The Not so Subtle Moral Decay of the US Military

I guess that is better than supporting a military which comits treason against the American Citizens.

 

I don't think so, back in 1964 just as with the CONUS, North Vietnam territorial waters extended only 3 miles from shore.

Remember Soviet spy ships (fishing trawlers) that were just over three miles off of Guam that would radio Hanoi every time B-52's would take off to bomb North Vietnam and Laos.

Or the Soviet subs that lurked just beyond the 3 miles off of Los Angeles from the 1960's to the 1980's listening to rock music on KMET FM radio ?

Today it's 12 miles.

Gulf of Tonkin Incident # 1.
The USS Maddox was 10 miles from North Vietnam's shoreline in international waters.
The Maddox fired three warning shots which is SOP when a foreign navy warship or boats gets a little to close for comfort and North Vietnam torpedo boats responded by attacking the Maddox with torpedoes and automatic small arms fire.

Gulf of Tonkin Incident #2.
There were no North Vietnam boats in the area, false radar readings from rough seas.

 

North Vietnam claimed 12 miles teritorial waters as the US was well aware. The Maddox was on a spy mission to support the attacks on North Vietnamese radar station on Hòn Mê island. If you believe the Maddox was firing warning shots I would like to sell you some real estate....

 

Who cares what territorial waters the North Vietnamese claimed.? Hell Canada is one of the closest allies the U.S. has had for generations. They claim the Northwest Passage is an inland waterway and thus their territorial waters yet the U.S. doesn't recognize that.

And if the Maddox was on a "spy mission" why would they deliberately fire on North Vietnamese vessels? If you're on a spy mission you try to keep your profile as low as possible

 

How has the U.S. military committed treason? Note that starting a war is not in itself "treason".

 

Lying to the American people in order to start a war in which American citizens will die is treason. So is ignoring the oath Officers take to uphold the Constitution.

 

No it isn't.

 

yes it is, and if you do not understand that you do not know the first thing about being an American or the principals this country was founded on.

 

Where in the constitution does it say anything about lying to justify a war?

Lies have been told about the reasons for EVERY war the U.S. ever fought. Including the Civil War and World Wars One and Two. One could make a strong argument that NOT lying to justify military conflict would be the exception in the U.S.

 

The government in the US is the servant of the people, it is not our master. When the government attempts to usurp powers not granted to it by the Constitution or attempts to usurp the power of the American people to rule over their government then the government has committed treason against its own Citizens.

"When governments fear the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny. Thomas Jefferson

 

As long as you admit that much, who cares if you call it "treason" or something else? Unless you believe the American constitutional design was to manufacture consent for wars through lies, there is obviously something wrong with that!

Fundamentally, however, there is something different now than in the more distant past. That difference is in the influence of special interest lobbies, in particular the Military Industrial Lobby in alliance with the Pro Israel Lobby, working feverishly in pursuit of an agenda that doesn't even have the same consensus among the public as say "containment" of the Soviet Union enjoyed in the past. Which means that the lies today are no longer confined to details, but include much more.

 

What the hell are you talking about?

 

Well, Iranian Monitor has intelligence. Did you per chance mistake him for me, Mister Dayton!

 

Maybe you can be more specific what has left you so ever confused? Was it the part about lies underpinning a manufactured consent for wars in pursuit of politicized agendas -- and your reluctance to apply the term "treason" to the actions of those who engage in such lies? Or was it the part about the American government becoming increasingly a tool of certain special interest groups, spearheaded by the military industrial complex in alliance with the pro Israel lobby, which have taken lies and lying to levels that would make the lies told in the past look like child's play in comparison?

The fact that many American wars have started with lies is something you admit. So which part is it that you question exactly? The appropriate name for it? The fact that such lies and lying has increasingly become the norm, not the exception? Or do you believe these are all lies told by well meaning Platonic guardians to advance the best interests of the American people even if those people themselves wouldn't be able to decide their best interests if the truth were told instead?

I am not sure what you are questioning: be clear and I will try to answer you more clearly.

 

Yes.

 

You seem suddenly very tongue tied. While I can assume your "Yes" was to the last 3 questions I posed, I prefer not to be presumptuous and let you point clearly to what has left you so confused?

 

There is one thing that seems to me a 'fundamental' mistake of yours. Let me try to explain it.

