For years, the Bush administration harangued anyone who dared to speak out against the crusade war in Iraq, suggesting that those who did were — implicitly or explicitly — traitors to the United States, to the “War on Terror” or the US military. Dissention of any kind was branded as failure to “support the troops” and the worst of the right-wing psychopaths even suggested that those who questioned Bush, Rummy and Dick were worse than the Qaeda.
What, then, are we to make of these two developments?
1. Halliburton HQ relocates to Dubai
Dubai is the nation Michael Jackson fled went on sabbatical to after his most recent round of being accused of … loving boys a little too much. What attracted Jacko is very plausibly what Halliburton likes as well. There is no extradition treaty that I know of with Dubai; there is no corporate regulation to speak of; and there’s no real accountability that can be claimed to be in place.
This is the same Halliburton that fed our soldiers rotten food, you know.
Why would anyone imagine the move to Dubai is anything but another advance in the inseparable corruption of US military policy that interdigitates Halliburton with Veep Dick Cheney, who has ancient and intricate ties with that corporation?
2. General Peter Pace denigrates US troops
Pace is a Marine and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He said, in a press conference a few days ago,
I believe that homosexual acts between individuals are immoral and that we should not condone immoral acts. I do not believe that the armed forces of the United States are well served by saying through our policies that it’s OK to be immoral in any way.
He likened same-sex intercourse to adultery and used his comments in the larger context of defending the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy — which has been used, it should be mentioned, to dismiss some 55 Arabic-fluent military translators since the Iraq debacle began.
Pace’s comments are direct blows to the morale of 16,000 or so US soldiers (assuming national averages hold true for military populations as well), and I daresay have done more to damage general morale than any number of left-wing pundits could possibly manage. We can be certain that DADT has damaged recruitment figures, yet the military seems to cling desparately to it.
On Tuesday, pace offered a watery non-apology.
I should have focused more on my support of the policy and less on my personal moral views.
Or maybe you should have just kept your fucking mouth shut.
We have a lying, profiteering anti-freedom Constitution-hating Vice President — and a military figurehead whose entrenched Christofascist thuggery makes him unfit to recognize what his own military needs.
And they dare call the “liberals” the traitors to the United States and its soldiers.
Spew