that scrunched-up, gnome-like troglodyte kissinger should have died decades ago, quondam to having the opportunity to cavalierly carpet-bomb, into fragments of flesh, fields, and fishing-village detritus in cambodia, from 1969~1973. as i decried in quondam postings, kissinger was a craven war criminal who insouciantly slaughtered millions of khmer people from his safe lair and redoubt in DC... the tragic results of which we witnessed during our 4 years in cambodia from 1997~1999 and later, from 2011~2013, during our DANIDA-funded coastal zone management project. our family remain haunted to this day witnessing the grievously demented beldam in 1998, whose entire family had been obliterated by kissinger's carpet-bombing, 2 decades before ,of her coastal village outside kampong saom... all 8 of her children, her parents, her siblings, her grandparents, EVERYONE, while she was in phnom penh selling her village's fish catches and buying supplies to take back to her village south of kampong saom, which was no longer there. it had been completely obliterated along w/ every single member of her beloved family. thank you henry kissinger. may your evil animus and memory remain in ignominy in perpetuity.
Start by retiring half the generals. If recruiting could land a young adult a good paying job post service or a free ticket to a good trade school tech job it could up the recruiting numbers.
I tend to agree with General Laich and Col Wilkerson in that I would like to see us return to a military draft, but for a totally different reason. Like the founding fathers foresaw, an all professional, standing army is a serious threat to democracy as personal loyalties are bound to the military institution rather than the constitution. (Draftees do not share that loyalty.)
Having said that, I fully agree that the shortage of manpower is not the problem. The problem lies in a bloated military that is used for protecting our "national interests" (viz., corporate profits) rather than our national security.
Unfortunately, this all professional, standing military has achieved the point where its tentacles reach every segment of our society and it now controls the political agenda of the nation.
If it is the military industrial complex controlling America then falling recruitment would effect profit margins by lower production and supplies (small arms, ammo,uniforms etc). Increased profits are the major concern of weapons manufacturers. Every penny counts! Where once the military was for the protection of America it has now expanded to a world market. The global economy if you like.
Last I knew 60% plus of our current military are immigrants promised citizenship for enlisting. Something that should highly concern Americans because allegiance will be to the military and not America. In essence we now have a foreign army protecting us. The US foreign legion. So let's keep that border open for new recruits!
The propaganda machine that the media has become follows the manual published in 1996 by the US Air Force on psychological warfare. The procedures are based largely on advertising methods for consumer goods and computer algorithms for ascertaining the effectiveness of the methods.
Lower enlistment is a peaceful protest against what the US has become, an empire attempting to impose it's belief system upon the rest of the world in the name of"democracy" while the citizens rapidly fall into poverty and debt and homelessness. Homeland Security should be renamed to Homeless Security since our government is assuring homelessness.
NPR had a story on the White House Christmas tree. Size, type, decorations, all the neat stuff. I think they should use cluster munition bomblets for the traditional glass balls, chaff from advanced fighter jets for tinsel, and white phosphorus rounds for Christmas lights. It would be in keeping with their traditional Christmas war policies. I was going to email the White House with this suggestion but since it takes an hour to fill out the required identity information I'll just let the NSA, CIA, FBI or the DIA forward this email to them to save myself some time. They can top off the tree with a plutonium ball from the 1.5 trillion dollar program for nuclear weapons upgrades to keep us safe. The blue glow will look especially nice. I heard rumors that Santa has upgraded to a stealth sleigh with nuclear capabilities. Rudolph had to get rid of his flashing red nose. Sacrifices have to be made in these troubled times.
So-"Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night"!
Re., "What enlarges our military (and its recruitment quotas) is imperial sprawl. Does the U.S. truly need to garrison roughly 800 military bases overseas?", and the related questions that followed that one:
Yes, indeed, that's a good term, 'imperial sprawl'. I suppose it's the nature of all Empires to seek perpetual growth and to spend to maintain it. It's every bit as much a form of sprawl as that which plagues many of America's cities and towns in the faster-growing regions. The latter form is driven not only by general global population growth, but by the intentional efforts of land speculators, developers, etc. who in most cases tend to dominate local and state governments the way that 'defense' industry, fossil fuel and related private interests dominate federal politics, both electorally and policy-wise.
