So true. Just recently, I read in the news that the rights to 63 of Iraq's current 80 oil fields had already been signed over to American oil companies.

And we're already learning more and more about the war profiteering gigs offered by the private oil, protection and construction contractors whose numbers far exceed than the number of U.S. soldiers we've got on the ground over there. What's more, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair was roundly criticized by his own countrymen and Parliament both because he was only able to land only a few contracts for British companies from President Bush despite Britain's having been America's staunchest ally in sending forces to the Iraq War. Apparently, Blair had been somewhat naive, under a different impression and evidently hadn't suspected that a bit more than just the lion's share of the most lucrative "nation-building" contracts would go to American companies.

I didn't see that coming!

When you get super lucky and roll all sixes the eight 155 shells just throw your humvee over a berm, deafen you, and make you crap your pants. For a super special Yahtzee! prize if you roll all sixes again, the convoy that is taking you back to the FOB to change pants gets hit too.

I have wished I could assign one of my days to chance.

If you were deployed in France in 1944, would this be "Nahtzee?"

No matter how much cash the man from Syria offers you, never point a weapon of any kind at members of the United States Marine Corps. No matter how carefully you had planned for your future and how you were going to invest that money in a 401k, it will begin to fall apart quickly.

It is for war profiteers of all stripes, including the ones who comprise the Carlysle Investment Group whose members invest and profit from stocks in companies that manufacture war materiels.

In fact, if you are in the US infantry, everyone probably has a bigger gun than you, with a higher rate of fire and is firing it over the top of a wall in your general direction. Just call the only guys that know they have the biggest guns on the block:

The problem is that there are now many more armed protection contractors than there are American soldiers in Iraq and although the armed-protection contractors are paid a whole lot more than American soldiers, it's the American soldiers who have to intervene with increasing frequency to try to undo the messes created by those somewhat more trigger-happy well-paid hired guns.

A few weeks ago, there was a political cartoon showing President George W. Bush playing chess against one of his aides, the latter of whom chided Bush saying, "No, you may NOT hire contractors to protect your king!"

C) Whoever you're talking to is distracting you while their compatriots are lacing your route with explosives made from propane tanks.

Bitch about too much down time.

Bitch about having too many things going on at once.

and try and get a better gun.

Too bad the good guys can't respawn.

Its good to be the king.

The author is not welcome to dictate that I myself and/or others should refrain from commenting in any context whatsoever that we deem appropriate based on the broad nature of the topic chosen by the author just because he himself chooses not to comment about it -- period. Such a response-control notion sounds QUITE evocative of the methods undertaken by the Bush administration to stifle dissenting opinion. After all, Bush's staff undertakes methods in advance to make sure that the people seated up front, if not in the entire auditorium itself, for town-hall meetings Bush appears in covered by the news media tend are people by hand-selected Bush supporters. Indeed they are interviewed in advance to limit, if not wholly rule out, the possibility of Bush being confronted by an unexpected or uncomfortable question or comment about some hot-button issue(s) that could otherwise be a source of great embarrassment to the his administration.

Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld used that same methodology when he went to Iraq on inspection visits; however, much to his embarrassment, the cat got out of the bag on Rumsfeld when they accidentally turned on their satellite transmission to send it to TV network feeds earlier on than expected revealing some of Rumsfeld's own people were assigning questions to pre-selected soldiers who would appear in the audience right before Rumsfeld spoke there.

We saw the same thing just a month ago when the government agency FEMA staged a bogus press conference whose supposed media reporters and audience we learned was comprised ENTIRELY of FEMA employees. Their objective: To sway opinion and create positive publicity for themselves by deceiptful and unethical means.

Moreover, the comments that author Dixon made ARE open to interpretation as de-facto political statements themselves even if cloaked in thinly-disguised jingoism or heavy-handed or sly satire.



As an independent voter of no political party alignment who's not bound to the lock-step mentality of political parties, I do believe in and advocate the notion of Personal Sovereignty, meaning the right of a person to freely form his own opinion about how to think about or vote on any political issue or candidate based on his own free mind and without regard to the dictates or advocacies of any political party line.

If nothing else, i would hope that some of the things that I've posted will motivate readers of any and all political stripes to investigate matters on their own and not accept at face value what might otherwise be advocated as conventional wisdom, political jingoism or alleged truth. Moreover, the notion of the United States itself began with the Power of One, when one colonial resident daringly expressed his dissatisfaction with the colonies' treatment by England. Although we don't know who was Revolutionary War Instigator Zero (the person who first expressed that dissenting opinion), his/her expressed sentiment nonetheless apparently caught on; otherwise, we wouldn't be here today.

