hell man, can you blame Jersey??? Don't expect any fundamental human niceties from Jersey....seems that most of the folks that would hold responsible a soldier for their decision to join the US army, don't know the nature of the machine anyhow and live in fantastic tunnel reality paradigms that have nothing to do with the world of the now-We have always (the masses) had the power to end the bullshit, but most would no more share in the responsibility of the sorry state of world affairs than settle for anything but full cream in their lattes....

Stop the machine for a week by non-participation in commerce, transportation, credit, etc, then follow it up with a unified protest and demands....this is the only thing that has a hope for change-


A good few years of extreme natural disaster would accomplish much as well.....a bit of world panic from without would have a great effect on the collective psyche, and usually tends to bring out the best and the worst in monkeys-wees way overdue for some real change....How about we launch Obama from a catapult???

Of course....some might argue that the flip-side of the current paradigm's machine with all it's inequality, greed, and warmongering, is that it got us here, past the industrial rev, past atomic energy, at the doorstep of nanotech and beyond.....

Human nature being what it predictably bees, it will all end quite horribly is this man's guess.....

First of all. This is a dupe.

Second of all. The US Army was not created as a policing force. The Administration had no plan for policing the population in the face of government collapse. The CPA initiative of dissolving the Iraqi Army and Police force meant policing fell squarely on the shoulder of the US Armed forces.

Invariably leading to situations like this.

It's true.

The following weapons are much better then the M4; the FN SCAR, the HK416 and the XM8 from Heckler & Koch. The XM8 was about to be picked up a few years ago but it all stopped.

All the weapons are mentioned are from Belgium and Germany, a military arms contract for the US Army would mean a huge loss for Colt which is a US arms firm. There is external pressure to keep with Colt even though its now an inferior design. 40 year old weapon design for a grunt field weapon is too long, its outdated, the AK has evolved in leaps and bounds comparatively to the 74 and 101 spec.

"Other issues were that the Army has a legislated obligation to prefer U.S.-based manufacturers, and that a previous agreement with Colt Defense required the Army to involve Colt in certain small-arms programs."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XM8_rifle

Note: "Colt Defense LLC is the sole source supplier of the M4 Carbine to the US military and the only manufacturer worldwide that meets or exceeds all US military specifications for the weapon."

My personal belief is that there is also external pressure to hold off on replacing the rifles and carbine (as mentioned in the article) for something that is Future Combat spec like the OICW, but coming from a US manufacturer and not a German one (regardless of the fact that global economics means that the rifle would actually be made in Georgia). The XM spec weapons directly came from the OICW.

I don't believe the trails are done so much from a grunt perspective but from a cost benefit analysis with some big weights pressing to continue with the Colt license, Colt losing it and actually making a better weapon then the M4 is a huge financial loss for them.

So much for free markets eh?

In reply to this comment by Jordass:
I know there was a lot of debate on military weapons on certain posts. Saw this http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24229068 and wondered if you or MGR thought it had any weight or just the media making shit up again

like the SDGundamX above me, I don't think I can seriously endorse this either way, I don't believe in hitting women, but then again, I don't believe in hitting anyone, so all this "He is such a dick for hitting a women" seems a little odd when the chances are that the same people wouldn't give 2 hoots if it a man punching another man, so all this protectionism of women seems to be sexism in my eyes.

Also, this video doesn't provide enough context, for all we know the women in this one could have just punched the guy in the balls repeatedly and he could be defending himself, and anyone who justifies not hitting women in that situation 'because its a women' is sexist and moreover stupid, to take an example out of this situation for example, if a women came at you with a knife for example, with the sole intent of causing you GBH, would you hit her in order to defend yourself, or would your quite frankly antiquated notion of women being the gentle sex mean that you would rather you get stabbed that hit a lady.

In summary, this video doesn't provide enough context, therefore I believe its unwise to back either side, and one thing we can draw from this is that it isn't all right for the mob to beat the party that seems to be the one at fault, in a shoot first answer questions nature akin to the stereotypical image of the US army.

Jane Meyer from the New Yorker wrote a wondeful article on this back in Feb. 2007 called "Whatever it takes" which talked with Joel Surnow the creator of 24.

This past November, US Army Brigadier General Patrick Finnegan, the dean of the United States Military Academy at West Point, flew to Southern California to meet with the creative team behind "24." Finnegan, who was accompanied by three of the most experienced military and FBI interrogators in the country, arrived on the set as the crew was filming. At first, Finnegan – wearing an immaculate Army uniform, his chest covered in ribbons and medals – aroused confusion: he was taken for an actor and was asked by someone what time his "call" was.

In fact, Finnegan and the others had come to voice their concern that the show's central political premise – that the letter of American law must be sacrificed for the country's security – was having a toxic effect. In their view, the show promoted unethical and illegal behavior and had adversely affected the training and performance of real American soldiers. "I'd like them to stop," Finnegan said of the show's producers. "They should do a show where torture backfires."

