Soft-core magazine porno to seduce pre-teens

In the purest sense and an ideal world, a career in the armed services would be an honorable choice, but the military today is a political arm of the executive branch. This propaganda is an abomination.

I think that what kids are exposed to is extremely important. You must be willing to invest in spending time actually raising your kids to monitor what is being presented to them. In this I find that people are more talk then action.

I am constantly amazed at what is presented to our kids.

School books and extras presented by chemical co.'s and junk food co.'s. Channel One TV, companies that track websites visited by schools (to better advertise).

GIA - Girls Intelligence Agency - get your kid to throw an expense paid marketing sleep over. No need to tell other parents that the kids are involved. We will send a person into your house, post party, to see how it went.

Look-Look and Student Marketing Group in case you would like to target certain age groups.

Almost more commercials then are countable. Hey even the NRA and FEMA have coloring books. The FEMA coloring books feature the disaster twins. Julia and Robbie. They are just strange and off the mark.

Sidebar: For me to think something is odd,well.

By the way if you don't write your school district or sign the correct form the military does come recruiting at age 16. Schools supply the list of students.

The topper though would have to be George Bush and his mental health care program. The school guidance counselor meets with your kids to see if they are depressed and should go on medication. Only the finest and most expensive around. Based on TMAP out of Texas. It tells Dr's what to prescribe by a pre-defined algorithm. Coming soon to a state near you.

As you can see Reveres' a bunch of my buttons were just hit.

Did I do something wrong wilth posting?

I think that what kids are exposed to is extremely important. You must be willing to spend time actually raising your kids. To monitor what is being presented to them takes effort. In this I find that people are more talk then action.

School books and extras presented by chemical co.'s and junk food. Channel One and companies that track websites visited by schools (to better advertise).

GIA - Girls Intelligence Agency - get your kid to throw an expense paid marketing sleep over. No need to tell other parents that the kids are involved. We will send a person into the host's house, post party, to see how it went.

Look-Look and Student Marketing Group in case you would like to target certain age groups.

Almost more commercials then are countable. Hey even the NRA and FEMA have coloring books. The FEMA coloring books feature the disaster twins. Julia and Robbie. They are just strange and off the mark.

Sidebar: For me to think something is odd,well.

By the way if you don't write your school district or sign the correct form the military does come recruiting at age 16. Schools' supply the list of students.

The topper though would have to be George Bush and his mental health care program. The school guidance counselor meets with your kids to see if they are depressed and should go on medication. Only the finest and most expensive around. Based on TMAP out of Texas. It tells Dr's what to prescribe by a pre-defined algorithm. Coming soon to a state near you.

As you can see Reveres' a bunch of my buttons were just hit.

governemnt based military has always been a political arm! Name one standing army supported by a government that wasn't!

I'd much rather peddle soft-core pornography to children than war, at least they'd learn to appreciate the human body and the concept of good sex and love.

The Army has always been full of glamour to young people. I remember a time, not so long ago, when the hill outside my house made an excellent machine gun post for fighting the bad guys (Russians and then, with the first Gulf war, Iraqis) entrenched in the backyard.

The feeling eventually wears off those not truely comitted to the idea, or driven by economic desperation. I don't really have all that big of a problem with the magazine, although it would be nice if they featured OxFam, the Peace Corps or the medical profession for the next issue.

Egads! I am left-HANDED, but at least I realize I have a RIGHT hand! G!

Here I was, all fired up to get indignant about porn for kids, and I read THIS! The only connection I can get between the two, might be a gun/phallic thingy. ;)

People of ALL career backgrounds go to the schools to teach the kids. I have done it, as I am sure, many on this forum have also. There were jobs in healthcare that I had never even heard about until I was in the profession! And I wish I had known of the others.

IMO, it is a legitimate method of exposing kids to another career possibility. A military career may not be the one of choice for a political-left individual, but it is for many others. Many countries even mandate that every citizen has some years of military service.

"...traumatic brain injury, PTSD and life in a wheelchair with a catheter for company." THAT could be the sequelae for multiple life choices, revere, including being a policeman, fireman, race car driver, and just being a typical teenager!

I may have to watch a Bill O'Reilly segment now, just to balance out my political karma electrons in an attempt to regain the middle!

Equal time for conscientious objectors!

Seriously, my son was in JROTC in high school. I worried and fretted for years b/c he really was gung-ho military. Fortunately it wore off (not before he got early admission to Norwich and not without 'major disappointment' on the part of the 'retired' col and sgts responsible for the program). He did get major leadership skills and a better sense of organization, and finished as a Cadet Captain. But I will forever be grateful the military didn't get him, at least not yet.

nthesia: I consider what the mag published to be pornography. Then again, I suppose what many people think is pornography doesn't bother me much. Beetween screwing and killing, I prefer screwing. If we are going to teach abstinence, it ought to be abstinence from violoence.

"Beetween screwing and killing, I prefer screwing."

...crux of the problem. Conservatives seem to prefer killing. I think many would go to war just to prevent gay men and unmarried hetero women from screwing.

Explains a lot.

Just another reason I thank the Great Spirit that I chose not to have children.

Revere,in a perfect world,untold millions of people world-wide would not wish America to be anhilliated forthwith but in this very imperfect world,what would you have America do? Decommission the armed forces;turn the other cheek;grow more flowers to put in enemy gun- barrels and mass teach kum-by-ah? I don't like war any more than you do,and funilly enough,nor do I wish to have my own child disembowled,dismembered or killed in battle.But pacifism is no solution.Is it?
By the way,NZ has recently legalised prostitution which,I suppose, entitles the erm,"calling" to tout in schools for recruits.Would I object? Damm right I would.

Having spent a few in the military and a lot more in the private sector I have to wonder again how many people have to get killed in AMERICA to turn the thoughts of those that live in that idealistic world that I am not currently in. 3500 wasnt enough, it was at the time enough to start WWII.

What does it take? Would New York suffice? I think the New Yorkers would have a lot to say about that. Please someone pipe up and tell me which city needs to go down to get this always incessant rant about Bush, the war, the no fly zone, the Bosnia boo-boo, and lets absolutely forget that Clinton reduced the size of government by 500,000. Guess which ones he reduced? It wasnt interns I can tell you. By the way this week is Monica Lewinsky's birthday. Its amazing, it seems like it was just the other day when she was crawling around on her hands and knees in the White House while Bill threw 30 cruise missiles at Osama and missed.

Didnt Bosnia and Ethiopia happen on his shift? Didnt the first WTC attempt happen while he was in office. Didnt our embassy in Kenya get bombed while he was in there. Bosnia had festered for six years and then when he is feeling the below the belt heat he started a war. Hmm. Isnt that what Revere wants GWB impeached on?

