Fighting Them Over There So We Don't Have to Fight Them Over Here?
But our self-made demons are coming home to roost amongst us.New York Times Special Report: 121 Veterans Of Iraq And Afghanistan Charged With Killing Upon Returning Home.
The level of violence has been brought down to 2006 levels. This is not an end to this brooding civil war. This is a reduction from the spike in 2007. ... .. The fact remains, as General Petraeus himself has said, absent a political process you're not going to have a solution. ... .. There has been no political process. There has just been American troops inserted into the military space. So whatever success the surge has had it has been on the backs of the American troops and it is not being, it is not underpinning a long-term political strategy or political solution.
Ahhhh vigilante, this deserves much more time and space than I can devote here.
Let me simply point out that at 121 homicides (a number that is likely understated), this is significantly less than the national average (per capita) and hugely less than the troubled cities like Philadelphia which had 392 homicides in 2007 alone.
The anecdotal stories presented by the ten reporters and researchers assigned by the NYT are horrific and tragic.
But so is every story of murder, abuse, cruelty and malice.
To me it is even more tragic that the underprivlidged in Philadelphia do not have the medical, psychological, rehabilitive and social support routinely provided to military personnel. If they did, perhaps, just perhaps, the death toll might drop to the relatively small military veteran levels.
But there will be no ten reporters and researchers assigned by the Times to the tragedies in Philadelphia..... but there ought to be.
Very enlightening post and commentary. I couldn't get much into the article because it's so saturated with violence begotten by violence. And if worse is true for Philadelphia, and our own L.A. city, this society needs so much peace pumped into it and a serious limiting of violent images and media and the HOME.
The notion that a radical is one who hates his country is naive and usually idiotic. He is, more likely, one who loves his country more than the rest of us, and is thus more disturbed than the rest of us when he sees it debauched. He is not a bad citizen turning to crime; he is a good citizen driven to despair.
Reverend G R Gleig, survived the First Anglo-Afghan War to write in 1843:
...a war begun for no wise purpose, carried on with a strange mixture of rashness and timidity, brought to a close after suffering and disaster, without much glory attached either to the government which directed, or the great body of troops which waged it. Not one benefit, political or military, has Britain acquired with this war. Our eventual evacuation of the country resembled the retreat of an army defeated.
My once-great country's only hope was to remove Bush from office before his term expired to permit the early repair of the devastation he created. Now the USA is on life support.
Joe Wilson on the Surge:
ReplyDeleteThe level of violence has been brought down to 2006 levels. This is not an end to this brooding civil war. This is a reduction from the spike in 2007. ... .. The fact remains, as General Petraeus himself has said, absent a political process you're not going to have a solution. ... .. There has been no political process. There has just been American troops inserted into the military space. So whatever success the surge has had it has been on the backs of the American troops and it is not being, it is not underpinning a long-term political strategy or political solution.
Ahhhh vigilante, this deserves much more time and space than I can devote here.
ReplyDeleteLet me simply point out that at 121 homicides (a number that is likely understated), this is significantly less than the national average (per capita) and hugely less than the troubled cities like Philadelphia which had 392 homicides in 2007 alone.
The anecdotal stories presented by the ten reporters and researchers assigned by the NYT are horrific and tragic.
But so is every story of murder, abuse, cruelty and malice.
To me it is even more tragic that the underprivlidged in Philadelphia do not have the medical, psychological, rehabilitive and social support routinely provided to military personnel. If they did, perhaps, just perhaps, the death toll might drop to the relatively small military veteran levels.
But there will be no ten reporters and researchers assigned by the Times to the tragedies in Philadelphia..... but there ought to be.
Very enlightening post and commentary. I couldn't get much into the article because it's so saturated with violence begotten by violence. And if worse is true for Philadelphia, and our own L.A. city, this society needs so much peace pumped into it and a serious limiting of violent images and media and the HOME.
ReplyDeleteFood for thought:
ReplyDeleteBylines of Brutality
Good one! LOL!
ReplyDeleteOuch! You're never underestimated in here, Wizard!
ReplyDeleteHow's it feel, Vigil? The nail, I mean?
ReplyDelete