In other words, as de Tocqueville (I think) wrote upon a return from America, it's "not about anything so much as about commerce", and government (at all levels) serves primarily those commercial interests. As I've observed in decades of work at the local and state level, this is not dependent at all on Party. Just as at the federal level, there is a duopoly when it comes to deferring to corporate and other private profit interests and passing the costs on to the peons.
But that is a tangent to the article's main point about the AVF and arguments for the draft. I admit that though I was a war and draft resister (fortunately, I had a high lottery number in the Viet Nam era draft, so I didn't have to implement Plan A or Plan B for my response to any draft notice), I have lately come to think about that one good aspect of the draft, which was to force young men (and women) to sit/stand up, pay attention to our foreign policy (wars) and organize/join in its resistance. The fact that the Chicago protest of the '68 Democratic Convention (called a riot after mass, militarized police repression tried to squelch it) happened at all, and the reason I was able to march with about a half-million other concerned citizens in the Bronx in 1969-70 , etc., was largely due to that awareness that was significantly an effect of the draft.
That's just one aspect of the question, though. I think I'd agree that it would be far better if we could somehow build such awareness to end those policies which create the perceived need and justification for such a sprawling, imperial offense. Perhaps we might start by getting rid of all those militaristic neocons in the State Department. After all, it seems to have been intended as the government's diplomatic arm; but since its capture by the neocons (total capture probably best reflected in the junior Bush's cabinet), has been far more closely aligned with the war machine. Many if not all of the neocons that have served from Bush forward are alumni of the neocon imperialist 'think tank' / lobby group Project For A New American Century , which included warmongers like Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, Dick Cheney, Rumsfeld, among others. Victoria Nuland, one of the driving forces behind the lies about Iraqi WMD as well as Obama/Biden's point person for the 2014 coup in Ukraine and now Biden's #2 in charge of Ukraine affairs, is the wife of PNAC's co-founder (along with Wm. Kristol), Robert Kagan.
So how about a Department of Peace to replace the State Dep't? However, upon further reflection on such a concept, I have little doubt, in these Orwellian times, and assuming no changes to the very system that breeds and rewards the Empire's warmongers, that a "Department of Peace", if adopted, would merely be a NewSpeak title for a War-and-Meddling Department on steroids.
"Our national security crisis is part of a broader civic rot that plagues our democracy."
That's just so, "conservative old white men," it's a cliche. I'd bet that these guys think that what young people ARE interested in today---say, climate change, for instance, or human rights for all---is just pinko Commie nonsense. Scary.
This isn't the first thing from Wilkerson in recent postings/interviews that leaves me scratching my head a bit. I'm firmly with Astore on this. And with the technical training now required for modern warfare, I don't see how you can rotate draftees in and out without ending up like Ukraine where you send the undertrained into suicide missions. Best of all, quit the wars "defending democracy" abroad, and we'll have more than enough troops and willing enlistees who would welcome a military career.
On the AVF. Around the turn of the century I had the pleasure and honor to work with several retired US Army officers all of us Vietnam era, me being the youth!
Their opinion of the AVF was it would require restraint to call up the national guard for adventures like Vietnam. The guard was not called for Vietnam in part because early in the conflict a unit from a town took more KIA's in one "action" than the administration could accept.
We were hopeful from Bush one and the limited extent of Desert Storm. Our hopes were badly mistaken since 2003!
As to Top Gun I; it was a kick to see and gave some relief for some of us who dealt with the years after Vietnam. II is a bit out of my range of experience.
That goes double for the National Guard, which originally were organizations handled by the states, but increasingly have become just an add-on to the regular army. A high percentage of the forces the US used to invade Iraq and Afghanistan were National Guardsmen.
On the death of Henry Kissinger, see this obit by Nick Turse
https://theintercept.com/2023/11/29/henry-kissinger-death/
Thanks, Bill. Turse provides the Pepto-Bismol alternative to the vomit-inducing obits in MSM.
that scrunched-up, gnome-like troglodyte kissinger should have died decades ago, quondam to having the opportunity to cavalierly carpet-bomb, into fragments of flesh, fields, and fishing-village detritus in cambodia, from 1969~1973. as i decried in quondam postings, kissinger was a craven war criminal who insouciantly slaughtered millions of khmer people from his safe lair and redoubt in DC... the tragic results of which we witnessed during our 4 years in cambodia from 1997~1999 and later, from 2011~2013, during our DANIDA-funded coastal zone management project. our family remain haunted to this day witnessing the grievously demented beldam in 1998, whose entire family had been obliterated by kissinger's carpet-bombing, 2 decades before ,of her coastal village outside kampong saom... all 8 of her children, her parents, her siblings, her grandparents, EVERYONE, while she was in phnom penh selling her village's fish catches and buying supplies to take back to her village south of kampong saom, which was no longer there. it had been completely obliterated along w/ every single member of her beloved family. thank you henry kissinger. may your evil animus and memory remain in ignominy in perpetuity.
