DavidByron, May 10 at 9:35 am,

I consider private mercenaries for the U.S. military an evil also.

And incidentally Sirota?  You did just what you are complaining about when you deny the evil of US thugs for hire.  You are cheapening the cost of war by reducing the moral price to kill literal children abroad.

There is a moral price for war.  The US government well knows it and is forced to spendsbillions to convince Americans that murdering millions of people is OK.  Presenting US soldiers as heroic or at the least as “children” who dont know what they are doing, is part of reducing the moral cost of war.

The soldiers are thugs for pay.  They know their job is to murder innocent people for money.  Don’t help the war effort by reducing that moral cost.

Shame on Sirota for pandering to the notion that US thugs for hire (soldiers) are just “kids”.

He says,
“By letting kids in Las Vegas drop remote-controlled bombs on kids in Pakistan”

About half of Pakistan’s population is under 18.  Those US adults are murdering Pakistani children.  they are thugs who kill children for money.  There is no moral equivalence between innocent child victims of US wars and the evil thugs who murder them.

A nice reminder by David. The “private military contractors” hired by US were, believed to be from a company promoted by Dick Cheyney, the deputy of George Bush Jr. They minted money in it. But could we try to find their equivalent in the same “Terrorism” which is also employed by some Muslim states as non-state actors as their state sponsored policy of fight a war on other nations similarly. There can be differences too, but the similarity is more relevant here. Pakistan is one such state.

God bless
Dr O. P. Sudrania

Well, we seem to be entering a new phase that could easily be called “Playstation” warfare, carried out by proxy operators sitting in an office somewhere far away from the actual scene of conflict.

Let’s stop being childish about this and face the
facts. Every one of these guys who gets to the point of
being a possible nominee for President of the killing
machine known as the US of A has been, in one way or
another (or in several ways), tampered with. All of
these human drones are sociopaths. Most were probably
chosen and groomed at a very young age and molested -
mentally, physically & emotionally and all of it
recorded. These are dangerously-sick folks we’re
dealing with.

If a war can be waged without human personnel in the
air or on the battlefields, the refusal of the
populace to fight the war - the only deterrent to
waging a war - may be lost.

(I recently read that a robot/soldier type has been
invented that will not only kill, it will then
eat/consume what it has killed - with the added
assurance that it won’t consume/eat people.  The
article was vague as to the robot’ purpose, but I
seriously doubt that it is to be used to exterminate
household vermin.)

So the implication of the article is that war should remain expensive so that we
wage less of it?  Of course this highly lop-sided argument ignores the low cost
of high casualty warfare on innocents that’s perpetrated by terror groups.  It
also gets the facts wrong; the many targeted weapons we’ve developed to
minimize non-combatant casualties in wartime have a higher, not lower overall
cost.  It takes many billions to develop highly accurate drone technology.  But
how would it be better to drop vast numbers of cheap dumb bombs over large
areas with high casualty rates instead?  Is this what the author would prefer?

And virtually all warfare is waged by troops, not by contractors who serve
mainly in protective and service roles… but if they’re cheaper and equally
effective then why wouldn’t we use them?  It seems the height of left-wing
ideological double-think to make an argument against cost savings, but this
author is happy to do it nonetheless.

michtom, May 7 at 10:34 pm,

I agree with your statement.  Too many people give up and are
forced to serve in the military because there are no jobs and then if
they make it back alive, their prospects of finding jobs for their
survival are even less, which doesn’t fit a conservative jingoistic
outlook, but never the less is true.  It is time to stop war for
Right-Wing profit while the deficit keeps rising, because war doesn’t
benefit the nation as a whole.

Major global problems exist as a direct result of the unbridled growth of human population. As long as this issue is not addressed and allowed to be negotiated by those who are benighted, greedy, or superstitiously inclined, the more unrest and wholesale killing we will witness until mankind “extincts” itself one way or another. Look kids; what makes more sense for the preservation as humankind as a species: endless war, abortion, or universally available and safe contraception? Sorry all of you “holy book” thumpers out there, but your myths will not protect you!

As long as the military-industrial complex remains a “jobs machine” that “hires” young people who otherwise would be unemployed, wars will continue as an economic necessity. 

As long as the najority of U.S. citizens think they are the world’s best people with the most “advanced, free, democratic, progressive, charitable etc. etc.” culture in the world—and that because of this they are “entitled” to rule the world, wars of conquest and resource wars will continue.

As long as the rest of the world keeps believing in the myth of separate nations amd refuses to unite in their common interest—to rein in the U.S. military power—they will not be able to convince, or force the U.S. to back off its imperial program. As long as other nations remain separate, the U.S. will pick them off one by one., either by force or by financial manipulations.

As long as the American people do not demand the rights they are entitled to in their Constitution, those rights will be squeezed out and withdrawn, by stealth and/or by force.

As long as the worldl’s people have no sympathy for each other over and above racial, cultural, historical, language differences, the human race will disappear within 100 years or less and those “left behind” will de-humanize.

