The Blackwater newsletter quotes Rambo - ‘nuff said

How would Rambo have dealt with this rescue? These people in a sinking boat couldn’t have been treated any worse by both the Australian tanker which found them or the Australain navy ship which “rescued” them 9 hours later and only after a heavy swell had started to make conditions dangerous:-

#Quote: “SIXTEEN Indonesians were left stranded for hours on a leaking wooden boat in the Timor Sea waiting to be rescued because of security concerns..... Crew members from the Jabiru Venture said they tried at least three times to convince their ship’s owners to bring the group, which included three men, three women, nine children and a breast-feeding baby, on board their stationary oil tanker, but the request was denied....

But the crew members..... painted a scene of chaos and frustration which culminated in Indonesians and navy personnel falling into the sea during a dramatic and dangerous rescue effort...... “We were told we weren’t allowed to put the life jackets down there. The boat was alongside us all day, it was obvious they were in distress. We wanted to bring the people on board because it was obvious that the boat was unseaworthy."..." http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/security-fears- delay-rescue/2007/11/21/1195321865930.html?page=fullpage#co ntentSwap1

#Quote: “Oil rig workers told The Australian yesterday how they watched the group fall screaming into the water after a failed navy attempt to rescue them up-ended their rickety boat......

The workers, on board the 140,000-tonne Jabiru Venture, about 650km west of Darwin, said they noticed the small wooden vessel with a makeshift sail at about 9.30am but assumed it was an Indonesian vessel permitted to fish in the area, and continued working. But when they returned from a break at about 10am, they saw that the craft, which was taking on water, had been tied to the Jabiru. They saw a baby aged about 10 months, nine children - the oldest a girl aged about 15 - three women and three men, one of whom was frantically pumping water out of the boat with a hand-operated bilge pump.....

The workers said they wanted to bring them aboard but the group had to wait a further nine hours before being taken aboard HMAS Ararat. “It was very distressing and cruel and unnecessary that they had to wait down there like that,” said one. Two of the workers said they had urged their boss to allow the group onboard but were told it was not permitted under the Federal Immigration Act....” http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,228 01440-601,00.html

#114390 by spectator on 11/18 at 8:04 pm: “Forget Rambo, I wanna see Doug and Frank go at it in a boxing ring a la Rocky III....”

Get over it, spectator, ha ha!

#114216 by Frank on 11/17 at 6:48 pm: “...I promise not to interfere.  Knock yourself out....”

Ha ha, you now have given yourself a “license” to prosecute and perpetuate as many wars as you wish, Frank - until you finally get it right, uhh!

The Eagle’s wingspan of 10,000 miles........ a predatory animal. But, for humans, desperate to prove something - to themselves?!?! No can do, don’t know how, hah!

Right, combat night flying in 1980 through a haboob at 500ft AGL in Navy RH-53D minesweeper helos with analog cockpits is a ‘milk run’. Oh, and haboobs don’t happen at night. And federal troops of a major government are insurgents....and insurgency means “to invade”, as opposed to a loosely organized internal struggle.  Oh, right, and Iran captured US forces in Operation Eagle Claw.

Uh-huh. Ok, I am hereby relinquishing my duty to try and enlighten you on anything further, Douglas Chalmers, because apparently I underestimated the extent of the..challenge, and I have better things to do with my time. You are hereby granted a license to sound as goofy as you want on any subject you like. I promise not to interfere.  Knock yourself out.

“Old men start it, young men fight it, everybody in the middle dies, and nobody tells the truth.”

An accurate, clear and succinct explanation of war.

#114031 by Frank on 11/16 at 2:40 pm: “...you are stumbling here....  The sandstorm...”

Oh Frank, really - have you ever seen a desert? A “low-level infiltration mission in the desert environment” is about the easiest milkrun you could possibly imagine. If it was at night, the winds usually die down so what “sandstorm” then, eh?

Obviously, Iranian deserts are too much for intrepid US armed insurgents (lets not quibble). How much more difficult, then, would the jungles of Burma be? Its not all rice paddies there, either. Or, maybe even that would be too diffcicult for the US military!?!?

#114031 by Frank: “...“Insurgent” denotes a level of organization of combatants which affects the privileges they are accorded under international law.  If a group attains a certain level of size and organization as a rebellion, they may be granted status as a ‘belligerency’ which affords them certain privileges, just as soldiers of a nation are afforded certain protections under international law....”

But, do you have any concept of how utterly absurd your pathetic statements on “international law” appear? The USA has given itself unilateral rights to invade (an insurgency) any country and with total disregard for either the UN or your precious international law. Twice in Eye-Rak, once in Afghanistan, again in Somalia, and now they want to try a Hollywood “invasion” of Myanmar, ha ha???

Just as with Apocalypse Now, I guess this will be filmed in the Philippines - or is Belize cheaper or easier these days??? As Martin Sheen is now in the White House, I guess we will have to wait and see....... Maybe Stallone will also have his mid-life crisis during its filming, too, uhh?!?!

Seriously, you might want to research this topic more before commenting further, Douglas Chalmers. Delusions of conspiracy aside, you generally sound reasonably well informed, but you are stumbling here.  The sandstorm that lead two US helicopters off course during Operation Eagle Claw wasn’t just outside Tehran, it happened enroute to a planned staging area at a landing strip near Tabas-e-Golshan in the Yazd province. FYI, Tabas-e-Golshan means city with a lot of flowers in a desert.