It doesn't take all-out war or revolution, however, to change things though. That's why we have Politics after all, better known as "War By More Peaceful Means" -- discussion and debate; i.e. ballots, not bullets.

No, the saying ISN'T that history doesn't repeat itself. You're apparently confusing it with the saying that lightning never strikes in the same place twice.

If anything, the lesson of history is that it will repeat itself time and time and time again and most damningly so in the worst ways imaginable, which inspired George Satayana to observe, "Those who fail to learn from the lessons of history are damned to repeat them."

And since the neo-cons heading up the Bush administration were aspiring for the United States of America to become another de-facto Roman Empire, well, let's just say your own comparison of present matters to those faced by the Roman Empire shouldn't be all that surprising given that our foreign policy is still driven by those remaining leading lights of the Project for the New American Century think tank (i.e. Cheney & Company) who aggressively still advocate the notion of America as Empire.

Got me there. Although I'm sure that SOMEONE is saying that history doesn't repeat itself, even if only because they hope so...

At this juncture, that would seem to be a false hope indeed especially since the Bush Administration has been dismissing the lessons of history from the get-go and continues to do so unabashedly. Moreover, what an irony it is that the children of the oil company stock holders and war profiteers are the least likely to serve in the U.S.'s all-voluntary military.

The only thing that might turn the tide in the War in Iraq and the War on Terror would be to re-instate the sort of democratic (with a little "d") form of military draft that the U.S. employed during World War II where the sons of the wealthy and affluent were NOT accorded draft deferments. Only when everybody across the board shares the sacrifice of a war effort will some modicum of common sense prevail. Moreover, the very notion of such a military draft might in and of itself be weapon enough to demotivate certain warring parties enough to motivate them to cease fire, lay down their arms, return to the negotiating tables to more effectively engage in diplomacy, hammer out settlements, and proactively thwart terrorist movements in their respective countries.

I never saw a camel. The camels are a lie.

Yeah, I haven't seen a camel this tour either...

My first tour (OIF II), though, I saw a few outside Najaf as we rolled north...

Make sure you have a high smoke exponent...

Just keep those Nuclear plants away from Iran.

We all know Iranians don't really need any electricity. If they needed it, they'd put dams on the sand dunes or rub their hands together.

That's because the name of the game wasn't occupation and/or gaining control of Iraq's oil spiggots. And It most certainly wouldn't have been a lot better if Dick Çheney had convinced the first President George Bush back in 1991 to launch his "Operation Scorpion," his battle plan for invading Iraq then and going on to Baghdad to take out Saddam Hussein.

As General Colin Powell commented back then to his fellow military aides about Cheney's proposed "Operation Scorpion": "Isn't it just like a civilian installed as Defense Secretary [like Dick Cheney who's never served in the military but instead took half a dozen draft deferrments] to come to the Pentagon with a plan that in essence tries to out-general the generals!"

In 1997, Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Donald Rumsfeld, William Kristol, and Jeb Bush among others founded the Project for the New American Century" think tank which in September 2000 published their report 'Rebuilding America's Defenses" which among other things called for the military invasion and overthrow of Iraq, Iran and North Korea. It called for America to embrace the notions of empire building a la the Roman Empire. Of course, noted the report's author, they didn't expect their ideas to gain much traction "unless or until another Pearl Harbor event galvanizes the nation."

Did you not read the intro? Dumbass.

I didn't see a question there. No question, no engagement of political topics. Man's got a right to put down his own thoughts, don't he? Dixon just ain't gonna comment...

MJ

Edit for spelling: Who's the dumbass?

Did you not read author Dixon's comments which ARE open to interpretation as thinly-disguised, if not overt, political statements in their own right?

And by the way, since when are we as Americans supposed to bow to the dictates of refraining from expressing our opinions about *anything* we so choose?

And by the way, Happy Thanksgiving, Turkey!

(At least be thankful that I refrained myself from saying a lot more that I might otherwise *could* have said onthe subject.)

We had a Risk tournament during our downtime. The take Australia strategy won the day for one of our Staff Sergeants.

Is Lara Croft the unguarded objective? Not so sure I guess she is able to defend herself very well!