"A Failed Formula for Worldwide War: How the Empire Changed Its Face, But Not Its Nature
By Nick Turse
"They looked like a gang of geriatric giants. Clad in smart casual attire -- dress shirts, sweaters, and jeans -- and incongruous blue hospital booties, they strode around “the world,” stopping to stroke their chins and ponder this or that potential crisis."
SNIP
"Several times this year, Dempsey, the other joint chiefs, and regional war-fighting commanders have assembled at the Marine Corps Base in Quantico to conduct a futuristic war-game-meets-academic-seminar about the needs of the military in 2017. There, a giant map of the world, larger than a basketball court, was laid out so the Pentagon’s top brass could shuffle around the planet -- provided they wore those scuff-preventing shoe covers -- as they thought about “potential U.S. national military vulnerabilities in future conflicts” (so one participant told the New York Times)."
SNIP
"In September, for example, Lieutenant General Robert L. Caslen, Jr., revealed that, just months after the U.S. military withdrew from Iraq, a unit of Special Operations Forces had already been redeployed there in an advisory role and that negotiations were underway to arrange for larger numbers of troops to train Iraqi forces in the future. That same month, the Obama administration won congressional approval to divert funds earmarked for counterterrorism aid for Pakistan to a new proxy project in Libya."
SNIP
"Earlier this month, the New York Times reported that the U.S. military had secretly sent a new task force to Jordan to assist local troops in responding to the civil war in neighboring Syria. Only days later, that paper revealed that recent U.S. efforts to train and assist surrogate forces for Honduras’s drug war were already crumbling amid a spiral of questions about the deaths of innocents, violations of international law, and suspected human rights abuses by Honduran allies."
SNIP
" Rumors now regularly bubble up about a possible U.S.-funded proxy war on the horizon in Northern Mali where al-Qaeda-linked Islamists have taken over vast stretches of territory -- yet another direct result of last year’s intervention in Libya.
And these were just the offshore efforts that made it into the news. Many other U.S. military actions abroad remain largely below the radar. Several weeks ago, for instance, U.S. personnel were quietly deployed to Burundi to carry out training efforts in that small, landlocked, desperately poor East African nation. Another contingent of U.S. Army and Air Force trainers headed to the similarly landlocked and poor West African nation of Burkina Faso to instruct indigenous forces."
SNIP
"At Camp Arifjan, an American base in Kuwait, U.S. and local troops donned gas masks and protective suits to conduct joint chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear training. In Guatemala, 200 Marines from Detachment Martillo completed a months-long deployment to assist indigenous naval forces and law enforcement agencies in drug interdiction efforts.
Across the globe, in the forbidding tropical forests of the Philippines, Marines joined elite Filipino troops to train for combat operations in jungle environments and to help enhance their skills as snipers. Marines from both nations also leapt from airplanes, 10,000 feet above the island archipelago, in an effort to further the “interoperability” of their forces.
Meanwhile, in the Southeast Asian nation of Timor-Leste, Marines trained embassy guards and military police in crippling “compliance techniques” like pain holds and pressure point manipulation, as well as soldiers in jungle warfare as part of Exercise Crocodilo 2012."
SNIP
"But when you consider how the Pentagon really operates, such war-gaming undoubtedly has an absurdist quality to it. After all, global threats turn out to come in every size imaginable, from fringe Islamic movements in Africa to Mexican drug gangs. How exactly they truly threaten U.S. “national security” is often unclear -- beyond some White House adviser’s or general’s say-so. And whatever alternatives come up in such Quantico seminars, the “sensible” response invariably turns out to be sending in the Marines, or the SEALs, or the drones, or some local proxies. In truth, there is no need to spend a day shuffling around a giant map in blue booties to figure it all out.