Scott Ritter's two cents: https://www.scottritterextra.com/p/henry-kissinger-the-war-criminal
100% An Army big enough to guard Continental US, an Air Force big enough to patrol our skies, a Navy/USMC/Coast Guard to guard our shores. Period.
At one point, they were patrolling off the coast of Georgia, the wrong Georgia.
Thanks for the words of wisdom. Lets shrink the MIC.
The US should do a draft, but only from the people who work in the Pentagon and the weapons industry.
If they have to face the direct consequences of their industry, their industry will start trending to a kinder, more thoughtful model.
GREAT idea, Glenn!
Start by retiring half the generals. If recruiting could land a young adult a good paying job post service or a free ticket to a good trade school tech job it could up the recruiting numbers.
Peace
I tend to agree with General Laich and Col Wilkerson in that I would like to see us return to a military draft, but for a totally different reason. Like the founding fathers foresaw, an all professional, standing army is a serious threat to democracy as personal loyalties are bound to the military institution rather than the constitution. (Draftees do not share that loyalty.)
Having said that, I fully agree that the shortage of manpower is not the problem. The problem lies in a bloated military that is used for protecting our "national interests" (viz., corporate profits) rather than our national security.
Unfortunately, this all professional, standing military has achieved the point where its tentacles reach every segment of our society and it now controls the political agenda of the nation.
If it is the military industrial complex controlling America then falling recruitment would effect profit margins by lower production and supplies (small arms, ammo,uniforms etc). Increased profits are the major concern of weapons manufacturers. Every penny counts! Where once the military was for the protection of America it has now expanded to a world market. The global economy if you like.
Last I knew 60% plus of our current military are immigrants promised citizenship for enlisting. Something that should highly concern Americans because allegiance will be to the military and not America. In essence we now have a foreign army protecting us. The US foreign legion. So let's keep that border open for new recruits!
The propaganda machine that the media has become follows the manual published in 1996 by the US Air Force on psychological warfare. The procedures are based largely on advertising methods for consumer goods and computer algorithms for ascertaining the effectiveness of the methods.
Lower enlistment is a peaceful protest against what the US has become, an empire attempting to impose it's belief system upon the rest of the world in the name of"democracy" while the citizens rapidly fall into poverty and debt and homelessness. Homeland Security should be renamed to Homeless Security since our government is assuring homelessness.
NPR had a story on the White House Christmas tree. Size, type, decorations, all the neat stuff. I think they should use cluster munition bomblets for the traditional glass balls, chaff from advanced fighter jets for tinsel, and white phosphorus rounds for Christmas lights. It would be in keeping with their traditional Christmas war policies. I was going to email the White House with this suggestion but since it takes an hour to fill out the required identity information I'll just let the NSA, CIA, FBI or the DIA forward this email to them to save myself some time. They can top off the tree with a plutonium ball from the 1.5 trillion dollar program for nuclear weapons upgrades to keep us safe. The blue glow will look especially nice. I heard rumors that Santa has upgraded to a stealth sleigh with nuclear capabilities. Rudolph had to get rid of his flashing red nose. Sacrifices have to be made in these troubled times.
So-"Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night"!
That Christmas tree would be a bit too honest ...
Re., "What enlarges our military (and its recruitment quotas) is imperial sprawl. Does the U.S. truly need to garrison roughly 800 military bases overseas?", and the related questions that followed that one:
Yes, indeed, that's a good term, 'imperial sprawl'. I suppose it's the nature of all Empires to seek perpetual growth and to spend to maintain it. It's every bit as much a form of sprawl as that which plagues many of America's cities and towns in the faster-growing regions. The latter form is driven not only by general global population growth, but by the intentional efforts of land speculators, developers, etc. who in most cases tend to dominate local and state governments the way that 'defense' industry, fossil fuel and related private interests dominate federal politics, both electorally and policy-wise.
