Mario Piperni dot Com

Here’s what 1943 government propaganda sounded like.  At least they were upfront about it.
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Matt Yglesias gives it some perspective.

Now I’m actually quite glad that we’re not subjected to that kind of propaganda today. But the cartoon does drive home the basic points that war costs money and things that cost money require taxes. Taxes were a hard sell then and they’re a hard sell now. But the way the sale was made in ‘43 was to convince people that the war was worth the cost. These days, politicians seem to feel that the public would refuse to pay for the war if asked plainly. So instead of asking, they try to obscure the cost. It’s not really a tenable situation.

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While the military may fight its wars with 21st century equipment, in some areas it’s mindset is firmly planted in the last century.

More than 230,000 American women have fought in those recent wars and at least 120 have died doing so, yet the public still doesn’t completely understand their contributions on the modern battlefield.

For some, it’s a lonely transition as they struggle to find their place.

Female service members have much higher rates of divorce and are more likely to be a single parent. When they do seek help at VA medical centers, they are screening positive at a higher rate for military sexual trauma, meaning they indicated experiencing sexual harassment, assault or rape. Some studies have shown that female veterans are at greater risk for homelessness.

Every time there’s a new deployment, there is no shortage of politicians lining up to give praise to the “brave men and women” serving their country and yet so little is said of the plight of returning vets.  Why’s that?

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The Nobel war peace acceptance speech…

I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge the considerable controversy that your generous decision has generated. In part, this is because I am at the beginning, and not the end, of my labors on the world stage.

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But perhaps the most profound issue surrounding my receipt of this prize is the fact that I am the Commander-in-Chief of a nation in the midst of two wars. One of these wars is winding down. The other is a conflict that America did not seek; one in which we are joined by forty three other countries – including Norway – in an effort to defend ourselves and all nations from further attacks.

Still, we are at war, and I am responsible for the deployment of thousands of young Americans to battle in a distant land. Some will kill. Some will be killed. And so I come here with an acute sense of the cost of armed conflict – filled with difficult questions about the relationship between war and peace, and our effort to replace one with the other.

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We can acknowledge that oppression will always be with us, and still strive for justice. We can admit the intractability of depravation, and still strive for dignity. We can understand that there will be war, and still strive for peace. We can do that – for that is the story of human progress; that is the hope of all the world; and at this moment of challenge, that must be our work here on Earth.

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Another reason to be glad John McCain is not president.

The Afghanistan troop surge…

Well, I’m not so much concerned about the number because I understand that it may be additional allied troops to help out, too. I’d like to look at the overall strategy. I would like to see the emphasis on succeeding, not on an exit strategy.

Greta, the exit strategy takes care of itself once you succeed just as it did in Iraq. But I’d like to hear the whole thing. I hope the president will make the right decision here. And I would like to support him if he does.

Way to go, John. Approach Afghanistan with the same blind idiotic passion as you did with Iraq. Send in more American troops in without a clue as to how you’ll get them out or as to what a victory would even look like.  As for “success” in Iraq, last time I checked, there were still 130,000 American troops in that godforsaken country.

This is the same John McCain who claimed he’d have no problem with American troops being in Iraq for another 100 years. Having served in the military and as a POW does not necessarily make one a competent military strategist.  John McCain, fraud extraordinaire, demonstrates this point every time he opens up his silly mouth.

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It appears a decision has been made on Afghanistan.

President Obama has conducted a final meeting on his military review for Afghanistan, administration officials said, and he is planning to explain his decision in an address to the nation next Tuesday.

“After completing a rigorous final meeting, President Obama has the information he wants and needs to make his decision, and he will announce that decision within days,” Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, said Tuesday morning.

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The conversation settled around sending about 30,000 more American troops, two officials said, the first of which would deploy early next year to be in place in southern or eastern Afghanistan by the spring. The troop reinforcements would most likely be sent in waves, according to an official speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss war strategy.

The entire Afghanistan situation is a lose-lose situation for Obama.  History as well as the last eight years tells us that this war is almost impossible to win.  Yet pulling out leaves Afghans in the hands of the Taliban. As well it would weaken the president’s national security credentials and leave him open to claims that he is not fighting the war on terror.

Sending in more troops will only extend the war and put more American soldiers in harms way.  There is no immediate clear way out of this disastrous war and there probably never will be.

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One of our readers and contributors wrote this piece back in July. With the holidays and festivities soon upon us and American soldiers still fighting two wars, Janine asked if I’d repost her article in tribute to friends and family in Iraq and Afghanistan and to all brave men and women fighting for peace and freedom everywhere.

Janine, gladly.

-mario

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A close friend told me he joined the Army to see the world and joked he didn’t realize how much of the world was covered in desert. His comment brought to mind the beginning of the War on Terror and resulting 24/7 news channels’ courting of War. There were ceaseless maps, diagrams, experts, embed reports, and when war casualties ensued– reports of how many died that particular day complete with a profile or two of selected fallen. All other news was relegated to bottom screen crawls or sound bite news seconds.

Over the last six years News has lost interest. It’s taken more glamorous mistresses than old ugly conflicts and relegated its war maps, diagrams, experts, and embedded sweethearts to the country house. News’s most recent 24/7 paramours have been a celebrity death complete with medical and death experts, familial gets, and a grave expert (huh?); the Sotomayor hearings with legal and reverse racism experts; the Dem/Repub health care reform stalemate with health care and political experts; the policeman/homeowner incident with legal and racism experts; and the most gleaming inamorata of all, News consorting with its own self. Did it over cover a story? Is its reporting balanced? All these stories are absolutely newsworthy but should news of troop and civilian war casualties be consigned to bottom screen crawls or sound bite seconds?

Our troops have been dispatched around the world by this Nation to defend her interests. Sometimes these individuals are in mid-desert with no amenities or hygiene products, living with sand in their eyes, mouth, ears and soul. When they do return to Base the store shelves are often empty and some of our troops have no mail, no pedestrian news of home. When these individuals die, their deaths impact whole families and towns. We can but imagine the impact on significant others who have had their lives fragmented in a roadside bomb instant, on now motherless/fatherless children who are either too young to understand anything beyond Mommy or Daddy won’t be home to push them on a swing anymore or old enough to understand one parent can no longer attend their life events.

No matter your feelings about war, about violence, these enlisted men and women deserve our everyday thanks and recognition. They deserve to be more than a news afterthought or statistical crawl at the bottom of the screen. They deserve to know our Nation’s people appreciate them. Hence, if moved to do so, adopt a soldier if you can, or send the occasional anonymous care package or write letters, anything to let these men and women who fight and die to protect how we live know we acknowledge their sacrifice, that they aren’t an afterthought, they are lead stories in our hearts and prayers, let them know they will never be reduced to a news crawl at the bottom of our thoughts.
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President Obama’s speech at yesterday’s Fort Hood memorial service is being touted as one his finest ever. And on this Veterans Day, it is a fitting tribute to all men and women serving in the armed forces, past and present.
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In light of the killings at a Fort Hood deployment center, this seems like a perfect time to play this.
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EMBED-Tricked On Halloween – Watch more free videos
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A pic is worth a 1000 words…
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Open thread.
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