In one way or another, the U.S. military is now involved with most of the nations on Earth. Its soldiers, commandos, trainers, base builders, drone jockeys, spies, and arms dealers, as well as associated hired guns and corporate contractors, can now be found just about everywhere on the planet. The sun never sets on American troops conducting operations, training allies, arming surrogates, schooling its own personnel, purchasing new weapons and equipment, developing fresh doctrine, implementing novel tactics, and refining their martial arts. The U.S. has submarines trolling the briny deep and aircraft carrier task forces traversing the oceans and seas, robotic drones flying constant missions and manned aircraft patrolling the skies, while above them, spy satellites circle, peering down on friend and foe alike."
SNIP
"Since 2001, the U.S. military has thrown everything in its arsenal, short of nuclear weapons, including untold billions of dollars in weaponry, technology, bribes, you name it, at a remarkably weak set of enemies -- relatively small groups of poorly-armed fighters in impoverished nations like Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, and Yemen -- while decisively defeating none of them."
SNIP
"At the same time, it has managed to paint weak regional forces like Somalia’s al-Shabaab as transnational threats, then focus its resources on eradicating them, only to fail at the task. It has thrown millions of dollars in personnel, equipment, aid, and recently even troops into the task of eradicating low-level drug runners (as well as the major drug cartels), without putting a dent in the northward flow of narcotics to America’s cities and suburbs.
It spends billions on intelligence only to routinely find itself in the dark. It destroyed the regime of an Iraqi dictator and occupied his country, only to be fought to a standstill by ill-armed, ill-organized insurgencies there, then out-maneuvered by the allies it had helped put in power, and unceremoniously bounced from the country (even if it is now beginning to claw its way back in). It spends untold millions of dollars to train and equip elite Navy SEALs to take on poor, untrained, lightly-armed adversaries, like gun-toting Somali pirates."
SNIP
"And that isn’t the half of it.
The U.S. military devours money and yet delivers little in the way of victories."
SNIP
American politicians never tire of extolling the virtues of the U.S. military, which is now commonly hailed as “the finest fighting force in the history of the world.” This claim appears grotesquely at odds with reality. Aside from triumphs over such non-powers as the tiny Caribbean island of Grenada and the small Central American nation of Panama, the U.S. military’s record since World War II has been a litanyof disappointments: stalemate in Korea, outright defeat in Vietnam, failures in Laos and Cambodia, debacles in Lebanon and Somalia, two wars against Iraq (both ending without victory), more than a decade of wheel-spinning in Afghanistan, and so on."
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Comments
They don’t care about you at all… at all… AT ALL. And nobody seems to notice. Nobody seems to care. Thats what the owners count on. The fact that Americans will probably remain willfully ignorant of the big red, white and blue dick thats being jammed up their assholes everyday, because the owners of this country know the truth.
It's called the American Dream,because you have to be asleep to believe it."
Eurasia waits in the wings.
Thanks for the visit, Herr, thanks for being the first to comment, and thanks for bringing Orwell with You.
No wonder our troops are committing suicide or becoming deranged with profound and complex-PTSD, those who survive physical maiming.
You know you can't turn on the American tube without seeing horror and violence in its most popular tv shows. I wonder how much this is velocitizing citizens to the faux-romance of thriller intrigue and adrenalin violence and authoritarian righteousness vs. those eccentric and dangerous marginalized dissenters whether in the US or in other countries! Desensitizing and separating viewers from the experience of empathy and analytical nuance.
From another angle, I remember reading how when JFK became prez and he was so suddenly bullied by the patriarchal war-mongering cronies around him -- undoubtedly Obama totally caved to them if he had any integrity within him left at that point which is still an open question -- but JFK called in his bro RFK who helped him fight the incredible macho group-think bearing down on him. Already to have climbed to the rung a president has, the compromising of values must have been incredible and that was then. Imagine now.
Our tax dollars have gone to build the most insanely cruel and "efficient" deadly weapons. Our horrifying and denying of respect for (gross understatement) human rights by our military as M.O. against innocent foreign citizens. Kicking in doors and terrorizing and rendering innocent people and torturing them. Obama and CIA and whoever drone people and they call it strategic and surgical (bullshit) someone in Nevada or wherever and dropping "bug splats" on a screen which means killing what the prime minister of Pakistan declares as 80% innocent civilians which he should know!