Please understand everyone in the military has a job. We all get there in the same manner nowadays and we enlist. Then the Congress funds us the best way they can and then we call it defense good or bad. Revere might call it unnecessary, others have longer memories as I do of 1979 when the first terrorist act against the US took place. It was all volunteer then, its all volunteer now. In fact I enlisted a month in advance of it as I could see what was happening. I did that in advance of what I thought was going to be a war.

What we got was Jimmy Carter and Billy Beer. Nothing happened except for the interest rate went to 20% for the first time in US history as he gutted the military and then started social welfare on a massive scale. How big a scale? Inflation hit the highest rate in US history at 13.5%. Hostages? We dont negotiate with hostages or so its said. But I seem to remember that we gave up 6 billion in cash for them....... Long memory I have. Who did the negotiations?

Dont think that I feel that you are unpatriotic but when you sit and describe the condition of less than 1% of the troops returning from Iraqnam as you would have everyone think, it taints the true picture of what is happening. Everyone who is in Iraqnam is there because they were and are adults and signed the paper for whatever reasons they had. Most of the people who are against the war are left wing socialists. Many are professors and teachers and they try to tilt the story in their favor and actually give bad grades when you dont agree. I felt that heat all the way thru college as I wore the blue and white and I would take them on at every turn when they started bad mouthing the military. I always caught flak on uniform day which was once a week. One actually told me not to wear my uniform in his class. Being smarter than one or two of them I taped recorded them saying that they were going to flunk me because I was in the military. Ever seen an F average go to an A overnight ? I bet you already guessed it was the political science class. The other was sociology... Big surprise.

Sure, I at times think we are a bit too far to the right and you know that lasted right up until Wednesday of this week when they started popping 3 stage missiles out over the Pacific. Now I say let the Lancers and Spirt's have their way with them. Those missiles have but one use and thats to hit the United States. Your regional missiles need one, maybe two stages to hit say Japan, S. Korea, and China. Nope, its to start a war and wars are fought by people . Now understand that this country that we all love so much was founded at the hands of arms against a tyrant of such a cloth that wholesale murders were occuring on the streets of Boston every couple of days. The majority of that war was fought on the backs of those that were under the age of 30, didnt get paid for months at a time and they pretty much died from exposure as much as they did from exposure to the British. They signed up too, willingly. It wasnt mandatory until 1792 when Congress granted the power to impose the draft to the President. Seems we have had a few wars since then.

Our young people are offered training and college as part of the deal when they sign up. They have to be 18 to do it or with the permission of the parents 17. Now those that are in generally serve one tour, then are out as a majority. Both have gotten what they wanted and the deal is fulfilled -training and position/job filled. There are others that stay the full 20. But each time they sign up they are adults and yes they get recruited at an early age. The earlier the better as far as I am concerned. I see that one or two of the people above seem to think that the military is a political arm of the executive branch. You are absolutely right and thats the way the founding fathers wanted it. Ultimately even with B Clinton, he started a war to further a political goal and that was to take attention away from Monicagate. Sad but true.

By the way, the Boston Globe is where this is being quoted from? Why dont we get a a quote from Pravda while we are at it or the San Francisco Chronicle. Yeah, I have had people from Boston tell me that they literally were better than the rest of the country because they were so well educated and everyone else was stupid.

The rant is simple. Wars are fought with people. Continue cutting the military budget and it brings the nukes up on the table as the only method of deterrence. Try to cut the recruitment as a career for young people and you get the unwilling and unwanted draft back. We are at war people and until they kill the appropriate number of Americans we are going to continue to have this discussion over and over and over again as we should.
Dont bring back the troops if the terrorists are right on their tails as they come back.

As with every election... Its your decision.

Randy: I spent years working with Gulf I vets. I've seen the results. We weren't any safer after that war to make Kuwait safe for despotism and we're less safe now. It's not the grunts' fault. It's their leaders. I'm no fan of Clinton, but I'd rather the Pres fucked one intern than fuck the whole world.

mara: is pacifism the only alternative to recruitng for the millitary among preteens? If prostitution is legalized, do we glorify prostitution to preteens? If gambling is legalized, do we teach poker to preteens?

Noting definition THREE from Merriam-Webster dot com...
It sounds like the Revere's definition is spot on.

pornography
One entry found for pornography.
Main Entry: por�nog�ra�phy
Pronunciation: -fE
Function: noun
Etymology: Greek pornographos, adjective, writing about prostitutes, from pornE prostitute + graphein to write; akin to Greek pernanai to sell, poros journey -- more at FARE, CARVE
1 : the depiction of erotic behavior (as in pictures or writing) intended to cause sexual excitement
2 : material (as books or a photograph) that depicts erotic behavior and is intended to cause sexual excitement
3 : the depiction of acts in a sensational manner so as to arouse a quick intense emotional reaction

Randy,

It is well past time for you to get your own blog. If you need help doing so, please let me know.

I can't even begin to count all the fallacies that are in Mr. Kruger's arguments, but it would make an excellent lesson for a beginning logic class. Let me just try one: Who was it that attacked New York and killed those 3500 people you use to introduce and justify your rant, Mr. Kruger, cause it sure wasn't the Iraqi people. But we've managed to wipe out at least 30 times as many of them as died in NY, in some sort of misdirected retaliation. It's like the guy that hits his thumb with a hammer and kicks the dog.

Anyway, I've taught in public schools for the past 20 years, 15 in middle school and 5 in high school. It is amoral and unethical to glamourize and prosletyze a career in which the essential purpose is to learn how to kill other human beings, to children who are at arguably their most vulnerable developmental stage, one centered around trying to find their adult identity and fit in. Up until now, this age group was largely left alone to struggle with such issues as having to partner up with a member of the opposite sex in dance class. In the inner city L.A. high school where I taught, however, military recruitment was the most active "career choice" on campus. There was a whole student center devoted to it, snappily dressed recruiters were on the campus daily, the ROTC had not one but two full time "teachers", and the ROTC students were glorified in assemblies, sporting events and at every other opportunity, going all over the state to competitions and such. Great, right? While other facets of their education were so underfunded that we had an average of 40 students per class in every academic subject,more in electives: In overcrowded classrooms, students were warehoused with few supplies, inadequate textbooks, and no chance for real education. But why bother to spend money on their education when we really only want them as cannon fodder? Better education and hope for a better future would be counter productive to the real goals of this country for their children (all except the children of the rich, that is; they don't go to those big underfunded urban schools, do they?)

This constant touting of the "terrorist threat" coming at us from all directions is designed in part to promote a condition of permanent mass paranoia in the American public; You exemplify this mindset with your almost silly comment about the purpose of the missiles No Korea fired. To start a war? With what? They are freaking bankrupt, starving. They don't have enough fuel to get their missiles more than a few miles from the launch pad.They have nothing with which to fight a war should they inadvertantly start one and they know it. And so do we. They are like toads standing up on their legs, hissing at the tiger, hoping to scare it away. They are pathetic and laughable, yet you make them out like some vast enemy that would take us over if we let them. oh puhleeeeze!!!! War is a game the rich play to get richer and the poor are just the expendable pawns. Our children are the pawns

Please someone pipe up and tell me which city needs to go down to get this always incessant rant about Bush, the war, the no fly zone, the Bosnia boo-boo, and lets absolutely forget that Clinton reduced the size of government by 500,000. Guess which ones he reduced? It wasnt interns I can tell you.

