This piece my dad wrote points out how methamphetamines are being given to American soldiers in Iraq and have long been used to promote aggression and desensitization. He also touches on something that is seriously wrong in this country: pumping children full of drugs to control "diseases" that could be cured by turning off the TV and taking away the pop tarts.
White Man Tweak With Forked Tongue – The Government-Induced Speed PlaguePosted by Maria at November 16, 2004 12:15 PMby Charles Carreon
Warrior Tweakers, Good! Citizen Tweakers, Bad!
They’re tweaking again. The military, I mean. It’s not just the throttle jocks, I’m sure, who are popping Dexedrine to stay alert. It’s a war on, man, and if you can’t sacrifice a little sleep to the war effort, then what kind of patriot are you? That’s speed thinking. Compelling, so compelling of course that virtually all of the pilots flying combat missions in Iraq are in an altered state.
An altered state, may I remind you, that in an ordinary citizen is considered illegal in the extreme, a dangerous self-indulgence in a forbidden psychic kick that renders you outré. You’re a meth-head, a dangerous, child neglecting, spouse-abusing, larcenous scab on the body of society, in need of treatment and scorn. As a former prosecutor and criminal defender, I know the depictions are not far-fetched, either. Cranksters can be vile creatures, and meth induces a callousness of character that is definitively anti-social. Delusions of grandeur can feed notions of gangster mystique, and facilitate violence. I once had a client tell me in jail about how he brutally broke the kneecaps on a total stranger after taping him to a chair in his garage, because he had mistaken the poor fellow for some guy who ripped him off. After another tweaker friend came home and informed my client that the fellow was not the ripoff, they put him in the back of a pickup and threw him out in front of the emergency room and sped off. Of course, some meth users merely become weasely thieves, and do not commit mayhem. At all events, it has a corrosive effect on character.
So why do the military rate? Eliminate from your mind first the notion that the drugs are not the same. Dextroamphetamine is what the Air Force hands out to pilots, and they take extras along in the jet to self-administer as desired. Dextro just means the molecule “turns to the right” instead of to the left, but to your brain it’s all the same – left turn, right turn, speed on. To fight fatigue is said to be the reason. But a great side effect is the creation of the callous, anti-social character necessary to drop weapons of mass destruction on fellow humans. It takes a certain distance to do this sort of thing. Speed helps.
It makes me think of the lyrics from “Lucretia,” by the Sisters of Mercy:
“I hear the roar of a thin machine,
Hot metal and methedrine.
Love lost, fire at will,
Dum-dum bullets and shoot to kill,
I hear a dive bomber …
Empire Down …
Empire Down …”Returning to the question – why do the military get to take speed? Because they need to, we are told. The Iraqis are probably doing speed, too. They’re not stupid. It gives them a little bit of advantage, what with having to stay up all night soldering together bomb-timers, and repairing assault rifles, not to mention keeping a prayer schedule. Speed helps.
Where’s The Money?
The origins of amphetamine are recent. Discovered just before the turn of the century, methamphetamine was synthesized by Smith, Kline & French in 1929. The company filed two trademarks on the trade-name “Benzedrine” in 1936, one as a tablet “medicine for the stimulation of the nervous system,” and another as a decongestant inhaler, citing first use in commerce in 1933. Glaxo, Smith Kline is still the big distributor of Dextroamphetamine for the military, and related stimulants like Adderall, for obnoxious little boys who won't sit still in school. Merck developed a simplified synthesis during the second world war to fuel the Blitzkrieg. I assume we aren’t holding back from giving infantry their share of the crank. After all, the infantryman and mechanized armor guys have the hardest work. So they’re speedin’ legally, driving humvees, tanks, fuckin’ rockin’ and rollin’ for real, and their commanders don’t mind that they’re listening to death metal with titles like “Cook Your Balls and Eat ‘Em,” ‘cause it’s a new crankin’ Army muthafucka.
War Is Hell, But Peace Is Sooooo Boring!
Our little cranksterized killers are going to have a hard time adjusting to civilian life. Death metal they’ll still have, but speed will be dearly bought with social ostracism. And they may begin to reflect on the horrors that they committed when the tunes were crankin’ and their reflexes were cleanly, smoothly distributing ammunition among the Iraqis. It seemed like a video game, but after the smoke and heroics are blown away, there is a terrible wound that the heart does not know how to heal. I knew that wound in some of my uncles who were in the infantry during world war two. They drank a lot.
Of course, the speed experience is not all exhilaration. There’s depletion and exhaustion and paranoia. No amount of speed will move the weariness out of bones that have been worked sore, and the business of dispensing ammunition is terribly wearying. I like to shoot my daughter’s .44 magnum lever-action gun, but it doesn’t have a cushion on the butt, and I’ve never shot a whole box of 50 rounds at a time. My shoulder just gets too sore. I’d hate to have to use that rifle in a war. They’d win just because my shoulder would get sore. Speed might help.
This Shit Works!
I wonder if it’s just possible that the policy makers, munitions makers and pharmaceutical makers might have realized how beneficial it would be for them to encourage the use of a drug that makes people more productive, less sensitive, more able to commit mayhem, less concerned with how they feel about what they are doing. Alfred Nobel created dynamite, some nameless chemist created speed. Who did the more powerful deed? Well, certainly their inventions worked hand in hand to make the world a far more detonated place.
Celebrity Cranksters, Celebrity Killers
Genies have a habit of getting out of the bottle, and the meth genie has been out of the bottle for about seventy-plus years now, fueling an expansion of manic energy that has probably resulted in the unnecessary damming of rivers, cutting down of forests, annihilation of entire tribes, species and ecosystems. And the toxic mentality has spread from the top down. Both Adolf Hitler and John F. Kennedy had “Dr. Feelgoods” who injected them with methamphetamine daily. Dr. Theodor Morell was Hitler’s psychiatric physician and constant companion, just as Dr. Max Jacobson was always present to serve as Kennedy’s pharmaceutical nursemaid. Both doctors supplemented the stimulant regimen with downers to moderate the manic effects of speed. It has been observed that Hitler’s mania for annihilating the Jews developed in intensity during the period of Morell’s influence.
Dirty Deeds, Done Dirt Cheap
Hitler’s allies, the Japanese, were also tweaking freely throughout the second world war, as the Imperial government doled out speed to the military and civilian populace alike, to keep up the “war effort.” The Rape of Nanking, a horrific war crime perpetrated by Japanese soldiers against no fewer than 369,366 Chinese men, women and children during 1937-38, was a murderous orgy that continued for months, during which the Japanese troops raped no less than 80,000 women of all ages. Reliable historical reports indicate that the Japanese killed many millions of Chinese during the second world war, although this Sino-Japanese holocaust has received little attention or commemoration. This type of lethal productivity has the feel of a meth-fueled murder nightmare. The suicide pilots of the Japanese air force were given amphetamines to overcome the desire to survive. The Japanese reversed course on their people after the war, made meth illegal in 1952, and arrested over 50,000 people. The country still has a serious problem with intravenous methamphetamine users, who comprise a large proportion of the 2 million meth users in the land of the Rising Sun.
