Where will Bush find 70,000 more troops?
I'll give you a hint - it won't be at The Ritz.
[T]he administration is preparing plans to bolster the nation's permanent active-duty military with as many as 70,000 additional troops.
But, WHERE will they come from???
The government doesn't have very many options.
Support for the war, especially in Iraq, is at an all time low, they can't reinstitute the draft, or they might have a domestic revolution on their hands, and there are only so many desperate young men who are willing to risk their lives for a few bucks and a college education.
But, thanks to persistent inflation, relentless job cuts, and other benefits and perks of globalization, there ARE increasing numbers of desperate young single mothers, who will do anything to support their children.
[A] spate of recent news stories reveals [that] the Pentagon has become complicit in helping thousands of mothers abandon and potentially make orphans of their children.
Since 2002, about 16,000 single mothers have served in Afghanistan and Iraq.
* * *Single parents aren't supposed to be accepted for enlistment. But there are ways around inconvenient rules.
Single parents can sign up as long as they're willing to sign away their children. That is, they can enlist if they give up custody to someone else.
This, of course, doesn't mean that they don't love their children. Women in desperate situations tend to do desperate things and are easily exploited.
Take for example, Russian prostitutes in israel . . .
"Israelis love Russian girls. They are blonde and good looking, and they are desperate. They are ready to do anything for money." (Michael Specter, "Traffickers’ New Cargo: Naive Slavic Women," New York Times, 11 January 1998)
American women aren't being asked to sell sex, but they are being paid to risk their lives to fight a war based on lies.
And, most likely, these mothers are assured that the custody arrangement is only temporary and that they could regain it once their active duty is over, either by consent of the legal guardian, or by court order if they can prove that it's in the child's best interest.
In a sane world, mothers do not abandon their children and governments understand that the most important line of defense in the struggle for civilization is the family.
Thus, it is urgent that we ask why our government is participating in child abandonment and putting mothers at unnecessary risk.
* * *[W]hat these trends really prove is that we've lost sight of what matters, not to mention what we fight for.
Children need mothers more than wars do, and nations need healthy, well-adjusted children.
If we're willing to sacrifice mothers and abandon the next generation, what sort of civilization, exactly, are we trying to preserve?
The answer to this question is absolutely CRUCIAL given that the war on terror was dubbed by those who orchestrated it as 'A Clash of Civilizations', wherein Islamic fundamentalists are supposedly out to destroy 'our way of life.'
But, so far, the only ones who have robbed us of our wealth and our freedom, our sons and our daughters, our sisters and our brothers, and our mothers and our fathers - is our own government and the banking interests that control it.
If you haven't already, now's the time to see WHY WE FIGHT to understand that the REAL war rages right here, in the halls Congress and in the streets of America, and the enemy is a group of supremacist bankers who TRULY do hate US for our freedoms and couldn't care less about our 'civilization.'
You see, 'our civilization' is now totally dependent on THEIR MONEY which they have - in no uncertain terms - declared that they will withold if we don't give them our lives.
When an armed robber mugs you, he puts a gun to your head and demands 'your money - or your life.'
When a banker does it, he hands you a gun and declares 'your life - or no money.'
You said,
"If you haven't already, now's the time to see WHY WE FIGHT to understand that the REAL war rages right here, in the halls Congress and in the streets of America, and the enemy is a group of supremacist bankers who TRULY do hate US for our freedoms and couldn't care less about our 'civilization.'"
There is a difference between a society that is committed to the idea that when survival is on the line force works and words do not, and a society run by some group of elites, say 'supremacist bankers.'
I say this because there need not be any group of bankers putting together a plan or working together to keep the rest of us kissing their boots. There may not be bankers but the society at large may still be committed to the use of force to accomplish its goals. So, if someone argues that the claim that there are bankers out there pulling the strings can be investigated and shown to be false, that in itself does not undermine what I take to be the more important claim, that the rest of us think the way to get ahead is through the use of violence, stealth, and deception. The most important corollary would be that argument, like the promotion of critical thinking, is futile.
I don't want to say there aren't any 'supremacist bankers.' I just don't think it matters in a world where people would think, if it were possible, they'd like to be said bankers.
When I say supremacist bankers - I don't mean supremacist bankers as opposed to other bankers that are not supremacists (I'm not sure that there are any - since they wouldn't last very long in a banking industry full of vampires).
Bankers in general want to make money no matter what. Indeed, the preferred way is to do it by exploiting others because, that way, bankers always stay on top and continue to gain power and control.
As far as I'm concerned, once you're willing to exploit another human being for your own benefit, you fit the definition of a supremacist, because if you thought you and he were equals before God then you would be subject to the same rules and you wouldn't exploit him. Instead, you might help him in brotherhood, or - worst case scenario - not attempt to create conditions for exploitation.
If you exploit others, or live off exploiting others, it wouldn't matter if you did it as a banker or as some other kind of professional.
It just so happens that bankers are in the best position to do the most exploitation of the widest range of people because they have what everyone needs to survive - MONEY.
It's no coincidence that in every nation they see to it that they have it under STRICT control.
But, yes, you're right - it's not the people (e.g., bankers) who are evil per se - it's the conduct (i.e., exploitation), no matter who does it.