You know, the first thing I thought of when I shelled out my 75-cents was what ISN'T the Boston Globe telling me today.
I know what they are doing (pushing propaganda), and the second thought was HAVE a NICE DRAFT, kids!!!!
"Pentagon flexes its altruism muscle; Aims to win trust with soft power" by Bryan Bender, Globe Staff | July 28, 2008
WASHINGTON - Having learned the limits of force in Iraq and Afghanistan, US military strategists are rewriting decades-old military doctrine to place humanitarian missions on par with combat, part of a new effort to win over distrustful foreign populations and enlist new global allies, according to top commanders and Pentagon officials.
How about NOT INVADING for starters?
The Defense Department is implementing a series of new directives to use the American arsenal for more peaceful purposes even as it prepares for war.
Isn't there something Orwellian and contradictory there, or is it just me?
The effort illustrates a growing recognition that, to combat radical ideologies and avert future wars, the Pentagon must draw more heavily on its deep reserves of so-called soft power - its ability to set up medical clinics in a remote part of the world, for example - to balance the more traditional "hard power" of military force, according to more than a dozen US military officers in several regions of the world and planners inside the Pentagon.
Yeah, while WE are DENIED MEDICAL CARE HERE!
How's that bowl of shit going down this morning, 'murka?
"Things have changed significantly," Jerry Lynes, a retired Marine Corps colonel who is now chief of education and doctrine for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in an interview. "We have taken our traditional principles of war and added to them."
I thought I smelled a DRAFT!
The changes have already translated into new military operations. When a US military team arrived by helicopter in Cambodia's rural Kampong Chhnang Province in late May, the imam from the local mosque spread the word and hundreds of locals descended on the Americans.
But it was not confrontation they sought. It was free healthcare. The Friendship Clinic, offering primary and vision care, dentistry, a women's health center, and medical training, was part of a first-of-its kind humanitarian mission called Pacific Angel by the Honolulu-based 13th Air Force.
Are you OFFENDED LIKE ME, America?
How come THIS GOVERNMENT doesn't give a CRAP about US?!?
How about a U.S. ANGEL, huh?
In recent months, Navy war ships have been dispatched to some of the poorest nations to administer medical aid, the Air Force is flying regular humanitarian flights, and teams of US military personnel are helping rebuild schools in Latin America.
While OURS CRUMBLE and are CLOSED!!!!
WTF?!!!!
But while the change in emphasis is generally accepted as a positive development, some are also warning that the military risks taking on nonmilitary missions that should be the purview of the State Department and other civilian agencies.
Yeah, for THOSE BUILDING EMPIRES and seeking WORLD DOMINATION!!!!
Kenneth Bacon, a former assistant secretary of defense who now runs Refugees International, a nonprofit organization, is particularly concerned about Pentagon plans for a new US Africa Command:
"The military should not take on what [the US Agency for International Development] does or the State Department.
US military strategists believe they have an expanding role to play in exerting America's soft power. They began to embrace the concept - a term coined by Harvard professor Joseph Nye - after the South Asian tsunami in late 2004, when the United States mustered a flotilla of ships and dozens of aircraft to ferry aid to hundreds of thousands of people in coastal villages in Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim nation.
Did you just hear a HAARP, readers?
"The standing of the United States in Indonesia had dropped very low as a result of the Iraq war but went up impressively after the tsunami relief," said Nye, a former assistant secretary of defense who now teaches at the Harvard Kennedy School.
Gee, and CUI BONO?
As a result, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is now required to draft military doctrine for how to conduct "stability" operations, including assisting countries in the event of an emergency, and is formulating new curriculum for military training schools to elevate nonmilitary tasks in the minds of the officer and enlisted ranks.
Then why have they PRIVATIZED EVERYTHING?
The generals and admirals who oversee American forces around the world now regularly include humanitarian and stability operations in their annual schedule of war games and day-to-day operations.
To expand the soft power tools in its quiver the military is in the process of enlisting more specialists and training a new generation of officers in the concept of "peacetime engagement."
Translation: A NEVER-ENDING WARFARE STATE!!!!
Was nice knowing ya, kiddos!!!
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