And what really is creepy is that after drones drop their excruciating deaths, they return in a number of minutes to drop their excruciating deaths on Good Samaritans rushing in to help the innocent victims. how does obama get to call this surgical without being called out on killing innocent people -- proactive and humanitarian people -- the most decent of civilians. This craven M.O. of killing Samaritans was shared with the US by Israel. That is how THEY do it. I understand now NYC police are being sent to Israel for training now. Dear God!
So much to say, Mark! Thanks for posting this!
best, libby
"undoubtedly Obama totally caved to them if he had any integrity within him left at that point which is still an open question
obama's initial cabinet appointments and immediate decision to put the past behind concerning torture by the previous administration convinces me he entered the office from day 1 with NO integrity, nor intention to deliver on his campaign promises, which is why I refer to him as the liar-in-chief.
I think JFK, profoundly affected by the war-time loss of his elder brother was inclined to avoid disaster in Vietnam, but as You point out, RFK was a major influencer in reassuring JFK that his instincts were correct.
There are many who believe that JFK was about to pull the plug on any further "advisers" in Vietnam, and that this belief may have led to the tragedy in Dallas.
I think You know that I strongly believe that the linkage between television and violence, both in the states and abroad is indisputable. Furthermore, although the last time I played a video game, it was called "Pong," I believe and was a benign version of ping-pong, but from what I see in the "news" the most popular games young folks are playing now, are similarly imbued with violence (not to mention misogyny, too). ALL a subtle form of brainwashing.
The NYC Police force is run amuck. I doubt mr. willfully ignorant, fRANK would be aware that only miles from his home, a cadre of NYC officers were spying on Islamic activities at the university. This is patently illegal. I don't get how our resident idiots for obama can justify such rarely mentioned activities. Willfully ignorant is presupposing that obama doesn't know about these things.
Yes, we have so much in common with the israelis when it comes to slaughtering the samaritans too, which I've made the only half facetious statement that with israel so far away, why not move them to a more natural home in Williamsburg.
I'm sure You'd just love that, eh Libby?
A complete response to a Libby comment would require a blog post, so I hope You don't mind me, simply thanking You for the added insights You add to the post, as always.
Heavens to Betsy, You DO bring so much to the table, and bless You for that.
Where's Jan? Want him to hear about this latest!
If you really want your hair to stand on end, read Glenn Greenwald today on a just released Washington Post revelation about Obama's "disposition matrix". all I could think of was IBM colluding with the Nazis to keep statistical track for oppression and annihilation.
Try to "lesser evil" that, America!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/oct/24/obama-terrorism-kill-list
sorry, sky, didn't get time to figure out and apply the link stuff yet.
I will quote some of it:
"Based on interviews with "current and former officials from the White House and the Pentagon, as well as intelligence and counterterrorism agencies", Miller reports that as "the United States' conventional wars are winding down", the Obama administration "expects to continue adding names to kill or capture lists for years" (the "capture" part of that list is little more than symbolic, as the US focus is overwhelmingly on the "kill" part). Specifically, "among senior Obama administration officials, there is broad consensus that such operations are likely to be extended at least another decade." As Miller puts it: "That timeline suggests that the United States has reached only the midpoint of what was once known as the global war on terrorism."
"In pursuit of this goal, "White House counterterrorism adviser John O Brennan is seeking to codify the administration's approach to generating capture/kill lists, part of a broader effort to guide future administrations through the counterterrorism processes that Obama has embraced." All of this, writes Miller, demonstrates "the extent to which Obama has institutionalized the highly classified practice of targeted killing, transforming ad-hoc elements into a counterterrorism infrastructure capable of sustaining a seemingly permanent war."
