THE US Military Thread (merged)

Chesire · Heavy Crude Joined: Jul 13, 2007 Posts: 267

Imagine a campaign that said NO PUBLIC MONEY will be spent on you if you are not an american citizen.
No SSI checks for people just because they worked here for 10 years.
No Welfare.
No public schooling
If your parents were not citizens, neither are you retroactive to 1975.
Make citizenship contigent on serving a full 20 in the military. Every 3 years you serve and one family member becomes eligible for citizenship. Unless they are suitable for military service. You want the benefits of American citizenship. Pay for it in blood ,I have and my ancestors have too .

IanC

"Pay for it in blood ,I have and my ancestors have too ."

Dude, your family chose the hard way, don't you think? Should have just snuck over the border and picked strawberries in Oregon.

We'll never shrink our military voluntarily. We've won and continue to win and want to keep winning forever (not my attitude, but just repeating the dominant attitude here). It's like an NBA team playing a bunch of 5th graders in basketball. Unfortunately, our hypothetical team is getting surly, old, and needs meth (oil) to keep playing at our current level. It'll all fall apart someday, but until then, we'll do whatever it takes to control the supply of drug that keeps us winning.

-Ian

Tyler_JC

I'm suspicious of the Oil Imperialism Conspiracy:
1. Why do we support Israel?
2. Why didn't we install a friendly dictator in Iraq instead of invading the entire freaking country?
3. Why do we blockade Iranian oil?
4. Why do we oppose nuclear energy for Iran when we know they aren't interested in nuclear weapons and even if they are, their missiles can't reach us?
5. Why are we so hostile towards Venezuela?
6. Why aren't we negotiating better with Mexico to improve investment in their oil industry?

The Oil Imperialism Conspiracy leads to the Operation Occupation Theory.
Look at our two examples of supposed oil invasion.
Afghanistan. No oil and access to the Caspian Sea is worthless because we'd still have to pump the stuff through Pakistan/Iran.
Moreover, Afghanistan is not next to the Caspian Sea.

Iraq, the country is not secure and investment in that country's oil producing regions is sorely lacking.
Free trade with Iraq would have lifted millions out of poverty and would have provided us with far more oil at a much lower price than outright invasion.
The Oil Imperialism Conspiracy and its resultant Operation Occupation Theory just doesn't hold water.
As for cutting military spending by 75%.
I think that would still put us in the lead by a long shot.

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mekrob · Expert Joined: Dec 09, 2005 Posts: 2663

shakespear1 · Light Sweet Crude Joined: May 13, 2005 Posts: 1572

Whether one is for or against Iraq War, for or against War in Afghanistan, I think we all probable agree that the veterans returning from there should be well taken care of. Hell, they risked their lives.
Thus to read something like this just shows how crooked things are in the Bush gov.
[quote]The Army declined to provide any information about the Tiger Team members' identities or their motivations in asking the VA to stop reviewing the soldiers' paperwork. However, private attorney Mara Hurwitt points out that the Army has a financial incentive to keep soldiers' disability ratings low."
In other words, if the soldier does not know how to best fill out the paper work he will get a lower rating (less money) even though IF done AS BEST AS POSSIBLE HE/SHE WOULD BE ENTITLED to a higher one. There is something very wrong in all this. It sort of sounds like, lets make the paperwork convoluted and confusing and let them trip on it so that we can show that we are saving money by paying out less.
This all sounds so heartless and sick when one considers what money has and is being waisted to date.

More here: NPR story
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Men argue, nature acts !
Voltaire

"...In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from confiscation through inflation."

Alan Greenspan

vision-master

PTSD - that would be a "pre-existing condition". Razz

Sorry Joe no benefits for ya.

Sweet, eh. Cool

highlander

A co-workers son was in the 10th mtn out of Ft Drum. He has symptoms of PTSD after his stints in Afganistan and elsewhere. He found there are some in the VA that are bureaucrats but there are a few who have the vets best interests in mind. It still sucks that the pols stand up and say they support our troops, then allow underlings to pull the rug out from under them. It has always been so.
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This is where everybody puts profound words written by another...or not so profound words written by themselves
Highlander 2007