U.S. arrests former Green Beret, son, in connection with Ghosn escape from Japan
171–180 of 307 posts
Re: U.S. arrests former Green Beret, son, in connection with Ghosn escape from Japan
#172Oof, I clicked and remembered WSJ is paywalled...what's the trick to get around that again?
It's responsible to pay for good journalism.
Paywall complaints, which this is a variant of, are off topic here. They're always the same, which means they just add noise. HN is a site for diffs. Diffs are what's interesting.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10178989
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
Re: U.S. arrests former Green Beret, son, in connection with Ghosn escape from Japan
#173Earlier 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's very, very hard to do 20 years of service. Individuals typically have very little choice in staying. They must be promoted in a timely fashion or be booted. The problem, at least with the Navy, is that the higher enlisted ranks have fewer openings, meaning more competition, and seniority becomes a factor in promotion. So you may be a great soldier, get good marks from command, and score well on the exams, but still get passed over because people four or five years ahead of you get the job instead.
Each year that you miss a promotion compounds. You can only miss so many promotions before it becomes impossible to hit the rank where you may retire.
Re: U.S. arrests former Green Beret, son, in connection with Ghosn escape from Japan
#174Earlier quoted context omitted.
The privatization of the US military is a consequence of the monetization of war that went into full swing around the 2000's. Or so I read from the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shock_Doctrine
I guess we moved from Eisenhower's concern about the influence of the Military-Industrial complex to concerns about the privatization of the Military-Industrial complex. Have we entered a new phase: Gig-Economization of the Military-Industrial complex? This passage from a 2011 NPR article on the 50th anniversary of Eisenhower's warning caught my attention: Eisenhower was worried about the costs of an arms race with t…
What I wouldn't give for an Eisenhower Republican resurgence and an FDR Democrat resurgence...minus the racism or segregationism allowing policies. But fiscally and socially, they were way better than anybody we've got in politics now.
Re: U.S. arrests former Green Beret, son, in connection with Ghosn escape from Japan
#175Earlier quoted context omitted.
I heard the reason for the high conviction rate is because they only pursue cases that they think they have a 100% of winning. Which I think is a really messed up thing. The police exist to serve the public, not to “win” cases. The fact that the public thinks “losing” a case is a bad thing is crazy. While you could argue that “losing” cases means they need to be replaced with someone who’ll get better evidence, this…
Not sure about Japan, but the tendency of US prosecutors to dismiss/drop cases they think they might lose is a critical part of the US justice system. The US prosecutor has a dual role that includes protecting people from unwarranted prosecution as well as prosecuting people charged by police . Though [too] often, they confuse their important duty to protect people from unwarranted prosecution with their personal int…
Oh, I agree that it’s essential to a functioning justice system. I’m just upset about corrupt prosecutors. For example, sometimes, even with all the evidence pointing to Person A, the police will still railroad (an unrelated) Person B because they, for some reason, can’t admit they’re wrong.
Re: U.S. arrests former Green Beret, son, in connection with Ghosn escape from Japan
#176Earlier 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.
In the past, mercenaries were paid with the spoils of war. Modern artillery makes that impossible - everything gets smashed to bits.
Re: U.S. arrests former Green Beret, son, in connection with Ghosn escape from Japan
#177It'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…
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Re: U.S. arrests former Green Beret, son, in connection with Ghosn escape from Japan
#178Earlier quoted context omitted.
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)
Not to defend Trump, I can't think of more than a handful of times I've ever agreed with him, but can you imagine the uproar had he praised Russia for their efforts at Auschwitz?
Probably would have been best to praise the result without mentioning any specific parties involved in carrying it out. Then again, Trump isn't really known for thinking in nuance.
Re: U.S. arrests former Green Beret, son, in connection with Ghosn escape from Japan
#179It will be interesting to follow if they have enough money to fight the extradition in court. The international press loves to make Japanese criminal courts sound like a 12th century madhouse at every opportunity.
I haven't read a great deal about them in the papers, but what I have read is that they have a frighteningly high conviction rate - meaning that either - the police are really good at finding the perpetrators of crimes - the state are really careful about only taking cases to trial they are extremely confident they can win - ... or that simply being tried in court sufficient for convince everyone judges and/or juries…
It’s number two.
Re: U.S. arrests former Green Beret, son, in connection with Ghosn escape from Japan
#180It'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…
The privatization of the military is one of the most corrupt and corrosive things our country has done in a while. I flew F-18s for the Navy and did a ground tour in Iraq with Special Forces. Look at the pay grades in 2020.[1] E3-E6 are making about $25-40k in salary. With some hazard pay and Basic Allowance for Housing (BAH) and Subsistence (BAS), depending on where you live (if not in the barracks) maybe you are ma…
I've heard that one of the reasons the government is willing to pay contractors this much is that many of the benefits of being part of the military were back loaded, like early retirement, medical coverage, etc.
Do you have any estimation of the truth of such claims?