all that.

We see the steady construction of an architecture of anesthetic nuance, the comforting embrace of anodyne cliche. It deadens us to the fact that we are a people too violent with each other, too ready to reach for the gun, and all too prepared to go out hunting for the Other who steals our dreams and our futures and our barbecue grills. We tolerate the monsters within ourselves, and the actions of the monsters those monsters provoke, and then we tell ourselves fairy tales to make them go away. And, in that, the country fails, again, what I like to call the Hugh Thompson Test.

On March 16, 1968, Hugh Thompson was a helicopter pilot operating in and around the village of My Lai. After drawing fire from the village in a mission that resulted in his taking two prisoners, Thompson flew off for refueling and then returned a few hours later. From above, he saw many of the people he’d seen earlier in the day lying in a ditch, shot to ribbons. He landed and confronted Lt. William Calley, who was overseeing the slaughter. He and Calley argued and Thompson took off again. Not long after that, Thompson saw a group of American soldiers pursuing another group of civilians toward a shelter on the edge of the village. He landed his helicopter between the soldiers and the fleeing civilians:

Sometime later, we saw some people huddle in a bunker and the only thing I could see at that particular time was a woman, an old man, and a couple of kids standing next to it. We look over here and see them and look over there and see the friendly forces, so I landed the helicopter again. I didn’t want there to be any confusion or something; I really don’t know what was going on in my mind then. I walked over to the ground units and said, “Hey, there’s some civilians over here in this bunker. Can you get them out?” They said, “Well, we’re gonna get them out with a hand grenade.” I said, “Just hold your people right here please, I think I can do better.” So I went over to the bunker and motioned for them to come out, everything was OK. At that time I didn’t know what I was going to do, because there was more than three or four there, more like nine or ten or something like that. So I walked back over to the aircraft and kind of kept them around me and called the pilot that was flying the low gunship and said, “Hey, I got these people here down on the ground, and you all land and get them out of here.” So he agreed to do that, which I think was the first time a gunship’s ever been used for that. There’s enough of them there that he had to make two trips and he picked them up and took them about ten miles or so behind the lines and dropped them off.

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marisacat - 19 March 2012

what bits and pieces are trickling out on Zimmerman makes him look like a major loser / idiot. Self appointed uncertified neighborhood watch, persists in following the kid for no reason and so on. I’ve forgotten how many useless 911 calls he had made in a just a few short months…

The parents are pushing it, good thing too…

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Madman in the Marketplace - 19 March 2012

they’ll have to keep pushing, b/c the authorities want really badly for it to go away.

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diane - 19 March 2012

Pat Thurston, KGO/SF, Cali, had a fairly decent commentary on it Sunday, …though it’s unfortunate that what didn’t come out was that the murderer was someone who could have been snagged for looking like a terrerist himself (looked big boned, potentially: Hispanic/Muslim to some), what a vicious ‘game’ of musical stools going on, as the nastier grasp for a life saver that will validate them, while bashing their ‘peers’ over the skull with the oars.

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diane - 19 March 2012

to my ‘feeble’ mind, Obombster is much the same type of killer.

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diane - 19 March 2012
8. Madman in the Marketplace - 19 March 2012

NYPD Brutally Beat Occupy Protesters, Media at Zucotti Park

An Occupy Wall Street protester says police gave demonstrators little warning before kicking them out of a New York City park overnight and that officers beat many of them during the arrests.

After NYPD raided Zuccotti Park on March 17 2012, about 100 people were arrested. Among them a young girl suffering a seizure and panic attack as she was being brought to the bus. The cops not only handle the situation wrongly, carrying her by the head as she’s seizing, it also takes 17 minutes until professional help arrives. Protester standing outside the barricades had to make the 911 call to get EMT to come .

The videos above apparently show occupy activist Cecily McMillian, who was once profiled in Rolling Stone Magazine. Initial reports from the scene indicate that police broke her ribs; and just as troublesome, were further reports that police denied McMillian access to the outside world while in the hospital early Sunday morning. She apparently was denied a phone call to her lawyer or doctor, as well as access to her friends who had followed her to the hospital.

From the livestream, at the 3:40 mark, police take an Occupy Wall Street medic and slam his head into a glass door. No word on the medic’s condition yet, but it did this to the window.

Ryan Devereaux of the Guardian tweeted at one point, “The sergeant who throw the girl is the same one that punched my cameraman and told me he “didn’t give a f*ck” about my press pass. #m17″

I wonder at what point an event is decided to be a “riot.” The NYPD antagonized and attacked protesters and media alike, and arrested people on trumped up charges (standing on a sidewalk too long?!?) and this sounds like a riot, if not an all-out war on freedom of expression.

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marisacat - 19 March 2012

oh please please sue and get as much information out in public before there is any gag order or confidentiality agreement…

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Madman in the Marketplace - 19 March 2012

the video at the link is horrible. This is going to be an ugly summer.

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9. Madman in the Marketplace - 19 March 2012

Another Hidden Bailout: Helping Wall Street Collect Your Rent

So congratulations, America, your quasi-governmental housing entity is about to subcontract out mass-landlording/slumlording jobs to the likes of John Paulson and Warren Buffett, so that they can add to their bottom lines collecting rent payments in the middle of a nationwide housing slump.

As one hedge fund analyst put it to me this morning: “Help inflate the bubble, create a foreclosure crisis, buy homes in bulk, and rent them out to the same average homeowner.”

Is this what we had in mind when we created the “ownership society” – helping billionaires collect your rent?

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10. marisacat - 19 March 2012

Breaking News from ABCNEWS.com:

FBI, Justice Department to Investigate Fla. Neighborhood Watch Killing [10:30 p.m. ET]

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11. marisacat - 19 March 2012

New

LINK

………………. :roll:

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