"The Post article cites numerous recent developments reflecting this Obama effort, including the fact that "CIA Director David H Petraeus is pushing for an expansion of the agency's fleet of armed drones", which "reflects the agency's transformation into a paramilitary force, and makes clear that it does not intend to dismantle its drone program and return to its pre-September 11 focus on gathering intelligence." The article also describes rapid expansion of commando operations by the US Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) and, perhaps most disturbingly, the creation of a permanent bureaucratic infrastructure to allow the president to assassinate at will:
"JSOC also has established a secret targeting center across the Potomac River from Washington, current and former U.S. officials said. The elite command's targeting cells have traditionally been located near the front lines of its missions, including in Iraq and Afghanistan. But JSOC created a 'national capital region' task force that is a 15-minute commute from the White House so it could be more directly involved in deliberations about al-Qaeda lists."
"The creepiest aspect of this development is the christening of a new Orwellian euphemism for due-process-free presidential assassinations: "disposition matrix". Writes Miller:
"Over the past two years, the Obama administration has been secretly developing a new blueprint for pursuing terrorists, a next-generation targeting list called the 'disposition matrix'.
"The matrix contains the names of terrorism suspects arrayed against an accounting of the resources being marshaled to track them down, including sealed indictments and clandestine operations. US officials said the database is designed to go beyond existing kill lists, mapping plans for the 'disposition' of suspects beyond the reach of American drones."
"The "disposition matrix" has been developed and will be overseen by the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC). One of its purposes is "to augment" the "separate but overlapping kill lists" maintained by the CIA and the Pentagon: to serve, in other words, as the centralized clearinghouse for determining who will be executed without due process based upon how one fits into the executive branch's "matrix". As Miller describes it, it is "a single, continually evolving database" which includes "biographies, locations, known associates and affiliated organizations" as well as "strategies for taking targets down, including extradition requests, capture operations and drone patrols". This analytical system that determines people's "disposition" will undoubtedly be kept completely secret; Marcy Wheeler sardonically said that she was "looking forward to the government's arguments explaining why it won't release the disposition matrix to ACLU under FOIA".
"This was all motivated by Obama's refusal to arrest or detain terrorist suspects, and his resulting commitment simply to killing them at will (his will). Miller quotes "a former US counterterrorism official involved in developing the matrix" as explaining the impetus behind the program this way: "We had a disposition problem.""
end of quote
I don't know about you but I am getting chills and the term "final solution" is suddenly haunting me.
And the apologizing apostles of the American Judas are marching us all there, to the exponentially expanding kill and detention lists.
I wish I were being hyperbolic, but the obama regime defies that.
God, he even calls it the "matrix"!
best, libby
He offered to teach me how to insert links in comments and I was explaining to him that I haven't had time to use his kind instructions yet just in case he dropped by here and shook his head at me! best, libby
anyway, I am freaking over greenwald's disclosures.
now my turn to step away. later my friend! be back soon I hope.
best, libby
Sky is my friend - in fact a friend in long, long standing; however I am NOT Sky; furthermore Sky is not me. I know we look similar, but I used to live in america - he lives in Canada. I've visited there, often. I LOVED each and every visit, but I've not had the good fortune of living there.
Until and if Sky chooses to adopt me as his half-breed brother, I will be forced to remain captive on this island with no-one to talk to - Boo-Hoo. (Makes sharp left turn and goes weeping into the far FAR Left corner of the room. [right is wrong {wrong wrong WRONG} - left IS best.])
Thanks for all that You are and all that You do even if You can't keep Your Skys and marks straight.
Can You believe these blood-thirsty cretins for obama???
PS - Sorry for late response - had to run to the bank for a couple spare Yen.
It has been said, by someone obviously much wiser than I, that "the best way to keep the slaves happy is to convince them that they are free." The American people (Canadian too) have been convinced that their choice of ruling party/leader guarantees that they live in a democracy. To be comfortable in their own skin they MUST believe this.