African Children Turned Into Killing Machines
Many of the approximately 100,000 children under arms in the world are manipulated with amphetamines. For example, in Sierra Leone, Rwanda, Burma, and other war-torn nations, children are taken captive, raped, starved, brutalized, and then injected crudely with amphetamines, cocaine, and other drugs, and directed to commit murderous rampages. A Washington Post article by Douglas Farah, published April 8, 2000, quoted international aid sources as follows: “In Sierra Leone, said social workers and the child combatants, taking drugs-especially amphetamines and cocaine-was a regular part of ‘military training.’ Human Rights Watch found in a 1999 report that ‘child combatants armed with pistols, rifles and machetes actively participated in killings and massacres, [and] severed the arms of other children. . . . Often under the influence of drugs, they were known and feared for their impetuosity, lack of control and brutality.’”
American Children Turned Into Substance Abusers
That’s one way to get folks into drugs young, but we are more subtle in the USA, and we use what is called “treatment.” Under the guise of treating ADD and ADHD, two “diseases” that seem to afflict little boys who eat junk food and watch a lot of TV, our little preschool punk rockers are “treated” by school nurses who dole out speed from a jar. Of course, first they started out using “methylphenidate,” aka Ritalin which supposedly “wasn’t an amphetamine.” This label-switching was ordained by the pharma marketing geniuses who started this project to turn kids into cranksters back in the fifties, because the diet pill craze was winding down, and amphetamines, bennies, white crosses, pink hearts, and black beauties had all got a bit of a bad name at the courthouse and in popular literature. The Rolling Stones helped break the bad news about diet pills in their song, “Mother’s Little Helper,” with its pleading refrain “Doctor please, some more of these!” and its jabbing rejoinder, “Outside the door, she took four more!” But the pharma hacks are always good at finding another use for powerful substances, and now, it turns out that Dextroamphetamine, mixed with meth, in a formulation called “Adderall,” is even better than silly old Ritalin. So what good is it to give speed to kids who are speedy?
Thanks for asking. To answer, I must introduce the vaunted “paradoxical effect” of amphetamines on children under some uncertain age. Marvelously, the pharma hacks explain, speed slows down speedy kids! And you know, with proper medical care and monitoring, maybe it is helpful in extreme cases. But in the USA, what’s good can get force-fed down your throat, whether you need it or not. Think lobotomies for excitable mental patients. The same thing has happened to children. Researcher Nadine Lambert recently presented data at the Consensus Development Conference indicating that prescribed consumption of stimulants during childhood predisposed young adults to cocaine abuse. This sort of obvious connection occurred to me when I heard that one of my nephews, a longtime Ritalin-kid, was doing hard time in the penitentiary because he couldn’t stop using meth. Soon, some criminal defense attorneys are going to wake up and realize that when the state gets you addicted to a controlled substance, that should be a defense to criminal possession.
Houston, We Have A Problem!
Meth has crept into our lives very quietly, and will not leave easily. It may very well explain the extreme bellicosity and hardheadedness of many white American males, who develop a strong loyalty to the drug because of its association with productivity, the work ethic, and a positive, can-do attitude. There is a great false optimism that is brimming over among the nation’s military leaders. We are going to export democracy, uproot tyranny, and kill all the bad guys. With a little crank, it’s all in a day’s work, because speed helps. On speed, we can do more. Somewhere Hitler is smiling.
~I have long believed that we are overmedicated in this country, and the drug companies, who continue to lobby against people being able to obtain lower costs drugs out of the U.S., are the root cause of this. As for meth being given to our soilders, i would not doubt it for a second, the govt. gave Vietnam vets acid/LSD to trip out on, testing them like their own private stock of Haight Ashbury hippies to control, why not meth to keep 'em angry and awake...I truly believe kids sit on their asses too much these days, chowing down McD's and playing video games when they should be OUTSIDE PLAYING...maybe one day parents will realize their kids are better outside getting some exercise than inside getting overweight and developing ADD~
Posted by: btezra at November 16, 2004 01:16 PMI'd love to see your father's sources. No one ever gave me meth.
Posted by: Geoffrey at November 16, 2004 02:15 PMWere you ever in an actual war? Did you have to kill anyone?
Posted by: Maria at November 16, 2004 03:32 PMHe could tell you....but then he'd have to kill you since you don't have a security clearance.
Posted by: Mad Mikey at November 16, 2004 03:44 PMNo. But he has family members who have. I was asking because it's well known that during the Vietnam war soldiers were given drugs to be able to cope during major combat. If you had been in that kind of combat, I would take your statement into account. It is also well known that "pharmaceutical" meth is given to pilots who go on long missions. I don't know what would make you doubt that it is given to those in ground combat as well. Or maybe you just think it's not as bad because it's administered by military doctors and not some Revere Beach drug dealer.
Posted by: Maria at November 16, 2004 04:05 PMI don't know what would make you doubt that it is given to those in ground combat as well.
Because I have BEEN in ground combat. I don't know of a single person that has received it. That's why I asked for your father's sources. Perhaps he knows something I don't.
Judging by the rest of his ignorant commentary, I suspect he has no sources, but in fact is just yapping about things he doesn't understand, rather than give credit to the men and women in uniform who are doing a job they may not want to be doing so that he can point fingers at them, rather than don a uniform himself.
Posted by: Geoffrey at November 16, 2004 04:10 PMFirst of all, if you ever call my father ignorant again, I will make sure that you are banned from this website forever.
Second of all, he wasn't pointing the finger at the troops you neanderthal. If you read what he wrote, you would understand that it is the government that he blames for getting people addicted to substances during war and then crucifying them in criminal court for seeking out those same drugs on the street when they return home.
He indicated the same about giving children meth and then prosecuting them as adults for having meth addictions, without taking into account that it was not them that chose to become dependent on that substance in the first place.
You missed the point of his writings entirely.
Posted by: Maria at November 16, 2004 04:18 PMFirst of all, if you ever call my father ignorant again, I will make sure that you are banned from this website forever.
Read much? I referred to his commentary as ignorant. If you think that applies to him personally too, I'll have to take your word for it.
Second of all, he wasn't pointing the finger at the troops you neanderthal. If you read what he wrote, you would understand that it is the government that he blames for getting people addicted to substances during war and then crucifying them in criminal court for seeking out those same drugs on the street when they return home.
Second of all, he certainly was pointing his finger at the troops. Particularly with phrases such as:
Our little cranksterized killers are going to have a hard time adjusting to civilian life. Death metal they’ll still have, but speed will be dearly bought with social ostracism. And they may begin to reflect on the horrors that they committed when the tunes were crankin’ and their reflexes were cleanly, smoothly distributing ammunition among the Iraqis.
and
. So they’re speedin’ legally, driving humvees, tanks, fuckin’ rockin’ and rollin’ for real, and their commanders don’t mind that they’re listening to death metal with titles like “Cook Your Balls and Eat ‘Em,” ‘cause it’s a new crankin’ Army muthafucka.
He's making assumptions and yapping about things he doesn't have the slightest knowledge about.
Again, I'd love to see his sources. People like that never have them, though.
Posted by: Geoffrey at November 16, 2004 04:22 PMYou called her father ignorant. That is exactly how it reads.
Posted by: at November 16, 2004 05:08 PMI referred to his commentary as ignorant. If you think that applies to him personally too, I'll have to take your word for it.
You know nothing about the knowledge my dad has or does not have. To refer to his commentary as ignorant is to say the same of him in my eyes. You should step carefully when speaking about him because I become like a mother grizzly bear when my father is insulted.
One more of these: He's making assumptions and yapping about things he doesn't have the slightest knowledge about. and this conversation is going to be over.