Mr. Kruger, have you studied the military buildup of the post-Khrushchev Soviet Union at all closely? And its subsequent collapse? I did. And back when I did, I was a Republican. And anything but a pacifist. I am no longer a Republican. But still anything but a pacifist.

In the 20 years following the Soviet re-assessment of Nikita Khrushchev's policies, the fraction of Soviet GNP that went into military spending rose to something between 25 and 30%, depending on whose figures you believe. I do not quote the Soviet ones from that time because absolutely nobody in their right minds credited those then or now.

20 years. During which, thanks to single-minded concentration on conventional force buildup, re-investment in civilian infrastructure of almost every sort imaginable fell close to nil.

The effects on quality of life were immediate, drastic, and measurable by generally accepted indicators. Like percentage mortality between birth and age 5 years. And alcoholism rates. Long story short, the USSR was on a slippery slope to hell.

We were spending around a third of that percentage, and the effects on our economy over a forty year time span were serious and distorting. I call your attention to the 1991 recession, whose root cause can be traced to the failure of businesses which were addicted to defense contracts, and which failed to convert back.

WE HAD NO CHOICE but to reduce the number of boots on the ground, if we were not to risk the fate of the USSR. Since that threat, once vanished, no longer justified the continuing outlay for the forces to keep it in check.

Take it from a certified professional who has done security work for most of a decade. Too much security is as lethal as none at all.

By the way this week is Monica Lewinsky's birthday. Its amazing, it seems like it was just the other day when she was crawling around on her hands and knees in the White House while Bill threw 30 cruise missiles at Osama and missed.

Does this really matter? At all?? Compared to what??

Two failed wars? Iraq fallen into the orbit of the worst enemy we've got among all the nation states of the Middle East? The evisceration of the CDC? The wrecking of the United States Army? And it is being wrecked. Already has been, to the extent that it is recruiting gang members recruiters wouldn't have wasted spittle on ten years ago. And running psychopaths like Steven Green, whom they should not have even let in the door, through basic training without noticing anything amiss.

Bosnia had festered for six years and then when he is feeling the below the belt heat he started a war. Hmm. Isnt that what Revere wants GWB impeached on?

Just how many biological weapons did Clinton claim the Serbians had? How many intelligence reports about nonexistent yellowcake did he have made up out of whole cloth to justify American involvement in the war?

Most of the people who are against the war are left wing socialists.

As regards "left wing socialists" ....

Mr. Kruger, I truly hope that you do not choose to describe the likes of Edward Luttwak, William Lind, or Martin Van Creveld as "left wing socialists" within earshot of anyone who has spent much time studying military history. You would not enjoy the reaction, I promise you.

As regards anti-war sentiment ...

The Iraq War was insane upon its face. Anyone who grew up during the period when we faced a literally planet-killing arsenal in the hands of our foes, and yet broke them, knew that. That was the reason I felt compelled to leave the Republican party.

I grew up in Tucson, Mr. Kruger. You may not recall enough of the Cold War military balance to know what that means. If war had broken out, everything within 50 miles would have been quite literally incinerated. Because what was there from 1965 on would have required any Soviet targeting officer in his right mind to assign at least two-score fusion warheads to that area. Possibly twice as many or more.

And we broke them. Where, pray tell, is the Soviet Union today? Iraq, with a fission weapon demonstrator ten years off at best, a biological weapons program uncovered and wrecked by UNSCOM in 1996-1997, and no delivery systems that could chuck 500 kilograms more than 700 miles maximum, didn't exactly keep me awake nights.

I wasn't a soldier, then or previously, as the Army did not feel they required the services of asthmatics who couldn't so much as hack Basic, in South Vietnam. But I did know how to do homework.

Sure, I at times think we are a bit too far to the right and you know that lasted right up until Wednesday of this week when they started popping 3 stage missiles out over the Pacific.

Look up the Taepo-Dong 2. The three stage variant is hypothetical. In other words, it is, right now, a presumed future capability. Not a fact with proofs attending.

And their TD-2 launch was a humiliating failure. The more fools them.

Are we fallen so far that we now jump out of our skins at the sight of scarecrows?

Your regional missiles need one, maybe two stages to hit say Japan, S. Korea, and China. Nope, its to start a war and wars are fought by people

Does Kim Jong-il strike you as the sort of person who would choose to eat the business end of a shotgun? No? I don't think so either.

Because the moment an attributable NK strike hits the US, anywhere, that is what happens next. You know it. I know it. He knows it. It doesn't really matter how deep the air raid shelters are in Pyongyang. When a couple of hundred, or thousand, fusion warheads go off right in their backyard, they are going to fry like bacon rinds upon emergence unless they are willing to wait years. And what awaits will be the starkest desert ever seen upon Planet Earth. They know that.

The rant is simple. Wars are fought with people. Continue cutting the military budget and it brings the nukes up on the table as the only method of deterrence.

Are we cutting the military budget at present? REALLY? I didn't think so, either.

Until and unless the Navy can make their BMD system work, which right now doesn't, deterrence is all we have when nuclear-tipped ICBMs enter the picture.

And what of that? Rants aside, are you really going to tell me that you are willing to wreck this country in order to wage conventional war upon foes who would become vapor at worst, soon-to-be irradiated corpses at best, mere hours after they used those weapons?

Remember, we've been down that road before. With a power that made North Korea, the Iraq of convenient neocon lies, and Iran all wrapped up together, look like a kid waving a popgun by way of comparison. AND THEY WERE CRUSHED.

Are you suggesting that we lack the courage to do that again?

Dont bring back the troops if the terrorists are right on their tails as they come back.

If you have studied the facts that have emerged so far about Madrid and London, you know as well as I do that "terrorists are right on their tails" isn't what we face, whether we stay in Iraq the next ten years or leave tomorrow morning.

excellent Charles, thanks for the sanity and the reality check.

Revere,so do we lump soldiers in with prostitutes and gamblers?Since we appear to require "cannon fodder",as some inelegently refer to them,and are likely to require them for the forseeable future,should their recruitment be undertaken furtively and with a sense of shame?"Psst,sign here buddy;your secret is safe with us" kind of thing.Considering what we ask of our troops in war zones,perhaps it might be appropriate to dignify their hiring and service with less than horror and shame.It is not just banjo players and chicken pluckers that we need,if you accept my proposition.We need brain power as well,which,by the way, is where I get queasy at the prospect of my own "perfect" child volunteering for this "madness" and being shot.While the morally appalled inteligentia bang their gums in dismay,reality rules.Am I wrong? Cheers.

reverse:

Randy: I spent years working with Gulf I vets. I've seen the results. We weren't any safer after that war to make Kuwait safe for despotism and we're less safe now.

