+1 to dickcheney
(geez I can't believe I'm posting this given your horrifying namesake)
I have this friend, and altho he's a bit nuts, he's definitely not stupid. He went to yale and went to military language school to learn arabic, and went on to the Gulf War... did intel work there and has since had some odd feelings as 10yrs later he saw his intel being used to hang Sadaam... til then I don't suppose he really saw blood on his hands -- direct witness to killing from his work, or perhaps he just never thought anything would ever come of his seemingly irrelevant intel work on obscure info that was loosely related to a town where Sadaam used chemical weapons). Anyway, the military is def. not run by morons, and just like any gig, there as many reasons to join as there are people that join the military. As to "military intelligence"... well... I think Dr. Strangelove is one satire based on a truth. And while this war was a shitty decision from day one and downhill from there... here we are today and dealing with gas prices is probly a smaller issue rather than other things we should be concerned about, like, let's say a war whose cost is a loan much bigger than everyone's ARM. Much bigger... nuff said there.

oh but SalManella.. (btw, love the handle) about gasoline... and $3/gallon. I suppose I'm fairly liberal, so, I'll bite...
Not to simplify too much, but the reason why you're paying $3/gallon and more is because you and me and just about everyone else in the US is apparently quite willing to pay that price. If you want the price to come down, I suppose one way might be to stop buying gas until the price comes down. Option 2... government price fixing and/or supply influence. (Altho in a way that may already be in place in a covert manner... and that's why it *is* $3/gallon Option 3... if a bunch of us pitch in together and rent a nice big tanker and we can somehow fill it with gas from say, Saudi A. or Venezuela, or another place where gas price is fixed by the gov., maybe we could get a sweet deal together that would carry us for 6 months or so. Anyone else in?

and btw... just in case we're not all aware, according to the EIA, the #1 source for US crude oil imports is and has been for the past coupla years (drum roll pls....) CANADA. And as far as I know they are not really an OPEC member... And Mexico (#3 supplier) isn't either. Interestingly, even in it's current state, Iraq is the #7 supplier (providing about a quarter of what Canada supplies). What can we draw from this (assuming the stats are true)? Well, perhaps that OPEC doesn't really dictate our gas prices. Who does? The companies that refine crude and distribute gas in the US would be a good guess. An unregulated commodities market gone batty might be an interesting area to investigate, although I'm no expert on this for sure. And can we say that this is a war for oil? Well, I'm sure there are several reasons why Bush and his administration pulled the trigger... and I'm guessing that a hold on a nice fat oil supply is one of them. Others might include the fact that Bush thinks he's somehow akin to Jesus and he got pissed at Sadam about his dad, or perhaps he was trying to leave his mark on history in some other way than being a bumbling president and consistently failed businessman, and former drunk/drug addict etc. etc. And perhaps he just did it because based on "military intelligence", he could.

EIA stats here:
http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/oil_gas/pe ... ports/current/import.html

it's late and I may regret this post in the AM... and sorry if I'm a bit OT from the West Point/JC topic... to bring it back, I've only lived in JC for a few years, but, I have to say this follow up article has a nice feel to it... makes me happy w/my decision to move here from Brooklyn hipsterland.

DTG wrote:

Quote:

few things:

your time spent in the military is irrelevant to me and this discussion. quite honestly, i wouldn't care if you had spent 12 or 20 years. by the way, did I tell you I was a Research Associate for a Bio/Pharma company?

secondly, i fail to recognize how being liberal/leftist has anything to do with being against the war.

the real question is, "why oh why cadet, are you going to the middle east?"

with any luck, they'll come back WITHOUT a heroine addiction.

with all due respect, if bringing up people's military experience had anything to do with this discussion DTG, I would have said something like this, which would be nothing short of true: "My grandfather served 28 years in the Navy and was highly decorated, and my father served 5........but I still feel no different about the war because of them."

Quote:

Guess I didn't miss something, since you yourself admit that the USMA isn't a part of the Ivy League. I never said it wasn't a good school, but the Ivy League is a specific group of eight schools and eight schools only (MIT and Stanford not being among them).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivy_league

My post was meant to zing the poor journalism of the article quoted in the posts preceding mine, not the USMA.

I'm just relieved that these cadets are observers and that Bush hasn't used them to once again move against the Posse Comitatus Act (in my home, of all places).

