Trash Can I Stan

But now -- why, we have got into a mess, a quagmire from which each fresh step renders the difficulty of extrication immensely greater. I'm sure I wish I could see what we were getting out of it, and all it means to us as a nation. ~ Mark Twain, Returning Home, New York World, London, 10/6/1900

Any deployment of Combat Troops also includes the follow on support troops, news sites broke a story about the additional 13,000 troops Obama approved for deployment to Afghanistan corollary to the 21,000 Troop increase in March. But, this is not an Obama Apology post.

I'd like to know what War proponents think we are achieving by continuing to occupy the area and increasing the number of US service members in the Afghanistan AO. The Unites States is now in the position to defend Hamid Karzai, called disdainfully the Mayor of Kabul because of the limited scope of his authority, and his corrupt government.

Karzai's August election will only be accepted by some of the powerful Afghan Warlords if they are allowed to have a stake in the new government. This will include giving power to the likes of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar who was responsible for the fighting which destroyed Kabul (and divided the country allowing the Taliban to move in) and possibly assisted Bin Laden in escaping from Tora Bora into Pakistan when Bush purposefully allowed Bin Laden to escape rather than let Delta kill/capture him.

More importantly the US Troops are going to be occupying, policing and nation building in Afghanistan for years. And Counter Insurgencies have a nasty habit of being decades long struggles of alternating low and medium conflict.

From The NATO Afghanistan 2009 Report: Decades of conflict, a nearly non-existent national infrastructure, high levels of illiteracy, endemic poverty and chronic underdevelopment place Afghanistan 174th out of 178 countries on the UN Human Development Index. The Bonn Process provided for a Constitution,an elected President and Parliament and the beginnings of a functioning government. In early 2006, the Afghan Government and the International Community came together in London to develop a strategy for Afghanistan’s recovery. The result was the ANDS which aims to create and develop effective national, provincial and district government institutions capable of delivering basic services. It is a long-term and challenging task that has produced mixed results so far.

The question is: Is it worth it for the US to send more and more men into the AO and have those men return in flag draped coffins?

Getting and Letting (Getting In, Getting Bin Laden, Getting Out, Letting the "Afghans" figure out the rest) would seem to have been a better choice. That plan may have failed and Afghanistan could have turned into another Somalia, or the Taliban could have reclaimed power or Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and Burhanuddin Rabbani could have restarted their battle for Kabul or Heroin Drug Lords could have turned the nation into a new Golden Triangle Drug Empire or any number of terrible futures could have happened.

But what we, The US, and ISAF forces are doing now is defending an Administration, labelled by General McChrystal full of "rampant government corruption", who warns that the additional Troops he wants may not stem the Taliban's resurgence. And then it's only a short step to when the locals begin to see Karzai's government as illegitimate, the Guerilla forces as legitimate and our forces as Occupiers.

Of course, the Warfare Proponents who exert massive control over the US Government want continued war and continued transfer of wealth to their coffers. And they don't care about dead Marines and the decades long angst of everyday pains which come home when those who live.

Militarized Religion or Religionized Military

O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with their little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rages and hunger and thirst... ~ Mark Twain, The War Prayer

Fault Lines: Religion in the military



After completing MCT (Marine Combat Training) in early 2001, the SOI Bn CO LtCol regaled the young marines (and me since I wasn't so young) with tales of life in the Corps and the brotherhood we had joined and were taking our nascent steps towards. We had spent (most of) the last 17 days in the field learning the absolute basics of military tactics, just enough to understand we knew nothing. After which we had the opportunity to take a shower for the first time in 2 weeks and clean the grime and mud off.

Getting back to the LtCol, at the end of his speech he informed the Marines they now had the duty to clean the showers we had just used because a good Marine always leaves equipment and quarters in as good a condition as the way he found them. However, an offer was made. If the Marines wanted to stay and listen to the LtCol he would tell them the truth of Creationism and debunk the lies of Evolution using a treatise he had written and self-published and of which he had available copies for the Marines to take with them.

I was stunned. I left with the group assigned to clean the mud coated showers and befouled shitters. My reasons were partially because I don't shirk duty but mainly because I was upset over rank ignorance being forced down the mouths of tired and impressionable young men by a Marine in a position of Authority.

Thinking about the situation later I realized I should have stayed and grabbed a copy.

Onward and Upward with Prayer

We will not renounce our part in the mission of our race, trustee, under God, of the civilization of the world. ...and thanksgiving to Almighty God that He has marked us as His chosen people, henceforth to lead in the regeneration of the world. Senator Albert J. Beveridge, In Support of an American Empire

The video of the Army chaplain evangelizing has caused a stir. It's showing Americans and the world that the US military has been taken over by evangelical fanatics who want to follow the words of She Who Shall Not Be Named, "We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to christianity."

Of course, the zealots have reared their heads and reacted. Rawwwr the Beast shouts! This endangers the Troops! Al Qaida Television selectively edited the video! Christian Fight Pilot specifically makes these points at his blog in defending the actions of the chaplain.