Wasn't the intervention in Kuweit a fulfillment of an international obligation? Do you think that the US should honor its alliance obligations only when it feels like it?

Charles Rotten:

Does Kim Jong-il strike you as the sort of person who would choose to eat the business end of a shotgun? No? I don't think so either.

Because the moment an attributable NK strike hits the US, anywhere, that is what happens next. You know it. I know it. He knows it. It doesn't really matter how deep the air raid shelters are in Pyongyang. When a couple of hundred, or thousand, fusion warheads go off right in their backyard, they are going to fry like bacon rinds upon emergence unless they are willing to wait years. And what awaits will be the starkest desert ever seen upon Planet Earth. They know that.

I think he knows that if Bush even droppen 1 nuc bomb on NK, the rest of the world would be screaming with rage... at the USA.

revere: do not worry. Your child will surely have a better chance at being molested and/or being seduced online than ever being called into military service. I am sure I do not have to present the stats here; they are deplorable. If you want to focus on a war, focus on preventing or reducing violence against women/children. We lose more women to abuse PER YEAR, than have died in Iraq since the beginning. Where is the rallying cry against THAT?

As an educated person, I am sure you will agree that a healthy sex education does not necessarily equal what is often being promoted by the porn industry. No longer are we merely dealing with the PlayBoy, Hustler genre. Today, it is every depravity imaginable. Mix that up with fatal illnesses and chronic sequelae from STDs. Not to mention the psychological trauma and unwanted babies.

Conversely, joining the military does not of necessity, equal random killing. There is a difference between doing what is necessary to complete a mission - protecting your troops/allies, eliminating attacking enemies - and wanton murder. There are many roles within the military that are for the promotion of life and limb. In fact, the medical research divisions of the Army and Navy are of significant use in the war against the panflu.

But you already know this. Pious platitudes do not benefit any discussion.

nthesia: It is not up to me whether my child (actually my grandchild) will be called to military service. If there is a draft then it will be up to that law. Otherwise, as now, it will be up to them. And that is the problem. Not that a child will be "called" to military service but whether they will be seduced into it.

I am well aware, for personal reasons, of the lifesaving aspects of many jobs in the military.So that is not the issue. The issue is the overall project of the organization, which is not (IMO) lifesaving but lifetaking. One can argue the extent to which one must take another's life to save your own or the lives of others. That discussion is not for this reply. But it is undeniable that the purpose of medical support in the military is to support the mission, and the mission is not a lifesaving one.

I do not feel it is appropriate to recruit children, whose notion of mortality, suffering and the consequences of their actions on others is just being formed, into a military enterprise. Later, if that is their choice, just as perhaps being a sex worker (aka prostitute), accountant for Enron, rabbi/priest/mullah, physician, nurse or any of a zillion other possible jobs, then OK. But hawking the awesomeness of guns to children is pornographic in my view.

Roman: If I didn't know that irony has died a gruesome death, I'd say you were joking. Honor our int'l obligations? Like the Geneva Accords? No, not those. The US honors just those obligations it feels like and as a Great Power it has arranged int'l obligations mostly to suit itself, except when they don't, in which case, tough shit for int'l obligations.

As you say, you know it and I know it. The whole world knows it.

As a citizen of a country which is a NATO member, I fervently hope you won't become a US president.

"Russia attacked Poland? Tough luck for them. We won't defend Poland - our ally - because we broke the law some time before, and sending a few divisions would get us a bad press in Pravda".

Roman: LOL. I'm not sure who you are quoting in your comment, but you sure got a terrific US Pres. in GWB. As for me being elected, you can sleep easy. I'm an atheist and we don't elect godless people in the US.

Mara: "cannon fodder" may be inelegant, but it communicates the reality. Did you know that part of the recruitment techniques used by the military on these children is in the form of video games, war games where you get to blow up the enemy with all kinds of "neat weapons" and "really cool blood and gore" squirt everywhere? But if you happen to get killed, you can just push reset and play again. I kid you not. Go to the USArmy website. I haven't looked, but I was told it was there, and I know it was used on our high school campus as it was described to me by both teachers and students who saw it in action. If this isn't seducing our children with an unreal mindset into the glamour of being a soldier, I don't know what is. And that was the point of revere's original post, that we have no business trying to actively promote to impressionable kids as young as 11 or 12 years old that being a soldier and going to war is something they should think about doing with their lives. It's not just because they might die there or come back maimed either, what Randy claimed amounted to less than 1% of our troops. Maybe "only" 1% of our troops are killed or horribly wounded, but many many more come back scarred mentally and emotionally. Probably over half. How does that affect their lives and the lives of their families? And again, for what? If we were fighting a real enemy, one that had actually attacked us and threatened the safety of our homes and families, no problem. But we "preemptively" attacked a people who had not and could not do us harm; and the vast majority of those our bombs and bullets and mortar rounds have killed, whether accidentally, carelessly or on purpose, have been non-terrorist civilians, women and children. No wonder our returning GIs can't sleep at night. How can we?

Did you know that part of the recruitment techniques used by the military on these children is in the form of video games, war games where you get to blow up the enemy with all kinds of "neat weapons" and "really cool blood and gore" squirt everywhere? But if you happen to get killed, you can just push reset and play again. I kid you not.

Most video games are like this. Nothing surprising here.

Roman: LOL. I'm not sure who you are quoting in your comment,

Hmmm...

but you sure got a terrific US Pres. in GWB.

Actually, I think GWB is a poor president. But you wouldn't make a better one, I presume (from your posts). You've just said that since the US broke its obligations once, it can freely do it again and honoring them without some other reason is bad (like in Kuweit).

It's like a silly kid thinking "gee, I stole that candy bar, that means I'm doomed -- so why not steal $100 from Papa?".

As for me being elected, you can sleep easy. I'm an atheist and we don't elect godless people in the US.

Godless or not, what's the difference? The opinions you've expressed are just as foreign to me.

Roman: They've broken int'l agreements "once." ???? Surely you are joking! BTW, exactly what international agreement was the US keeping in Kuwait?

And who were you quoting in your comment? Hmmm?

Regarding video games, I'm sure if some were critical of Israel, you'd be all over them like white on rice. But since they just promote fantasy violence to kids, no big deal. Whether my opinons are foreign to you or not is rather immaterial since you don't get to vote here. But you've got the Christian evangelicals to cast your vote for you, so don't worry.

BTW, exactly what international agreement was the US keeping in Kuwait?

The US promised to Kuweit that it would defend it. "Keeping your word" is a good thing. And stopping big bullies from running over small countries is a good thing, too.

Also, it may be (since you're an American) important to you that it was also defending US interests (oil prices). In a much more efficient way than your president is doing it now.