Looks dark—but the remedy is in unified action for the common good.  It’s a defining challenge, on the level with major transitionis of the past such as moving out of caves into agricultural production or discovering that the world is not the center of the universe.

Sanity and moderation are more learned than inborn.

felicity, May 7 at 4:05 pm,

We must remain optimistic; there is no hope in pessimism at all.  If
we remain optimistic, a way will be found to reclaim our nation
from the military and it will be found through the people, when the
people learn who they are as a majority population class and
culture; because there is power with the people when they know
their class and culture, but there is no power for the people as a
class and culture as long as the people think of themselves as
separate individuals standing alone representing themselves
individually or being represented individually.  The power is only
when the majority population come together as one class and
culture for representation of that class and culture, the majority
population, the American Populace of the United States.

We’ve become a militarized rogue state and as such we
will continue to invent and produce and use the
weaponry needed to maintain that position in the world.

We aren’t on our way to being a militarized state, we
are one, and as such I see no way to have it otherwise.

Samson is right..

Obama is CIC.. and until last fall his party also ruled Congress. If Obama wanted our troops home he should have called the Joint Chiefs into the Oval Office and told them to hop to it.

One recent TD article (by this same author?) proclaimed that Obama was not a moralist.. while heaping praise on Obama for his vision and determination (to oppose the will of the people?) it supplied no answer to just what Obama might be.. perhaps a pragmatist?  That would be a better label than I would supply..
and I was a passionate Obama supporter!

Of the list of things Obama is NOT.. I’d say he’s NOT a force for change.. NOT a man of courage, NOT responsive to public opinion, NOT about to go after the war criminals or the Banksters!

Adios!

Sirota has a point. It’s a lot cheaper to target the Kremlin with a couple of drones than to pick-up the liquor tab for sending Hillary to schmooze with Medvedev and Putin for a couple of weeks about some silly diplomatic slight. Such as not giving them advance notice of our OK’ing Israel nuking Iran.

And if we make more use of drones, we could earn a profit by eliminating the whole darned State Department and diplomatic corps., and embassies and consulates around the world.

‘Course, them we’d have the problem of where to hide our secret agents.

Samson

“This entire piece is written in a surreal tone that
somehow paints Obama and the Democrats that
controlled Congress for the last two years out of the
picture.”

This claim of yours is “Preposterous.” You need to re-read this article for comprehension. No really, your claim is incomprehensible and “Preposterous.”

I keep looking for a viable alternative to the War Parties, but unfortunately, I don’t see one.

Samson,
please name a potential Republican presidential candidate who has or will run on a platform of immediately ending the wars.

Did Obama start the Iraq or Afghanistan war? If not, why should we now place them on Obama’s head?

I am led to believe that the Republican Party is smarter than I could even imagine; start wars and then convince the US Citizens that they are Oboma’s wars. I think I will start robbing banks and then blame the robbery on the Tellers (I only asked for 5-dollars and they gave me 50,000-dollars - not my fault!!).

HAPPY DAYS ARE HERE AGAIN!!

Something will have to stop this madness.
Maybe Bob Marley was right.
“Total destruction de only solution”.
The earth will be fine once man exterminates itself.

Samson, May 6 at 6:38 pm,

NO, Samson, the Afghanistan war and the Iraq war are both Bush’s
wars that President Obama inherited, but the Libya war does belong
entirely to President Obama.  Just because President Obama has
been unable to figure out how to get out of the Bush wars does not
make them his wars.  Hopefully the death of Osama bin Laden will
make it easier to get out of Afghanistan and I hope Obama does just
that and stops all warring in Afghanistan and Iraq completely and
brings all the troops home.

I wish instead of saying “America’s bloated defense
budget”, he’d say “Obama’s bloated defense budget.”

This entire piece is written in a surreal tone that
somehow paints Obama and the Democrats that
controlled Congress for the last two years out of the
picture.  Bush gets a mention as favorite Democrat
bogeyman.  But he’s gone and clearing brush on his
ranch.  So, the story after Bush conveniently has no
people in it at all.  Its like the drone strikes and
the surges and the new wars just kinda happened and
no one was responsible.

Please go do a Bart Simpson and write on the board
500 times ..... THESE ARE OBAMA’S WARS.  THESE ARE
OBAMA’S WARS.  THESE ARE OBAMA’S WARS ...

And, if you vote for Obama and the Democrats in 2012,
you are voting for more war. A vote for the Democrats
in 2012 says you love these wars, you want these wars
to continue, and you want the Democrats to keep
searching for new wars in places like Syria and Iran. 
Because if you re-elect Obama, that’s what you’ll
get.

There are almost always other names and choices on
the ballot.  Look past (D) and (R) and you’ll find
them.

Since Democrats go along with corporate
Republican war for profit and pay no
attention whatsoever to the majority population, it is difficult to stop
the warmongering, but if the majority population was listened to, the
warmongering would stop, because none of the warmongering is in
the best interest of the majority population of the United States.