Sunday, January 29, 2006
The Warner Janissary Compensation Act Passes
The first janissary units comprised war captives and slaves. After the 1380s Sultan Selim I filled their ranks with the results of taxation in human form called devshirmeh. The sultan’s men would conscript a number of non-Muslim, usually Christian, boys – at first at random, later, by strict selection – and take them to be trained. In later centuries they appear to have favored essentially Greeks, Albanians, Romanians, Serbs and Bulgarians. --Wikipedia
Congress has granted unusual authority for the Pentagon to spend as much as $200 million of its own budget to aid foreign militaries, a break with the traditional practice of channeling foreign military assistance through the State Department.... it has drawn warnings from foreign policy specialists inside and outside the government, who say it could lead to growth of a separate military assistance effort not subject to the same constraints applied to foreign aid programs that are administered by the State Department. Such constraints are meant to ensure that aid recipients meet certain standards, including respect for human rights and protection of legitimate civilian authorities. --Bradley Graham in the Washington Post
Centralization of power, less accountability of the military to civilian oversight, more use of mercenaries.
Didn't Rome encounter some problems with that?
Comments:
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I'll bet you anything that the real motive behind this is to provide yet another channel through which public funds, make that public debt, can be put into the hands of Bush Co. branches. Keeping an eye on who contracts those mercenaries and who provides them with training, etc. will probably tell the real story behind the facade.
It is going to be the big picture of the Bush junta that it was one huge effort to loot the public treasury, run up a huge debt while stealing the borrowed money, destroy the public infrastructure and contract with crooked connected contractors for its replacement and any other kind of crooked scheme they can dream up. And all financed by debt to the "Red Chinese".
After him the flood is going to wash away the American Empire.
It is going to be the big picture of the Bush junta that it was one huge effort to loot the public treasury, run up a huge debt while stealing the borrowed money, destroy the public infrastructure and contract with crooked connected contractors for its replacement and any other kind of crooked scheme they can dream up. And all financed by debt to the "Red Chinese".
After him the flood is going to wash away the American Empire.
# posted by 
: 1/29/2006 11:54:00 PM
: 1/29/2006 11:54:00 PM
I agree, EPT. Hubris has led this nation's leaders into imagining that they can destroy whatever they will, and so hubris will destroy them.
We're the collateral damage.
There are more objectives than wasting money for the creation of a mercenary force:
* It will be cheaper than hiring American soldiers or contractors,
* It will provide the the Administration deniability when they commit atrocities,
* They are all but exempt from congressional oversight.
The downside, of course, is that in the end the mercenary armies always betray their overlord.
We're the collateral damage.
There are more objectives than wasting money for the creation of a mercenary force:
* It will be cheaper than hiring American soldiers or contractors,
* It will provide the the Administration deniability when they commit atrocities,
* They are all but exempt from congressional oversight.
The downside, of course, is that in the end the mercenary armies always betray their overlord.
The USA is gone.
There's nothing left to defend here, except what? A handful of Wal-Marts and Circle-K's?
So what if the mercenaries abandon even these? The center cannot hold. Give it up.
It's time to start a new country. Who's with me on this? This time we will make a Constitution of our Constitution, and oust those who would differ.
There's nothing left to defend here, except what? A handful of Wal-Marts and Circle-K's?
So what if the mercenaries abandon even these? The center cannot hold. Give it up.
It's time to start a new country. Who's with me on this? This time we will make a Constitution of our Constitution, and oust those who would differ.
Oh, we don't need a new nation, Shrimplate. I don't want to move.
However, I do think that the only practical way to deal with what has happened is to declare that the First American Republic ended on December 12, 2000.
Consider the mess that has been created. It is not just the war and the dead on all sides. It is a judicial system that is filled with sycophants, crackpots and ideologues. It is a debt piled on the backs of generations to come. It is a maze of laws that are not lawful. On and on, the Republicans have created a Gordian tangle that we cannot ask generations to be patient enough to untangle.
It is time for America to declare moral bankruptcy and default on all the promises made and contracts entered into by these crooks and liars.
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However, I do think that the only practical way to deal with what has happened is to declare that the First American Republic ended on December 12, 2000.
Consider the mess that has been created. It is not just the war and the dead on all sides. It is a judicial system that is filled with sycophants, crackpots and ideologues. It is a debt piled on the backs of generations to come. It is a maze of laws that are not lawful. On and on, the Republicans have created a Gordian tangle that we cannot ask generations to be patient enough to untangle.
It is time for America to declare moral bankruptcy and default on all the promises made and contracts entered into by these crooks and liars.
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