And who were you quoting in your comment? Hmmm?

Think... were I quoting anybody?

Regarding video games, I'm sure if some were critical of Israel, you'd be all over them like white on rice.

It depends. If they made fun - cleverly - of the Israeli Orthodox Rabbis, for example, I would praise them. If they presented such a one-sided view of the conflict, I would call them stupid and leave the matter at that. I like computer games and this constant whining "oh, video games teach kids violence" sounds very silly to me. Yeah, as if before the computers kids did not play war...

But since they just promote fantasy violence to kids, no big deal.

I find this funny that you pick on US Army-sponsored games, while plenty of commercial games (Doom III, Quake, Unreal, Postal, Grand Theft Auto, ...,...) "promote fantasy violence to kids" even more (they're more attractive than America's Army, which is not a great game IMHO - decent, but not great).

You know what "promotes violence to kids"? Lack of parentage. People spend all the time thinking about themselves and their jobs, raise lazy and stupid kids, and then blame everyone else for their failures: TV, movies, video games,... How modern and how pathetic.

But you've got the Christian evangelicals to cast your vote for you, so don't worry.

I don't think I would agree with most of their political or philosophical positions.

Roman: So your answer is, no international agreements.

Regarding the quote, you had quotation marks around something about Poland and Russia as if I or someone here had said it. I wanted to know who.

Video games: I am not for censoring video games of any kind. You made the point I was referring to in responding to someone else.

When you say lack of parentage I assume you mean parenting. And what is the subtext here? Single parent families? Or is this just a comment about raising kids. If so, I agree with it (it's nice to agree about something.)

Roman: A Video game bought and played for entertainment is one thing. A Video game used for military recruitment, especially of children, is another, as the underlying message is "serving in the army is just like a video game." Do you get the difference? Do you see why it is amoral and unethical to present military service that will cause you to kill other human beings FOR REAL, and to potentially be killed yourself FOR REAL, as if it is just like a fantasy based video game?

The 1% casualty rate being tossed around in this discussion is, I believe, likely to be invalid based on the casualty rate for the Gulf War.

It's widely believe that the Gulf War was a model of low casualties on the coalition side, and when it comes to battlefield deaths and injuries, this is true. As I learned in Chalmers Johnson's Sorrows of Empire (p. 100), however, the actual American casualty rate for the Gulf War approaches a third of all service members. And this was according to the Department of Defense's own statistics concerning post-war injuries and illnesses directly attributable to the war.

One could dispute Johnson over whether depleted uranium (DU) in our ammunition or other factors were the primary cause of the majority of those ailments, but the undeniable fact remains that the human cost of that deployment on those who served was far higher than has widely acknowledged. I don't think it does any disrespect to current or former members of the military to admit this. I think part of respecting the service of our troops, for those who wish to do so, has to be admitting what's being done to them in our wars legal, necessary, or not. And it should also be part of the discussion of whether children should be sold a glamorized vision of military service.

Mary in H. Fine thank you and you. You make references to logic like it was only yours that could possibly be right. Since you were a schoolteacher and not a military person I think your security clearance was a little low for making determinations if I was right or wrong. You can argue politics all you want but terrorists loved Baghdad as all roads lead thru there. One of the worst was in country for 20 years before he committed suicide with three shots to the back of the head.

No WMD even though the UN said it was there. So now did the Iraqi people attack the US or was it Saudi's or Egyptians or Al Qaeda. Personally I have so many problems sorting them out. Perhaps you or I could both be wrong? Perhaps we should kill them all? Do you actually think that people in the military as a rule LIKE killing people? There are a few I can safely say do and there are a few rapists, murderers, thieves and what have you. But they are also on the streets in California now arent they? Most guys in the military do it to get the training for a street level job. Not capping some Iraqi schoolkid. I find that you have no appreciation for the freedom that they afford you.

You also make reference to shitty schools in California. Well that aint the Administrations fault. If you are like all the other systems around the country pay property taxes or do it thru income taxes and thats set by the state and local governments. So whining about how you didnt have books, and paper and all of that is just puck. Its been that way ever since they invented schools. I dont think you have a total subsidy in California for your schools. Likely you will need one soon though if they dont get the immigration problem settled. Different problem but maybe someone should address that too. But lets blame someone other than ourselves for the problem.... its so easy.

You know when recruiting you go where the grapes are growing. Those kids in the inner city and in those shitty schools with no books also have no respect, discipline, education, and above all no job waiting on them when they get out of school except at McDonalds. Recruiters give them an opportunity to get out. Yeah and Mary, in WWII they didnt come back as often as they do now. They came back from Vietnam and Korea more than they did in WWII so maybe we are doing something right.

When they do come back if they are able, its only long enough to pack their bags for someplace other than East LA. Those guys in uniform represent something and even the biggest crack-head knows it. Amoral and unethical to proselytize a career that for blah, blah, blah teaches people how to kill another human being. WE learned that in basic training Mary. WE also went on to our main training and that is about 80% of us. We went on to something other than throwing grenades and popping people from 300 yards. Oh now we were good at it and the US military can kill on a 7 to 1 ratio but now thats illogical isnt it to kill on such a scale... We MUST do worse because its amoral. Amoral is when you get all this support from the public from people like you. Guess we ought to just rant about how nice we ought to play with each other in the world. You taught for 20 years and you should be commended for it Mary. You and the Revere's are what we all would like the world to be and believe me there just arent too many places where your idealistic world exists. I cant say the USA anymore after 9/11. You make reference to cannon fodder. I can say I took a lot away from the military, including several decorations for doing nothing more than whacking a bunch of people in a highly inventive way. They likely would have gotten the same thing from their side if they had gotten me. But one thing is certain, I would do it again if it became necessary. Our problem right now is that we have an unseen enemy and like the Israelis you have to do inhuman things to get them. I can also assure you that I have played those video games in various simulators operated by the Army and Marines in a mulit-mode operation. You get a shock on some, a small charge on some goes off to give you a real appreciation of how bad it hurts to get hit. Many different tactics, many different scenarios. No they are not on the ARMY or MARINES websites. But teaching you to kill is defense of this nation. I wish it werent necessary. It is.

Mary, you must understand that in the military no one cares about their people more than the people around them. They are better cared for than they ever were at home in E. LA. and they are educated most of them in something other than killing. Electronics, plumbing, communications, road building, surveying, and on and on. Most of these are the support services to the infantry. The Air Force supports those ground pounders too. Its all part of the big picture. In your case though if they actually learned anything in school there is still no outlet for them to use it. There are no jobs in the inner cities. If there were some other way for them to get out then even the dumbest one of them would do it, but they know there isnt. The military is an option. They dont have to take it. In Infantry school they teach you that you might not like they guy you are with but he is your best buddy in a firefight. The only firefights they get into is ones with the cops or rival gangs and over drugs or prostitutes.