In terms of getting into West Point (or other military academies) vs. an Ivy League college one is comparing apples to oranges. For example, it's not true that the type of grades and SAT scores needed to get into West Point are as high as one would need to get into an Ivy. On the other hand, the military academies have a medical and fitness requirement and explicitly factor in leadership skills; unlike the Ivys.

Also, one has to be nominated to the military academies by one's senator, congressperson, or career military parent. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Military_Academy
Such nominations can be open (and competitive) but don't have to be - hey, it's the government - did you think it would make sense?

Quote:

While I agree that Iraq has been a debacle of epic proportions, we should all hope that cadet interaction of this sort helps save lives in the future.

I wish the young men well.



http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/06/nyr ... cadets&st=nyt&oref=slogin


April 6, 2008

For Cadets From West Point, Jersey City Is a Peace Lab

By MANNY FERNANDEZ

JERSEY CITY ? It sounds at first like a student?s worst nightmare: A long field trip to this gritty, gentrifying and altogether unlikely destination.

But by Saturday afternoon, at the end of a three-day cultural adventure, 30 young men and women had seen a side of New Jersey?s second-largest city that few tourists or even locals had ever seen.

They met police officials, politicians and religious leaders. They shunned some of the city?s best hotel rooms with dramatic views of the Manhattan skyline and slept on blankets on the floor of the prayer room of one of the city?s largest mosques. They debated the roots of Middle East tensions with a Muslim scholar over omelets and falafel at breakfast, and then stood next to a rabbi as he went over a sacred, handwritten Torah scroll.

For a future Army officer, it was an excellent way to spend 72 hours.

Cadets at the United States Military Academy at West Point taking a course called Winning the Peace spent Thursday, Friday and Saturday in Jersey City, exploring its varied ethnic communities as part of a cultural immersion field trip. The class is designed to teach cadets not military skills but the more political and social ones they might need when the countries that they are deployed in make the transition from war to peace: the subtle art of coalition-building and the complicated business of understanding and working with those whose language, religion and way of life differ from your own.

The semester-long class is now in its fourth year at West Point, and each year the cadets drive nearly two hours from the campus in Orange County, N.Y., to Jersey City. For many cadets, a number of whom had never been to Jersey City, this year?s trip amounted to a lesson in how big the world really is.

On Thursday, the cadets, dressed sharply in gray uniforms, met members of the Jersey City Police Department and visited an Egyptian Christian church, St. George and St. Shenouda Coptic Orthodox Church on Bergen Avenue. On Friday, they spoke with Jerramiah T. Healy, the mayor of Jersey City, ate lunch with Pakistanis and dinner with Indians. On Saturday, they visited a synagogue, Temple Beth-El, and then, after taking off their shoes, sat in front of the altar at a Hindu temple, Govinda Sanskar Center. And for two days, they were welcomed as overnight guests of the Islamic Center of Jersey City.

?We woke up to the sound of the prayers,? said Cole Moses, 23, a senior. ?That was our alarm clock. It was kind of surreal.?

Alec Moyer, also 23 and a senior, said he learned the importance of relationships and informal meetings, and was surprised and humbled by the openness of his hosts at the mosque. Jared Graham, 22, was struck by the breadth of the cultural diversity in Jersey City.

For some of the cadets, the visit offered a lesson in human rather than military relations. ?Different cultures, but we?re still the same people,? said Alex Smith, 22, a senior.

All 30 cadets on the trip expected to be sent to either Iraq or Afghanistan at some point after graduating. Army Maj. Rebecca Patterson, the instructor, said Jersey City was a real-world classroom where the cadets could learn from its ethnic cohesion. ?We come to Jersey City because it?s a place where 60 languages are spoken,? she said.

Jersey City treats the cadets like visiting dignitaries. On Saturday, the cadets? three vans had a police escort, and the field trip ended with a community lunch under a tent on Newark Avenue, a busy strip of Indian restaurants, beauty salons and shops. A local group, the Cultural Coalition of Jersey City for Winning the Peace, helps coordinate the field trip each year.

Along the way, religious leaders get a cultural education as well. On Saturday, Ahmed Shedeed, the Islamic Center?s president, went with the cadets to the synagogue and the Hindu temple. ?It works both ways,? Mr. Shedeed said.