Since you do not know how he has reached the conclusions laid out in his writing, you should probably abstain from making judgments about it. Especially considering that your intellect (or lack of) would wither in the shadow of his. This is one of those times when saying nothing would probably be better than to say anything critical. My dad does not "yap" about things that he knows nothing about.
As for the segments that you cut and pasted, you have obviously discovered my dad's gritty imaginative style, and if you ever knew a meth-head, you know that these descriptions are appropriate to the state of mind that it cultivates. My dad does not disdain the user and if you knew him, you'd realize that. He disdains the system that makes regular boys into monsters and killing machines. He describes the mindset accurately. It is a fact that soldiers in Iraq have been known to listen to death metal to keep their adrenaline and momentum pumping. It is also a fact that often times, after returning from particularly brutal battle, soldiers have a very difficult time adjusting to civilian life.
I don't see what it is that you object to about his descriptions, and if you have further objections, I can tell you where to put them.
I will never stop being amazed at how quick you are willing to dismiss anything that goes against your immovable view of the world and your adamant concept of how things ARE. You have written your beliefs in stone and you have locked the door so that nothing else can get in. Especially nothing that would alter your view of our government and military as this perfect entity that is devoid of fault, blame or exposure. Go ahead and live in that world, but do not make your fun coming here and insulting my father.
Posted by: Maria at November 16, 2004 05:11 PMHere comes the personal stuff again Maria. Wonderful retort... but "its" hearing is selective. He serves one purpose but to enflame... fortunately he's only marginally successful since level heads can nail him to his vinyl-sided existence with the stroke of a pen.
Nothing is sacred to this miscreant... even your reverence for your heritage and your parentage are not off bounds.
Posted by: at November 16, 2004 06:14 PMI'm going to take my chances and weigh in on this subject.
I agree that children are very overmedicated and that ADD and ADHD are very often cop-outs for children that are just being children and are way too overstimulated (too much television and video games and not enough getting off of their asses and playing outside, expending energy).
the interesting thing I learned from my therapist is that ADD is actually more prevalent in young girls than it is in boys but is very underdiagnosed because they don't exhibit the same symptoms as little boys. ADD often rears its head (in girls) in the form of never being able to shut up and then later in life turns into a complete inability to focus and terrible short term memory. also, high IQs and ADD very often go hand in hand with girls.
I had a miserable college experience. I went to a large college with huge classes where actually having one on one time with professors was an anomaly. I was horribly frustrated, getting poor grades, and getting more burned out than I've ever been. this is after being in the top 10% of my class in high school. imagine how shitty that feels to KNOW you're smart and have no idea why you just can't concentrate enough to get through a damn college class. after 5 years and about 115 credits under my belt, I said fuck it and left. I couldn't stand it one second longer. I felt STUPID even though I knew I wasn't.
skip to about a year and a half later when I went to see a therapist on recommendation from a friend and underwent a bevy of psychological testing. when she told me that she thought I suffered from ADD, I laughed at her. "ADD? isn't that a kid's disease? I'm not hyper. that's just not possible." well, she opened my eyes. I'm now on Strattera, which is the only non-aphetamine drug on the market exclusively for adult ADD and holy SHIT do I feel better. the ability to focus is just amazing. to remember why I've walked into a room. to be able to have conversations with people without zoning out and missing everything. I'm planning on taking another stab at finishing my degree (in a much smaller setting) next Fall and it really excites me to challenge myself (and this medicine). I'm more determined than ever to see if I can rise above this damn disorder now.
and the nice thing about the medicine is that it has also helped with some of my anxiety issues that I had because they were secondary to the ADD. in social situations (if I wasn't getting drunk) I would get very overstimulated need to get the hell away from people. in malls I would feel trapped and claustrophobic. most of those feelings are gone now and it feels so damn good.
alright. sorry for the babbling. you find a subject I'm interested in and I'll write a fucking novel.
Posted by: girl at November 16, 2004 06:31 PMMaria,
Your accusation that Geoff is having fun insulting your father is baseless. If anything, what your father has written is an affront to all American combat vets, surprisingly enough posted near Veterans Day. Drawing parallels between our fighting men and women to the fascist ranks of WWII Germans and Japanese is as tasteless as me suggesting he has propensity to stealing hubcaps because he's of Mexican heritage.
Geoff and I, both combat vets, share no recollections whatsoever nor do we have any knowledge of the slander your father suggests. I do hope he has sources to cite, in regard to the military.
Posted by: Gordon the Magnificent at November 16, 2004 07:26 PMhere is one: Go-pills, bombs & friendly fire
Posted by: Darcie at November 16, 2004 08:04 PMGood read Darcie. Thanks.
I doubt the 'boys' have, in truth, seen combat, so WTF do they know? It's simply convenient to their political stance.
Posted by: at November 16, 2004 08:38 PMYes Darcie. Good read. Thanks for posting it. Definitely proves the point we're making here doesn't it?
Posted by: Maria at November 16, 2004 09:02 PMUm, actually my post just DISPROVED the point your making here. Why'd you delete it? Truth hurt?
Posted by: Geoffrey at November 16, 2004 09:50 PMI warned you.
Posted by: Maria at November 16, 2004 09:56 PMAnd don't kid yourself. You didn't prove anything except that you don't know when to quit being a dick after you've been warned.
Posted by: Maria at November 16, 2004 09:58 PMWarned me about what? Speaking the truth? Anything that is actually based on fact and shows your father wrote an insulting speculation gets deleted? He had the balls to write it. Let him have the balls to pop on in and back it up with fact.
Posted by: Geoffrey at November 16, 2004 09:59 PMThe apple doesn't fall far from the tree, I see.
Posted by: Gordon the Magnificent at November 16, 2004 10:07 PMI warned you about personally attacking my father.
Geoffrey, my dad is not obligated to engage you in any kind of discussion, nor does he have anything to prove to the likes of you. But rest assured, if he ever granted you the privilege of having an exchange with him, he would crush you like the sad little bug that you are. If you've ever seen him pummel an adversary in court, you would not even invite such an exchange.
But you are not worthy of his attention. Nor would you even be able to appreciate the force of his knowledge over yours, as you would just cower behind the safety of your keyboard sputtering out your usual denial laden retorts and thanking your lucky little stars that there was a computer and a great deal of physical distance between you and him. Perhaps you would be satisfied at the idea that you'd gained his attention, but his only reward would be exasperation at the pure proportion of your idiocy and your capacity to deny reality in order to preserve a tired old charade of innocence and righteous indignance.
The bottom line with respect to the post is that soldiers are allowed and encouraged to use Dexedrine and it causes them to become both addicted and psychologically fucked up. You can't deny that soldiers in Iraq are exhausted and mentally depleted and have to find ways to stay awake and keep their nerves from falling apart on long missions. There are many articles that hit on this topic. All you have to do is search. Other sad facts I'm sure you'd rather deny are that at least seven soldiers have committed suicide since returning from Iraq, it is not uncommon for men to be agitated and abusive towards their spouses upon return and depression and post traumatic stress disorder are serious conditions that many soldiers face after returning from war.
You sit here on a high horse and act like you are the only ones who care about the soldiers and everything that has been said in this post is an affront to American soldiers, but that's a lot of hot air. You miss that we care about the soldiers too. So much that we protest the war because we don't want them or anyone else to die for nothing, and we protest the government's endorsement of methamphetamines in the military because it not only harms the soldiers in the short term, but also when they try to return home to their families and normal lives. I care about the affect that has on them, their families, and society as a whole.