Christian Fight Pilot, however, like the chaplain is arguing in bad faith. And as opposed to being vindicating as he believes I think the unedited version is actually more damning. It shows the unbroken flow of conversation it shows the chaplain teaching the soldiers how to break the spirit of the general order while not breaking the letter of the order. It's proselytizing by stealth.

Listen to the words of not only the chaplain but the SSG to wit:

"Be careful how you do it", "There are ways to win people to christ", "You can not proselytize but you can give gifts", "You share the word in a smart manner", "Be smart about it", "If you make it a gift and walk away from it..."

But CFP gets puffed up with righteous holy zeal. His main point is soldiers can express their belief. This is a protected right in the military!

Missing, of course, the whole issue. This isn't some academic debate, this isn't occurring in the vacuum of a classroom where the dialectic is turned to the subtleties of the immaculate conception and how many angels bellow forth from the muzzle of a Ma Deuce. This talk of bringing people to the christ is coming from the mouths of those who are ubiquitous through out the land holding guns and controlling the streets.

Anyone who has been in the military can attest that religion is crammed down the gullets of the every member. You can't attend a large formation (a welcome home, a sendoff, or a promotion) without having a chaplain issue the call to prayer.

Admittedly it's not as bad as the Lt Colonel Hensley, the chief of the U.S. military chaplains in Afghanistan, declaring:

"The special forces guys -- they hunt men basically. We do the same things as Christians, we hunt people for Jesus. We do, we hunt them down," he says.

The spreading the faith from the barrel of a gun. Which is how the faith was spread anyway, through violence, force, rape, murder and destruction.

This whole incident could be passed off as a rogue chaplain if it wasn't for the large amount of evidence which indicates this is not "a few bad apples" but part of a pattern; disgusting Air Force Cadets confronting non-evangelicals with Cult-esque Shame Circles to browbeat them into accepting the "true" faith, the comments I've highlighted and the unacceptable boot camp religious brain-washing 'God's Basic Training'! The First Strategic Objective of which is to: Evangelize and Disciple All Enlisted Members of the US Military. And the last: Change Continents for Christ. Transform nations of world through the militaries of world.

"Well you know what I knew, that my God was bigger than his. I knew that my God was a real God, and his was an idol."

How does one resist their Government?

The most dangerous man, to any government, is the man who is able to think things out for himself, without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. almost invariably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane and intolerable, and so, if he is romantic, he tries t change it. And if he is not romantic personally, he is apt to spread discontent among those who are. ~ H. L. Mencken.

What is the difference between a terrorist, a patriot, a freedom fighter and a rebel? The McCain Camp has been pushing a connection between Bill Ayers of the Weather Underground and Obama. Why?

ZombieTime published a post highlighting, Prairie Fire: The Politics of Revolutionary Anti-Imperialism a book produced by Ayers and other members of the Weather Underground. Interestingly, the post starts with the following: William Ayers is a communist. Then disclaims there is nothing illegal about being a communist but ends with the (I suppose) stinging reproach;

William Ayers is a communist. By his own description. He was a communist then, he is a communist now, and he was a communist for the entire time that Barack Obama worked with him and was associated with him.

The Weathermen conducted activities against the United States Federal and State and Local governments (across the US but also in Chicago, the Weathermen twice destroyed a statue of a police officer which stood in Haymarket Square) during the US war in Vietnam and stated they planned to "seize power". The Weathermen used bombings, demonstrations and prison breaks.

There is a loud contingent, led by such luminaries as Sean Hannity and Bill Cunningham, claiming what Bill Ayers did in the Sixties was beyond redemption and when Obama wins, have convinced themselves he will install a islamic marxist police state, which will take their property and curb their freedoms. But, what can they do to resist such an evil government? Clearly they can not physically resist because of their stance against violent resistance used by Ayers. They have placed themselves in a quandary.

The problem is these people who are touting Ayers as ultimate evil have constrained themselves into accepting the Hobbesian Ideal of Government. Once a government takes power the people have no voice and no role in government and the every action of the government is by axiom, legitimate. This is clearly the view of the two Dicks, Nixon and Cheney. As typified by the famous Nixon line ‘If the President Does It, That Means It’s Not Illegal’ and Cheney's 'So?' in response to the fact 2/3rds of Americans think the war in Iraq is not worth fighting.

So does Bill Cunningham think resisting the government is immoral or prima facie evidence of treason? No, Bill Cunningham has stated many times if Obama is elected he will fight like a Scottish Warrior Poet or like Patrick Swayze in Red Dawn.

But by what LEGITIMACY does Braveheart Cunningham have in resisting Obama's Federal Government?

The early history of the United States is founded on the Polybian belief in order to avoid revolts a simple government of one of the 3 classic types (monarchy, aristocracy, democracy) is to have a balanced government combining the 3. The One, The Few, The Many. The problem is those men were the product of the Enlightenment as well versed in Ancient Greek and Roman History as with contemporary thought. Such men are in short supply today. But, to them the problems of modern America are not new, they are simply an extension of the problems faced in Ancient Greece and Revolutionary America. However, the United States was founded with the active resistance (The Revolution) to the ruling government. Which causes a problem; If violent struggle can legitimately be used once can it be used again? Or was the American Revolution a one-time aberration?

