"The Real Terrorist Was Me And The Real Terrorism Is This Occupation" | Ex U.S. Soldier....

[TheOriginalHappyGoat]

There has never been a successful peaceful occupation in the history of our planet. We did well in the early phases, that's documented, and I've heard your same story more than once. But we became an occupying force, in a country whose infrastructure was broken and needed restarted. That's a tough job.

We did a pretty damn good job in West Germany and Japan.

 

[burnthemallralphie]

I agree Goat, but since let's say 1949, has US foreign policy made a bit of sense to you?

 

[T.M.P.]

We did a pretty damn good job in West Germany and Japan.

Yea, and how peaceful were those two nukes? How peaceful was Dresden? And how peaceful were those Soviet gang rapists? LOL. We have to be having a communication malfunction, because you are not the one I would ever expect to make this post. Probably my fault. The occupation begins with the invasion fwiw .

We (Allies) annihilated, raped and killed their civilian populations, and completely destroyed their infrastructure, that's how you invade a country. Then you rape the country of all it's talent, and goods. That's how you win a war.

That's not what we did in Iraq, Vietnam, Korea, Soviets in Afghanistan. this new peaceful war in the nuclear era just doesn't work. We should really stop. We left civies alone, and left a majority of important infrastructure standing. That's what I meant by peaceful occupation. And, really, how's that going?

 

[TheOriginalHappyGoat]

I agree Goat, but since let's say 1949, has US foreign policy made a bit of sense to you?

That's a loaded question. Does it make sense in that I understand why we did what we did? Sure. Does it make sense in that I think any of the motivation is reasonable? Less and less each year.

Here's the problem. We've successfully opened up most of the world to free trade. This has been great for rich people. They get to have their goods made for cheaper and sell them to more people. Everyone benefits. The primary benefit for the rest of us schlubs is that we no longer have to worry about going to war in, say, China. War would cost both sides way too much money. The rich guys who make their money off of cheap clothes and patented crops love keeping these markets open.

As a result, the rich guys who make money off of war still need business. So we will simply end up in more and more small wars all over the world. The War on Terror was a godsend to arms corporations. A never-ending conflict that doesn't infringe on their free trade? Americans using their weapons on brown people and needing to replenish them, while also keeping the rest of the major markets worldwide open? Awesome!

Everyone wins. Monsanto and DuPont get to ship products all over the world. Lockheed Martin gets to do (almost) the same, but can also count on the U.S. killing enough people to remain regular customers. And when business slows down, they just convince their bought-and-paid-for politicians in Washington to give their outdated military grade weapons to local "peace" officers so they can buy all new stuff for the military. Everyone continues to get richer, and as an added side benefit, we now have the technological capacity to keep our own brown people in line, too.

So, can I make sense of it? Absolutely. But only because I can also accept that the primary purpose for the existence of our country is to provide for the continued expansion of the wealth of a select handful of individuals who have found a way to institutionalize corruption by bringing about a bloodless (and to most, invisible) oligarchic revolution.

 

[TheOriginalHappyGoat]

Yea, and how peaceful were those two nukes? How peaceful was Dresden? And how peaceful were those Soviet gang rapists? LOL. We have to be having a communication malfunction, because you are not the one I would ever expect to make this post. The occupation begins with the invasion fwiw .

We (Allies) annihilated, raped and killed their civilian populations, and completely destroyed their infrastructure, that's how you invade a country. Then you rape the country of all it's talent, and goods. That's how you win a war.

That's not what we did in Iraq. We left civies alone, and left a majority of important things standing. And, really, how's that going?

No, I mean after the fact, we actually did a good job of putting in the necessary effort to rebuild them and turn them into future allies. I was talking about the occupation, not the war, not the invasion. After peace was declared, but we were still there. Instead of running away and saying, "Good luck," which is essentially what we did in both Iraq and Afghanistan, we put in an enormous amount of effort to reshape both countries for the better.

 

[T.M.P.]

No, I mean after the fact, we actually did a good job of putting in the necessary effort to rebuild them and turn them into future allies. I was talking about the occupation, not the war, not the invasion. After peace was declared, but we were still there. Instead of running away and saying, "Good luck," which is essentially what we did in both Iraq and Afghanistan, we put in an enormous amount of effort to reshape both countries for the better.

