Don't worry, you can trust me. I'm not like the others.

Banned In China

Thursday, November 27, 2008

Happy Thanksgiving


So my brother came home from Iraq and we went out to dinner and he gave us a little "slide" show on his really nice Apple computer. Okay, okay, I won't bet bitter I expect to get mine back I really do and I promise not to mess with it myself ever again.

At any rate there were a couple of things he told us that have got me thinking and not in a good way.

First, he was showing pictures of Saddam's big palaces and the one with this huge room that was used as some sort of gathering room. It is a room where one sees troops re-upping in mass. But he also said that they have mass numbers of American troops taking the oath of allegiance. That is these folks were not citizens when they joined, but became citizens at least partially by serving in our military. Boy does that sound a lot like Rome at the end or what?

The second is that there are a lot people from all over the world serving there, but they are not doing it for any kind of altruistic reason. Not that they should of course. But they are hired on as guards and such by one or the other of these contractors (I feel that I should put contractor in quotes, but I guess that isn't necessary).

Here is the thing though, these guards or whatever are from third world countries and they are paid a king's ransom according to the income in their countries, but a pittance compared to what Americans are paid. So you have a very two or maybe three tiered system:

First Tier: American and European contractors;

Second Tier: American and European soldiers;

Third Tier: Third World contractors.

I guess this is what a colonial power does.

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