You can kick your feet as much as you want and split hairs about whether those in ground combat AND those in the air use methamphetamines, or whether it is only the latter, rather than just admitting that they are used, that it's harmful to everyone involved and that what goes up must come down. Does it really make a difference TO YOU if it is just pilots or also those fighting in ground combat, when those who are flying are the ones who have already blamed meth for a friendly fire incident? What is it that you're trying to dispute here? (Oh that's right. Nothing. You just come to create conflict.)
Posted by: Maria at November 16, 2004 10:46 PMyou know what gordon and geoff - and I am dead serious. You two really pitiful. You don't represent this country, you don't represent anything good. You are just two ignorant wads of shit who live off of the blood and sweat of others. You too need to just go fuck your asshole selves. I am now cmpletely done for good, dealing with either one of you fucking twats ever again. You truly are scumballs.
Maria - My grandfather served in WWII as did three great uncles. One was a tailgunner on the b17, another was a pilot of the b17 and later some of the old cargo aircraft. Another was a paratrooper who fought on d-day. Unfortunately, all of them have passed, but I was curious and asked my dad's cousins some things. The administration of drugs was nothing new in WW2. Supposedly, leading up to d-day soldiers were given "cocktails" that was said to calms the nerves of those going into battle. Stories have been told that there were different types of drugs given. meth and coke were not ruled out. It was also beleived some soldiers got hooked.
When I served in the air force, during my (or any) tech training, it is very common to train along side of another country's troops. In my electronics training, I became friendly with a phillipino staff sgt. and airman. It was very interesting hearing about thier basic training. Compared to my piddly 6 weeks, they would have bmt for 6 months. Some of it was brutal, other parts very funny. One such thing was inverted meals. Meaning, if the plates were on the tables, then the trainees would have to sit on the ground and reach up to eat their food. If the plates were on the floor, they would have to sit on the chair and reach down. Their basic training also consisted of something very similar if not more grueling than thr imfamous Crucible our marines must go through in order to graduate boot camp. Except this was longer 3 weeks. There is a strech of 3 - 4 days where the men were to stay up only sitting to rest once wvery 12 hours. When I was told this, I dismissed it as bullshit. I told them it is impossible for someone to do that without dying. To which the airman commented to the effect that not if you are given something to keep you awake. That reply earned him a stern talk from his sgt.
For these fucking tools here to act like drugs weren't/aren't given to soldier, to OUR soldiers, shows that they have no idea of what the fuck they are talking about. This is the final nail in teh coffin that proves to me these two re so fucking full of shit that they aren't even worth dealing with anymore. It is quite sad.
Posted by: nunya at November 16, 2004 11:02 PMDid they ever give you salt tablets Geoff?
Posted by: at November 16, 2004 11:16 PMThe more I read this, the more I realize Charles Carreon is talking out of his ass. There's no facts, no cites - just a gargantuan cakehole spewing it's liberal hate.
Charles Carreon never had the balls to serve, yet he criticizes those that do? I bet he feels empowered, even rebellious, while he sips his Starbucks, bangs at the keyboard and takes a giant shit on those that preserve his freedom to do so.
I'd like to see Charles Carreon read this article, face to face, to the men on the ground and in the air over Falluja - but I doubt he'd have the guts.
Too bad, it's be fun watching him get the ass beating he deserves for this slander.
Gordon is a scumbag.
Props to your Dad for raising this issue, one the sick, twisted Right-Wingers choose to ignore. The Repukes have always tried to deny benefits and treatment to vets with drug, alcohol and related problems, many of which are service-connected. Stimulants and depressants have been used by the US military since at least WWI, but there never was any program for those who survived, and suffered ill effects. It's so much cheaper and easier to just blame the vets for their post-war problems.
Little or nothing has ever been done to help returning soldiers cope with the consequences, and it's criminal.
The wave of heroin abuse, and the plague of junky crime that hit our cities in the late Forties, Fifties and Sixties resulted in large part from liberal use of morphine in WWII. Pill-popping became a real problem in the same period, and many of the men were vets who'd been medicated by the military. Drug-related behavioral problems became more and more common among ex-servicemen, but the Right Wingers just demonized them, and gave no help.
Research has shown that substance abuse causes permanent changes in the physiology of the brain. After prolonged exposure to chemical stimulants and depressants, the brain just doesn't work right without them, or, ultimately, with them, either. Such an injury is no different than the loss of a limb, or an eye. But there is little recognition of that, for vets.
Whether or not the use of these drugs was really necessary to win, or survive a war, the vets should not have been left without treatment, afterward. Nor should they have been stigmatized for something the military, in fact, did to them. This goes for Korean, Vietnam, and Gulf War vets, too.
The numbers of homeless, addicted and imprisoned vets should shock everyone, and it will get worse as Bush's wars go on. If we don't want to see our children standing on street corners, begging for drug money, or beating up their wives and kids from war-related stress, we should demand now that the VA institute a whole new program of long-term psychological care and drug treatent.
The Republicans don't give a fuck about our vets, never have, never will. So we real Americans, liberals, moderates and progressives, will have to force them to do something, or shove them aside.
Cosa Nosubstance is a fucking coward. He talks up the war hero crap, but like nunya - he never served. The only action he saw was blowing merchant marines down at the docks.
Posted by: Gordon the Magnificent at November 17, 2004 02:38 AMAs I said, Gordon is a scumbag.
Posted by: cosa nostradamus at November 17, 2004 02:57 AM"HERO CRAP" (Nice way to respect our troops, traitor!):
"Military looks to drugs for battle readiness"
Posted by: cosa nostradamus at November 17, 2004 03:16 AM"HERO CRAP" (Nice way to respect our troops, traitor!):
"Military looks to drugs for battle readiness"
Posted by: cosa nostradamus at November 17, 2004 03:17 AM"Military to Monitor Alertness in Continuous Operations"
Posted by: cosa nostradamus at November 17, 2004 03:36 AM"Performance Maintenance During Continuous Flight Operations"
Posted by: cosa nostradamus at November 17, 2004 03:43 AM"Did the U.S. Civil War create 500,000 morphine addicts?"
Posted by: cosa nostradamus at November 17, 2004 03:48 AM"Stimulant Use in Extended Flight Operations"
Posted by: cosa nostradamus at November 17, 2004 03:55 AM"I am now cmpletely done for good, dealing with either one of you fucking twats ever again. You truly are scumballs." - nunya
(I Am Done With You Forever And I'll Never Deal With Either Of You Again In This Lifetime Threat No.4,557)
cosa - there really is no conspiracy behind any of what the military does. a lot of it is reality. ask anyone who has been through basic training in any of the branches and they will tell you how we all walk in a line where there are nurses on each side of you poking at you with this needle or jamming you with some vaccination gun. And God forbid you ask them what it is they are injecting in you. In fact, our T.I. told us not to ask one thing about what it is they were giving us. He said it was various vaccinations and what not. I didn't know I needed 15 different kinds of vaccinations. And this wasn't for going to any foreign countries. Just run of the mill basic training.
I found ti amazing how we could all operate off of 2 hours of sleep a night. sometimes we didn't evenb get that.
Don't forget the caffeine laced chewing gum sticks..
