>>natedog

lolwut?

>>Camiam321 – Yeah, exactly. Where was the wit?

>>natedog

I was stationed in Korea in 2003. Moments after I heard we invaded, I went out for a smoke. A enlisted Korean dude was there, and he asked me what I thought about what just happened. I told him I thought we just made the worst military decision since Vietnam.

It’s an even more bitter pill to swallow now that we know all the intelligence was ‘groomed’ for the invasion and all those sacrifices (both ours and the Iraqis) were for nothing. But we really shouldn’t be surprised when we look back at our culture. We have militarized police forces serving no-knock warrants with SWAT teams for non-violent drug offenders. A population that loves to exploit but hates to help its illegal workforce. That kind of hatred and paranoia is easy to sway. It only needed a spark.

There is some documentary out there that talks about the ‘shock doctrine’. It’s where laws and policies are instituted after a major crisis. This was typically reserved for African countries, where state violence and corruption are the status quo. But intelligent economicists and lawmakers saw events as 9/11 as a perfect opportunity to push through radical legislation with nary a peep from the opposition.

In regards to the links you posted, I saw so much contract corruption and waste when I was in Iraq in 04-05. It was disgusting. You have guys making 3-4 times what they make back in the states (with the first 85k being tax free). On top of that, the contracting company charges a king’s ransom for the contract. Say you get a job making 150k a year doing something like being a web-page administrator. That contracting company would charge the government $250k for you and pocket the other 100k. When KBR was serving meals to the troops, the US goverment was being charged $30 a head for the lunch and dinner meals, no matter if everyone ate there or not. It turned out that about half ate there, and the Army guys started counting people as the came in so we could get charged appropriately. Subcontrators that employed 3rd world nationals were the worst though. They would pay these guys like $5000 a year to like in unprotected housing, without body armor or helmets to work shit jobs while mortars were coming in daily. And to have some fat ass hillbilly in her fucking bodyarmor making over $100k to yell at some Sri Lankan because he isn’t sweeping fast enough, fuck, it was enough to make me want to puke.

I always wondered where you could look up contract information like that. It has to be publically available. Right down to the line items of “I will charge you $500 for this $50 chair”. If you find it, could you post it here?

Fuck this post is long, sorry…