Military Nesties
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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
2 Interesting things I encountered on my way home
1. At the gas station a young mom pulled up next to me, got out of her car, left her infant ( who looked to be no more than 6 months old) in the car with her keys in the car and walked into the store. I sat there for a few minutes and watched the baby because I was freaking out that someone was going to take him. Its a sketchy area so I wanted to watch out for him.
2. I leave the gas station and pull out behind a small car. They had a futon in the box on top of the car with no straps holding it down. AT ALL.
What interesting things have you seen or heard today?
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Re: 2 Interesting things I encountered on my way home
!! That irritates me as much as the pregnant lady I saw smoking a few weeks ago. I damn near popped a vein raging. It's okay not to be a helicopter parent, but don't go asking for trouble either.
I totally agree.
With the fact that its weird that things in other countries are far more important to the military than what is going on here.
Honestly, I can't answer this in an eloquent manner. I'm not sure what the military should be doing here. I'm sure that our government needs to work on the problems with poverty here and unemployment rates, and about 10 million other things. And yes that's not the military.
I'm sure I don't have the answer your looking for.
Focusing more on the border control problem with Mexico. i.e. one of my best friends if from south Texas and one of her hs friends was held up at gun point by the Mexican cartel for her mercedes. She's considered lucky because she wasn't kidnapped, taken across the border, and ransomed for money. Meanwhile, Obama likes to pretend that all is dandy.
Photo bomb, yeah!
To add to yours, on Sunday in the next town over (very small towns here) a mother and her boyfriend left there 5 kids in a 2 door car and went into the dollar store. Now you do the math 7 people in a small car and kids all under the age of 6 so not enough carseats or seatbelts. Anyway the 6 year old climbed in the front seat somehow knocking the car out of gear (car was parked with keys left in the car), the little boy got out of the car and the car ran over him. The little boy died. The mother and boyfriend arrested for child endangerment. The mom did not even want to call 911.
Sigh. Yup, the President is waltzing around laughing at your friend as a victim of a crime. Especially since he sent 1200 Guardsmen to the border last year. http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/national-guard-deployment-on-us-mexico-border-has-mixed-results/2011/11/21/gIQAly6qXO_story.html This article says that your friend is in the minority about wanting the border to be militarized. I'm down with giving more funding to the Border Patrol even if it takes higher taxes, rather than supplementing them with Marines.
And you know what bums me out? Rather than make the Red Dawn reference I wanted to, I had to be serious.
Well unfortunately this crime took place this past year, well AFTER Obama sent a few Marines down. I don't really understand why we're focusing on the middle east when the same situation exists in a country that borders the US and regularly results in the deaths of US citizens. I know the government is well aware of the issue seeing as how members of the military aren't even allowed to travel into Mexico.
Photo bomb, yeah!
I highly doubt any Marines are securing the borders of Mexico and the United States.
It is so convenient that people are now complaining about how awful things are here and whining about us being in the ME and SW Asia. I remember how gung ho Americans were to go to Afghanistan and even Iraq. I remember getting flipped off when I stood on the street prior to the invasion of Iraq (so prior to boots on the ground, as I would never protest an active engagement), with a sign showing my disagreement with any invasion of Iraq. When we make the decision to engage our troops in other countries with absolutely no political infrastructure to fill the power vacuum (a la Libya), THIS is what that means. Long engagements, high op tempos, etc. This is why I'm a Truman Liberal. I believe that wars can be an effective means of change, but are useless without things like the Marshall Plan. Wars are expensive, both in terms of money and human capital, and too often Americans don't care. They like their shock and awe. That is the price we pay, and that is why we need to be a lot more careful about how we engage in other countries, otherwise we just run back here when public support wanes, and we push the problem to the next generation. If we had been willing to give just 1% of the financial support to Afghanistan after we gave them millions upon millions to overthrow the Russians, maybe they would not have been a place that provided aid and comfort to Al Qaeda. We leave wrong and we just let that happen again, and again. I wish, just one time in the modern United States, that we would finish what we start, that we as a nation would sacrifice to provide a more stable world. But we won't. We get bored and tired, and we ravaged two countries, and now we just want to walk away. There was no "Let's focus on the problems here" in 2003. The Afghanistan campaign suffered for our side trip to Iraq, and people didn't care until our focus reshifted. My only hope is that the President will not stop funding real and useful infrastructure. I am disappointed in a lot about President Obama, but I am proud of the way he handled Libya, and I believe he is the most judicious Commander in Chief in recent history. He is careful and thoughtful with the lives of the service members under his command, and that is all I ask.
"By a 2-to-1 ratio, Americans favor invading Iraq with U.S. ground troops to remove Saddam Hussein from power. " Benedetto, Richard. "Poll: Most back war, but want U.N. support." USA Today 16 03 2003, n. pag. Web. 11 Jan. 2012. <http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2003-03-16-poll-iraq_x.htm>.
I'm no expert and I'd have to do some digging, but the first thought that comes to mind is posse comitatus. If the military (Title 10) has to take a passive role in civilian law enforcement, it doesn't make much sense for us to be down there and outnumber the civilians in charge. That could be totally off base though.
Sorry Stan, I skim read a little. I'm a bit ADD...ok I'm a lot ADD. I've never been against either of the wars. I just feel like the problems in Mexico should be acknowledged a little more because with drug lords essentially ruling that country, it makes people uneasy. It's not like the cartel has ANY problems getting into the US when they please.
With that being said, border control monitors the border because that is their purpose. However I think they might need some more people or training. It could clearly be improved. Military shouldn't act as border control but I hope that they would step in if things get too out of hand.
Photo bomb, yeah!
When the majority of illegal immigrants in this country are people overstaying a legal visa, I'm not going to get all pissed off about Mexico.
How about we look at our ridiculous war on drugs and how that relates to the rise of cartels?
For weird, well, I live in Waikiki. Weird is daily. I met with a friend today to drink coffee and people watch, judging the weirdass tourists.