Posted by: at November 17, 2004 08:11 AMhow about a name there killer?
Posted by: nunya at November 17, 2004 08:15 AMGeoffrey, my dad is not obligated to engage you in any kind of discussion, nor does he have anything to prove to the likes of you. But rest assured, if he ever granted you the privilege of having an exchange with him, he would crush you like the sad little bug that you are. If you've ever seen him pummel an adversary in court, you would not even invite such an exchange.
I've yet to see it. All I've seen from him so far are guess and outright lies. Of course he isn't obligated. People like him don't engage in discourse. It makes them accountable. It's safer to preach from afar.
Nor would you even be able to appreciate the force of his knowledge over yours, as you would just cower behind the safety of your keyboard sputtering out your usual denial laden retorts and thanking your lucky little stars that there was a computer and a great deal of physical distance between you and him.
Funny. I just said that about him.
cosa, every single one of those articles is about pilots.
Maria, every single one of you know nothings have lived your lives under the freedom those men and women provide for you. None of you had the balls, the intelligence, nor the fortitude to put on the uniform yourself. Yet you all talk like you're military experts. Your father included.
Not one of you has yet to provide examples of soldiers taking amphetamines. Not one of you has provided evidence to refute my claim that your father is an ungrateful, uniformed, conspiracy theorist. I suspect the reason he doesn't provide his sources is he REALIZES he's a fraud. It's much safer for him to sit in the comfort of his home and write blatantly false, and insulting, descriptives of men and women on the other side of the globe, doing a job they don't want to do, that no human should have to do.
They don't request his thanks, but they deserve his silence. There are fewer people I have greater disdain for. At least it provides insight on how you became the person you are.
Thankfully, you and this haven of oddities, are the minority.
Posted by: Geoffrey at November 17, 2004 08:43 AMmaria - gotta love how this bastard child continue to harden the fact that he is a scumball.
Posted by: nunya at November 17, 2004 08:54 AMas far as conspiracy theories go, sure, they are plenty out there. but the military, our government, our corporations are not 100% innocent like some of these fools want you to think. Like the old saying goes "the innocent have nothing to hide"
Ask yoursefl this one simple question as an example - If BushCo had nothing to hide, why did he oppose the 9-11 comission?
>> "At the beginning of the 19th century drug addiction was rare in the English-speaking world, but at the end of the century it was common, at least in the United States. By a conservative estimate the U.S. had 200,000 addicts in 1900, with most of the increase coming in the late 1800s. The Civil War is often blamed for this, and in fact, after the war it's said that many called morphine addiction "the army disease."
Some historians think the war's influence has been exaggerated. A few think "the army disease" is a fable concocted long after the fact to justify repressive drugs laws. (See for example http://www.druglibrary.org/schaff er/History/soldis.htm.) A major factor in the rise of drug use no doubt was the simple fact that more stuff became available as scientists explored the wonders of drug chemistry. Morphine, for example, was first synthesized in 1803, cocaine in 1859.
Still, even allowing for some exaggeration on the part of historians, you have to think the Civil War had some impact. Narcotics were handed out like candy by army surgeons, who were surrounded by suffering and had few remedies to offer other than painkillers. Nearly ten million opium pills were issued to Union soldiers, along with 2.8 million ounces of other opium preparations; surely Confederate troops had quite a bit of opium too. One doctor reported keeping a wad of "blue mass" (a powdered mercury compound) in one pocket and a ball of opium in the other. He'd ask soldiers, "How are your bowels?" If the answer was "open" (due to diarrhea), the soldier got opium, if "closed" (presumably because of constipation), mercury. Opiates were used to treat not just wounds but chronic campaign diseases such as diarrhea, dysentery, and malaria. Narcotics became even more popular after the war as invalided veterans sought relief from constant pain." >>
Posted by: cosa nostradamus at November 17, 2004 09:20 AMI'm sorry. Your information is over 100 years old. I'm going to have to invalidate it. Feel free to post some pertaining to the conflict we are currently discussing.
Posted by: Geoffrey at November 17, 2004 09:24 AMOr don't, for that matter. I made my point and you bolstered it.
Posted by: Geoffrey at November 17, 2004 09:26 AM
In Vietnam and other conflicts, many of the ground troops were forced to self-medicate, before and after the war. Of course, the military will deny this, as it had always denied that it was issuing drugs, or that men get hooked on them, either way. If you've never seen drugs used before, during or after ground combat operations, you've never been in combat with the US military:
You're getting closer. Only 30 years outdated now. Again, anything from the current conflict, or are you going to continue to dance?
Posted by: Geoffrey at November 17, 2004 09:39 AMcosa - isn't it amazing that for some folks, time invalidates the atrocities of our government?
Posted by: nunya at November 17, 2004 09:44 AMnunya, isn't it amazing that you can't invalidate my call of "bullshit" on Maria's father?
Posted by: Geoffrey at November 17, 2004 09:45 AM"Again, anything from the current conflict, or are you going to continue to dance?"
Several articles have been posted with respect to the current conflict.
The more Geoffrey and Gordon deny that the military encourages the use of meth, the stupider they look.
Right-wing scum will always remain in denial about this, because they hate our troops. They will even lie about their military service, as Bush did. But they will never do anything for returning troops, but spit in their faces in Congress.
Several articles have been posted with respect to the current conflict.
No, not a single article relating to troops on the ground taking amphetamines has been posted. Not one.
The more you Geoffrey and Gordon deny that the military encourages the use of meth, the stupider they look.
Saying it over and over doesn't make it true. Post the facts.
Posted by: Geoffrey at November 17, 2004 09:47 AMA frequent hallucination is 'speed bugs' or 'crank bugs'. The user believes bugs live under his or her skin and becomes desperate to get them out.
-- Tony Thompson, Crime Correspondent for the Observer
March 08, 2004, 8:42 a.m.
Fighting Deadly Desert Bugs
Why can't the U.S. military keep ahead of the Baghdad Boil?
EASTERN TURKEY — With nearly 600 confirmed cases of "Baghdad Boil" among U.S. troops, medical experts are wondering what can done to contain the disease. Military forecasts only a few weeks ago said there wouldn't be more than 400 cases by the end of April. So what is going wrong? The military cannot claim that it is a new problem; after all, during Operation Desert Storm to liberate Kuwait in 1991 there were 34 cases of Baghdad Boil, more correctly known as Leishmaniasis.
Medical experts within the military claim they knew about the problem. But does that mean it was always inevitable that there would be thousands of cases? Well, no. There were bound to be some, perhaps even a few hundred cases, but according to informed sources, the military have been incompetent and astonishingly unprepared, which is why we will probably see thousands of cases within months.
First, approximately 85 percent of U.S. soldiers sent to Iraq were not issued with proper bed nets and mosquito repellent, says a senior U.S. military medical expert. "It is understandable that these items are not top of any soldier's equipment list, but 85-percent failure rate is ridiculously high," he says. And not all the bed nets deployed by U.S. and other allied forces are adequate. Bed nets must have a very fine mesh, at least 18 holes per square inch, otherwise the tiny sand fly can penetrate and go about its ghastly business of extracting a blood meal and laying its eggs in human skin.
Second, insecticide choices are not determined solely on medical grounds, but partly to appease largely false green concerns about impacts on wildlife. The military should impregnate all equipment with the best insecticides, including DDT. Indeed, the expert entomologist in Iraq I spoke with would love to use DDT but he cannot since its not available due to the U.S. government ban on it. Although this is annoying, the entomologists' largest frustration is that in some instances requests for insecticides last summer went unanswered for many months.
