»USA is Now Run by Its Own Soldiers«
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I think the word "troops" is the most overused word in the American English language. We are taught to believe that "our troops" are humble, brave, law-abiding, and merciful. And our enemies are taught to believe this too. That is why our enemies are not afraid of "our troops" anymore. In the old days, a soldier was to be feared if he were a friend, and killed if he were an enemy. Today in the USA, we are taught that a soldier is to be worshipped if he is a friend, and mocked if he is an enemy. The American soldier also wants us to believe he is humble, brave, law-abiding, and merciful, as he himself believes he is. If any soldier is publicly shown not to be those things, he is instantly denounced as a criminal and prosecuted. The people in charge of this prosecution are the military judicial system, which is run according to US military law. The military law is created by Congress and approved by the president. It seemed like a perfect system. Seemed, that is, until soldiers started coming back from wars and not ceasing to kill, even though the enemy were thousands of miles away. Slowly but surely, the weaponization of the public became an end unto itself, and the USA itself became a deadly implement. Who wields this implement? More fitting to ask is this: why are we so convinced that a civilian president and congress, wealthy businesspeople, or organized criminals really run the country? It is because that is what the American soldier wants us to believe, because this is also what he himself believes. You can talk about your Bush this and Clinton that, but they are only the triggermen. The weapon itself is America. It's pointed at you. [CLICK HERE TO VIEW THIS PICTURE] posted by holy_of_holies |
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| in-my-opinion.orgPoliticsPolitics and Crime (Assorted topics)USA is Now Run by Its Own Soldiers |
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 I don't get it. sorry im confused: holy_of_holies: Seemed, that is, until soldiers started coming back from wars and not ceasing to kill, even though the enemy were thousands of miles away. Slowly but surely, the weaponization of the public became an end unto itself, and the USA itself became a deadly implement. ? posted by sangu |
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I'm not being evasive here; I just don't want to spell everything out like I usually do so you can draw your own conclusions. sangu: I don't get it. sorry im confused: holy_of_holies: Seemed, that is, until soldiers started coming back from wars and not ceasing to kill, even though the enemy were thousands of miles away. Slowly but surely, the weaponization of the public became an end unto itself, and the USA itself became a deadly implement. ? Example One: Tim McVeigh [Tim] McVeigh was born in Western New York State in Pendleton (near Buffalo) to an Irish-American Catholic family, which was riven by divorce. McVeigh and his siblings lived with their father, a devout Catholic who often attended Daily Mass. Timothy McVeigh's religious beliefs seem to have been shaken somewhat, but not lost entirely, as he was visited by a chaplain while he was in federal prison in Indiana, and never renounced his faith. He attended the local public high school and after graduating joined the U.S. Army. McVeigh was a decorated veteran of the United States Army, having served in the Gulf War, where he was awarded a Bronze Star Medal. He had been a top scoring gunner with the 25 mm cannon of the lightly armored Bradley Fighting Vehicles used by the U.S. 1st Infantry Division to which he was assigned. The Oklahoma City bombing was a 1995 terrorist attack in which the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, a U.S. government office complex in downtown Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, was destroyed, killing 168 people. It is the largest domestic terrorist attack in the history of the United States, and - until the September 11, 2001 attacks - largest terrorist attack of any kind in the nation's history.
[...] Timothy McVeigh was sentenced to death for the bombing, after being convicted of, among other things, murdering federal law enforcement officials . He was executed by lethal injection at a U.S. penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana, on June 11, 2001. Example Two: John Allen Muhammed John Allen Muhammad (born John Allen Williams on December 31, 1960) carried out the Beltway sniper attacks in an apparent attempt to extort $10 million dollars through terrorism. He and his younger partner Lee Boyd Malvo were arrested in connection with the attacks on October 24, 2002, following tips from alert citizens.
[...] Muhammad is a U.S. Army veteran of the Gulf War. [...] In the Army, Muhammad was trained as a mechanic, truck driver and specialist metalworker. He qualified as an expert with the M-16, the Army's standard infantry rifle. This rating is the Army's highest of three levels of marksmanship for a typical soldier. To receive an expert badge for the M-16, Muhammad would have had to hit 36 out of 40 targets, ranging from 50 to 300 meters during his yearly qualification on the M-16. The Bushmaster, allegedly used to commit the shootings, is a civilian version of the M-16. All the sniper victims—10 dead, three wounded—were hit by a single .223-caliber shot. These are just two famous examples of ex-soldiers who returned home to America and continued to kill after the war. posted by holy_of_holies |
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 holy_of_holies: Example One: Tim McVeigh I saw a documentary about McVeigh and I don't think it's a soldier gone mad, but he was part of the "Internal resistence of the US" that wants to overthrow the US government. He was part of the "freezone" that plans to get rid of the US government (no matter whether Bush or Clinton). I am talking about domestic terrorism and REVOLUTION. It was not simply a soldier gone wild. posted by knn |