Infantry guys get into the furballs and take the hits as they have since the Roman legions took the Mediterranean. Our amorality has kept the country safe, and in constant turmoil for over 200 years and personally I take offense at you pot shoting the people who defend you while you rant about "killing." What would you have us do? Use harsh language? Get real. Its the military and the job of the military is to KILL when necessary and under orders. For some reason that I cant understand you fail to see that Iraq is the key to the Middle East. Al Qaeda is there right? Arent they the same guys that did the WTC. So Iraq was, is and will be fair game. In my very educated military mind you had better get with the program as regardless of Roten, you are very much within the range of the N. Korean missiles. Like the WTC you both can sit back and HOPE that the Korean Nutcase doesnt lob one that could or can hit Hawaii with, or the US with an NBC component. But once its past boost phase all you can do is just watch and wait. You make too many assumptions that are skewed to your thoughts. Get out and go to a ARNG base on a weekend exercise. They love it when the public has the time to come out and see what they do. I think you'll find the rifles stowed away, the 20mm cannons on safe and the belts put away, the K-bars in their sheaths and away from children. Cant say that about E. LA on a good day.

Go ahead and rant all you want. I understand and defend your right to say it. Just dont assume that you are completely correct in what you say. You have to admit, you might be wrong because you might not have enough information to assess the situation properly. In this I dont mean the media either.

Mary in Hawaii..."killed for REAL...as if it is just like a fantasy based video game".So,was the target audience too young?.When is old enough?.Would you have the same objection if the audience was older? How much older?.I'm pretty old and gnarly,as my kid would readily confirm.Would you trust me to distinguish reality from fantasy?Rhetorical question really;though I suspect you wouldn't like the message delivered to anyone at all.If so,we beg to differ.

revere:

Regarding the quote, you had quotation marks around something about Poland and Russia as if I or someone here had said it. I wanted to know who.

If I tell you a joke or a parabole, did it really happen?

When you say lack of parentage I assume you mean parenting. And what is the subtext here? Single parent families? Or is this just a comment about raising kids. If so, I agree with it (it's nice to agree about something.)

It's about raising kids.

Roman: A Video game bought and played for entertainment is one thing. A Video game used for military recruitment, especially of children, is another, as the underlying message is "serving in the army is just like a video game." Do you get the difference?

No, I don't since there are lots of commercial games about modern or WW-II militaries which you could say the same thing about. Check out Delta Force, Full Spectrum Warrior, Medal of Honor, or Call of Duty. The only difference is that since they are commercial, they can't be used as a stick to beat the US Army with in the media.

Randy: We do differ, and there is no way around it. I do not for an instant believe that it was necessary for the sake of our national security to preemptively go to war with Iraq. If no one has convinced you by now that Iraq had nothing to do with the 9-11 attack on us, then I certainly won't try. Regardless, I don't believe what we have done has made us safer from a similar attack in the future, I feel it has made the terrorist threat worse. On the other hand, I honor and respect those who fight to defend our country when we are under a real attack from real enemies. It's been awhile though for that, sir. Since Vietnam, we have mostly gone into other countries to remove bullies and dictators that afew years earlier we were calling our allies. Interesting world to sort out isn't it? I'm sorry that you had to kill people, I'm sure it wasn't easy and I'm sure it had to have changed you in some ways. It would make sense that you have to feel it was absolutely necessary. But I do hope that my youngest son and oldest grandchild never has to have that experience, because I would feel their pain and I would feel their horror, and I would feel the wall that would be between us ever after.

As regards the underfunding for education and the lack of jobs for kids in the inner city ...we're spending $300 million dollars a day in Iraq. How far would that go for buying books, creating apprenticeship entry level jobs, etc.? Nuff said.

Mara: the article that was the entire subject of this debate was the ethics of recruiters promoting a career in the military to children between the ages of 10 and 13. You comments to me regarding "when is old enough" amount to petty sniping. Don't presume to know what I think. I will tell you what I think very clearly.

To all of you who defend war over peace: If you can't respect those of us here who have stated they feel we must seek peaceful solutions to any conflict, as violence only begets more violence, here are a few with that viewpoint who maybe you do respect: Ghandi, Martin Luther King, Jesus Christ. Shoot at them for awhile, okay?

Mary in Hawaii....thank you for your deeply heartfelt and considered reply.I rest my case.Good morning to you and good-night from me.

Mary,just to clarify.it is 22.20 hrs here in NZ.

Civilization can be defined most parsimoniously as a type of society in which knowledge increases over time and violence decreases over time (think about this for a moment and you will see that all of the other beneficial attributes of civilization are effects of these two points). The accumulation of knowledge, its useful application to improve the lives of people, and the reduction of violence, are all syntropic (negentropic) undertakings. That is, they work against entropy, they increase complexity (embodied intelligence) and order. As such, they are vulnerable to disruption of all kinds, from natural causes and from humans with the will to attack and destroy.

It does not take much in the way of successful attacking, to bring down a civilized society. Destruction of water and sanitation facilities, or destruction of the lawful order, or of the financial infrastructure, will do the job effectively. But any sufficiently organized and destructive attack is a potentially serious threat.

We are so damn fortunate to have never suffered an attack against our civilian population within living memory (Pearl Harbor was after all an attack on a military base), until five years ago. It took years to build the WTC, and hours to take it down. A textbook illustration of the difficulty of working against entropy, and the ease of encouraging entropy to reclaim organized mass and embodied energy back into randomized rubble.

When we think of a civilized society we think primarily of the builders and the teachers. But civilization does not remain long unless it has its defenders. Public health is defense against communicable disease. Police, courts, and prisons are defense against the randomized violence of crime. Firefighters are defense against natural forces that would otherwise destroy our homes and kill us. Paramedics are defense against medical emergencies.

And, like it or not, a highly capable military is defense against other nations -and today, against subnational groups with nationlike capabilities- that would attack us and kill us, break our infrastructure and our economy, and thereby threaten our existence as a civilized society. Consider what would have happened if Plane #3 had hit the White House, and #4 had hit the Capitol building.

Military defense, like an effective criminal justice system, rests primarily on deterrence. Deterrence works against people who are rational, i.e. death-avoiding and this-world-oriented. It does not work against people who are irrational, i.e. death-seeking and other-world-oriented. In any case, effective military defense requires going after attackers with sufficient force to destroy their capacity to attack again. That is, we end up having to kill people and break things in order to prevent them killing more of us and breaking more of our things again. And any time we go into combat there is a certainty that some will not come back, or will not come back whole.

Given that this role (and all the roles subsumed under it) are essential, we can either fill it with a draft (perhaps more egalitarian so long as the elites do not weasel out, as our present leadership has done: the Deserter-In-Chief and Five-Deferment Dick), or through volunteers. And since the most effective warriors are those at their peak of physical ability and learning ability, we seek them in highschool.