Third, it is vital that more is done to educate the soldiers themselves about what they can do to prevent being bitten. According to one medical entomologist, "we started seeing soldiers basically eaten alive, 1,000 bites a night in a handful of cases."
You may think that a soldier bitten a thousand times in one night must be stupid, surely all he has to do is wear long sleeve clothes and apply a bit of repellent (assuming his unit has a supply). But it was incredibly hot in the desert last summer and most soldiers slept in shorts and nothing else, with their tent flaps wide open to keep the air flowing. Even when they applied repellent, by the middle of the night they had sweated most of it off and the flies bit incessantly.
One solution is mobile air-conditioning units, which keeps the troops cool enough so they can shut the flaps on the tents and sleep in more than just shorts. Where these tents have been used biting rates and infections fell massively. And it's essential they are in some locations, such as Nasiriyah, because some 10-15 percent of troops in a few small units are coming down with the infection — compromising their military potency.
So while vigilance and education of troops of the dangers of the tiny sand flies is crucial, we have to make it easier for the troops to help themselves. Their officers need to make sure they wear the appropriate clothing, the uniforms should be impregnated with insecticides that work, and more AC units need to be supplied.
More broadly a massive spray program using insecticides should be undertaken of the areas where the sand flies are most likely to carry the Leishmaniasis parasite. This would lower the incidence of bites, and hence disease, not just of the military, but of the children of Iraq, who are most likely to die from the nastier form of the disease.
Prevention beats treatment
Its vital the disease is prevented because treating the disease, as Private Zachary Lasiter of the 4th ID is finding out, is not only painful, but even after recovering from the disease there are long-term nasty effects. Private Lasiter says that the treatment is "strong enough to kill everything but you." Although, according to recent news reports, he is recovering well at home in Alaska, he has apparently lost 20 pounds and has developed asthma — perhaps a side effect of the drugs or the disease.
Private Lasiter, like many servicemen, thinks the official figures under-represent the number of Leishmaniasis cases. The consensus among troops is that there already could be thousands of cases. They are not accusing their bosses of a cover-up, just that people may be sicker than is currently reported.
It remains to be seen how widespread Baghdad Boil will become, but at a time when suicide bombers, random shootings, and other problems are confronting our military, surely helping the servicemen from becoming Leishamaniasis victims will save money and ensure our best troops can do their job. After all, every single confirmed case has to be sent to America for treatment, none are treated on the ground in Iraq because there are no drugs there.
For those people who return home, the dangers of visceral Leishmanisais remain. In Desert Storm over a third of the cases were visceral, with organ damage occurring in a few cases. The danger is that the visceral Leishmaniasis patients take longer to exhibit symptoms. So far none of the 600 cases have been visceral (although some sand flies collected and tested are carrying the more dangerous visceral parasite). This might be because in Desert Storm most of the troops were stationed in Saudi Arabia, where visceral Leishmaniasis is more common, but it may also be that the soldier's immune systems are fighting off the disease at the moment. But that may not last long because the parasite can survive in the body for years, and may start damaging the organs of soldiers' years from now.
Vigilance is required for returning troops, they deserve better than waiting and hoping they do not develop a potentially fatal disease, when with better thought and preparation by the military this would be a minor concern rather than an increasingly dangerous situation.
— Dr. Roger Bate is a fellow of the American Enterprise Institute and a director of health-advocacy group Africa Fighting Malaria.
___________________________________________
Wasillan to combat Iraq bugs
$80,000 TAX FREE: High pay lures man wanting to provide for family.
By ZAZ HOLLANDER
Anchorage Daily News
(Published: July 18, 2004)
A Wasilla exterminator with bills to pay is bound for Iraq.
Rocco Moschetti expects to spend the next year zapping malaria-carrying mosquitoes and disease-bearing sand flies. The payoff -- $80,000 tax free, just for starters -- won't come easy.
A flak jacket and helmet are standard issue for the job. So are nuclear, biological and chemical protective suits. His employer is Kellogg, Brown & Root, the chief military contractor in Iraq, a Halliburton subsidiary that has had crews ambushed and several workers killed.
Moschetti tries not to dwell on the dangers.
"You don't want to think about it too hard, but you gotta know what you're getting into," he said by phone from a hotel room in an undisclosed location somewhere between Houston and Baghdad. "The area I'm going to is supposedly flat and featureless. They can see anything coming for miles."
Security concerns stalled his flight into Iraq for days, Moschetti said last week. Once he arrives, home for the next year will be a cot in a tent in a camp -- albeit a camp with a "nice Internet cafe" -- at the junction of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers 100 miles northwest of Baghdad. Work will consume 12 to 14 hours a day, seven days a week.
Moschetti, a second-generation pest controller and 10-year Alaskan with three young daughters, doesn't get fancy about his rationale for taking the job. His wife's hand-me-down car finally died a few months ago. Taxes take a third of his earnings from his business, IPM of Alaska.
Taking the job was "the hardest thing in the world to do," Moschetti said in an e-mail messages. But not being able to provide for his family was harder still.
"I could say that I want to do good for mankind, make a difference in the world, or something patriotic like I love my country and I do. All of those things are true, but what it really boils down to is the money. This job pays good and the fact that the first $80,000 is tax free is nice too, and if I can put my skills to use protecting American soldiers from disease carrying insects in Iraq AND get paid while I do it? What more can you ask for?"
Moschetti said he's ready.
A tour in the U.S. Army and then the reserves -- when his unit built a temporary runway in Turkey near the end of the first Gulf War -- prepared him for military culture. Years in Bakersfield, Calif., and New Mexico prepared him for the dust and heat.
And the Alaska mosquito provided Moschetti, 39, with plenty of pest-control experience.
But those Iraqi bugs can cause more than itchy bumps.
The mosquitoes often carry malaria, a sometimes fatal parasitic disease. Sand flies carry a different parasitic disease, leishmaniasis, which can cause skin sores and damage internal organs. Then there are poisonous snakes.
Moschetti will supervise a crew controlling insects in half a dozen military camps. He expects supply shortages will inspire his creativity. A counterpart in Iraq now told him that garlic and olive oil from the camp kitchen work great at deterring mosquitoes.
One of Moschetti's longtime customers praised his ingenuity and work ethic.
"He's very conscientious," said Rhonda Williams, co-owner of Recluse Gardens on the Palmer-Wasilla Highway. "He used to tell me which restaurants not to go to. He was handy in all kinds of different ways."
Williams said her son, a U.S. Army tank driver, served a tour in Iraq and expects to return soon from Germany. She is nervous about it.
"I'll tell him to look (Rocco) up," she said.
Reporter Zaz Hollander can be reached at zhollander@adn.com.
___________________________________________________
"A SCANNER DARKLY," by Phil Dick -- CHAPTER 1
Once a guy stood all day shaking bugs from his hair. The doctor told him there were no bugs in his hair. After he had taken a shower for eight hours, standing under hot water hour after hour suffering the pain of the bugs, he got out and dried himself, and he still had bugs in his hair; in fact, he had bugs all over him. A month later he had bugs in his lungs.
