Thursday, October 7, 2010

Army Dreamers

'B. F. P. O'*. [*British Forces Posted Overseas]
Army dreamers.
'Mammy's hero'.
'B. F. P. O'.
'Mammy's hero'.

Our little army boy
Is coming home from B. F. P. O.
I've a bunch of purple flowers
To decorate a mammy's hero.

Mourning in the aerodrome,
The weather warmer, he is colder.
Four men in uniform
To carry home my little soldier.

'What could he do?
Should have been a rock star'.
But he didn't have the money for a guitar.
'What could he do?
Should have been a politician'.
But he never had a proper education.
'What could he do?
Should have been a father'.
But he never even made it to his twenties.
What a waste...
Army dreamers.
Ooh, what a waste of
Army dreamers.

Tears o'er a tin box.
Oh, Jesus Christ, he wasn't to know,
Like a chicken with a fox,
He couldn't win the war with ego.

Give the kid the pick of pips,
And give him all your stripes and ribbons.
Now he's sitting in his hole,
He might as well have buttons and bows.

***
What a waste...
Army dreamers.
Ooh, what a waste...
Army dreamers.

Army Dreamers, Kate Bush

"The mission... is critical to making sure that this place does not again become a training ground and a place that sponsors violence and terrorism that is visited on innocent people around the world, but particularly on innocent Australians." (Prime Minister Julia Gillard honours fallen troops in Afghanistan, Mark Kenny, Herald Sun, 3/10/10)

"Kerry, I'm just going to be upfront about this: foreign policy is not my passion." (Julia Gillard, Gillard on Afghanistan, The 7.30 Report, 5/10/10)

"Taliban representatives and the government of the Afghan President, Hamid Karzai, have begun secret, high-level talks over a negotiated end to the war, Afghan and Arab sources say." (After 9 years of war & the loss of thousands of lives - including 21 Australians - The Taliban finally talk peace, Sydney Morning Herald, 7/10/10)

4 comments:

brian said...

off topic but FYI:

'He also angered Israel by sponsoring an Organization of American States (OAS) resolution last June, condemning the IDF's Gaza Flotilla attack, leaving some analysts to suspect Mossad wanted him ousted and may have been involved in the attempt.

In 2005, Voltairenet.org quoted Alexis Ponce, Ecuador's Permanent Assembly for Human Rights (APDH) speaker, saying:

"The Mossad trained Ecuadorean police in torture techniques between 1986 and 1994. The Israeli secret services gave technical support to the tyranny that stained Ecuador with blood. The police corps received advanced training by Israeli agents to torture and to force those who opposed the tyranny to speak. The Israeli agents transmitted their knowledge about the numerous techniques used to torture people. They are criminals! Hundreds of people disappeared during those dark years."

Mossad agents have long operated in Ecuador, covertly through Israel's Quito embassy and perhaps throughout in the country, like in so many others.

In addition, Israel maintains business ties with Ecuador, having sold 26 Kfir combat planes and reportedly Python-3 air-to-air missiles in 1997. Afterward, its technicians and trainers provided support and perhaps continues to do so. Further, in 2009, Israel's On Track Innovations contracted with Ecuador's Central Registry Office to provide an electronic biometric-based electronic identification card system.
http://www.countercurrents.org/lendman051010.htm

MERC said...

Thanks for digging this up, Brian. Ecuador, or any trouble spot for that matter, had me wondering. In the memorable words (1987) of Israeli scholar Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi, "The extent of Israeli activities in the Third World is baffling and disquieting to both friends and foes of Israel. Looking at the whole picture, and trying to discern an underlying pattern, both may wonder what its strategy really is. Mention any trouble spot in the Third World over the past 10 years, and, inevitably, you will find smiling Israeli officers and shiny Israeli weapons on the news pages. The images have become familiar: the Uzi submachine gun or the Galil assault rifle, with Israeli soldiers named Uzi and Galil, or Golan, for good measure. We have seen them in South Africa, Iran, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Namibia, Taiwan, Indonesia, the Philippines, Chile, Bolivia, and many other places. From Manilla to San Salvador, from Seoul to Tegucigalba, from Walvis Bay to Guatemala City, from Taipei to Port-au-Prince, Israeli civilians and military men have been helping, in their own words, in 'the defense of the West'." And that was then. Imagine now.

brian said...

..and yet in spite of all this israel is feted and adored by so many political animals...are hey just ignorant, or is it political survival that makes them turn a blind eye?
Maybe someone enterprising soul could email the politicians with this info

brian said...

also FYI
...IS US homeland (In)security protecting mossad assassins?

'Two suspects, traveling with forged passports, appeared to have fled to the U.S. shortly after the killing. Their passport details showed up in a U.S. border-control system that collects electronic manifests of international flights and screens them against passenger watch lists, according to people familiar with the probe and to investigation documents reviewed by the Journal. That suggested the suspects had boarded planes bound for the U.S. The information was passed to international investigators involved in the case, raising hopes of a capture.

But the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has since said it doesn't have records of the two suspects in its system.'
http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB10001424052748704652104575493883093318088-lMyQjAxMTAwMDAwNzEwNDcyWj.html