#1
"It is our military that is being volunteered by others to carry out missions that are important not only to us, but are important internationally."
Or as they might more succinctly put it down da hood;
"Unkle Sugar has pimped the military to the Arab League and the UN"
#2
The rulers in Rome learned that it was important to keep the legion busy rather than sitting around the barracks thinking about who the next ruler would be.
#6
And what did the Romans ever do for you, other than the roads, the aquaducts, law, medicine...
A good reason to have kept the legions busy, other than such projects paying dividends outside of military applications, is that sitting around on your ass for too long makes it tough to get off of the lectus when need be.
Yes, even the appearance of US Military for Hire is bad.
#8
Roman Soldiers enlisted for 20 yrs. At retirement many found themselves at the ass end of the earth. They married a local, settled down as shop keepers and started roman towns. This provided a trained and ready reserve force for the local legions. Just like Londinium.
Posted by: Retired LEO ||
03/29/2011 16:15 Comments ||
Top||
[Chosun Ilbo] North Korea's Foreign Ministry on Tuesday slammed the U.S. military intervention in Libya, calling it an "indiscriminate armed intervention" based on a "deceptive resolution" and used the occasion to once again justify its own nuclear program. "It was fully exposed before the world that Libya's nuclear dismantlement much touted by the U.S. in the past turned out to be a mode of aggression whereby the latter coaxed the former with such sweet words as 'guarantee of security' and 'improvement of relations' to disarm and then swallowed it up by force," a front man said. North Korea "was quite right when it took the path of Songun [military first], and the capacity for self-defense built up in this course serves as a valuable deterrent for averting a war and defending peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula."
It is mindboggling to see how North Korea is interpreting the causes and consequence of Libya's predicament. The crisis was triggered by a public uprising against 40 years of oppressive rule by leader Moammar Gadhafi and his family and a brutal crackdown using jets and artillery by the dictator against his own citizens, which prompted western countries to step in to prevent further bloodshed. The U.S., U.K. and La Belle France intervened belatedly following mounting international condemnation of Gadhafi for ordering his troops to bomb and massacre his own people.
Yet North Korea claims that the intervention was prompted by Libya's scrapping of its nuclear weapons, which made the North African nation more vulnerable and justifies Pyongyang's military-first policy centering on its own nuclear weapons program.
The Kim dynasty has ruled North Korea with an iron fist for over 60 years and is preparing for the third hereditary succession of power. The North is one vast prison, the like of which cannot be found anywhere else in the world today. South Koreans and people all over the world are worried about the future of North Korea, which is ruled by a leader and his son who have no qualms about slaughtering their own people should they rebel.
The UN adopted a principle in 2005 empowering the global body to protect the citizens of any country whose dictator commits human rights ...which often intentionally defined so widely as to be meaningless... violations against them. That principle was applied to Libya for the first time. Now, no country in the world is allowed to oppress its own people and violate human rights with the excuse that this is an internal issue.
North Korea cannot remain an exception to this principle. That is why expectations had risen that Kim Jong-il and his son would learn from Libya's fate. But rather than considering the importance of human rights, the North says it has learned the lessons that it must not abandon its nuclear weapons. The North Korean people face a bleak future.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/29/2011 00:00 ||
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#1
But rather than considering the importance of human rights, the North says it has learned the lessons that it must not abandon its nuclear weapons
Growing unrest in Syria will test Sarkozys new diplomacy; allies like Iran make Syria a trickier case than Libya; West seen very unlikely to want a new military campaign
The National Defense University at Fort McNair was a favorite backdrop of President George W. Bush as he laid out his Bush doctrine of preemptive war. Supported by 35 allies and 7 UN resolutions. Did you forget? 17 resolutions, and no, we didn't forget...
After ten days of confusion about America's role in Libya -- and in the world -- Obama finally was prepared to articulate his "doctrine." Except even Dana Milbank can't figure it out.
Yet [Bush's] crisp clarity led us into war in Iraq based on false presumptions, draining resources from the good war in Afghanistan and antagonizing allies. This war doesn't take any resources from the good war? We don't use A-10s in Afghanistan anymore?
Obama, by contrast, has been so subtle in his doctrine that he's baffling the redneck, hick-yokel, right-wing-knuckle-dragging Americans. Subtle. Nuanced. Flexible. Rudderless. Aimless. Pointless. No wonder the Frogs aren't confused! Mr. Milbank concludes:
As a doctrine, Obama's is maddeningly subtle. Cost-weighting can't compete with the Cowboy's "smoke 'em out" and "dead or alive." But that doesn't mean it's wrong. But it does leave it wide open to critism from all sides, where at least Bush had some of the people on his side, when it started. Until the media chipped away at our confidence until it was obliterated.
Posted by: Bobby ||
03/29/2011 06:04 ||
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#1
The World is full of people whose only talent is self-marketing. They usually do very well for themselves---what we call "The Decline of the West". This one is only different by virtue of being in a position very open to public scrutiny. If he was a university, or a bank, president nobody (except his subordinates, who don't count) would notice anything strange.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
North Korea
The National Defense University at Fort McNair was a favorite backdrop of President George W. Bush as he laid out his Bush doctrine of preemptive war. 