1. There are people who are driven by 'good' or 'bad' motivation. They belong to different genders, nationalities, political preferences etc...
2. There are stable local groups which either make negative impact on another stable group or experience this negative influence. e.g. Some women are often getting offended by men, whether it is their weakness or it just happens so. And vice versa.
3. If a person gets offense from a representative of a stable social group he is quite likely to make a false assumption that the main problem of his (and the world, because almost everyone thinks that he is in a essential part of the whole world) come not from the people who are the only side to make real actions (a group without the people is a pure structure on paper which is not able to do ANYTHING without the will of the people), but from the groups themselves.

In your case you belive that lobbists of Israel and US military are the root of all the evil. But I think that it reduces your ability to see the whole picture and MAKES you to perform hostilities against the innocent people. It doesn't mean that Israeli policy or making wars is somehow justified. Not at all. But still if you support armed groups of people who might consider terrorist attacks against ... let's say innocent people of Israel (women, kids etc) or american workers who just want to make a good job and get a decent pay - then what kind of motivation are YOU driven? 'Good' or 'bad'?

 

Liberals never have to say their sorry because they rewrite history to deny deny they were ever wrong

Yes indeed the left was pro soviet union in part due to the belief that the big bad bear was too string to oppose

 

You are full of assumptions about me and what I believe that simply lack merit. And I don't think you quite follow the arguments I would make on this subject of what ails and corrupts American politics. But to address a simpler, and more straight forward issue you raise, suggesting sympathy on my part for targeting civilians in war, let me say the following:

1- Regardless of the weapons and tactics used, I prefer that all non-combatants be spared from the violence that comes with war. But realistically that just doesn't happen in war.

2- I reject the attempts to equate Israel intentionally bombing civilian infrastructure in Lebanon and killing Lebanese civilians (including many women and children who aren't even remotely combatants) as part of a calculated, political, objective to cause other political parties in Lebanon to put pressure on Hezbollah, with anything that Hezbollah does. They are of the same genre, to be sure, but ultimately the death toll from the last Israel-Hezbollah war in 2006, and the proportion of military-civilian casualties caused by each, tell you they aren't equally guilty.

3- I don't support any group, whether one carrying a brief I find otherwise persuasive or one that isn't, engaging in random acts of violence and mayhem against civilians. For me, any casualties that result from a war need to be part of a war that (a) is being waged and directed by a group that can legitimately claim to represent people who have been invaded or occupied by a foreign power and (b) it has to be one that ultimately has a reasonable chance of success. If those 2 prongs are not both met, the casualties that ensue from such acts of violence to me is nothing more than murder.

 

Stop the pretense of neutrality on the issue....please! People on here know your shtick already.

Do you reject your cowardly heroes for intentionally placing their fighters and rocket launchers in hospitals and other civilian populated areas?

Do you reject your cowardly heroes for dressing up 5 year old children with camo, guns and bombs. Play acting for killing Jews.

Do you reject your cowardly heroes for denying Israel the right to exist?

 

I reject your narrative, the polemics and propaganda behind it, completely. My message in what I find legitimate and illegitimate is simple and clear.

And there is no pretense of neutrality in me! I am on the side of good fighting evil And while I am not religious at all, and the cosmic battle between forces of good and evil ultimately goes back to Iran's Zoroastrian heritage, I believe that there are 2 values that have objective meaning and worth: the truth and, secondly, beauty. To me, the rest are all man made stuff.

 

Your infatuation is entertaining.....some what.

 

Just because you you are deflecting and denying does not mean it is meaningless. What nations like Russia and China spend is well-documented. Just because real world data cannot enter the bubble of your imagination does not mean that those of us living in that real world cannot collect and interpret it.

 

Lol, as opposed to unreasonable US military zealots???

Methinks you accidentally defined yourself through your unintended projection.

 

To string to oppose???

Where have I ever rewritten history? I've tried to provide you information from credible sources in order to explore history.

I do think there were a lot of people back in the day who did not understand the nature of the Soviet Union and how far it had strayed from the central ideas of the Russian revolution. But I think the fact that the revolution was so demonized and feared by the corporate elite of the west did a lot to drive it towards authoritarianism and central control in response to the constant aggression.

Don't forget that the US had some of the most brutal labour struggles in the world during the robber baron era and a thriving radical movement including Socialist and Communist parties before the whole kt and kaboodle was destroyed in the name of Neo-liberal market fundamentalism. Also, those movements helped create an atmosphere of greatest prosperity maybe in the history of the world.

That is history.