But this implies that what their government does is done with their approval - in effect, done by them. Now this is unfortunate because most citizens of our countries are fine decent people. They KNOW that they would never do the things you mention. That leads them to BELIEVE that their government would never do so either.
We are taught, almost from birth, and with varying degrees of subtlety, to choose belief over reason or facts. Religion plays a big part in this brainwashing. But no matter where it originates, it is incredibly effective. Our citizens simply ignore the facts, such a those presented here and elsewhere, and don't believe such things are really happening. Those few who do accept the truth of expose's such as this, are often of a mind-set where they see this as a 'good' thing and in line with their thought that America ought to rule the world; by whatever means necessary.
All in all, this results in an apparently apathetic population. I don't think that they are as apathetic as they seem. They are, however, conditioned to go into a state of stupor when the facts are presented to them. They just become paralyzed mentally. They hit 'delete' and then 'shut down.'
It is not that they want to be sheeple - it's that they cannot be anything else. Those few who have escaped this conditioning have difficulty understanding this process. It didn't effect us so how can it have such a profound effect on our fellow citizens?
This is our challenge. To awaken others. To counter that deep, deep conditioning so that they may face the truth about what is happening.
I don't know about you, but I, for one, haven't a clue as to how to go about this. I wish I did.
Great post. Rated.
;-)
.
As You note in Your first paragraph, the idea that america is still a democracy is laughable to any one with half a mind. This leaves out fRANK, who even with kosh's embedded conscience doesn't quite make the cut. An integral part of Merriam Webster's definition of democracy
says: "a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people"
Anyone foolish enough to think the supreme power is vested in the people and not corporate interest and the Dept. of "Defense" needs intensive psychiatric care.
Although I understand Your pint in the second paragraph, I must ask how "most citizens of our countries are fine decent people" could even contemplate re-electing an indisputable war criminal and destroyer on Constitutional guarantees to a second term, but I'll have to yield that my question is strictly rhetorical, as some of the "sharpest minds" on open sewer seem to be advocating just that.
I guess I jumped the gun a bit as Your subsequent paragraph addresses the question, and posits that they're brainwashed, much like the even more "fine" citizens of Japan, where the insidious process of teaching all to believe it is egregious to speak out against the perceived common good. They even have coined, or I should say authority has coined an expression that the majority strictly follow, that being, "the nail that sticks up will be hammered down."
Neat, hey - in essence it says if we rob of your pensions, demand you work overtime with no additional compensation, and force you to suffer any number of additional indignities, you should just shut up and be grateful that "we" have deigned to even let you work.
Yes, Sky apathetic is what it is, and shut down and denial is the way most choose to deal with it.
"State of stupor," "paralyzed mentally" phrases of a GREAT writer and teacher. I hope You Do know that from early on I considered You with the respect one should have for a teacher.
This single comment post should be dragged in front of all members of open sewer and memorization of each word be a requirement to join. Please trust me - I am NOT joking nor attempting to gratuitously flatter You - I believe the words contain so many pearls of wisdom that comprehension if mandatory would be a great step in dealing with the myriad problems facing the country and world..
Thanks for Your affirmative words regarding the post, and like You, I have no answers, regardless of my comments regarding memorizing the words of Your pithy comment, as rote memorization has been shown to be an abysmal path to true understanding.
Thank YOU for taking the time to craf bsuch an outstanding comment, my Friend.
How embarrassing!!
If they didn't have enemies they would create them; wait that is what they already did.
It's a shame that we are preaching to the choir, as the romney's gonna eat your baby crowd rarely if ever ever visits our sites. They live in their self-imposed bubble.
Reading Nick Turse, how much worse can romney make things. Maybe he can invent new countries and invade them.
obama has the market pretty much covered as to existent countries to rape and pillage.
As they sow, so shall they reap; and my conscience is totally clear, voting for Jill Stein.
Ahhhh, what's the use, they don't want their bubbles pricked, but I will nevertheless fight for their freedom to remain willfully ignorant 'til kingdom come (which by the way, lurks right around the corner).
