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Saturday September 20, 2008
Mamas, don't let your babies grow up to be soldiers
"'Cos they'll never stay home and they're always alone. Even with someone they love."
Lyrics: Waylon Jennings - Mamas, don't let your babies grow up to be Cowboys
Advice that Barbara Bush ignored to our peril.
What do you do with a drunken soldier? More lyrics
Two
Canadian soldiers were convicted and fined in Cyprus last March for hitting
on a man's wife and then hitting the man when he
objected. Allegedly, there was also some spitting. Gross.
Typical
of the military, Canadian Forces spokeswoman Lieut. Isabelle Riche
refused to give details or name names when the story broke, but was
quite willing to misrepresent the truth as to the extent of this sort
of out-of-control behaviour in Cyprus. From the National Post:
"What
I can tell you is that our CF (Canadian Forces) members are highly
trained professionals who are respectful and grateful for the
opportunity to be in Cyprus for a short stay before returning to their
families in Canada," she said.
Since last year, more than 2,200 Canadian soldiers have gone through Cyprus for the program.
Lieut. Riche stressed that this was a rare occurrence.
"Despite the number of military personnel who have visited Cyprus, there have been no similar incidents reported to the authorities involving the public in Cyprus," she said.
Oh, really? Odd then that the Vancouver Sun would not only names the names but also report this:
Local police said the bar brawl is the latest in a string of incidents involving Canadian soldiers over the past few weeks.
And lo and behold, we have another Canadian soldier arrested today for threatening a Cypriot taxi driver with a knife!
I
was immediately curious to know why our troops would not be as anxious
to go straight home as their families must certainly want them to.
But apparently, Cyprus is being used as a "decompression"
chamber.
They come away from Afghanistan feeling like losers,
because NATO most definitely is not winning and will not win. (I saw an
episode of the Simpsons last evening where little Lisa tells her father
that it has been proven time and again that no military force can ever
overcome the determination of a people to fight off a foreign invasion
of their lands. I guess the military don't watch sitcoms.)
They stay for five days in luxurious lodgings,
where a team of "medical health specialists" debrief them. The
overt and sympathy-drawing purpose is to help them deal with the deaths
of their friends in battle; the covert purpose, I have absolutely no
doubt, is to bring them down off the mind control techniques that were
used to turn them into killing machines. In the evenings, they are free
to come and go, and obviously they go and get as drunk as possible,
especially, I imagine, the ones who are coming down off the drugs that
are so easily obtainable in Afghanistan.
While generally treated as cannon fodder, for a few short days they feel like kings, to the
point where they think they can put their hands on a man's wife and literally spit on both of them
if resistance is encountered. Nice. And we're supposed to believe
that their job in Afghanistan is to build bridges with the natives.
I
would suspect there is much more to the "decompression progam" than
will ever be revealed. Military training technique has evolved to where
today's soldiers are mind controlled to be vicious killers, and I have
no doubt that they need deprogramming, and many ought to be
placed in substance abuse rehab centres.
As I've said before,
soldiers are trained to bond with other soldiers, and soldiers who have
waded in blood will never be whole humans again. Their families
will always have to take what little they can get in the way of
intimacy and genuine love. And not a small number of soldier's families
will have to endure physical and verbal abuse.
Related: The Army's Totally Serious Mind-Control Project
Dr.
Elmar Schmeisser, the Army neuroscientist overseeing the program:
"Because soldiers are already trained to talk in clean, clear and
formulaic ways, it would be a very small step to have them think that
way."
Interesting Reading: Releasing the Bonds
The
military is an example of a highly structured, pyramid-shaped
organization. There is a strict hierarchy. Soldiers are assigned
numbers, given haircuts and uniforms, instructed in ways of talking,
walking, marching and fighting. It is a career where personal choice is
much more restricted than in society at large. In boot camp training,
particularly in the Marines, the SEALs and other Special Forces, the
use of mind control techniques is considered essential to create the
identity of an elite soldier.
=========================
Other Stuff:
(1) And the survey says: Anti-Semitism, Islamophobia on rise!
Poll results published in the Globe and Mail.
The
article reveals confusion by comparing Jews with Muslims, which is the
same as comparing lemons to celery. Islam is a religion; Jews are a
race or a people and many of them do not even practice Judaism, but are
Christians or atheists. This is yet another example of the muddy
thinking that passes for journalism being absorbed by a public that
relies on the media for facts and information. Luckily, some Canadians
have learned critical thinking:
In the comments section, Philip McRae from Vancouver, Canada asks the obvious:
Deep
Thoughts: Why is it anti-Semite[read Jew] but a phobia of Islam? Why is
the word usage posed against people in one case but only the religion
in another... all being equal, and Semites?
We
don't need polls to know that Muslims and "middle eastern looking"
people in general are regarded with suspicion as a direct result of the
terrorism hype that has supported just about every negative political
maneuver since 2001. Still, I can't help wondering how the poll
questions were put to the survey subjects, because quite frankly there
is a cynical move afoot to create fear in North American Jews in the
hope they will emigrate to Israel, and the "rebranding" campaign is not
just so Canadians will have a better attitude toward Israel, it's also
so that Jews will be attracted there.
(Tipsy Livni, a prime ministerial climber up Olmert's back, has initiated the rebranding to show that the brutal occupation is not the "real Israel".)
It's
quite possible that many of those surveyed were thinking in terms of
Israel and not Jews in general. Unfortunately, we are stuck with the
Globe's word for it that anti-Semitism is on the rise in Canada since,
unlike other survey companies, Leger Marketing does not seem to publish its studies.
(2) Jack attack
Jack Layton wants you to donate to this new TV Ad
attacking Harper's elitist economic polices. It's quite mild, actually,
and more tolerable than most election ads - strong images but no
screeching hype in the dialogue - and I have to hand it to Jack
for not being vain about his balding pate the way Harper is.
I'm pretty disillusioned by politics in general (you guessed?). I would prefer to listen to somebody who talks like Ralph Nader,
whom Americans can't seem to properly appreciate after all of the very
tangible improvements he has devoted his life to achieving for them,
and in spite of his absolutely untarnished reputation for decency and
honesty.
(I don't agree with every last thing Ralph Nader says,
and I especially don't agree with him that members of the military
can't speak the truth until they retire. They can speak the truth any
time they whomp up the moral courage to do so.)
But
anything's got to be better than the Liberals who took us into
Afghanistan and pimped us into the SPP (not to mention that they
harbour Libcon/Allcon shapeshifters, Ignatieff and Rae), and the
Conservatives who entrenched us. I worry about the Greens because if
May doesn't end up with the results she needs, she will throw her
support behind the Liberals. She is, after all, indebted to them for
not competing with her in her riding.
But who knows what kind of
monster would emerge if Jack did get a little power under his bike
helmet? Don't forget, there are other parties who will be running candidates, and there will be independents for whom to vote.
yayacanada
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