Yea, I got it. It was my bad choice of words that was the miscommunication. Always is. vbg I was talking about the whole thing from entry to exit. (twss)

and, yea, that's much easier if you pummel the civilians into obedience. It's almost as important as beating the army. That's the will of the nation. It has to be broken if you plan on occupation. The only other option is hearts and minds. Which was achieved in Germany and Japan, after we dropped a shit ton of awe on their civilians. Not so much since then. We weren't as moral about war then.

Nukes really put a damper on successful war. All these minor skirmishes really do nothing, they're just failed diplomacy. Except like you said feed our weapons industry. War is outdated strategically, and socially but not politically, or economically. Which is the major problem.

And we did well in West Germany, and the Soviets never had a problem with East Germany with different methods. Gotta destroy the will of the people, then rebuild it in your image. The will of the people are the civilians. Fighting moral wars, is just an absolute silliness and practice of fools.

 

[Moops]

I had no idea haz pay dropped that low. Under Bush 2, I should have known.

Dropped? I seem to recall being upset we wouldn't get haz pay in Somalia in 1993 ... then found out it was only $38 a month and didn't GAS anymore. I could be remembering wrong.

 

[T.M.P.]

Dropped? I seem to recall being upset we wouldn't get haz pay in Somalia in 1993 ... then found out it was only $38 a month and didn't GAS anymore. I could be remembering wrong.

Question. Did you get a CIB? I heard people who farted in a combat zone were getting them. Not literally.

 

[TheOriginalHappyGoat]

Yea, I got it. It was my bad choice of words that was the miscommunication. Always is. vbg I was talking about the whole thing from entry to exit. (twss)

and, yea, that's much easier if you pummel the civilians into obedience. It's almost as important as beating the army. That's the will of the nation. It has to be broken if you plan on occupation. The only other option is hearts and minds. Which was achieved in Germany and Japan, after we dropped a shit ton of awe on their civilians. Not so much since then. We weren't as moral about war then.

Nukes really put a damper on successful war. All these minor skirmishes really do nothing, they're just failed diplomacy. Except like you said feed our weapons industry. War is outdated strategically, and socially but not politically, or economically. Which is the major problem.

And we did well in West Germany, and the Soviets never had a problem with East Germany with different methods. Gotta destroy the will of the people, then rebuild it in your image. The will of the people are the civilians. Fighting moral wars, is just an absolute silliness and practice of fools.

I'm not convinced all that destruction is really necessary. An overwhelming show of force coupled with a long-term commitment to rebuild and remake should be enough. Our problem with Iraq and Afghanistan wasn't that we didn't kill and rape everyone (hyperbole!), it was that we didn't commit to doing what was necessary afterwards. The idea behind changing hearts and minds is great. Our execution was a joke.

 

[IU-Curmudgeon]

I worked for a DoD contractor for most of the last decade. We sent our own people to hotspots in Iraq/Afghanistan. About 80% of the people I worked with were either retired military or former military.

In that entire time, I was with them, I didn't hear one story like Rak related to us.

Even if true, it didn't last that long. I never saw them welcome us as heroes, never saw them throw flowers in the path of our soldiers as we were told they do. Never recall hearing news stories of such things and you had to print what the military wanted to get embedded with the troops. iirc...

 

[Rangeline Fan]

I worked for a DoD contractor for most of the last decade. We sent our own people to hotspots in Iraq/Afghanistan. About 80% of the people I worked with were either retired military or former military.

In that entire time, I was with them, I didn't hear one story like Rak related to us.

Even if true, it didn't last that long. I never saw them welcome us as heroes, never saw them throw flowers in the path of our soldiers as we were told they do. Never recall hearing news stories of such things and you had to print what the military wanted to get embedded with the troops. iirc...

So they like you as much as we do?

 

[twenty02]

That's a loaded question. Does it make sense in that I understand why we did what we did? Sure. Does it make sense in that I think any of the motivation is reasonable? Less and less each year.

Here's the problem. We've successfully opened up most of the world to free trade. This has been great for rich people. They get to have their goods made for cheaper and sell them to more people. Everyone benefits. The primary benefit for the rest of us schlubs is that we no longer have to worry about going to war in, say, China. War would cost both sides way too much money. The rich guys who make their money off of cheap clothes and patented crops love keeping these markets open.