Gary Solis, a retired law professor who designed and taught the Law of War for Commanders curriculum at West Point, told the New Yorker that his students would frequently refer to Jack Bauer in discussions of what permissible in the questioning of terrorist suspects.

He said that, under both US and international law, "Jack Bauer is a criminal. In real life, he would be prosecuted." Yet the motto of many of his students was identical to Jack Bauer's: "Whatever it takes." His students were particularly impressed by a scene in which Bauer barges into a room where a stubborn suspect is being held, shoots him in one leg, and threatens to shoot the other if he doesn't talk. In less than ten seconds, the suspect reveals that his associates plan to assassinate the Secretary of Defense. Solis told me, "I tried to impress on them that this technique would open the wrong doors, but it was like trying to stomp out an anthill."

The Christian Science Monitor followed up with the more blunt title of "Does '24' encourage US interrogators to 'torture' detainees?" which culled information from several articles...

This is funny, when it comes to voter fraud:

On the one hand we have:
People in Florida being listed as felons because people in other states have similar names. They are denied their legal right to vote by American authorities holding guns and when their elected representatives go to congress to stick up for them. They are denied their legal right to be heard and are laughed out of what is suppoed to be one of our most sacred American spaces. All of it well documented and undeniable by anyone with eyes to look.

On the other hand we have:
A video posted about person convicted of fraud who "swears" that Hillary is "crooked". That's it. That's all.

What are we arguing about? Why should people be concerned about Hillary in the light of what's already taken place? As if it's going to matter to anyone besides Rush, Bill and Ann.

I don't like Hillary Clinton either. I liked McCain for a while simply because he appeared to have a sense of humor which would lead someone to believe he might be human. Even five minutes of research for the other side proves this to be untrue.

In the end, why don't we just all finally admit that it doesn't matter who we vote for? That when it comes down to what happens behind the scenes, no one person can really have a good idea of a presidents true impact.

Call me pessimistic but all of your arguments and your getting upset about other peoples beliefs all seems pretty pointless. Your all talking about people who are probably guilty of much bigger crimes than anyone will really be able to prosecute them for.


BTW, for the baiters: most of this comes verbatim from my friends in the US Army.

I remember reading that US forces in Somalia underestimated the local militias believing them to be ill trained to really present resistance, but were surprised with accurate burst fire from AK weilding enemy forces. I fail to understand how the US army could underestimate them considering there has been ongoing war in that country for decades.

Weapons should be graded on their effectiveness on the battlefield, not some pre set standardized tests. Looking at both the AK-47 and M-16 on a firing range, one could claim the M-16 is better but its far more reliable to cull from several conflicts where both weapons were used, to reach a conclusion, the most significant would be Vietnam.

As a precison, futuristic, tech reliant rifle the M-16 almost failed in Vietnam, early versions shipped with ammunition that fired dirty in the chamber leading to catastrophic dirt jams, initially they were shipped with no cleaning kits as well, its sensitive mecahnism could easily jam in harsh enviroments, early models also weighted so little that firing control and usage as a close combat blunt weapon was lost.

The AK-47 thrived, its firing power, reliablity, simple training methodology meant that troops spent little time training and cleaning with their weapons and more time shooting at an enemy. In close range a butt smack from an AK-47 can down a person. There is an entire handbook on just how to disassemble the M-16, you can teach a 6 year old how to clean, arm and fire the AK-47 in about 30 minutes.

The AK-47 is built for urban combat and close range engagement, while the M-16 is built as a long range high accuracy stand off weapon. You can run a guerilla war on the AK-47, while the M-16 is reliant on highly trained troops with the weapon system and supplies to keep the weapon functioning. There are still reports on newer M-16A2s failing to fire or jamming in the sandy dunes of Iraq.

The US Army Ordance is really skwed in my preception, there is high concentration on high tech bullshit (robots? network centric warfare?) while still using a weapon design from the late 50s, the M-16A2 and M4 are simple modifications on the M-16 frame, both are standard US infantry weapons and haven't really progressed to a more simpler and more reliable weapon platforms even though alternatives are field tested every goddamn year. The AK on the other hand is progressinng as a weapon design, currently I believe its ireation is the AK-74.

Basically if I had to fight tommorrow, I would go for the AK-47 over the M-16.

Well i have lies there because of the claims the army made regarding it as not being up to par. 1sttuve is there because it was on tv. Waronterror because well, if the us army wasn't engaged in a "war on terror", then we wouldn't have this issue.

Learn About Depleted Uranium From
The US Army's Expert on Depleted Uranium (DU)
Doug Rokke, a Vietnam and Gulf War I Veteran and the Army's expert on depleted uranium

http://www.mindfully.org/Nucs/2003/Rokke-Depleted-Uranium-DU21apr03.htm

ANTHRAX VACCINE

"When the anthrax vaccine got into the theater*, we had a direct order not to record dose, batch, who got what, what the adverse effects and everything was. This stuff wasn't temperature-regulated. And people were getting sick right away. I administered thousands of anthrax vaccines, and got three myself." - Major Dr. Doug Rokke, Army medical officer - retired

The US Army has much to learn about making recruitment commercials

Failed some closed testing done by the US army. I think it was to do with extreme angle shots penetrating where they would just glance off ceramic plate. Anything which doesn't get specific approval is banned as an insurance type of thing.

