Hating the troops is sort of my calling card. The feeling of revulsion I have for people who sign up with an organization whose only purpose is to kill (considering the military hasn't been used for strict national defense in...well, ever) has tended to cover every member of the military, with notable exceptions: those who, though naive in joining, are horrified enough by the deeds of the military that they refuse to deploy to warzones. Most of them have just skipped country to Canada or hid out at home, which is fine, but lately the news has been full of the case of Lt. Ehren Watada, who publicly and loudly has proclaimed the illegality of and his opposition to the war in Iraq.

Now, I'm not a gooshy type that tears up at grand proclamations of principle, but this guy has balls and I am really amazed at his intellect and clarity. Fuck the douchebags occupying Iraq -- Watada is the hero.

"There was a long time when I went through depression because I told myself I didn't have a choice. That I joined the military and I had only one duty and that was to obey what I was told, regardless of how I felt inside. It really hurt me for a long time because I imprisoned myself by telling myself I didn't have a choice. It didn't matter that I might be sent to prison. I was already in prison, my freedom was already gone.

"When I told myself that I do have a choice, I have a choice to do what is morally right, what is in my conscience, and what I can live with for the rest of my life--even though that comes with consequences, I do have that choice. When I realized that, and when I chose what was right for me, I became free again. And I think everybody has to remember that and to realize that is what is important in life."

This, when most soldiers can barely scrawl their own names.

That's right, you heard it here first. Vietnam II is on its way.

Impossible you say?

Well, I say you are wrong. I think that Vietnam is the perfect contestant to be chosen as the next victim err... lucky winner in the neocon global democracy crusade. Here's how I see it,

1. Vietnam is ruled by an oppressive socialist party dictatorship. This alone means little to those seeking to use war for the spread of democracy, they need a more convincing impetus. Well, they got it. Vietnam has confirmed that they have arrested Cong Thanh Do a 47 year old Vietnameze born American citizen and democracy activist. Do's California congresswoman has said,

"The Vietnamese government has a track record of human rights violations against people who work to bring freedom and democracy to Vietnam through peaceful means...His incarceration is outrageous. I will do everything possible to guarantee Cong Thanh Do's prompt release."

Peaceful means have failed. It's time to bring out the guns.

2. The war makers have access to a large and passionate anti-communist Vietnamese Diaspora that could be called on to fabricate intelligence about WMD programs and to tell hyperbolic stories of torture and human rights violations.

3. The US "cut and ran" after getting their asses handed to them in Vietnam I (which, of course, led to the domino like spread of communism all across the globe.) Unfortunately, according to Bush this "send[s] the wrong message to the enemy. It would tell them that if they wait long enough, America will cut and run. It would vindicate the terrorists' tactics."

The US government cannot afford to look weak especially after 9/11. They must show the world how tough they are, how they will not cut and run and how they will stay in every fight no matter how long it takes to defeat every enemy. Clearly, Vietnam I is a thorn in the side of the American tough guy image.

So, that's it. In my opinion it's not a question of if but when. Bring 'em on!

However, there is one pressing conundrum that Washington's warmongering elite will have to solve. Much of the pro-democracy opposition to the current regime in Vietnam has been labeled terrorists by both Hanoi and Washington. That means that a war for democracy in Vietnam would give aid to terrorists or, conversely, fighting the terrorists would help prop up a violent and oppressive undemocratic regime. How would the impeccable, moral minds of the Washington war crowd ever deal with such a terrible contradiction.

BBC says "Hometowns mourn slain US troops":

Family and friends of two US soldiers taken captive and killed in Iraq have been paying tribute to them.

"Our son... died for the freedom of everybody in the United States," Thomas Tucker's father Wes told NBC.

No, your son died for NOTHING. He was in Iraq taking my freedoms and Iraqis' freedoms, and he paid for this with his life. Deal with it.

