Posted on 09/20/2008 5:02:20 AM PDT by SilvieWaldorfMD
As part of our special investigation "Mission Creep: US Military Presence Worldwide," we asked a host of military thinkers to contribute their two cents on topics relating to global Pentagon strategy. (You can access the archive here.)
The following dispatch comes from Katherine T. McCaffrey, an assistant professor of anthropology at Montclair State University in New Jersey and author of "Military Power and Popular Protest: The US Navy in Vieques, Puerto Rico".
I guess astronomical unemployment is better than a stable employer in some of these libs' twisted minds.... I'd rather have a military base in my neighborhood than rampant deterioration and subsequent mental health issues with the population.
ping
Yep, an assistant professor of anthropology is certainly a real expert on the U.S. Navy and American defense policy...
While in the Marines, I was on a Carib cruise and “did my time” at Camp Garcia on Vieques. They can have it.
Why is this news?
The US has had the Navy stationed in Vieques for at least 30 years. It is in Puerto Rico but not on the Mainland. It lies between PR and St. Thomas, USVI.
Puerto Rico and the territories get millions of dollars in aid from the US. They have an elected Representative in Congress and get all the benefits of a US citizens without the tax burdon.
No difference, IMHO, than Parrish Island.
This chick needs to understand and respect the United States Military!
BTW she know about the Naval Base in Key West?
This woman is neither smart nor chick....
Obviously misguided , ill informed, but yet thinks she has an audience and something important to say.
She should review her statements about the US having the largest military in the history of the planet to fight and preserve freedom, and then her parallel argument of violation of freedom and rights by jailing the offenders of the common man. Perhaps she should contemplate being raped and then having the violator walking free to perpetuate the same act. Perhaps she should contemplate a world in constant upheaval where resources nor stability would not allow her children school, roads, nor any of the other societal infrastructure .......nor business to build, plan and create jobs for herself, her husband and her audience.
nothing like a fool with a pen
WTF?? Flawed premise=flawed argument and BOY, is this argument flawed.
I challenge this bimbo to name (title section and paragraph) ONE TIME the United States military passed a law hiking taxes, banning guns, banning smoking, making any crime by a white male into a hate crime, etc. Gimme ONE example (besides Waco under a democrat president) of the US military interfering with the civil liberties of US citizens.
The "anthropologist" she cites better get off his lazy bum and stop using the NY Times en lieu of research material. He's not using hard, vetted data, he's using leftist talking points dating back to the Russian backed leftists of the Viet Nam war. There is NO ROOM in real science for political ideologues. It's the cold, hard FACTS that matter.
Let us not lose sight of who published this article. Mother Jones? Yeah. It is like referencing Rolling Stone or the NYT for anything relating to the military.
I went down to Rosie Roads once on the USS FDR...that ship was in pretty lousy shape back in the Seventies...I think it was the first one of that class to be decommissioned.
And worse, she's a fool with a pen, claiming to be a scientist.
Oh, what a puke! Everyone I've ever talked to that lived near a base was proud of it.
I was the last military craftmaster of the Vieques Ferry.
This protest movement was just like all the other leftwing protest movements: Morons up front marching for peace, justice, and all that happy horse####.
The puppetmasters had another agenda entirely. I always figured it was developers wanting to get their hands on the portions of the island held by the Navy - think miles of unspoiled beach near some really good dive sites.
They feel safer, and their local economy is sure improved with the addition of all those US dollars.
If they were looking for a spot to give the Earth an enema, Vieques would be a prime candidate. Of such are my Navy memories.
Choice A. Camp LeJeune in January, cold, wet, clammy, gray, average temp 40. Nothing to do except dust the equipment and turn out for PT every morning. And the Corps is not a big fan of this indoor heating thing.
Choice B. Camp Garcia from January to March. Sun, sandy beaches, snorkling, tropic breezes, the place was so laid back that the movie theater in town had a broken projector for two years and no one really cared. Average temp 75.
Boy, that was a tough call... I suppose it depends on your frame of reference...
Unreal. I can't believe this woman wrote these words. So, that means that the person who killed his entire family or who is a major drug dealer, whom are serving life w/o parole in prison are being denied "their freedoms at home"? This is the same woman who, if hypothetically gets gang-raped in a big city and lives to tell her story, she'd probably be the first one to blame the govt. for the social decay and moral deterioration in the lives of the men who raped and nearly killed her.
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