As a result, the rich guys who make money off of war still need business. So we will simply end up in more and more small wars all over the world. The War on Terror was a godsend to arms corporations. A never-ending conflict that doesn't infringe on their free trade? Americans using their weapons on brown people and needing to replenish them, while also keeping the rest of the major markets worldwide open? Awesome!

Everyone wins. Monsanto and DuPont get to ship products all over the world. Lockheed Martin gets to do (almost) the same, but can also count on the U.S. killing enough people to remain regular customers. And when business slows down, they just convince their bought-and-paid-for politicians in Washington to give their outdated military grade weapons to local "peace" officers so they can buy all new stuff for the military. Everyone continues to get richer, and as an added side benefit, we now have the technological capacity to keep our own brown people in line, too.

So, can I make sense of it? Absolutely. But only because I can also accept that the primary purpose for the existence of our country is to provide for the continued expansion of the wealth of a select handful of individuals who have found a way to institutionalize corruption by bringing about a bloodless (and to most, invisible) oligarchic revolution.

That's a nice story. But the reality is it isn't a ' few rich guys' that benefit from the Lockheeds, Monsantos, etc.....

1) Those companies employ tens of thousands, actually hundreds of thousands of people directly, in high paying jobs. The overall DoD industry employs somewhere in the neighborhood of 5m+ Americans, not counting the actual military.

2) they are all public companies, whose majority of stock is held by mutual funds and index funds. Which are then held by millions of citizens in 401k, IRAs, and individual investment accounts. Americans have nearly $3 TRILLION in 401k accounts alone, all sharing in the profits of these companies. A lot more complex than a ' few rich guys'.

That entire argument sounds like a populist stump speech.

 

[MyTeamIsOnTheFloor]

If we could just figure out a way to make guns, tanks, uniforms, bullets, jeeps, trucks, jets, planes, bombs, etc. without letting the Evil Businesses who control government like puppets from making any money, war would be so much better.

The rest of that crap - ending slavery, freeing people from oppression - meaningless.

 

[MyTeamIsOnTheFloor]

Thanks for the answer and I don't doubt you a bit. I get why you said what you did. And, you know damn well I respect you for what you did and have a better idea than most, but you were part of the corporate arm. That's the theme I was fixating on and why I asked. Not that I'm criticizing you, I'm not. Troops follow orders, so you're completely exempt of any fk up moral judgement anyone makes.

I do know one thing, anytime you have solved a problem, you have created two more. We had a very good entry plan, but as always, occupying armies make poor police forces. That's been another constant in the history of war. Hearts and minds, I know it's cliche' but it's absolutely fundamental to successful peaceful occupations. Only it's also BS. there's never been one. Peaceful occupations are inherently flawed.

According to the rules of war and by many differing views from Chinese, to Greek, to German, peaceful occupations are impossible. If you attempt one, it's eventually a drain on economy and an auto loss.

There has never been a successful peaceful occupation in the history of our planet. We did well in the early phases, that's documented, and I've heard your same story more than once. But we became an occupying force, in a country whose infrastructure was broken and needed restarted. That's a tough job.

People were put out, lives were turned upside down. At first they would blame Saddam, but eventually the occupiers become the culprit of their problems. Maybe not to all but to enough. Then antagonistic elements would appear, and, at that point every mistake, real or conceived, made by the occupying forces is magnified. The longer they are there. (a decade) the worse it becomes. Yes it's a generalization, and I'm not just talking about Iraq, I'm talking about every attempted invasion in the history of man.

Also, there's the point that it was, regardless if Saddam was the most evil POS on the planet, by our laws, and by the laws of the nations of this planet, a war fought on false pretense, thus an unjust war. We (USA) may gloss over that little detail, and it may truly had been a mistake, but I doubt very much the rest of the world's political community believes that.That war was a drain on our economy, and disastrous to our political standing. What did the American gain from it? Nothing.

Which was more justified - Nanking or Hiroshima? Dresden or Warsaw? Slavery or The March to the Sea? The Cultural Revolution or KFC in Tiananman Square?

Purple fingers matter!

We didn't just "laugh our way to some profit" there!

 

[burnthemallralphie]

Dropped? I seem to recall being upset we wouldn't get haz pay in Somalia in 1993 ... then found out it was only $38 a month and didn't GAS anymore. I could be remembering wrong.

It is probably me not remembering correctly. I remember both Haz duty and combat zone pay as being significantly more than that.

 

[TheOriginalHappyGoat]

Anyone still following this thread should watch this video.