We are a world away from the election and it is all consuming in the media….few are watching what is happening in the world today….instead they try to focus on the world of tomorrow…..at least after the next election……and while everyone is otherwise distracted news keeps coming out of the Pentagon about the wars we are fighting……
Always on the look out to escalate their involvement in the war against ISIS, Defense Secretary Ash Carter today told reporters that the Pentagon is planning a series of proposals for the Obama Administration to approve more activities for the thousands of US troops on the ground in Iraq.
“We’re talking about more of the things that we did in Ramadi, but we are talking about additional things of the kind that we’ve offered previously,” Carter insisted. Though that seems deliberately vague, he is known to have pushed the idea of US attack helicopters and embedded US troops in Iraqi combat units previously, and those are likely among the proposals.
They are trying to live up to the promise of “No Boots On The Ground” (GOD I hate that term…..these are people that you degrade by using that term ad nauseum)…..but on the other hand we keep sending more and more “small units” to these embattled regions….what part of that is no more troops? And the American people keep buying the bullsh*t coming out of the Pentagon……
Is this leadership in the world? That is the question you need to ask yourself before you vote in the next election and put someone in the White House that will continue to keep Americans in danger…….
The new defense budget is out…..check it out and tell me if any of it sounds like leadership or just more of the same…….below is the testimony of John Kerry on the defense budget……
Well, Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. Ranking Member Engel, all the members of the committee, I’m privileged to be here to have a chance to present the 2017 budget and to answer your questions. And obviously I know most of them will be sort of more with respect to policy, et cetera. But I will try to be very rapid in this opening.
First, our request for resources this year – $50 billion – is equal, as Ranking Member Engel reminded everybody, to about 1 percent of the entire federal budget. One penny on the dollar is everything we do with respect to diplomatic security, development security, relationship security, all of the things we do with our embassies, AID, everything. And I would suggest very respectfully to the members of this committee it is a minimum – minimum – price for the leadership that we offer to the world, that we are currently engaged. I think, as the chairman said, I can’t remember a time where there are as many hotspots, as many difficult challenges because of the transformation taking in the world right now taking place. And as a result, we are engaged in more places simultaneously than at any time that I can remember in my public life.
Source: John Kerry: Strengthening US Leadership in a Turbulent World | World Affairs Journal
This does not sound like a plan…..just an extension of the failed policies for the last 20 years…..more war is NOT making the world a safer place…..
Gee, are there going to be “Boots on the ground” in our future? Pardon me while I feign surprise! The sad truth is more like..”If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face -forever.”
Because this is how the The Military Industrial Spy Complex (MISC) rolls. They are incapable of doing anything other than bombing, spying and stamping on human faces until they submit, or die. Despite this, the MISC is so uncontroversial, so unnoticed and so unquestioned, it’s all but part of the miscellaneous line that goes into Washington’s budgets. It’s right up there with doughnut runs, only a hell of a lot more expensive. “Fifty billion this year? Zzzzz”
And for the Orwell fans out there who got the 1st reference, the whole “Boots on the ground” bullshit is another example of Doublespeak/Doublethink. That’s when words have actual meanings closer to the opposite of what they appear to mean mean. (Ministry of Peace)
Everybody wants as much murder & mayhem as possible inflicted on enemies of the US Empire (and anybody just standing nearby). But nobody wants a single American to be put in harm’s way, even if the job can’t possibly be done without “boots on the ground”. Unlike most other groups, ISIS actually has control over territory. Even killing half of their men from the air changes very little. It just means they control the same amount of territory with fewer employees….(Just like a big box store verses the combined floorspace equivalent of mom & pop shops.) Ultimately, you can’t control territory without putting soldiers on the ground. Ask an Iwo Jima vet how easy it is to plant a flag from 10,000 ft.
So right off the bat, it’s wordplay. “We can win without any risk. We can defeat the most dangerous foe we’ve ever known without them hurting us.” How is that possible? How dangerous a threat are they, if they can be taken out so easily and without incurring any damage…even to the Empire’s troops fighting them?
And after that stupid strategy fails, because it can’t do anything but, you’ve got to figure out a way to send troops…without “sending troops”!. (See: “military advisors”) Again, more bullshit wordplay designed to hide the truth from the incredibly stupid & naive public.
At some point, the ultimate goal is to just slowly, seamlessly, glide into a full-scale war before people realize what’s happening, the way America has done in the past. (Vietnam)
Sounds like the nationalism from the 20’s and 30’s…..a familiar ring to it….chuq
It’s all economic! Our “Boots” are spread out into at least 132 places on this planet right now. I think we are spread much too thin to be effective at combatting anything with any kind of lasting effect. We need to stop policing the world and concentrate on building up our defenses for the day when some of the new big super powers get their heads and their hands together and decide to “Teach Us A Lesson” by sinking one of our ships in some remote oriental sea or lobbing a missile at one of our cities from some Northern regime all dressed in green and crazier than a herd of dysfunctional and half-starved loons.
Do not fret…if certain people are elected then we will build our military and in the process our seniors will starve to death slowly….
Maybe some of our seniors can get off their 47% rear ends and get back into uniform again. Many of them could serve very useful purposes. If the call comes, I am ready! BTW Seniors will never starve as long as there is a garbage can to pilfer somewhere. Been there; done that — know whereof I speak.
Taco Bell?