Having nothing else to do or think about, he began to work out theoretically the life cycle of the bugs, and, with the aid of the Britannica, try to determine specifically which bugs they were. They now filled his house. He read about many different kinds and finally noticed bugs outdoors, so he concluded they were aphids. After that decision came to his mind it never changed, no matter what other people told him ... like "Aphids don't bite people."
They said that to him because the endless biting of the bugs kept him in torment. At the 7-11 grocery store, part of a chain spread out over most of California, he bought spray cans of Raid and Black Flag and Yard Guard. First he sprayed the house, then himself. The Yard Guard seemed to work the best.
As to the theoretical side, he perceived three stages in the cycle of the bugs. First, they were carried to him to contaminate him by what he called Carrier-people, which were people who didn't understand their role in distributing the bugs. During that stage the bugs had no jaws or mandibles (he learned that word during his weeks of scholarly research, an unusually bookish occupation for a guy who worked at the Handy Brake and Tire place relining people's brake drums). The Carrier-people therefore felt nothing. He used to sit in the far corner of his living room watching different Carrier-people enter -- most of them people he'd known for a while, but some new to him -- covered with the aphids in this particular nonbiting stage. He'd sort of smile to himself, because he knew that the person was being used by the bugs and wasn't hip to it.
"What are you grinning about, Jerry?" they'd say.
He'd just smile.
In the next stage the bugs grew wings or something, but they really weren't precisely wings; anyhow, they were appendages of a functional sort permitting them to swarm, which was how they migrated and spread -- especially to him. At that point the air was full of them; it made his living room, his whole house, cloudy. During this stage he tried not to inhale them.
Most of all he felt sorry for his dog, because he could see the bugs landing on and settling all over him, and probably getting into the dog's lungs, as they were in his own. Probably -- at least so his empathic ability told him -- the dog was suffering as much as he was. Should he give the dog away for the dog's own comfort? No, he decided: the dog was now, inadvertently, infected, and would carry the bugs with him everywhere.
Sometimes he stood in the shower with the dog, trying to wash the dog clean too. He had no more success with him than he did with himself. It hurt to feel the dog suffer; he never stopped trying to help him. In some respect this was the worst part, the suffering of the animal, who could not complain.
"What the fuck are you doing there all day in the shower with the goddamn dog?" his buddy Charles Freck asked one time, coming in during this.
Jerry said, "I got to get the aphids off him." He brought Max, the dog, out of the shower and began drying him. Charles Freck watched, mystified, as Jerry rubbed baby oil and talc into the dog's fur. All over the house, cans of insect spray, bottles of talc, and baby oil and skin conditioners were piled and tossed, most of them empty; he used many cans a day now.
"I don't see any aphids," Charles said. "What's an aphid?"
"It eventually kills you," Jerry said. "That's what an aphid is. They're in my hair and my skin and my lungs, and the goddamn pain is unbearable -- I'm going to have to go to the hospital."
"How come I can't see them?"
Jerry put down the dog, which was wrapped in a towel, and knelt over the shag rug. "I'll show you one," he said. The rug was covered with aphids; they hopped up everywhere, up and down, some higher than others. He searched for an especially large one, because of the difficulty people had seeing them. "Bring me a bottle or jar," he said, "from under the sink. We'll cap it or put a lid on it and then I can take it with me when I go to the doctor and he can analyze it."
Charles Freck brought him an empty mayonnaise jar. Jerry went on searching, and at last came across an aphid leaping up at least four feet in the air. The aphid was over an inch long. He caught it, carried it to the jar, carefully dropped it in, and screwed on the lid. Then he held it up triumphantly. "See?" he said.
"Yeahhhh," Charles Freck said, his eyes wide as he scrutinized the contents of the jar. "What a big one! Wow!"
"Help me find more for the doctor to see," Jerry said, again squatting down on the rug, the jar beside him.
"Sure," Charles Freck said, and did so.
Within half an hour they had three jars full of the bugs. Charles, although new at it, found some of the largest.
It was midday, in June of 1994. In California, in a tract area of cheap but durable plastic houses, long ago vacated by the straights. Jerry had at an earlier date sprayed metal paint over all the windows, though, to keep out the light; the illumination for the room came from a pole lamp into which he had screwed nothing but spot lamps, which shone day and night, so as to abolish time for him and his friends. He liked that; he liked to get rid of time. By doing that he could concentrate on important things without interruption. Like this: two men kneeling down on the shag rug, finding bug after bug and putting them into jar after jar.
"What do we get for these," Charles Freck said, later on in the day. "I mean, does the doctor pay a bounty or something? A prize? Any bread?"
"I get to help perfect a cure for them this way," Jerry said. The pain, constant as it was, had become unbearable; he had never gotten used to it, and he knew he never would. The urge, the longing, to take another shower was overwhelming him. "Hey, man," he gasped, straightening up, "you go on putting them in the jars while I take a leak and like that." He started toward the bathroom.
"Okay," Charles said, his long legs wobbling as he swung toward a jar, both hands cupped. An ex-veteran, he still had good muscular control, though; he made it to the jar. But then he said suddenly, "Jerry, hey -- those bugs sort of scare me. I don't like it here by myself." He stood up.
"Chickenshit bastard," Jerry said, panting with pain as he halted momentarily at the bathroom.
"Couldn't you --
"I got to take a leak!" He slammed the door and spun the knobs of the shower. Water poured down.
"I'm afraid out here." Charles Freck's voice came dimly, even though he was evidently yelling loud.
"Then go fuck yourself!" Jerry yelled back, and stepped into the shower. What fucking good are friends? he asked himself bitterly. No good, no good! No fucking good!
"Do these fuckers sting?" Charles yelled, right at the door.
"Yeah, they sting," Jerry said as he rubbed shampoo into his hair.
"That's what I thought." A pause. "Can I wash my hands and get them off and wait for you?"
Chickenshit, Jerry thought with bitter fury. He said nothing; he merely kept on washing. The bastard wasn't worth answering ... He paid no attention to Charles Freck, only to himself. To his own vital, demanding, terrible, urgent needs. Everything else would have to wait. There was no time, no time; these things could not be postponed. Everything else was secondary. Except the dog; he wondered about Max, the dog.
Regarding the above -- Geoffrey, get a fuckin' clue about how to fight a war. What boy scouts were you with? They've got drugs in military school, at West Point. They give pink hearts away like candy. There's an ocean of dope pouring into Iraq, and if you didn't get any it must be because you were such a wanker they didn't figure you were worth wasting drugs on. And I have my sources. I'll reveal them when Bush and Cheney return all their war profits. They have such great "sources" of information, like Ahmed Challabi. They relied on his WMD "information," and made him the head of the "newly liberated Iraq," as a reward. When the "information" was supposedly "discovered to be erroneous," his puppet head rolled, and we stuff in this new CIA asset, Allawi.
Now we have a new recruiting poster:
"BE A MARINE,
TAKE ORDERS FROM A FOREIGNER!"
Hey, that's an incentive, right? Mom, Dad, you good with this? Son signs up, dons uniform, gets iced while following orders given by Mr. Allawi. He's the one who told them to enter Fallujah and destroy all resistance. He's not even a soldier. An Iraqi civilian, CIA asset, ordered all those men into Fallujah, where many died, under his command. Was it a wise attack? A necessary one? Worth the lives lost? Who knows?
And the press doesn't even remark on this odd circumstance. Allawi orders our soldiers into combat. Really! You know, somebody's smokin' somethin' when that doesn't get a headline.