Nobody can dispute that the mission was an unmitigated disaster and big embarassment to the Carter administration. The failure is generally attributed to the helo pilots’ lack of training for that type of low-level infiltration mission in the desert environment.  The mission failure prompted the creation of the US Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) and the Army’s “Night Stalkers” , aka 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, which trains specifically for missions of that type in helicopters specially equipped for it.

I have no idea what the point of your final paragraph was supposed to be, but you missed my point about the word ‘insurgent’. It has nothing to do with good guy/bad guy. “Insurgent” denotes a level of organization of combatants which affects the privileges they are accorded under international law.  If a group attains a certain level of size and organization as a rebellion, they may be granted status as a ‘belligerency’ which affords them certain privileges, just as soldiers of a nation are afforded certain protections under international law.  Any nation’s official military are above ‘belligerency’ status in the legal hierarchy. Insurgents are considered beneath belligerant status as they are basically a bunch of loosely organized guys with weapons acting independant of any central government or authority. If ( hypothetical) the Sunni and Shiite militias “made up” with each other, formed a united provisional government in opposition to the encumbant Iraqi government and fought as a unified rebellion directed by a central political authority, they might be granted belligerency privileges as a group.

Bush/Cheney need Rambo to rescue their empire instead

#113978 by Frank on 11/16 at 10:14 am: “...five US helicopters left behind after a sandstorm and subsequent crash of a US helo into a C-130 caused the mission to be aborted....”

How to make an excuse for a badly failed mission - a “sandstorm” just outside Teheran! By the way, Iran is NOT Iraq and is NOT all desert, uhh. Then again, did they even know which country thety were in, ha ha???

#113978 by Frank: “...not well enough organized to be recognized in international law as a “belligerency”.  US government troops are never insurgents regardless of what they are doing....”

No, neither of the Iraq invasions were “recognized in international law” either. And, of course, US troops were never to blame - something to do with aluminium tubes and WMD’s, eh? Poor Frank.......

Douglas Chalmers, Iran didn’t capture any American troops during Eagle Claw.  Iran never even knew US forces were there until after they were gone, though they did get their hands on five US helicopters left behind after a sandstorm and subsequent crash of a US helo into a C-130 caused the mission to be aborted. Eight US servicemen were killed in the aircraft collision.

FYI, “insurgents” are loosely organized combatants rising up against a government or established authority, specifically a revolt or rebellion not well enough organized to be recognized in international law as a “belligerency”.  US government troops are never insurgents regardless of what they are doing.

#Quote: “This one plunges John Rambo into the gun sights of the brutal military dictatorship of Myanmar, the Southeast Asian nation formerly known as Burma, where in real life the ruling junta recently received international condemnation...”

This is the kind of garbage that Chuck Norris descended to with US military fantasies about ‘kicking ass’ in Iran in the 1980’s - after the Iranians captured US military insurgents (the failed operation Eagle Claw) attempting to ‘free’ the embassy staff held hostage there.

Yes, it’s quite comic what the movies can do - “cultural softening” and purging and all.

For example, in the comfort of a movie house we can experience vividly what US soldiers might be doing in Asia - fighting for refugees, rather than actually being used as catalyst for the conflagration that - say, in Iraq - has created four or five million or more Iraqi refugees and more than a million Iraqi deaths.... In four years. Thanks to the US invasion. Fortunately there is Rambo to vividly illuminate the geopolitical situation. No? Oh well, at least in the theater of Rambo a soldier’s role is softened, purged. An American hero is made, at least in many a teen (and teen-plus) eye. What’s that US Army recruiting slogan? An Army of One.

And yes, let alone “one American hero” going “to fight for democracy in a faraway land,” it’s a bit silly to think of one American hero, the new Burma/Myanmar Rambo, “sticking his nose in another nation’s business.”

Which nation(s) would that be?

As John Pilger recently reported, “[US Secretary of State Condoleeza] Rice stated, ‘The United States is determined to keep an international focus on the travesty that is taking place in Burma.’ What she is less keen to keep a focus on is that the huge American company, Chevron, on whose board of directors she sat, is part of a consortium with the junta and the French company, Total, that operates in Burma’s offshore oil fields. The gas from these fields is exported through a pipeline that was built with forced labour and whose construction involved Halliburton, of which Vice President Cheney was Chief Executive.” (Chevron named a big oil tanker for Rice: the Condoleeza Rice - subsequently renamed for political reasons.)

Pilger adds, “Those who care for freedom in Burma and Iraq and Iran and Saudi Arabia and beyond must not be distracted by the posturing and weasel pronouncements of our leaders, who themselves should be called to account as accomplices.”

So can this latest one American Rambo hero film be not yet another “cultural ‘softener’” that - inadvertently or not, silly or not, vacuous or not - masks US and western state complicity in oppression and killing?

One can’t tell from reading the report on it in USA Today - which, oddly, doesn’t happen to mention the US Secretary of State, Chevron, Halliburton, or any western involvement at all in Burma. Doesn’t that seem odd for an American-militant-to-the-rescue-film? that the reporting of it, at the least, focuses on a private dilemna happening to the militant in a vacuum of public detail that would be most relevant to US readers? Why doesn’t that seem odd?