Now consider that the profession of warrior is one of the few in this society that is not infused with, dripping with, and drowning in, the lust for money. It is one of the few where personal integrity is emphasized as a literal matter of life and death, and where selflessness, rather than selfishness, is part of the official creed. This value system: duty, honor, courage, integrity; is also necessary as a check and balance to the raw power that goes along with "awesome arsenals." And this value system is practiced in an institution that is the most racially and ethnically integrated institution, at its uppermost levels as well as throughout its ranks, in America.

Would that more of our corporate leaders had exposure to and training in these values! Compare the testimony of General Taguba before Congress, forthrightly taking responsibility for serious problems; to the weasely pleadings of "no contest" and the "paid a (huge) settlement but admitted no wrongdoing" that are characteristic of trials for white collar crime and corporate wrongdoing. The latter performances are disgraceful to the point of filthy.

And yet there is no complaint when the recruiters for *those* values show up in droves on our highschool (rarely) and college (frequently) campuses. No complaint about the fact that in business education, ethics is a course rather than the make-it-or-break-it foundation of the entire curriculum. After all, your son or daughter isn't at risk of coming back from *that* with anything much worse than a bad hangover from a big party.

To my mind the profession of warrior is an honorable one, more so than many of the most highly-rewarded civilian professions. It is certainly a necessary one. And that necessity entails risk, up to and including death. Those who would deny the logical necessity of recruitment are ultimately guilty of a kind of NIMBYism, just like those who would deny a permit for an ocean wind energy installation because it would "spoil" "their" views, as if they own everything they can see out to the horizon. Not in your back yard, not in your highschool, the burden to be borne by someone else. In the most liberal version, not in the back yards of our most disadvantaged, despite the fact that they themselves may welcome the opportunity.

But regardless of whose back yard, in the end we all will die: the warriors, and the executives ethical and otherwise, and the common working men and women, and all of their children, and their children's children, with no exceptions, and no exemptions from the final draft. The relevant question is, for what values did you live your life?, and to whom did you give without reservation?

m from h:

To all of you who defend war over peace: If you can't respect those of us here who have stated they feel we must seek peaceful solutions to any conflict, as violence only begets more violence, here are a few with that viewpoint who maybe you do respect: Ghandi, Martin Luther King, Jesus Christ. Shoot at them for awhile, okay?

Jesus was not a pacifist. Do you know the concept of a just war?

g510: "The relevant question is, for what values did you live your life?" Yes. Let's see: to honor and respect and try to preserve the value, beauty and integrity of the natural order of all living things. Humans as a species by and large destroy that and each other for completely irrational reasons that they spend a tremendous amount of glib verbiage trying to rationalize. We call our attempts to channel, control and ultimately destroy most of nature "civilization".

Roman: I am amazed by your audacity. Jesus was not a pacifist? Main teaching: do unto others as you would have others do unto you. love thy neighbor as thyself. turn the other cheek. Love thine enemies. What bible do you read? You are an uninformed big mouth that just likes to attack others' viewpoints no matter what, right? If you haven't anything of real intelligence to contribute then be quiet.

Roman,

Now you're demonstrating your ignorance of history and moral theology. The "just war concept" appears nowhere in the New Testament. It's an RC Church doctrine that wasn't articulated until Augustine. By that point, Jesus had been dead for a few centuries.

The concept of just war did not arise out of the blue sky.

Jesus also said this: "I come not to bring peace, but to bring a sword".

Anyway, it would be foolish to let ourselves be slaughtered like pigs by our enemies just because a fisherman from Galilee said something 2000 years ago.

Mary,

No name calling now.... Its not nice. Roman has an opinion and you dont appear to be turning the other cheek or loving thine enemy.

By the way, we are not spending 300 million a day in Iraq. If that were the case we would have blown thru the budget long ago. We burn about 1 million a day in ADDITIONAL costs due to the war in Iraq. Thats a media number you are hearing. That number is money that is already alotted and the money number you are hearing is for training, mobilization, demobilization, support forces, support materials and the entire military budget. They pull this each and every time we have a war and they did it in Desert Storm.
The actual number for the military budget according to the OMB for all branches is about 25 million a day...total.

I say it again though. It takes millions to win a war, but all you have to lose one. This is my case for Iraq. We go in, knock the dog snot out of them again and again if necessary. Thre are 30 nuclear warheads missing from the Soviet arsenal Mary. Al Qaeda might just be able to pony up the money but they still dont have a delivery system. They hate the Ruskies just as much as they hate us. But the Rus sell them stuff either directly or indirectly. Tymps Lord of War scenario. We get the bills and the Rus present one for payment. So who do we see about that. They need the money and we need to spend it. What price is it worth to you to make sure that P. Harbor doesnt go up a second time?

Back to the budget. If that 300 a day were the case in 100 days the number would be what? Except for roadside bombings and an occasional pot shot sniper we are not having massive US casualties either. They are bad but they are doing it with 500 pounders that they got from Iraqi depots for as I hear about 100 bucks a warshot. That video you saw of the big explosion on TV was a 500. Several of our guys were killed and none are acceptable to me. So we COULD do it like the Rus when their people are kidnapped as they were in Lebanon. They went out, grabbed the first Hamas leader that they could find, shot him in the back of the head and then dumped the body in a drive by in front of their offices. I like it. But we have to play fair no matter what we do.

We are in Iraq just as we were Bosnia, we are in Iraq as we were in Mogadishu, and while we wont occupy Iran you had better get ready for the largest air bombardment in the history of the world if they do something stupid. The question is could we do Korea and Iran at the same time? I doubt it. So pre-emptive strikes against Korea are very likely if they pop off another bottle rocket. The latest information is that those missiles they are packing are getting more and more capable. They have about 1000 lbs of warhead capability and its just a tad short for anything other than about a 15 megaton warhead. On the other hand it could hit just about anything right now west of LA., not with accuracy but hit it they could.

Their plan is thought to be to move our deterrence away from Japan as no one will want to base ships or air force assets where they can be hit by a tactical nuke or bio weapon. We have to have the forces there so as to be brought to bear against an attack to the South. Without a doubt the Koreans will fail if they do attack but they have to do something sooner than later. They are starving. Me, I would use a squadron level attack with B-2's against the leadership right now because the inevitability of whats coming is better to have on our schedule than theirs. But alas negotiations with terrorists. Just kill the bastards.

While no one wants to go but I cant see any way around the Korean situation. China and Russia are absolutely no help at all and they are supplying them. On the other hand, the Russians have made it very clear that if Korea should decide to launch a nuke or conventional attack against Japan they might respond and that response was left open ended. You also might remind yourself that two years ago there was a massive explosion leaving a heat signature that one of the KH-13's picked up. The indication was that it was an explosion at a train station of an ammunition train. Now they believe it was something else as the area luminesces at night when the moon is bouncing radiation back at the earth.

