Note - from June 24th 2009, this blog has migrated from Blogger to a self-hosted version. Click here to go straight there.
"The wealthy and well-educated have been able to escape the burden of defending the nation. And the responsibility has fallen disproportionately upon the poor, the uneducated, and the nation's minorities. Such a condition constitutes a stain on one of the world's great democracies. It also disproportionately distributes the burden of death when it is time to do battle."
Maj. Gen. Richard Gabriel, "Military Incompetence"
I've only got one beef with that quote: namely that US forces have never been used "defebnding the nation". Never ever. They are an attack force, like the Roman Legions, and always have been.
The Phillippines, WWI, WWII, Korea, VietNam, Somalia, Iraq I, Iraq II... show me one instance where the continental US has been under threat. War of 1812? Maybe.
And one more thing: referring to the AIPAC/PNAC/JINSA Israel-Firsters that constitute the Neo-Conmen as "Vulcans"... someon should put a stop to it. It is pathetic and was obviously done to improve their reputation, not to diminish it. It's almost as bad as referring to them as "conservative" - they are just old-fashioned Trots.
Vulcans - in the US-centric, non-mythological form - are a species from Star Trek, who have entirely transcended emotions and who are the ultimate in humanoid logic machines, processing data without any emotional attachment to the results. You know the type - Spock was one.
To pretend that Wolfowitz, Perle, Ledeen, Libby, Cheney et al are walking logic machines is simply stupid: to pretend that any of them remotely resembles a genius is vile and sycophantic (but US journalists are nothing if not celebrity-struck).
Want a more apposite species from Star Trek to use as the model? (Don't even THINK "Klingon" - the Klingon are warriors, not desk-bound wankers).
No, it's the Ferengi - hands down. Perle and Wolfowitz even look like Ferengi.
The only problem with this analogy is that the Ferengi society is "...founded on the principles of capitalism and chauvinism combined. Though reasonably advanced in technology, they live for the accumulation of profit, whatever the means of acquiring it."
Close (particularly for Cheney), but... no mention of Israel... that's the only area where the comparison fails.
