Showing posts with label Iraq war. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Iraq war. Show all posts

Wednesday, May 15, 2024

WAR IN THE MIDDLE EAST

 





God damn, I’m old – but against the odds, I’m still here.   The avatar for old men is Homer Simson’s father - and that pretty much suits me. 




 

I have seen it all, and it all replays over and over again. 

War in the Middle East, so what’s fucking new?   The only other species that regularly make war and genocide against its kind are Chimpanzees, our first cousins in the animal kingdom. 




We share 98% of our DNA

 

In the United States, peace is just the interval between wars.   We spend more on our military than the next five major militarized countries combined, yet we haven’t won a war since World War Two.

 

We stalemated in Korea, and we lost in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan; and all the scrimmages in between produced nothing. 

 

The root of all wars can be summarized as: 

My God is better than your God, and my dick is bigger than your dick (women don’t start wars.)

 

I despise Donald Trump, especially because of his disrespect for the military.    Among other things, he called the dead at the Arlington National Cemetery losers.  But tangentially, these young men and women died, before they had a chance to live and love; meanwhile, politicians move us on to the next war, and the next, and the next…

 

I spent 22 years in the military, a Vietnam vet.  I have seen what the war shredder does to young men and women psyched on patriotism and glory.  I was one of them.   They too often die young and are mutilated physically and mentally.

 

Life is too precious.  We are here by chance and only go around one time.   Young people have a right to grow old, to have adventures, to love and be loved, and to bask in the beauty of nature.  Wars and the military can steal the right away.  No country and no God is worth dying for.






War! What is it good for?  Absolutely nothing. 

the Ol’Buzzard

 

 

 

 


Friday, November 12, 2021

I DON’T CELEBRATE VETERANS DAY

 

 

I hate being told, ‘Thank you for your service.


58,479 Americans died in the Vietnam war - and that is the official count.   It doesn’t include the brothers that later died from Agent Orange exposure, suicide, related injuries – not to mention the maimed and mentally injured.


One 18-year-old young man I knew took five rounds in his stomach.  He was engaged to be married to a young girl before deployment, but in the hospital he was told he would have to wear a colostomy bag for the rest of his life.  He cried constantly.  I don’t know what happened to him.

 

Another friend I use to ride with in Florida we called Choo-Choo.  He had been shot when his group was overrun by VC.  He played dead while they searched him.  The next day he was recovered and placed on the skirt of a tank to be taken back to base area.   He fell off the tank and it was another day before he was discovered and taken to the field hospital.   Sometimes when we were out drinking together Choo-Choo’s eyes would roll up in his head, he would fall on the floor drooling and make a noise: choo choo choo…   I always believed he was hearing the tank treads in his head. 

 

What did we accomplish in Vietnam?  We left North Vietnam the most advanced armed country with American military weapons in South East Asia…. and we built a wall in Washington D.C.




 

Fuck war

Fuck celebrating war

the Ol’Buzzard

 

 

 


Monday, February 15, 2016

WAR IS THE NATURAL STATE OF AFFAIRS


 
The military has taken delivery of 100 new F-35's.   This latest military boondockle, at $300,000,000 per aircraft, and a total overall cost, including maintaining each aircraft over its life time, is  estimated to be two-trillion dollars,    This weapons system alone will demand a great increase military budgeting.  
A list of America’s major wars, not counting all the conflict with American Natives that continued sporadically through the late 1800’s, shows that the natural state of the United States is war; with the time between allowing for improving weaponry, rearming and growing a new generation of cannon fodder.

A listing of our major wars is self-explanatory:
1675-1678: King Philips War
1689-1697: King Williams War
1702-1713: Queen Ann’s War
1744-1748: King George’s War
1756-1763: French and Indian War
1775-1783: American Revolution
1798-1800: Franco American War
1800-1815: Barbary Coast Wars
1812-1815: War of 1812
1846-1848: Mexican American War
1861-1865: Civil War
1898: Spanish American War
1914-11918: World War One
1939-1945: World War Two
1950-1953: Korean War
1960-1975: Vietnam War
1990-1991: Persian Gulf War
2001-xxxx: Invasion of Afghanistan
2003-xxxx: Invasion of Iraq
2015-xxx: ISIS

The longest times we have gone between a major war is thirty-three years, just after the Civil war, during which time we were still annihilating the Indian nations.

About the time of the First World War it became evident that war was extremely profitable.    The United States built planes, tanks, vehicles and arms at an astounding rate.   Manufacturing firms were over loaded with demands for war supplies.  

After the World War One the United States decided to improve its military weaponry.  The government begun funding research to improve tanks, military aircraft, guns and munitions.  People working in the military industrial complex were prideful of their patriotic employment.  

Barely twenty years later we were back in a major World War.   The military industrial complex fired up production and the whole nation supported the resulting recession as funds were diverted to war: both the cost of war and the hardware necessary to conduct it. 

It is easy to see that regular people have very little to say about the course of the Nation.  Congress either does nothing, or enacts laws contrary to the ideals of the majority.     This is because Congress is bought and paid for by ‘business leaders’ and companies, many that make their fortunes from America’s obsession with all things military. 



Do you actually think that General Dynamics cared that the tanks the US furnished the Iraqi army were abandon and turned over to ISIS, requiring new tanks be purchased to rearm the Iraqis?   The same for the guns and weapons and vehicles left for ISIS, requiring rearmament of the ‘new’ Iraqi army.  

Do you think munitions manufacturers are sorry that a bombing campaign is going on in Syria; or that the war has stretched on in Afghanistan and Iraq for 14 years?

I remember ‘the joke’ in Vietnam: you can tell the North Vietnamese from the South Vietnamese army because the North only have fifty-percent American made weapons. 

War expenditures are the grease that oils the economy.   Nearly every manufacturing job depends heavily on military contracts.   Except for Bush’s tax cuts and deregulation of the banking industry this country would be in an economic war boom.  

From small businesses making circuit boards to major companies turning out complex aircraft, war business is booming.  

Unfortunately, the profits stay with investors and dont trickle down.   

So let’s not fool ourselves, we are a Nation of War - a Nation of perpetual War.   War is the natural state of the state of this Union, and our whole American economy rest with the military industrial complex.

War is the economic base of this country; this is why we spend more on military than the next eight largest militarized countries combined - and why we justify the United States as the police for the world.

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 Citizens meet your newest jobs program: M1A2 SEP V1 tank from General Dynamics.


 General Dynamics says this new 395 million dollar contract will support 282 industries.   

Economy thy name is Tank.



the Ol’Buzzard