A couple of weeks ago, in a rather insignificant exchange on Anti-State.Com, the world famous Joe relayed a little anecdote that he picked up from his cousin whose husband is in Iraq. Apparently, or so the story goes, Iraqis are now throwing their babies in front of humvees so that the kind and gentle Americans will stop and make themselves vulnerable to roadside explosives. Stopping is obviously too dangerous and thus, the orders are in: run those babies over.

Now assuming they are true, though I am skeptical, it seems to me that most reasonable people would find such tales to be alarming and outrageous. I would. A parent has no right, at least that I know of, to choose to lay their young ones upon the sacrificial alter of a cause that their children are incapable of comprehending and much less capable of embracing. If a parent wants to give their own life for an ideal then fine but a child's life is not a parent's to give. This seems like a fair explanation of why most rational and sane people would find it offensive to throw babies in front of trucks.

But then I had a conversation with one of those self-proclaimed liberty lovers who insist that the war in Iraq is, or at one time was, a good thing on account of it being a so-called war of liberation. That got me thinking. Maybe these parents aren't murderous degenerates after all. Maybe they should be honored as heroic freedom fighters. Many do, at last, believe that they are fighting for freedom and isn't freedom worth dying for? Isn't it worth a life or two?

Such is the common justification given by war supporters when confronted with images, accounts or statistics of deaths and casualties among innocents. Aren't a few (hundred thousand) lives a fair price to be paid for freedom? I mean, live free or die! Right? Those innocents died for a good cause. They died for liberty.

So, can't those throwing their babies in the road make the same claim? After their baby's skull has been crushed by a humvee and their young brains splattered in the gutter, can't those parents pump their fists in the air and quote Patrick Henry, "give me liberty or give me death?" Can't they claim that it is worth it to lose one's life in the fight for freedom and, therefore, their baby's death is acceptable? Can't they just call it collateral damage and thereby grant themselves immunity from receiving the title of murderer?

Well, according to those good supporters of liberating wars, the answer to all of the above questions is "NO!"

You see, it is only the state, particularly the global hegemon, who can make such claims. It is not ok for a parent to throw their own babies under a truck but it is ok for Americans to throw someone else's babies underneath bombs, tanks, bullets and maybe a few boot heels. Hell, Americans don't have to stop at babies either. Oh no, we get to make the choice between liberty and death for men and women as well as children. By god, we Americans love liberty so damn much that we won't hesitate to kill you in order to set you free. You may not be willing to lay down your life for freedom but don't worry, we'll make you.

Wow, what an honor, what a responsibility. I'm so glad I'm an American.

But seriously, I don't think I can stand to hear one more person claim that the war in Iraq is, or was, one of liberation. That may have been a charming and almost believable bromide in 2003 but 3 years into this catastrophe can we please call it what it is? Throwing babies in front of trucks.

I know I should really expose the bloodthirsty dirtbags who populate our state's military wing more often, but sometimes it takes an extraordinary piece of outrage (plus the fact that it's Fleet Week here in New York, and the place is swarming with killers) to help me get my thoughts together. The Haditha Massacre that is just being exposed now is awful, but I just assume, despite a Joint Chief's assurances, that this is par for the course in Iraq.

But today I came across a nasty piece of filth from (where else?) Texas, a story about one of the Marines whose death sparked the slaughter of innocent people in Haditha.

The father of a U.S. Marine killed by a roadside bomb in western Iraq in November believes his son's comrades did nothing wrong despite a criminal investigation into events that left more than 20 Iraqi civilians dead, including women and children.

"It's very hard for me, I don't even listen to the news," Martin Terrazas said of reports of the mass killings in Haditha, in Iraq's Anbar province. "The insurgents were hiding in there with the kids."

He doesn't listen to the news, but he knows the insurgents were hiding with the kids. That's because he thinks anything America or its agents do is by definition good. Nuking Japan was good because WE did it. Belgrade's 9/11 was good because WE did it. Butchering a house full of people minding their own business is good because this guy's son's friends did it.

