November 11 is day 315 of the Gregorian Calendar year, Setting Orange, The Aftermath 23, 3185 (discordian), And let us not forget 13.0.6.17.16 by the Mayan Long Count Yes, YOU! Your troops, mine too, they are, you see, our troops. And, the short answer is No, you don't know where they are. Sure, some are in Afghanistan, and Syria, and Saudi Arabia, and D.C., and San Diego and uh, like, Africa. Africa, big place that. They are, in fact scattered all over the globe in some 800 or so "bases" depending upon who you are listening to and accounting for quibbles like whether or not "lily pads" are bases and all like that. Oh, and are National Guard troops our troops too? They must be if "we the people" can send them abroad and into combat. "We the people", heh, a nice phrase for "the powers that be", isn't it? Ah well, and the CIA's combat forces, are they also our troops? Well, that gets tricky. Here's the government line on that from the wikifolk:
The Special Activities Center (SAC) is a division of the United States Central Intelligence Agency responsible for covert operations and paramilitary operations. ... The Special Operations Group (SOG) is a department within SAC responsible for operations that include high-threat clandestine or covert operations which the U.S. government cannot be overtly associated.[3] As such, unit members, called Paramilitary Operations Officers and Specialized Skills Officers, do not typically carry any objects or clothing, e.g., military uniforms, that would associate them with the United States government. If they are compromised during a mission, the United States government may deny all knowledge. SOG is considered the most secretive special operations force with less than a hundred operatives. The group often selects former military servicemembers from special mission units such as Delta Force, MARSOC, DEVGRU, Army Special Forces, ISA, and 24th STS, as well as other United States Military forces.
Sound almost more like pirates or brigands than your troops, don't they? Doesn't matter, they are almost de minimus in number relative to the truly enormous size of our military And how about the mercs, all those civilian contractors like Blackwater that we hire to kill people as needed and otherwise help our troops kill people? Are they "our troops" too? After all, "we the people" hire them too, just like "we the people", especially the CIA people sometimes hire entire proxy armies, paramilitary death squads and like that? Damn there's a major scarcity of clarity in this, heh, arena.
-But that's not what this is about. This is about Armistice Day. You know, it's still Armistice Day, even though we changed it officially to Veterans' Day. I actually grew up with Armistice Day, and everybody was taught the whole story, and 11,11,11,11; the 11th minute of the 11th hour or the 11th day or the 11 month. Yes! A cessation of hostilities, and we, and a lot of other nations and peoples celebrated it too. Who knows, maybe, just maybe some one or two of those persons or places would still be of a mind to celebrate the cessation of hostilities. Not us, however. We know better than that, silly naive country that we were. How the hell could somebody in their right mind celebrate the cessation of hostilities. The money, the power, the control, and everything else important come from the hostilities. That's why we're a warfare state, with an economy and position as the global top predator that depend on wars and warfare. This is far and away a better way of life than being the peace loving simpletons of yore, don't ya think? Ah well, I see that my time is up, especially if I'm gonna stick to form and play some music. I know that the Aussies were involved, and celebrated that armistice, so let's start with something from down under.
- x YouTube Video -But hey, never mind all that, there's big money in war, really big money, even if pretty much none of it trickles down (TM) to the troops.
x YouTube Video -Image is Armistics Parade
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It's an open thread, so do your thing
- -Cross posted from http://caucus99percent.com