In other words, as de Tocqueville (I think) wrote upon a return from America, it's "not about anything so much as about commerce", and government (at all levels) serves primarily those commercial interests. As I've observed in decades of work at the local and state level, this is not dependent at all on Party. Just as at the federal level, there is a duopoly when it comes to deferring to corporate and other private profit interests and passing the costs on to the peons.
But that is a tangent to the article's main point about the AVF and arguments for the draft. I admit that though I was a war and draft resister (fortunately, I had a high lottery number in the Viet Nam era draft, so I didn't have to implement Plan A or Plan B for my response to any draft notice), I have lately come to think about that one good aspect of the draft, which was to force young men (and women) to sit/stand up, pay attention to our foreign policy (wars) and organize/join in its resistance. The fact that the Chicago protest of the '68 Democratic Convention (called a riot after mass, militarized police repression tried to squelch it) happened at all, and the reason I was able to march with about a half-million other concerned citizens in the Bronx in 1969-70 , etc., was largely due to that awareness that was significantly an effect of the draft.
That's just one aspect of the question, though. I think I'd agree that it would be far better if we could somehow build such awareness to end those policies which create the perceived need and justification for such a sprawling, imperial offense. Perhaps we might start by getting rid of all those militaristic neocons in the State Department. After all, it seems to have been intended as the government's diplomatic arm; but since its capture by the neocons (total capture probably best reflected in the junior Bush's cabinet), has been far more closely aligned with the war machine. Many if not all of the neocons that have served from Bush forward are alumni of the neocon imperialist 'think tank' / lobby group Project For A New American Century , which included warmongers like Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, Dick Cheney, Rumsfeld, among others. Victoria Nuland, one of the driving forces behind the lies about Iraqi WMD as well as Obama/Biden's point person for the 2014 coup in Ukraine and now Biden's #2 in charge of Ukraine affairs, is the wife of PNAC's co-founder (along with Wm. Kristol), Robert Kagan.
So how about a Department of Peace to replace the State Dep't? However, upon further reflection on such a concept, I have little doubt, in these Orwellian times, and assuming no changes to the very system that breeds and rewards the Empire's warmongers, that a "Department of Peace", if adopted, would merely be a NewSpeak title for a War-and-Meddling Department on steroids.
A Department of Peace would go to war in the name of love.
Agreed. People who lobby for the draft should themselves join up. Then they can go fight the Syrians. Or whoever.
"Our national security crisis is part of a broader civic rot that plagues our democracy."
That's just so, "conservative old white men," it's a cliche. I'd bet that these guys think that what young people ARE interested in today---say, climate change, for instance, or human rights for all---is just pinko Commie nonsense. Scary.
This isn't the first thing from Wilkerson in recent postings/interviews that leaves me scratching my head a bit. I'm firmly with Astore on this. And with the technical training now required for modern warfare, I don't see how you can rotate draftees in and out without ending up like Ukraine where you send the undertrained into suicide missions. Best of all, quit the wars "defending democracy" abroad, and we'll have more than enough troops and willing enlistees who would welcome a military career.
I remember the last draft and the lottery instituted before it ended.
The new lottery may be better, but probably will end up catching Billy Bob, DeShawn and Miguel while Brent goes to Law School.
Better to institute the Swiss system and have everybody go. Notice how the Switzers don't get into too many wars.
A national militia where everybody goes and a neutralist ethos is the best policy.
I didn't know we were having a "national security crisis". Should I be looking for Russians or Chinese or Iranians on the streets?
On the AVF. Around the turn of the century I had the pleasure and honor to work with several retired US Army officers all of us Vietnam era, me being the youth!
Their opinion of the AVF was it would require restraint to call up the national guard for adventures like Vietnam. The guard was not called for Vietnam in part because early in the conflict a unit from a town took more KIA's in one "action" than the administration could accept.
We were hopeful from Bush one and the limited extent of Desert Storm. Our hopes were badly mistaken since 2003!
As to Top Gun I; it was a kick to see and gave some relief for some of us who dealt with the years after Vietnam. II is a bit out of my range of experience.
That goes double for the National Guard, which originally were organizations handled by the states, but increasingly have become just an add-on to the regular army. A high percentage of the forces the US used to invade Iraq and Afghanistan were National Guardsmen.
Speaking of Mr. Kiss, there is a country and western song called "Good Things Happen to Bad People"
Anyone want to place a bet on whether Dick Cheney will outlast Mr. Kiss?