It is a free country after all isn't it? rotflmao at the words "free country" coming from my lips. I must be channeling fRANK apisa and his kosh conscience implanted brain.
Thanks for the memories, my Friend, ZachD
I have been reading a number of Constitutional historians recently, and it seems the US experiment was all about empire back in the 1780s when they first wrote the Constitution. In fact that was part of the reason they wanted to solidify the 13 states, so they could raise troops to "occupy" all the land to the west of the Appalachians (i.e. to seize it from the indigenous people it belonged to). Most of our founding fathers wrote openly about this. Even when when they reached the Pacific in the 19th century, it wasn't enough and they had to blow up the Maine as a pretext to start a war with Spain (and win control over Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines).
I don't know how you feel, but I hate being lied to. I've been lied to ever since I was in grade school and they keep feeding me this bullshit about democracy, liberty and justice. I guess that's the main reason I feel so angry about all the lies and deception.
Before I respond to Your comment, I have a REALLY important question to ask You. Is this Your favorite error message:
"Lots of errors occurred!
An error occurred, then the error handler crashed while trying to handle the error. Whoops!
Here are the details of the original error:
SELECT c.content_id, c.author_id as user_id, title, open.get_public_name(c.author_id) as public_name, (select picture from open.users where user_id=c.author_id) as picture FROM open.contents c INNER JOIN (SELECT author_id, MAX(changed) as changed FROM open.contents WHERE author_id IN (SELECT relation_id FROM open.relations WHERE user_id='24381') AND type=1 AND is_active=1 GROUP BY author_id order by changed desc limit 10) q1 on (c.author_id=q1.author_id and c.changed=q1.changed) AND c.type=1 AND is_active=1 LIMIT '8' [nativecode=FATAL: terminating connection due to administrator command server closed the connection unexpectedly This probably means the server terminated abnormally before or while processing the request.]
#0 /var/www/html/open.salon.com/urlPalau/web/BetaBlockModules/OSProfileFriendsPostsModule/OSProfileFriendsPostsModule.php(69): Dal::query('SELECT c.conten...', Array)
#1 /var/www/html/open.salon.com/urlPalau/web/BetaBlockModules/OSProfileFriendsPostsModule/OSProfileFriendsPostsModule.php(18): OSProfileFriendsPostsView::getFriendsPosts(24381)
#2 /var/www/html/open.salon.com/urlPalau/api/PageRenderer/PageRenderer.php(366): OSProfileFriendsPostsModule->render()
#3 /var/www/html/open.salon.com/urlPalau/web/content.php(385): PageRenderer->__construct('setup_module', 12, 'Paul Craig Robe...', 'opensalon_three...', 'os_header.tpl', 'public', 'Homepage', Object(stdClass), '', Array)
#4 {main}
Here are the details of the second error:
SELECT R.relation_id FROM salon.open.relations R, salon.open.users U WHERE R.user_id = '24381' AND R.relation_id > 0 AND R.relation_id=U.user_id AND U.is_active0 GROUP BY R.relation_id [nativecode=FATAL: terminating connection due to administrator command server closed the connection unexpectedly This probably means the server terminated abnormally before or while processing the request.]
#0 /var/www/html/open.salon.com/urlPalau/api/Relation/Relation.php(122): Dal::query('SELECT R.relati...', Array)
#1 /var/www/html/open.salon.com/urlPalau/web/includes/classes/Navigation.php(704): Relation::get_relations(24381, false)
#2 /var/www/html/open.salon.com/urlPalau/api/PageRenderer/PageRenderer.php(116): Navigation->get_links()
#3 /var/www/html/open.salon.com/urlPalau/web/includes/functions/html_generate.php(157): PageRenderer->__construct(NULL, NULL, 'Error 100: SELE...', 'opensalon_three...', 'os_header.tpl')
#4 [internal function]: exception_handler(Object(PAException))
#5 {main}"
or do You like this shorter one better:
"Lots of errors occurred!
