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U.S. arrests former Green Beret, son, in connection with Ghosn escape from Japan

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Re: U.S. arrests former Green Beret, son, in connection with Ghosn escape from Japan

#121

Post by Zach_the_Lizard »

ciarannolan wrote: post #104
subsubzero wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From what another commentator said, they are not making much, 54,000 a year [1] I consider them almost on a level with pro athletes given that to do the job at a high level you are done by your early 40's, in addition the numbers able to reach this field are very small[2] (about 33k based on 2014 estimates) based on overall troop count - 1.3M [3] that means that the top 2.3% of soldiers qualify for special forces, a…

I'm totally ignorant on the details of this, but wouldn't someone who served in the US military for 20+ years have a great financial retirement and other benefits for life?

It depends on when you joined. Sometime after 9/11 college benefits in particular were beefed up.

I forget the details, but my dad retired from the service after 20 years.

I think he gets ~50% of his basic pay. I want to say it's inflation adjusted as well.

Their salaries are low, so it's not exactly an amazing retirement. In a low COL state with Social Security it could be helpful assuming you've got everything paid off already.

TriCare is a medical insurance component, but I don't know the details of how good it is. I think for us it was useful as it could sometimes be used as coinsurance, picking up what our other insurance did not. But I also vaguely recall having issues with it being accepted, though I was a kid and didn't pay much attention.

All in all, you're definitely not joining the military to get rich, especially as an enlisted man.

Re: U.S. arrests former Green Beret, son, in connection with Ghosn escape from Japan

#122

Post by kthxbye123 »

0xCMP wrote: post #109
ciarannolan wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm totally ignorant on the details of this, but wouldn't someone who served in the US military for 20+ years have a great financial retirement and other benefits for life?

IIUC it's the same as anyone else being in the military for 20 years. That's not really enough IMHO for the level of training they have.

Part of the allure of the job is that it's supposed to be about abstract values like honor, duty, loyalty, patriotism etc. and not about compensation. It can't be otherwise, because then you have to accept that the job is basically just about killing people in exchange for money.

Re: U.S. arrests former Green Beret, son, in connection with Ghosn escape from Japan

#123

Post by gnarbarian »

andyjohnson0 wrote: post #110
md2020 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

That doesn't work forever. Name an honourable war conducted by the US military since 1946.

Korea, the gulf war, arguably Afghanistan, the cold war.

What is honorable is certainly subjective though.

Re: U.S. arrests former Green Beret, son, in connection with Ghosn escape from Japan

#124

Post by loosetypes »

Mirioron wrote: post #107
eloisius wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is also how Los Zetas formed. A bunch of elite soldiers figured out they could make a lot more money as enforcers for drug cartels.

If you think about it, it's a bit odd that there are so few mercenaries in this day and age. When you look back on history then from what I can tell, mercenaries were much more common.

You might find this entry on Swiss mercenaries interesting. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_mercenaries

It was new information to me but supports your idea.

Re: U.S. arrests former Green Beret, son, in connection with Ghosn escape from Japan

#125

Post by alwayseasy »

redstripe wrote: post #20

Is leaving a country really that hard if you have a little money? Seems like something you should be able to do without the assistance of green berets unless you're in a movie. A country like Japan must have: 1. Dozens of private jets leaving it's airspace daily. 2. Hundreds of fishing boats leaving it territorial waters daily.

This story proves how you can do it if you have a "little" money. Given that he was the highest profile prisoner in the country it's still hard to go to an airport or fishing port and corrupt your way out alone. An old businessman isn't a special operative or spy.

Re: U.S. arrests former Green Beret, son, in connection with Ghosn escape from Japan

#126

Post by game_the0ry »

blantonl wrote: post #63

It's been extremely disturbing to see how much the culture of special operations military has changed in the past 20 years. Previously, Navy Seal and Green Berets operated in silent, keeping the sausage making of military special operations quiet and secret, just doing their duty. Now, it seems like every Navy SEAL now publically writes a book, sponsors a coffee line, or slaps their name, likeness and story all over…

Think about all the privatized "special operations" missions that the public isn't even aware of...