Toranaga: There is no mitigating factor for rebellion against your liege lord. Blackthorne: Unless you win. ~ from James Clavell's Shogun.

On what side would those who rage rage rage on the Obama/Ayers connection have fallen with regards to Sophie Scholl and White Rose, with the government or the radicals?

Are these they same people who cheered when the US military rolled into Iraq and deposed the ruling government of Saddam Hussein? Would they have been pro-Sadr when his father was against Saddam and anti-Sadr when the son is against the current government of Iraq?

Do these people cheer the Kurds on against the government of Turkey? Do they champion a Kurdish Free State? Or do they snicker and roll their eyes at Biden's not new idea of a tripartite Iraq?

Are these the same people who cheered Georgian military aggression against South Ossetia?

Do these people think the Irish resistance to British rule is unconscionable and the deaths and bombings in the Troubles are all the fault of Irish criminals who have no basis for resistance?

Getting back to the Weatherman bombing tactics. What is the difference between the bombing of the Haymarket Square statue and when the American Founding Fathers and Patriots destroyed a statue of King George III, which stood at the foot of Broadway on the Bowling Green in New York to make bullets?

Sometimes, in the beginning of an insane shabby political upheaval he is strongly moved to revolt, but he doesn't do it - he knows better. He knows his maker would find out - the maker of his patriotism, the windy and incoherent six-dollar subbeditior of the village newspaper - and would bray out in print and call him a traitor. ~ Mark Twain, As regards Patriotism.

Funny how Twain knew what tactics would be used against those who stand against their government.

Religious/Military Indoctrination

So, you are a squad leader and you have to take:
Tarawa defended by the Japanese or
The Fort Douaumont during the Battle of Verdun or
Pork Chop Hill in Korea or the
Russian Guns in redoubt at Balaclava...

How do you convince the men you aren't just ordering them to a wasted death? Why convince them they are in the service of a Glorious Sky Daddy and will be rewarded in their next life! And if any parents question the death of their loved one? Why just ask Lt. Col. Ralph Kauzlarich what to say! You see, the truth is, if the parents are upset their son is dead it's probably because they are Evil Non-Religious people and stupidly they believe their son is "wormdirt" and not enjoying the Big Reward. A sort of heartless Pascal's Wager.

And what better time to pound in the indoctrination than when the young men are under the stress of Boot Camp? You could even title your Religious Brain-washing 'God's Basic Training'! The First Strategic Objective being: Evangelize and Disciple All Enlisted Members of the US Military.

The ignorance on display here is disgusting. And once again this can be attributed to a lack of knowledge of history. Instead of distrubting copies of a book containing bronze age myths why not let military recruits read The War Prayer by Mark Twain?

Oh... Well I know why because the State doesn't want it's cogs to question the decisions of the State. The State has enjoyed a cozy relationship with Religious Authority. Everyone knew their Country was the Just Country, the Righteous Country because religious "leaders" said so.

Fortunately, a man of great courage, Michael L. Weinstein, is standing up, speaking out and leading the fight against those using their Military Rank to coerce and force their religious beliefs upon the troops under their control.

Opening Salvo

To start I'll use the words of Mark Twain:

I said to myself, here are a people who have suffered for three centuries. We can make them as free as ourselves, give them a government and country of their own, put a miniature of the American constitution afloat in the Pacific, start a brand new republic to take its place among the free nations of the world. It seemed to me a great task to which we had addressed ourselves.

But I have thought some more, since then... and I have seen that we do not intend to free, but to subjugate the people of the Philippines. We have gone there to conquer, not to redeem. ~ New York Herald [New York, 10/15/1900]

I wonder what Twain would make of the recent American Imperialist Adventure in Mesopotamia.

There are many parallels between Iraq and the Philippines:

Letters from soldiers documented the atrocities ("The howling wilderness of Samar"),

Between 250,000 and 1 million civilians were killed,

Water Torture was used on the Filipinos (this was eventually admitted to by future President William Howard Taft),

The only military strategy which could be imagined was to separate the civilian populace from the insurgents, this was accomplished by a scorched earth policy, ignoring the plight of the civilian population and the creation of concentration camps,

Journalists were heavily controlled and The War Department (since relabelled Department of Defense) issued reports asserting all manner of atrocities were being committed by the Filipinos in order to stem the growing anti-war sentiment of Americans,

Fighting continued until 1913 (even though as early as 1902 the War was considered won),

The Philippines gained their independence in 1946, but it wasn't until Nov. 24, 1992 the last US base closed at Subic Bay, a period of 94 years from the start of American involvement.

I think he would merely have quoted himself:
But now -- why, we have got into a mess, a quagmire from which each fresh step renders the difficulty of extrication immensely greater. I'm sure I wish I could see what we were getting out of it, and all it means to us as a nation. ~ Returning Home, New York World [London, 10/6/1900