#WTFObama: #DontBelieveTheHype: US Mil "withdrawal" from Iraq just a rebranding--56k will stay.

US Withdraws Last Combat Brigade from Iraq, But 56,000 Troops Remain

The US has officially withdrawn its last designated combat brigade from Iraq, two weeks ahead of a deadline for the withdrawal of some 14,000 troops. In a surprise announcement, the Pentagon said the last combat brigade crossed over into Kuwait earlier today. Although the withdrawal has been hailed as a major milestone in the Iraq war and an end to combat operations, most of the remaining 56,000 US troops are still trained in combat and will continue to carry out armed attacks. The Obama administration also plans to double its private military force in Iraq to an estimated 7,000 contractors. According to the New York Times, the bulk of the private military force will be deployed at five compounds across Iraq, where they’ll perform duties including operating drones, deploying reaction forces and operating radars to detect militant attacks. In an interview on Democracy Now! earlier this month, independent journalist Jeremy Scahill said the Obama administration’s withdrawal plan amounts to a rebranded occupation.

Jeremy Scahill: “What is essentially unfolding here is a downsized and rebranded occupation, Obama-style, that is going to necessitate a surge in private forces. The State Department is asking for MRAP vehicles, armored vehicles, for Black Hawk helicopters and for these paramilitary forces. So, yes, you can say that officially combat has ended, but in reality you’re continuing it through the back door by bringing in these paramilitary forces and classifying them as diplomatic security, which was Bush’s game from the very beginning.”

via democracynow.org

Sadly, this is what I was expecting.  I’m sure anyone paying attention isn’t surprised by the fact that we’re leaving a huge stack of troops behind.  What’s next from the O-man? A giant “Mission Accomplished” banner and an aircraft-carrier-based photo-op?

Fighting religious extremism inside the US Military (yes, it's there, too)

itsjustsummer:

Meet the Military Man Battling Dangerous Christian Extremism in the Military

 In his fight against British imperialism, Mahatma Gandhi described the life cycle of successful civil disobedience: “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.” Mikey Weinstein, the 55-year-old founder of the Albuquerque, New Mexico-based Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), likes to quote it, knowing full well he’s crossed the line into a bloody-knuckle brawl. Over the past year, Weinstein and his organization have recorded a tremendous string of victories in the fight against Christian supremacists inside the armed forces.

I wish I could find the video about this guy and the Air Force Academy.  It’s shocking that they would allow the evangelicals to proselytize to the cadets.  The worst part of all of this, is these are the leaders of our military.  If our military is to be diverse and accepting of all people, this is not the way to do it.  I feel that our military should be religion free.  Nothing divides people more than religion, and when they’re to be a strong fighting force to live and die for their country and each other, religion needs to be out of the picture.  PERIOD! 

I’m saying all this from experience. 

It’s worse than just them excluding atheists.  The military is using God to not only justify the war, but, in effect, to entice the soldiers to believe they’ll go to heaven.  I have zero experience with this, as the closest I came to the military was a failed attempt to be a pilot after four years of ROTC—but back in ROTC, they never talked about God to us.  However, to me, it seems like religion is a tool of the smart to manipulate the ignorant.  This is why, when the US Marines marched into Fallujah to get revenge for the locals brutally murdering those Blackwater guys (they burned them alive and then hung their dismembered corpses from a bridge), the Marines hung crosses on their rifles. Some even converted to Christianity the day before the raid. There were church services held before the raid, too.

It’s disgusting and *exactly* what “our enemy” does to their own “soldiers.”  Religion has no place in the matters of war, period.  Soldiers don’t fight for god and country. They fight for country—if that.  Most of the time they’re really fighting for capitalism, but whatever.  The point is religion in the military isn’t about exclusion, it’s about indoctrination into a belief that God wants them to kill and that heaven is waiting for them after they die.

Plus it’s just fucking absurd to believe that the being that created the universe would give a shit about your little life or the country you were born in.  If I were God, I’d be blowing us off—focusing, instead, on this bitchin’ nebula I just painted with starstuff.