Volunteers

No, it is bad enough that the prez is picking and choosing his wars, but to have he citizenry be able to pick and choose theirs would be a disaster.  The first that pops into my mind in a case like this would be the ones who want to kill an Arab, any Arab will do, the militia types who would be more than happy to go over a "Kill 'em all, let god sort them out"

No, these units wouldn't be able to start wars, rather determine how much a nation is willing to support any action. I guess another way to look at this question is to ask how many soldiers in Iraq believe in what their fighting for?


The reaction would be the same.  It would be the units deciding that they wanted to stay and fight.  Just because there are people willing to fight doesn't mean staying to fight is the right, or the best thing.  There isn't anything to stop them doing it on their own time, mercernaries have been, and will continue to be, anywhere where there is civil strife.  As a government sanctioned fighting unit? No.

Actually, in many ways this is already happening.

Reenlistment for the last 4 years is at almost record highs, and large numbers are choosing to either remain with their units, or volunteering to move to another unit that is deploying again in the near future.  And there are more and more people who have already seperated that are returning to military service.

To take care of the large numbers that are returning, the Army has even started a "Mini-boot camp" for the sole purpose of retraining the large numbers that are returning after a prolonged abscence from military service.  This training is in New Mexico, in a desert environment.

During processing today, there were 26 people finishing up their processing and signing their contracts.  5 of us were proir service, and 4 are going to "Warrior Training" like me.  And even more ironically, there are actually no slots available for Infantry!  Currently, the waiting list to go into Army Infantry is 3-4 months!  If somebody wants to go Airborne the waiting list is over 6 months.

And the bonus payments usually saved for positions like Infantry and Armour are instead going to what should be "highly desired" jobs.  I actually got a $5k bonus for agreeing to be a Patriot Missle crewman, a job that in normal times has a waiting list because it is highly desired.  Computer Techincian jobs actually have an $8k bonus.  And kids that actually wanted to go in the Infantry are having to sign up for jobs like MP because it is the closest job available.

One word for you all:  Blackwater.
:o

One word for you all:  Blackwater.
:o


*scratches head*

What does an old Doobie Brothers song have to do with this?

Some on Max, join me!  We all know you know the words too...

*scratches head*

What does an old Doobie Brothers song have to do with this?

Some on Max, join me!  We all know you know the words too...

OK, OK, two words: Blackwater Security

Yes, I do know the words, MOR radio drilled them into my head before I was 15.
::)

No, these units wouldn't be able to start wars, rather determine how much a nation is willing to support any action. I guess another way to look at this question is to ask how many soldiers in Iraq believe in what their fighting for?


In conversations I've had with Army personnel(who happen to be friends of mine) from here near Ft Drum, they almost to a man believe in the cause, both in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Not one of them have spoken out against the war and many of them are 10th Mountain Division infantry, and are heading back shortly for their 2nd and 3rd deployments.

The military believes in the cause, it's the weak stomached civilians in this country who do not.

In conversations I've had with Army personnel(who happen to be friends of mine) from here near Ft Drum, they almost to a man believe in the cause, both in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Not one of them have spoken out against the war and many of them are 10th Mountain Division infantry, and are heading back shortly for their 2nd and 3rd deployments.

The military believes in the cause, it's the weak stomached civilians in this country who do not.


What cause is this if I may ask?  Not Iraqi Freedom.  I dont think this has ever been about liberating the people.  War against terror.  Can you win a war against terror?  Not all of the military believes in what we are doing over there.  The majority probably, but not all.

I wouldn't call myself a weak stomached civilian or alot of other people who are against being in Iraq.  So what if I dont think that this fiasco compares to WWII in scope.  I guess as an American, I should just listen to everyone and wave the flag? 
 

In conversations I've had with Army personnel(who happen to be friends of mine) from here near Ft Drum, they almost to a man believe in the cause, both in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Not one of them have spoken out against the war and many of them are 10th Mountain Division infantry, and are heading back shortly for their 2nd and 3rd deployments.

The military believes in the cause, it's the weak stomached civilians in this country who do not.


If I was in the armed forces, I wouldn't criticize the mission either.  The military is not a democracy.

"Weak-stomached civilians"? 

Hullloooooo?

Remember Vietnam?  58 thousand Amercan military personnel dead, millions of Viet Cong and Indochinese citizens dead, and incalculable human suffering.  We could have dragged that war all the way to 1983, doubled our casualties, and the commies still would have won!

We tend to have a weak stomach for unwinnable land wars and corrupt executive branches who lie all the time yet can't get their stories straight!
::)

The military believes in the cause, it's the weak stomached civilians in this country who do not.


Disclaimer:  Yeah, another civvie here. 

What's the cause?  I'd really like to believe the Iraqis want a secular government that's not as hardassed as Saddam's was, because if they pump out enough oil and get a bigger cut of it than Saddam was giving them, the US would recoup its investment in men and materiel, and the Iraqis would end up with a much higher standard of living.  That's a cause worth fighting for.

Unfortunately, I've pretty much given up on that hypothesis.  The more I lear about the three ethnic groups in question, the more apparent it seems that they'd rather butcher each other than make money.  Maybe the Democrats were right when they warned us in 2002 that "they", collectively, are a tribal culture, and ultimately cannot be enticed or coerced to join what we call "western civilization" under any circumstances. 

Counterdisclaimer:  Not all of us civilians are weak-stomached.

Push comes to shove, we lose a city.  I'm probably one of the half-million civilian casualties out of a population of 300 million.  They lose a billion out of a population of 1.1 billion.  It sucks to be me, but with tacit agreement on how to divvy up the oil reserves between the USA, USSR, and China, and the fact that history is written by the victors, this fracking war is over in an hour.  Civilization  goes on, just as it did after Katrina effectively wiped out a US city.  (Katrina was actually worse than a nuke; it left us with every inhabitant of the destroyed city - and several other smaller cities' worth of refugees nearby - alive, and our economy ate the cost of processing those refugees without so much as a blip.)

The saddest thing about this war is that I've gone from vastly preferring the scenario in which everybody makes money, to no longer giving a rat's arse either way.  With Front Line Assembly's Hard Wired seeming less like mid-90s (1995) dystopian cyberpunk fiction and more like a documentary every day, let's just get it over with. 

Currently playing:  FLA, Circuitry:  "In form of liquid / Sliding through air / Tracking this existence / Killer hardware"
(Next up:  FLA, Transparent Species:  "It's time to wake up / It's time to recieve / It's time for emergence / Transparent - species.")

Currently owned:  Shares of at least three companies that make autonomous vehicles and weapons systems.  Even if what's been made public is all there is to know (and it isn't), FLA was 12 years ahead of its time.