One of the main reasons the cadets visit Jersey City every year accompanied them throughout the trip: Detective Richard Boggiano of the Jersey City police. Mr. Boggiano?s two sons attended West Point and served in the Army in Iraq, and when Mr. Boggiano learned from one of them about the Winning the Peace class, he lobbied officials at the Military Academy to do the field trips in Jersey City instead of that other, bigger city across the Hudson.

?It?s good for Jersey City because it shows the world that people can live together, that people can get along together,? Mr. Boggiano said.



Home
World U.S. N.Y. / Region Business Technology Science Health Sports Opinion Arts Style Travel Jobs Real Estate Automobiles Back to Top
Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company

a better lesson would be to dump the cadets in the middle of camden. They would learn how to operate in iraq better as military police...

Trp3:

Having served in the Army as a N.C.O for 6 years it is still amazing to me the disdain that Liberal/Leftist like you have for the men and women of our Military.

The West Point Curriculum mass producing killer troglodytes in uniforms.

I hope you find it acceptable !!!!

http://www.dean.usma.edu/departments/default.cfm


DTG



[quote]
trp3 wrote:

hmmm......i guess these brainiacs that decided to join up and go fight in Iraq hadn't majored in......oh, I don't know......History?.......Economics?......Political Science?........

quote]

Quote:

Because the war was a disaster. The assumption was that by overthrowing Saddam Hussein, Iraq would become a peaceful, democratic, America friendly nation that would continue its oil production and the resulting political map would lead to other oil producing states to cease using their cartel to pressure prices. If that sounds ridiculous, it's because it is. But it isn't "liberal democrats" who made that decision.

The resulting chaos in Iraq has reduced its oil production, and the diplomatic unpopularity of the war has prevented the U.S. from being able to exercise any clout in convincing producer states to lower their prices.

In any event, with countries like China and India modernizing, the U.S. isn't the only large country with huge oil demands, and supply can't keep up. So even if the proponents of war were right, they didn't factor in these other considerations.

So don't blame liberal democrats for the fact that your oil is $3.00+ a gallon. Blame the people who got us into this mess in the first place. We will, by the way, most likely be paying even more for gas in the near future.

Joshua

Quote:

that's right.

I still havent gotten a response from the liberal democratsa on this board? I ask again, if this war in Iraq were all about oil, then why the hell am i paying over 3$ a gallon for gas?

So let me get this straight, your buddy went through more chit in Iraq than he did in the states? Thats a bit unbalievable. maybe he was in the rear area? You know where not a fugging thing happens ? UNTILL:!

Things that make ya go, HHHHMMMMMMMM...
My friends son is no Ivy leager, but survived Iraq pretty well.

Born and raised in Jersey City. Up on the Hill for all you old timers.

IN JERSEY CITY: He survived driving through the pot holes. He got hit over the head with a metal pipe( during the day) and survived that after getting retro-grade amnesia. Punched twice by a group of males (also during the day). They call it "knock out " where they dare each other on who's gonna dare to knock the person out cold. They mostly pick older males or any male will do.

IN IRAQ: He survived driving over the pot holes.
A car bomber and mortars.

Yea, maybe this isn't such a bad place after all for training in that respect.

Quote:

I guess you missed something. Although USMA is not part of the Ivy League the kids who go their had their choice of the top schools in the nation. This week I sat through a presentation by a former dean of admissions from Yale who talked about what it takes to get a student into"the top level schools like the Ivies, MIT , West Point or Stanford." That is a direct quote.

If Iraq were about oil then why the hell am i still paying $3 for a gallon of gas? I should be paying .25 cents for a gallon.

Quote:

Hey, anytime West Point wants to send cadets over to fix potholes, run elections and train the cops here is fine by me!

Perhaps what TRP was trying to say was that if they HAD studied those subjects, they wouldn't be joining the military to fight for a barrel of oil.