An error occurred, then the error handler crashed while trying to handle the error. Whoops!
Here are the details of the original error:
select count(*) as cnt from salon.open.users where is_active=1 [nativecode=server closed the connection unexpectedly This probably means the server terminated abnormally before or while processing the request.]
#0 /var/www/html/open.salon.com/urlPalau/api/User/User.php(2054): Dal::query('select count(*)...')
#1 /var/www/html/open.salon.com/urlPalau/web/includes/functions/html_generate.php(333): User::get_member_count()
#2 /var/www/html/open.salon.com/urlPalau/web/Themes/OpenSalon/os_header.tpl(6): mothership_info()
#3 /var/www/html/open.salon.com/urlPalau/api/Theme/Template.php(43): include('/var/www/html/o...')
#4 /var/www/html/open.salon.com/urlPalau/api/Theme/Template.php(23): Template->fetch()
#5 /var/www/html/open.salon.com/urlPalau/api/PageRenderer/PageRenderer.php(784): Template->set('header', Object(Template))
#6 /var/www/html/open.salon.com/urlPalau/web/content_management.php(157): PageRenderer->render()
#7 {main}
Here are the details of the second error:
SELECT R.relation_id FROM salon.open.relations R, salon.open.users U WHERE R.user_id = '24381' AND R.relation_id > 0 AND R.relation_id=U.user_id AND U.is_active0 GROUP BY R.relation_id [nativecode=server closed the connection unexpectedly This probably means the server terminated abnormally before or while processing the request.]
#0 /var/www/html/open.salon.com/urlPalau/api/Relation/Relation.php(122): Dal::query('SELECT R.relati...', Array)
#1 /var/www/html/open.salon.com/urlPalau/web/includes/classes/Navigation.php(704): Relation::get_relations(24381, false)
#2 /var/www/html/open.salon.com/urlPalau/api/PageRenderer/PageRenderer.php(116): Navigation->get_links()
#3 /var/www/html/open.salon.com/urlPalau/web/includes/functions/html_generate.php(157): PageRenderer->__construct(NULL, NULL, 'Error 100: sele...', 'opensalon_three...', 'os_header.tpl')
#4 [internal function]: exception_handler(Object(PAException))
#5 {main}"
If not could You kindly take the time, the next time it takes You 24 hours to get in, to come on back and tell me which of the others is Your favorite. I mean, in all seriousness, what's 24 hours in Your life compared to the privilege of offering a comment here at open sewer?
If enough people vote on what is there favorite error message, perhaps I could send a message to Jacob, and he could endeavor to install some consistency to that aspect of the site. One small step for open saloon, a giant one for woman/man-kind!
"A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step."
Now that I've dispensed with the REALLY important questions, let me attempt to address You r comment, but first I MUST pray that the server doesn't eat my response.
yada yada, fRANK bing bong alonga sama sama do.
It seems to me that Howard Zinn, may he r.i.p. said much the same in a "A People's History of the United States," a book many of the mongolian hordes who have hijacked the remnants of this place would do well in reading.
I think smallpox laden blankets gave some hint of the "benevolent" intentions of those who "discovered" a land, a land that was already inhabited. A tortured (so to speak) misuse of the word "discover."
Blow up the Maine as an excuse for war. My Dear Dr., I must ask have You been reading fairy tales again. american exceptionalism would NEVER allow for such chicanery. The Gulf of Tonkin "incident is inscribed in Grimm's (pun intended) Fairy Tales.
Sorry Dr., but I MUST take exception to Your comment about being lied to. I LOVE being lied to. Why else would I read so much of the horsesh*t posted, here in this ever-devolving site?
The deception is by design, designed so others may be unable to distinguish up from down, north from south, open from closed, republican't from dumbocrat, etc. and have no clue who they're voting for, nor why.
Thank goodness You are one of the few who have NOT succumbed to all the lies and deceptions.
Thanks for the ALWAYS substantive visit, Dr.