Of course its also likely the cost scared them so they decided to avoid the sticky question of why they weren't shelling out for it, by making it seem as though it wasn't fully capable.

Testing methods and examples are a bit crap here though. Since when did terrorists carry AP rounds? And most armoured cars are only designed with taking low calibre rounds anyway. Still steel sheet is a terrible material as far as bullet resistance goes. The ceramics and kevlar composites used in modern body armour are much better.

In order to have minimal armed forces on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan, the nominal supply side of the US army was replaced by private contractors. This allowed the administration to make it seem like less forces were deployed in the war on terrorism, while focusing all those deployed on combat operations, while allowing to profit privately from giving no bid contracts to favored private contractors.

The reasoning was that private contractors are would be more efficient since profits are involved in the services provision, it's silly free economist thinking that believes all government side components should be privatized for efficiency. The same reason the government wants to privatize everything from health care to transportation maintenance to social security.

Totally real.
"MSNBC has reported that there is resistance to incorporating Trophy in the US Army. The U.S. Department of Defense has contracted with Raytheon to develop an equivalent system, which will not be ready before 2011 at the earliest (but now declines to say whether it still is on course to meet that deadline),[1] whereas Trophy could be deployed much sooner. According to MSNBC's sources, the reason for not adopting Trophy for now is that it would remove the need for the Raytheon program"

Wonder why this information has been kept from us, how about "supporting our troops"? Even FOX talked about it, probably only once though. http://media2.foxnews.com/040606/040606_fr_tobin_300.swf

Read more about it here. http://www.defense-update.com/products/t/trophy.htm

Twiddles is right, its not just the bunker busters (which are also built using depleted uranium- makes for a bigger bang apparently), but all sorts of other smaller arms use DU as well. Frankly, you should be educating yourself on this MGR, if only out of concern for your own safety, chances are you were exposed to some of it during your service... and who the fuck knows what else, if history and experience have taught us anything is that in the quest to kill and maim efficiently the US army has been very adept at exposing both the enemy and its own soldiers to a plethora of nasty things... I mean, crap, how many older veterans do I know that are just now exhibiting symptoms of agent orange exposure? Or those of that in between generation that have Gulf War syndrome due to exposure to an as yet undisclosed substance? Too freaking many is the answer... too freakin' many.

And Twiddles is also right in that the assumption that Iraq was shit before we rolled in is completely ridiculous... things may have been relatively crappy in 2003 (see stats below), but you have to realize that our campaign against the stability of that country has been ongoing since the first Gulf War, and it has had a direct effect on the population, and undoubtedly accounts for much of the resentment of the Iraqi population towards their American 'liberators'. If it helps you to understand this, I'll shoot some statistics your way, these are all, by the way, directly from Phebe Marr's The Modern History of Iraq, in which she details the impact of US sanctions on Iraq:

"Oil production dropped 85% between 1990 and 1991 and began to increase again only after sanctions relief in 1997... Iraq's per capita income, which had stood at just over $2,000 in 1989 before the Gulf War, had fallen to $609 by 1992... Before the war, good imports were estimated to be about 70% of Iraq's consumption. These were now drastically reduced. Famine was avoided by an effective rationing system, but calorie intake fell from an average of 3,000 calories a day to about 2,250, most of these provided through a ration 'basket' provided by the government.... By 1995 the UN secretary general noted that living conditions had become precarious for an estimated 4 million people. The Food and Agriculture Organization claimed that child mortality had risen fivefold.... The damage to the education system was also severe... one report claimed that of the 250 primary schools in the center and south of the country, over 80% were in poor or critical condition. Credible figures show that the literacy rate, which reached 67% in 1980, fell to about 57% in 2001..." And I could go on, there is lots more where that came from, and I recommend this book to anyone with an interest in Iraq.

But my point is We did that. One can argue that it was punishment on an evil dictator for daring to invade poor helpless Kuwait, and our continued sanctions on that country were meant to cripple him militarily as well as economically, in the hope that his people would rise up and overthrow him. However, that obviously did not happen, for a number of reasons, the primary one being that he was insanely good at keeping the population repressed and too afraid to step out of line. In the end, we may have removed him from being a regional power but we encouraged him to turn on his own people and increase his stranglehold upon them.

I was against the sanctions back in the 90s and I still think that they were one of the worst crimes against humanity that our nation has ever managed to get away with. I think it is of ultimate importance that our generation, (MGR- I'm not that much older than you), recognize now what we did, that we, as a country, completely fucked up another country (and arguably an entire region), so that when we are in charge, we do not repeat these same mistakes again and again.