Very interesting. Roten was very quick to jump on the anti Iraq wagon too. He is a mathematician I believe at U of AZ and he deals with computer related languages. He didnt get to where he is by being stupid. I didnt either. We can disagree on many things but the decision to hit Iraq was right. Syria, Iran or Korea are going to be next. Plain and simple. It will be either a dem or republican but I can assure you without a doubt that even if we leave Iraq, we will hit one or more of them in the next five years.

Roman.. Violence begets violence and I agree. You miss OBL with 30 cruise missiles and you are likely to piss the guy off. It might yet be necessary to light up a city or countryside with a nuke to make a few points out there. First is... WE MEAN BUSINESS! This of course would be the most extreme manner with deplomacy being the least. So that leaves the military in the lurch. Cut and run? I dont like the term. We cant find the slimy bastards who attacked us but we definitely have people getting their heads whacked off so we know they are there. What do we do when a cell or two get actively involved in that here in the US because we have diplomacy? I think that the day they take a day care center or a school as they did in Russia that once again we will properly remember the WTC's going down and what to do about it. I guess we will throw some of those shitty books at them.

We are going to be on one helluva ride for the next 25 years. Better get used to it.

m in h: Who in the world could possibly infer from these comments that anyone here "defends war over peace??!!!!" How ludicrous! Just that statement alone illustrates a chasm that is not worth attempting a dialogue.

revere: Your grandchild will not be seduced by the military. He (possibly she) may join by choice AS A YOUNG ADULT. The NRA and Hollywood does much more "seduction" than the military. And studies have shown that little boys gravitate towards this type of play even when discouraged by their parents.

Case in point: my stepson (19) has lived a pampered life. Wealthy household, domestics, nannies, etc. No guns in the household. No play guns/weapons allowed in the household. This year, he joined the US Navy. I was surprised (shocked). And I had a long discussion regarding the current conflict situation. His father is the biggest pacifist I know (Canadian). This young man also has Canadian citizenship. This was his choice.

As for the comment that the mission is not one of saving lives, I have to STRONGLY disagree. The mission IS the mission, granted. But, the military medical support mission IS DEDICATED to saving the lives and salvaging those injured in the course of that mission.

Many, and I must repeat many, of the life-saving surgeries, techniques, and innovations that are used in everyday civilian medicine were initated or perfected in attempts to save the lives of soldiers. Even in this conflict, trauma techniques have been developed resulting in fewer mortalities. That wasn't the intention, but a valuable result, none-the-less.

And I STILL would like to see the verbal tirade and rant aimed at all the violence against women and children. Thousands killed and millions of assaults ANNUALLY! Have you addressed this public health issue? Let's speak of this injustice and the cost to society.

Talk about PTSD, wheelchairs and death. I've seen women shot in the head, paralyzed (by husbands); transplanted the hearts from murdered abused babies (that's where most of those baby hearts come from). Let's start saving the lives of those most vulnerable here in the United States. We can start there. And then go global. It's a ubiquitous problem. These wars literally begin at home. Let's clean our domestic houses first.

By the by...I sure hope that all this anti-government rhetoric from the (anonymous) public health service reveres isn't coming from those whose paycheck is signed by said government.

That wouldn't seem very ethical.

g510: Consider what would have happened if Plane #3 had hit the White House, and #4 had hit the Capitol building.

Maybe the world might have turned out to be a better place.

nsthesia: I couldn't agree with you more. Wyoming, the state I live in, ranks #1 in domestic violence aimed at women. They say it's because we're so rural. Maybe it's because the men in this state use their fists more and don't have the opportunity to bitch away their anger at their spouses or SOs in bars. (I avoid bars totally, BTW, for this reason.)

Randy: you are obviously a really good guy, and one of the honorable protectors. You have a tremendous amount more knowledge about the military ins and outs of things than I do, and a militarist's viewpoint on the need for a strong defense in terms of bullets and bombs. I respect that. But I think when the smoke clears from all this (and I agree you are right, we will go into Iran, Syria and North Korea in the next few years) I think eventually history will find out we were all lead down a path for reasons other than what we are being told. I am sure you have heard of Project for a New American Century, or PNAC. The thing is, it doesn't matter whether we started all this for reasons other than thwarting terrorist attacks, for by so doing we soon created the actual need for the endless "war on terror" in reality...the epitome of a self fulfilling prophecy. You are right, we are in for some deep doo doo in the next quarter century, and there is very very little we can do other than hang on.
And thank you for the clarification on the war expenditures...just goes to show you can't trust the media to get anything right.

Quite all right Mary. This whole country is up in arms on both sides of this argument and I have to be honest with you I am getting a security briefing a week and none of its good. They finally went for the border thing not so much for the illegals but more so for the entry by terrorists. The other is an added benefit.

I have a PDF that was written as an assessment in March if anyone is interested of the Korean missile capabilities. It has been borne out, debunked and new startling stuff since then. Its good reading and fairly short and to the point. Roten might want to read it before he goes off about Iraq. To me with what I am seeing and getting, I think they have all been in cahoots for years financially, scientifically.

Regardless of how you feel about the entry into Iraq it was inevitable as well that we would have ended back up in there again after Desert Storm anyway. Total number of Iraqi dead are at 429,000 now from Saddam. Also mind if you are one of those, "Its about the oil" people then just to clue you in on the great Saddam plan. That was to use either Scud B-C's and load them up with nuke materials or persistent chemical agents and send them against the Saudi oil fields and loading points. By doing so his oil would have gone up by 50% overnight. What would we have done about it? Zip. Cant attack someone who is delivering the oil.

We will never know the real reasons we went to Iraq Mary. Its probably got a pro/con list and at some point it tipped over the line. We should have just snuck in though and bombe the piss out of the guy rather than tearing up the country. The Republican Guards were a dangerous lot too and was loaded with psychopaths. I think that the US is fettering itself with too many desires to fight a chivalrous war. Chivalry departed for the land of La-La just about the beginning of WWII.

I would submit though that we might be already engaged in WWIV. 4 you say? Yep, III was the Cold War and there are some new books out on it. We might not like 4 or maybe 5 because the end results are going to be a poof in the night of some Western city and the response is going to be a poof of several Middle Eastern countries... Note I said countries. This was projected by Patton after the big one dropped. He like MacArthur said that the use of nuclear weapons should rest with battlefield commanders and not politicians. If they had gone with that then by now you would have seen some micronuke technology that would like the neutron bomb only destroy small areas, have rapid decay fallout and basically incinerate the problem. You would have also seen a much more limited use than whats going to happen. Note that I also said going to happen. Dont forget your sunglasses, its going to get mighty bright pretty soon and make sure you have SPF 1,000,000!

Sadly, Randy, I believe every word you just said.
It puts a whole new perspective on how we might want to live our lives in the next few minutes, days or years.

Hate to say this, but a nice broad culling of the human race by H5N1 might just be our saving grace. at least it would slow the timetable of our self destruction for awhile.

aloha