are being MISUSED, ABUSED and SODOMIZED without informed consent. This is a VERY HOT BUTTON issue for me, I ask your indulgence while I rant.
FIRST AND FOREMOST, if Americans were properly educated about "Foreign policy" the USE of their military to achieve it, there would likely be very few "volunteers." See:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x1694419SECONDLY, the treatment they receive at the hands of the U.S. gub'mint is ABOMINABLE. My generation went to Viet Nam. Very few of my close friends were immediately affected because of our ECONOMIC STATUS. In subsequent years, I broadened my horizons and have had a BURNING ANGER that I have NEVER been able to extinguish. I met guys who had been in the jungle the day before and were simply DUMPED on the streets. I witnessed their decline into addiction and insanity. I will NEVER FORGIVE the "powers" that USED AND ABANDONED THEM. NEVER.
MY GIRLFRIENDS WERE AFFECTED BY THIS:
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N06354124 AlertNet | Sunday, 8 December 2002
Wife beating seen as epidemic in U.S. military
------------------------------------------------------------------------
By Alan Elsner, National Correspondent
FORT BRAGG, N.C., Dec 8 (Reuters) - A spate of murders involving military spouses at the Fort Bragg army base has focused new attention on domestic violence in the U.S. armed services, which critics say the Pentagon has failed to adequately address.
Though the military acknowledges it could do a better job collecting statistics on domestic violence by service personnel, studies have suggested that abuse rates are two to three times higher than in the civilian population.
Defense Department estimates suggest incidents of domestic violence in the military rose from 18.6 per 1,000 marriages in 1990 to 25.6 per 1,000 in 1996. Rates fell slightly from 1997-1999 but there were more moderate to severe incidents.
The figures did not include an unknown number of cases not reported or handled informally by commanders, or violence against girlfriends or unmarried live-in partners, who have no legal standing in the eyes of the military.
"The military has simply not come to terms with the problem. They've known about it for a long time, and have repeatedly acknowledged the severity of the problem, but they have not dealt with it," said Terri Spahr Nelson, a former army psychotherapist and author of a book on rape and sexual harassment in the military.
AND HERE'S ANOTHER OLDIE BUT GOODIE:
Ordered Into Debt
Pentagon Brass Force Credit Debt On Soldiers and Sailors
Geoffrey Gray is a writer based in New York City. His work has been published in The New York Times, New York Magazine, and The Village Voice.
The numbers were staggering: $3,400 for a sumo-wrestling outfit, $16,000 for a corporate golf membership, $38,000 in cash advances for lap dances. All were part of a $101 million shopping spree made with "government purchase cards," the U.S. military's version of corporate credit cards -- another made-for-media scandal of reckless Defense Department spending.
But throughout congressional hearings on the topic in July, the real scandal with the military's other piece of plastic, the Government Travel Card (GTC), went ignored by the mainstream press, despite the fact that the card has plunged thousands of ordinary servicemen and servicewomen into debt so deep that the Pentagon is busy garnishing the wages of its own soldiers. And the only military commander known to raise hell about the scheme -- a lone Air Force colonel based in the Midwest -- says that blowing the whistle on the GTC ruined her career.
"The desperate rush to privatization has a million warts."
Lower in the ranks, the damage has been considerable. U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan have found themselves stranded in the desert without a dime because their credit was suddenly cut off, according to a May 29 report in the Military Times, leaving families behind in a nasty catch-22: Swallow the debt, or borrow more money to pay the bills so their credit wouldn't be ruined.
Concocted by Congress in 1998, the GTC was designed to privatize the accounting of federal travel expenses and touted to save taxpayer money. (It also reaps huge fees by the financial conglomerates that issue the cards.) It works like this: Servicepeople are ordered to apply for personal GTCs -- interest-free credit cards issued exclusively by the Bank of America. Instead of requesting vouchers or getting cash to pay for travel expenses, servicepeople pay up front with the their own GTC cards -- essentially floating interest-free loans to the government. As a result, they have to submit expense reports and wait for reimbursements.
"It's a pathetic situation when soldiers are forced to buy into a system that's likely to screw them personally," says Danielle Brian, executive director of the Project On Government Oversight, a D.C. nonprofit watchdog group. "This is just another example where the Pentagon has conjured up a scam with a favorite contractor. The desperate rush to privatization has a million warts."
By putting the burden of bookkeeping on its servicepeople and the bank, the Bank of America claims that the Pentagon has saved anywhere from $100 million to $450 million a year in administrative costs. Meanwhile, Bank of America has acquired an entire new fleet of captive consumers: more than 1.4 million servicemen and servicewomen ordered by law to use the card for every travel expense till 2008.
Pentagon officials contend that the program is beneficial to both taxpayers and servicemen. Consumer advocates laugh.
OR TRY TO GET THROUGH THIS ONE, (Please take your BP medication before you read it)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/cgi-bin/duforum/duboard.cgi?az=show_thread&om=11208&forum=DCForumID66 And THAT was THEN (before my Luddite mind grasped the concept of "hot links"). It is MUCH WORSE NOW.
My only question is: WHAT THE FUCK WILL IT TAKE TO GET AMERICANS TO WAKE UP AND SMELL THE PUTRID ELEPHANT SHIT???
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