Wait, this war is about Bin Laden though, right?

trp, you obviously dont understand military reality. do you think people who join the military are just brainless bulletcatchers?

as for History, Economics, and Political Science - you couldn't have chosen three majors that were MORE appropriate for today's world for a young military officer.

today, in Iraq, and Afghanistan, young Captains, company commanders in the infantry are acting as regional liasons, living amongst the population with their soldiers and Marines. That Captain, or Lt, or Gunnery Sgt, or whomever acts as support, and advisor, often with budgets of a few million in cash they are responsible for disbursing in their area of operations. Working with local leaders, both tribal, elected, religious, and ethnic, is they key to success. Why would you not want that soldier to understand history? or economics? or political science?

muslims and christians have been fighting for centuries, muslims - shia versus sunni - have been fighting for centuries... don't you think it's important that the young men and women who will have to deal with that are armed with the proper knowledge to best support development and progress?

First thing those cadets might notice is that none of "highly diverse" population of Muslims, Christians and Jews is trying to kill each other. The article didn't mention that we also have many other religions to, from Buddism and Hinduism to Santeria and Voudon.

Yet, we shop in each other's stores and work for or sell or buy from each businesses. We speak to each other civilly, we get along.

That might be a better lesson to be taken from JC for a lot of people, other than just milk-fed baby-lieutenant-gonnabies.

Yes, we have a few insane people who hate this country. They have built and used bombs and plotted multi-airliner crashes. But they came here with hate and were never open to what we aspire to. They are not, never were and never will be us.

So, welcome cadets. Get of the bus. Walk around. Stop and talk with us. We won't hurt you.

Quote:

hmmm......i guess these brainiacs that decided to join up and go fight in Iraq hadn't majored in......oh, I don't know......History?.......Economics?......Political Science?........

sorry, entirely too opinionated, but not only is their education irrelevant to what they are doing/will be doing, but they are "training" in AMERICA......I fail to recognize the relation to.....say.....BAGHDAD.

Quote:

Well-bred sure, but when did the U.S. Military Academy at West Point join the Ivy League? Or did I miss something?

you beat me to it - here is the full article:

--

West Point cadets train for life in Iraq with weekend in N.J.

By Alexa James
Times Herald-Record
April 03, 2008
WEST POINT ? Army Maj. Rebecca Patterson teaches a class at West Point called "Winning the Peace."

Iraq is the backdrop for nearly every lesson. This war is about more than bullets. It's also opening schools, fixing sewer systems, running elections and training police.

"We're trying to develop them to be flexible, strategically aware soldiers," Patterson said, "to show them the military is only one of many (factions) who play a huge role in winning the peace."

How do you teach all that from a grandiose campus in Highland Falls? You can't take weekend trips to Baghdad.

But you can go to Jersey City, just across the Hudson River from Manhattan. It's no war zone, but it is a challenging urban setting, one with high crime, high poverty and a diverse population that includes large Muslim, Hindu and Jewish communities.

Patterson's cadets are well-bred college kids. Ivy-league all-stars who'll graduate with bachelor's degrees, and also with five-year enlistments as Army officers. Most will see combat soon after commencement.

"They need to understand everything that's happened before they get on the ground," Patterson said.

The cadets leave today for a long weekend in Jersey City. They'll shadow politicians, cops and religious leaders to better understand the coalitions that keep the city on course.

"This is extremely pertinent to what I'm going to be doing in the Army," said junior cadet Kyle Wolfley.

Read the Times Herald-Record Saturday for an in-depth look at the West Point cadets' Jersey City experience.

ajames@th-record.com

http://www.recordonline.com/apps/pbcs ... 03/NEWS/804030323/-1/NEWS

Quote:

Just wonderful. Baghdad is known for corruption, crime, and stagnation. Also, the story's headline speaks volumes about its writer's motive.

West Point sending cadets to NJ for taste of Iraq
4/3/2008, 9:35 a.m. EDT
The Associated Press

WEST POINT, N.Y. (AP) ? Some cadets at the U.S. Military Academy are getting a taste of what Iraq will be like by taking a field trip ? to New Jersey.

Army Maj. Rebecca Patterson says cadets taking her "Winning the Peace" class will spend this weekend in Jersey City, 45 miles south of West Point and across the Hudson River from Manhattan.

Patterson's class provides lessons on opening schools, fixing infrastructure, running elections and training police. She says the course shows cadets that the military is only one factor involved in bringing peace to Iraq.

Jersey City was chosen for its urban setting and diverse population that includes a large Muslim community. Cadets will shadow politicians, police and religious leaders to learn how the city works.