These are the kind of people we are dealing with. You can't reason with them; the only way to neutralize their credibility is to demonstrate to the rest of the rational world that the military is made up of, and backed up by, monsters.

At the urgent request of the Pentagon, scientists and engineers are rushing to create an artificial arm that works like a flesh-and-blood one for the growing number of soldiers who are losing their limbs in the Iraq war.

This will no doubt have some ignorants saying, "thank God for the Pentagon, now we have prosthetic limbs able to perform fine movements." Not to sound callous, but amputation and paralyzation are not common enough for the market to have decided that much more should be done above what has already been done. The allocation of what will no doubt be an astounding number of millions of dollars in research money could have been spent on something more in demand/efficient.

By the way, the similarity between the argument for government-funded research and the arguments used to show the existence of the free rider problem is impossible to ignore.

It's hard to find a story that gives me more satisfaction than learning that a bunch of "weekend warriors," America's National Guard Reserve, are being forced to stay in military service even after their contract with the government has expired. The reason is that the military is shortstaffed in this time of war. Something about people not wanting to sign up for a free trip to getting shot at and maybe killed in Iraq, I guess.

"I don't think during a time of war you would want to let people go when you have a shortage of people," Army Reserve spokesman Steve Stromvall said.

Certainly not, Mr. Steve, and I agree. I think stop loss is a wonderful phenomenon. It serves so many purposes.

1) It makes the retained soldiers hate the military. These are the guys who all of a sudden oppose the war after they decided they didn't want to go to war, they just wanted to say they were in the Reserves to get chicks, or maybe just to put a little more oomph behind waving that big flag in their yards. An added bonus is that they maybe do poor work, as people tend to do at jobs they hate.

2) It keeps possible recruits, at least those smart enough to read or who watch the news (slim pickins, I know), from joining up, since they could very well be prevented from un-joining up.

3) It satisfies my revenge lust and punishes the stupid in one fell swoop. I love that the state's enforcers, even the part-time ones, suffer at the hands of the state they so love. And I ADORE the fact that anyone so stupid as to think a contract made with the country's monopoly contract enforcer would in any way secure a single one of their rights or hold any personal benefit whatsoever may learn the error of their ways in this manner. Or if they're really stupid, just suffer without understanding why. Maybe even in a 120-degree Iraqi summer as their businesses back home collapse from neglect. I like that last item, it opens up the market for people who were not dumb enough to join the Reserves to take their places, and therefore makes wealth flow to more peaceful and/or rational people. I smell the efficiency, do you?

The military repels future recruits, makes its members hate it while they're still working for it, and jingoist pigs get what they deserve. That's hot.

I get so much shit for my views on the troops, but one cannot ignore the menace that masses of returning troops present to civilized society. There are plenty of stories of Iraq vets coming home and killing their wives, each other, robbing and raping -- and the war is still going on. It's not just Iraqis and Americans who are suffering at the hands of these animals, as they are also stationed all around the world in US bases. From Tuesday's Washington Post:

A U.S. soldier who raped a Nigerian woman in Italy was given a lighter sentence because the court deemed his tour of duty in Iraq had made him less sensitive to the suffering of others.

The crime would have earned him an eight-year sentence, but the judges reduced the penalty due to the "extenuating circumstances" of the psychological effects of Brown's year of service in Iraq, the document said.

He beat her and raped her in every orifice she had and then dumped her to wander the streets of Italy, a black woman, completely naked. I understand the reason to feel sorry...possibly...for this disgusting creature, probably some kind of borderline-inbred piece of trailer trash shoved into the military by the lethal combination of patriotism and a sharp recruiter, but I certainly don't see a reason to return him to the streets. If he can't be remanded into a psychiatric ward for the rest of his life, I plead to the Italian authorities, on the basis of the acute danger this person poses to the innocent inhabitants of this world, to summarily execute James Michael Brown. Thank you.