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knn: holy_of_holies: Example One: Tim McVeigh I saw a documentary about McVeigh and I don't think it's a soldier gone mad, but he was part of the "Internal resistence of the US" that wants to overthrow the US government. He was part of the "freezone" that plans to get rid of the US government (no matter whether Bush or Clinton). I am talking about domestic terrorism and REVOLUTION. It was not simply a soldier gone wild. I was just trying to come up with examples for sangu that she might have heard of. McVeigh might not be the best example, and I guess neither is John Allen Muhammed since the Belway shootings were a failed extortion scheme. But there are some problems with your view: the "Internal Resistance of the US" you refer to is more commonly called the"militia" or "survivalist" movement since it is organized into paramilitary groups who arm and train themselves for what they believe is a coming war with the federal government. Many of these people come straight out of the military, find unarmed civilian life distasteful or boring, and go right back into life under arms in a militia. Plus even if they aren't or never were in the US military, the cult of the soldier that I describe in my post is undoubtedly a big influence on their thinking, since it appeals to the universal human desire for power and respect. When I see videos of them training, compared to the videos of, say, US Marine boot camp, the mitlitia groups look out of shape, disorganized, and undisciplined. But they still can take a toll, as McVeigh proved. Also, I was using the word "soldiers" as kind of a metaphor for all armed agents of government, whether local police, state investigators, or federal soldiers. The main point I was making is that the US public is becoming more and more weaponized, meaning capable and willing to inflict violence on a percieved enemy. It's like this: Imagine that you are cornered in an alley by an angry mob who you know hate you for some reason. You are carrying a fully loaded six-shot revolver, but there are at least a hundred people in the mob, and you have no extra ammo. My argument is that you are safer without that revolver, even if you have it in your pants and the mob doesn't see it. Why? Because you can't with six shots kill or disable a hundred people. There's a chance you could disperse the crowd by firing in the air, but that might enrage them more, and if you shoot one person as a demonstration, you risk the mob turning even more violent since you have given them a pretext by hurting one of their own. And finally you don't know how many people in that mob might have hidden guns as well. But still, if the mob charges, you will be tempted to pull out that gun and display it or fire it. So by my definition, you with that revolver are "weaponized" but not any safer, and in fact the revolver is more of a danger to you than it is to any one person in the mob. This sounds like a gun-control argument, but it's not. It's about the weaponization of the public, the total stupidity of the idealization of soldiers (i.e. armed government officials, who are probably mostly less "virtuous" by far than the rest of us), and the reality that Americans, no matter how well armed we are, are vastly outnumbered by the rest of the world - and this last point even ignores the fact that most weaponized people in the American governmental structure - soldiers, cops, etc. - are well-armed and well-trained enough to be a danger to themselves and others, but not ruthless enough to really be effective as a deterrant. On a side-note, the US defense and law enforcement communities have yet to figure out how to deal effectively with an enemy that doesn't fear either (1) death or (2) weaponized American agents. That is why so many soldiers are dying at the hands of insurgents in Iraq. However, I think the numbers of potentially unafraid insurgents are fewer in Iraq than other places, since they still have something precious to lose there, namely their country. In Israel, there are tons of insurgents who are unafraid of Israel's weaponized agents, because the insurgents have already lost their country, permanently, and the smart ones know it. posted by holy_of_holies |
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holy_of_holies: The main point I was making is that the US public is becoming more and more weaponized, meaning capable and willing to inflict violence on a percieved enemy. ... the IRS officer 
posted by knn |
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Oh ok, so your whole argument is this: 1) soldiers are equipped with knowledge to kill people. Some of them come back from war, and become restless. They join a militia and start killing civilians. 2) so stop idealizing them. holy_of_holies: This sounds like a gun-control argument, It sort of does because it deals with the... holy_of_holies: weaponization of the public Good post, t'was interesting. posted by sangu |
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sangu: Oh ok, so your whole argument is this:
1) soldiers are equipped with knowledge to kill people. Some of them come back from war, and become restless. They join a militia and start killing civilians. 2) so stop idealizing them. Good post, t'was interesting. Well, it's more than that though. In my opinion, soldiers are not just equipped with knowledge to kill; they are taught to act without thinking and respond on instinct, no matter how complicated the situation. That's what I mean by "weaponization." And they teach this to their children unconsciously, so eventually this way of believing gets around. It's really not their fault, because that is what they have been taught, and there is no "reintegration" plan, to borrow a mental health term, for soldiers returning to civilian life. I know this would all be considered very offensive to a lot of people with connections to the military, but I come from a military family myself and thus I should be able to speak with some gravity on the consequences over generations of people being turned into weapons. posted by holy_of_holies |
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holy_of_holies: there is no "reintegration" plan, to borrow a mental health term, for soldiers returning to civilian life. I remember discussing that in class, about a book called All Quiet on the Western Front. I see what you're talking about, but really, I don't think a lot can be done. posted by sangu |
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The weponization of the American Fronteer by rogue solders is BS. This example as well as the others are crap. The individules that have commitd these attrocities where just weak people who lost their mind. The US solder is the reason that we are free and the real reason the P.O.S cowards hide in the shadows insted of confront us as real fighters for Ala. 
posted by Denmar |
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 "More fitting to ask is this: why are we so convinced that a civilian president and congress, wealthy businesspeople, or organized criminals really run the country? It is because that is what the American soldier wants us to believe, because this is also what he himself believes. " I'm sorry, this seems like so much nonsense to me. If the American soldier group were really this powerful, why would it have allowed the Clinton administration to so drastically downsize the military and eviscerate its power? No organization secretly controlling the US would allow its power to be diminished. The demonstration of a few ex-military committing crimes does not prove anything. Why didn't you cite the movie 'Lethal Weapon' where rogue soldiers were running a drug empire? Sure, it was just fiction but so is the premise of this thread. posted by ipsism |
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The time now is 12 February 2012, 09:18 php B.B. |