Re: U.S. arrests former Green Beret, son, in connection with Ghosn escape from Japan

#127

Post by eloisius »

Mirioron wrote: post #107
eloisius wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is also how Los Zetas formed. A bunch of elite soldiers figured out they could make a lot more money as enforcers for drug cartels.

If you think about it, it's a bit odd that there are so few mercenaries in this day and age. When you look back on history then from what I can tell, mercenaries were much more common.

I met a guy at NewSpace several years ago and we were talking about the role of the US military in space exploration. I was expressing my wariness of a militarized space force, the possibility of us ending up under a military junta, etc, but he was less worried. He kept making the point that mercenaries were the norm in the past and that the US military actually has an incredible record for never seizing control. He chalked it up to the fact that our military traditions and honor are deeply intertwined with civilian rule, and didn't think our soldiers would easily abandon that.

Re: U.S. arrests former Green Beret, son, in connection with Ghosn escape from Japan

#128

Post by danans »

blantonl wrote: post #63

It's been extremely disturbing to see how much the culture of special operations military has changed in the past 20 years. Previously, Navy Seal and Green Berets operated in silent, keeping the sausage making of military special operations quiet and secret, just doing their duty. Now, it seems like every Navy SEAL now publically writes a book, sponsors a coffee line, or slaps their name, likeness and story all over…

> Crazy times...

Are they? Mercenaries for hire have been a thing for centuries. And ultimately, mercenaries are selling a service, and need to market to their potential customers, like wealthy CEOs of huge corporations.

Today, possibly owing in part to the growing inequality in the world (though not specifically in Ghosn's case), wealthy individuals are looking for ways to protect themselves from a restive populace. One way in which they find out about the availability of private defense/security purposes is by that industry marketing themselves in some way.

Mercenaries have been marketing themselves for offensive or defensive purposes to people with a lot to lose like this for centuries, whether the medieval Hashishin (from whom we get the term assassin), or the Swiss Mercenaries (whose modern continuation is the Papal Swiss Guard of the Vatican).

Sadly, this re-privatization of mercenary services appears to be more of a reversion to a historical norm that was only brought under state control in the late 19th through mid-late 20th century.

Re: U.S. arrests former Green Beret, son, in connection with Ghosn escape from Japan

#129

Post by samdamsamm »

andyjohnson0 wrote: post #110
md2020 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

That doesn't work forever. Name an honourable war conducted by the US military since 1946.

We should also acknowledge the desperate lengths to which the US government has gone to soil any honor accrued in any previous wars.

On the recent anniversary of the fall of Auschwitz, The White House twitter account claimed it as a victory of ‘The United States and UK’. Supposedly the already-dishonest ‘Allied Troops’ is not cutting it anymore.

(The Red Army liberated Auschwitz)

Re: U.S. arrests former Green Beret, son, in connection with Ghosn escape from Japan

#130

Post by pnw_hazor »

jcampbell1 wrote: post #65
pnw_hazor wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More scrutiny the better. Several features of the Japanese criminal justice system, such as, absence of due process, no right to counsel during police interrogations, coercive interrogation techniques (sleep deprivation, stress/pain positions, meal withholding, isolation, etc.), absence of a bail system, absence of an independent judiciary, and so on, deserve as much scrutiny as possible.

I blame Douglas MacArthur, though in his defense Miranda v Arizona wasn’t until 1966. You forgot to mention that police interrogations can legally go for 3 weeks.

"the simple tactic of bekken taiho – arrest, or re-arrest, for a different crime. The police arrest the person on a different or trumped up charge. At the end of the 23 days, the police rearrest him on another charge, keeping him in detention, and so the cycle goes on. Though evidence gathered through this method is prohibited in theory, and is at times struck down by the courts, law enforcement has been known to keep suspects in daiyou kangoku for months before indictment."

https://www.counterpunch.org/2014/06/02/japans-authoritarian...

I recognize there are reform efforts going on, in law school there were some Japanese judges and prosecutors observing some criminal procedure classes I was in.

For example, recently a limited form a plea bargaining has been introduced before this plea bargaining was not available. However, plea bargaining is limited to a few crimes (mostly white collar crimes) and only if a defendant offers evidence that implicates others -- this encourages false testimony against others.

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