Has the media not a military bone in its body? I only went to military school, but I knew the difference between serving under your own, or a foreign, command. Eisenhower, Churchill and Stalin arm wrestled about it at Yalta, and Eisenhower won the position of Commander in Chief of the Allied Forces in Europe. I think the official American position was "No American GI's should have to take orders from foreigners."
Now, we install a puppet dictator as the head of an "interim government," while we kill enough voters to have an election. This is progress. I see a roadmap to peace here. First, we got rid of Saddam Hussein and his horrible Republic Guard, and that dreadful Baath party. We installed a Londoner of Iraqi origin who is wanted for bank robbery in Syria, and got rid of him and his chubby son, who thought he was going to get to preside as the Judge at Saddam's trial. Then we put in Mr. Allawi, because we know he's a good man. He always took our money. Simultaneously, we got rid of 100,000 people who might have voted in an extreme Islamic fundamentalist manner, given the votes they cast with their RPGs, dirty looks, bad thoughts, threatening demeanor, or refusal to stop shooting when being shot.
Now, we cleverly squash all resistance in Fallujah, reducing the city to rubble, engaging in deadly combat with the die hards who refused to leave the city to set up resistance operations in other towns when everyone was leaving. Many of them are of course being super stealthy now in the sewers and other tunnels, and will pop out just long enought to harry the foe with their excellent American ammunition and weapons that we sold Sadddam.
The resistance in all other Iraqi cities is now diffuse, dispersed, and of course is losing steam. No one wants to join the resistance now, and more brave people than ever are stepping forward to join, fearlessly, with the American liberators, braving murder at the hands of the insurgents in order to do American laundry, type American documents, and handle all the important military correspondence that makes life in Iraq meaningful.
Soon, everything will quiet down, and with Hallubirton directing cash all over the country in a thick, steady flow, gradually the whole country will be rebuilt. It will be so nice they will be renting vacation cottages, and some people will move there to get away from the crowding in New York. Then, we can ship more and more unemployed people from this country to work in the Iraqi service sector, because the American skill in handling the burger flip and the hair flip is legendary. Our young kids are so smart, some went straight from burger flipping to combat, and didn't miss a beat. Which is what makes America great, and why we can come up with a roadmap to peace.
_________________
DON'T SARTRE WITH ME,
YOU KNOW HOW I GET...
I didn't bother to read everything on this site. I started to read what Maria's father wrote, but i couldn't stand reading such bullshit. Then i tried reading some of the posts. Same bullshit being presented there. All i have to say is that Geoff is absolutely right. Drugs are not given to our soldiers to enable them to cope with what they have to go through. Most of the people who posted on this site never even served in the military. They have no idea what the fuck happens in combat. War is hell. Have you ever had to shoot another human being? Most of you probably cannot say that you have. I have. I am not proud of it. Yes, as a person i do have troubles coping with the fact that someone died by my hand.
However, I am proud to say that I am a United States Marine. Who VOLUNTEERED to serve his country at the age of 17. As a marine we went through training to help make the hell of combat easier to deal with. Every single Marine that i knew that ever used illegal drugs was promptly dihonorably discharged. SO, as you say that we are fed drugs in combat, i say, bull motherfucking shit. I am not addicted to any illegal drugs so i sure wasn't fed any. The only way that me or any of my fellow Marines dealt with combat was by the letters of supportive Americans and drinking and smoking cigarettes. So, if alcohol and cigarettes count as meth, and those supportive Americans are mailing us meth, then i guess that our soldiers (me included) are being drugged.
And as for soldiers coming home and committing suicide. That is a sad fact. But none the less, it happens. You would have to be a fucking dumb ass to not realize that it happens. Suicide happens more often in the military than most people even realize. IT IS BECAUSE OF THE STRESS THAT IS PUT UPON OUR YOUNG SOLDIERS!!! It is completely understandable that such a thing would happen after being in combat. Until you have been in combat you will NEVER understand it. When such bull shit as this essay is written it IS slander towards our young men and women fighting for you! I just wish more of you had the balls to join us who fight.
So unless you have served your country and experienced the hell that combat can be, just shut the fuck up, and support those of us that have the balls to do what our country asks of us.
Posted by: aUSMarine at December 21, 2004 01:29 AMKeep screaming shut the fuck up at the top of your over aggressive lungs Mr. aUSMarine, but what you've said has been outright contradicted by people that I know who do happen to know a thing or two about serving in special forces. Like my dad said before, just because you didn't take drugs in the army, doesn't mean they aren't used among many of a much higher rank and position than yourself. Just because you don't know shit, doesn't mean it's not happening, it just means you're happily ignorant. Well. Enjoy. I don't know why you're angry at me. People hate the truth.
Posted by: Maria at December 22, 2004 03:19 AMAs far as i can tell you haven't proven anything. So far, all you've done is present everyone with a bunch of opinion. Which is all this page is. And thats a problem with this country. People don't understand the freedoms that we have. As a Marine i fight to protect your freedom of speech so that you can post bullshit such as this essay or whatever you might call it. My friends have given blood so that you can publicly show disdain for what they so wholeheartedly represent. I'm sorry that you take for granted those things which were given you.
You say that you know people who "happen to know a thing or two about serving in special forces." I happen to know a thing or two about special forces too. And those that you know, they have contradicted what i have said? What exactly have they contradicted? When did they serve? Did they serve in Vietnam when it was socially ok to do illegal drugs? Are they currently addicted to these drugs? And why do you keep reffering to things your dad said? Has it ever occured to you that your dad might be wrong?
In the essay your dad says:
"I like to shoot my daughter’s .44 magnum lever-action gun, but it doesn’t have a cushion on the butt, and I’ve never shot a whole box of 50 rounds at a time. My shoulder just gets too sore. I’d hate to have to use that rifle in a war. They’d win just because my shoulder would get sore. Speed might help."
I've got news for your dad. the United States military does not use .44 magnum lever-action guns without cushions on the butt. The united states military uses the M16A2, which was ingenously designed with a buffer spring. which means that we can easily shoot hundreds of rounds before our shoulders ever even bagan to get sore. The weapons we have are designed so that our shoulders won't hurt after firing many rounds.
Your father also mentions that Dextroamphetamine is given to pilots. Dextroamphetamine is a legal drug. In small enough dosages methamphetamines are not addictive and can be used for medicinal purposes. The difference between someone abusing Dextroamphetamine and using it for medicinal purposes is great. I would certainly want a pilot to be awake at the controls of an $18 million aircraft. I would much rather him take Dextroamphetamine than to make a fatal mistake because he was asleep.
Some of what your father has said is true, i have never denied that. What i have denied is that our troops are being fed illegal methamphetamines, which is leading to their addiction and their eventual social outcasting. That is pure bullshit. I do agree with your father about the over usage of drugs such as ritalin that have traces of cocaine in them. I have a friend that was put on such a drug and lost two years of his life mentally. That is because his usage of the drug was not monitered, and he ended up taking a pill every hour.
There are hundreds of types of amphetamines. When was the last time you took an aspirin-like pill. Did you know that those have a type of amphetamine in them. Wow, i bet thats news to you. I wonder if your next on the list to become addicted to meth.
Its not people that hate the truth. Its people are afraid to realize the truth. Maybe you should accept the truth that American Soldiers are not fed meth, as you imply it.
Posted by: aUSMarine at December 22, 2004 06:08 PM