Thousands of California soldiers forced to repay enlistment bonuses • Hacker News Board

Re: Thousands of California soldiers forced to repay enlistment bonuses

#71

Post by cameldrv » Sun, Oct 23, 2016, 12:03 AM UTC

apsec112 wrote: post #14

Skeptique wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be poor press to announce that a war is about money, but the veneer of pretense is thin. The Syrian war, especially given Russia's involvement is almost certainly about securing passage for natural gas pipelines. Who thinks the Iraq war was actually about Freedom? That might have been the rallying cry but it was about securing access to oil and securing massive re-building contracts and/or reparation money.…

"The Syrian war, especially given Russia's involvement is almost certainly about securing passage for natural gas pipelines." Do you have a cite for that? No one on any side is building pipelines in Syria anytime soon, because, well, war. Also, pretty sure if I told Suheil al-Hassan or Abu Mohammad al-Julani they were fighting for natural gas pipelines, they'd knock my teeth out.

I have no idea if or how much this factors in, or even if it's true, but the story I've heard is that several years back, there was a plan for a pipeline that would go from Qatar and Saudi Arabia through Jordan, Syria, and Turkey to Europe. This would be a significant economic threat to Russia, since gas exports are about $25 billion/yr, about 2% of Russia's GDP, and a big source of hard currency, but also important is Russia's use of its gas pipelines to Europe to threaten to cut off supplies to countries in Eastern and Central Europe, which would not be possible if there were a gulf source of gas available. Saudi Arabia and Qatar have a lot of gas that is going to waste or is staying in the ground, so they could easily supply the European market. Supposedly, Assad turned down the deal, and the civil war started shortly after.

Re: Thousands of California soldiers forced to repay enlistment bonuses

#72

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Oct 23, 2016, 12:07 AM UTC

anotheryou wrote: post #55

derekp7 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you buy a piece of electronic equipment from a dealer at a flea market, and it is later found out that the merchandise was stolen, you have to return the merchandise to the original owner. Even if there was a valid contract between you and the dealer that sold it to you. I think this is seen as something similar -- the people giving out the bonus money basically "stole" it, so it wasn't theirs to give. Kind of lik…

But if the dealer was known he would have to reimburse me, no? Also what if I where no longer in possession of the good?

[deleted]

Re: Thousands of California soldiers forced to repay enlistment bonuses

#73

Post by pessimizer » Sun, Oct 23, 2016, 12:10 AM UTC

sotojuan wrote: post #50

dominotw wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this merely a reflection of general American population that views the army as a major drain on national resources that can be better spent elsewhere. Or is there something more sinister going on inside the National Guard.

> Is this merely a reflection of general American population that views the army as a major drain on national resources Maybe on HN/Reddit and big cities in the coasts. Elsewhere it's all about "support our troops". But yes, like snerbles says, it's not much than that.

> Elsewhere it's all about "support our troops".

It's also all about "lower our taxes. Cut public spending."

Re: Thousands of California soldiers forced to repay enlistment bonuses

#74

Post by ZanyProgrammer » Sun, Oct 23, 2016, 12:10 AM UTC

apsec112 wrote: post #38

ZanyProgrammer wrote: post #19

As an Army vet myself, the truth is is that the Army will never miss an opportunity for fucking you over. Its the nature of the system. If you can make it to 20 years, you are some combination of exceptional/lucky/broken from years of fuckery. "We just can’t do it. We’d be breaking the law" Yeah, I'm sure the California National Guard tried really, really hard not to go after their bonuses.

Can you go into more detail? I'm not trying to dispute what you say, but as someone who's never been in the military, I'm curious what kind of trouble soldiers are likely to run into.

Off the top of my head I'd recommend this: https://www.reddit.com/r/army/comments/2vlug2/what_is_a_fuck...

The Army combines the worst aspects of civilian life back stabbing politics with the most stereotypical portrayals of inefficient and uncaring government bureaucracy. To top it off, what really does set it apart from both the civilian world and normal government is of course a hierarchical rank structure, which shit freely flows downhill towards those who can't stand up to it.

Re: Thousands of California soldiers forced to repay enlistment bonuses

#75

Post by rhapsodic » Sun, Oct 23, 2016, 12:10 AM UTC

And yet we can afford to bail out Wall Street firms that pay their executives millions in bonuses for driving their companies into the ground.

Re: Thousands of California soldiers forced to repay enlistment bonuses

#76

Post by pessimizer » Sun, Oct 23, 2016, 12:21 AM UTC

apsec112 wrote: post #7

serg_chernata wrote: post #2

So much of war is already unapologetically about about money. This is just adding insult to injury.

Looking down Wikipedia's list of active conflicts ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ongoing_armed_conflict... ), it's hard to believe that money is a primary cause of any of them. I'm sure someone somewhere is making a profit, but that's different from the conflict being "about money".

The vast majority of the money made from war (or the entirety of the money, depending on the war) comes from supplying war materiel. If some actors can figure out how to make money from the subject of the war, fine, but the money is being made from feeding, clothing, and arming the belligerents - so the important thing is their respective bankrolls. US military aid, for example, is not given to Egypt or Israel or the Saudis or Bahrain as dollars, it's given as dollars to US companies to send goods to those countries (to suppress their own populations.) US corporate lobbyists have a multi-billion dollar interest in Bahrain using full military force on peaceful protesters.

edit: There are versions of the theory of "imperial overstretch" that say that empires are forced to expand by the influence of internal elements that are enriched by the process of making war, thus increasing the influence of those elements, forcing more expansion, requiring more taxation and privation from the citizens of the empire, until eventually the entire empire collapses from the strain.

Re: Thousands of California soldiers forced to repay enlistment bonuses

#77

Post by BlytheSchuma » Sun, Oct 23, 2016, 12:30 AM UTC

JabavuAdams wrote: post #54

dogma1138 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm surprised that this is somehow even passed the slightest political oversight. You need to be a special kind of bastard to ask some one who willingly signed up to get shot at while defending their country to pay back any amount of money they got paid for doing so. Wars aren't pretty, regardless of what you think about them, and especially about Iraq and Afghanistan never ever take it out on the soldiers, they are…

I wouldn't blame someone who got drafted, but it is reasonable to fault someone for joining a volunteer army of a militarily aggressive nation. If you sign up to become a fire-fighter or paramedic, you will never be in a position where the machine you are a piece of requires / encourages you to kill people who don't need killing. The fact is that there are parts of war / military life that are more exciting than bein…

Wow, you somehow made this about you again.

Re: Thousands of California soldiers forced to repay enlistment bonuses

#78

Post by Pinckney » Sun, Oct 23, 2016, 12:31 AM UTC

derekp7 wrote: post #42

erentz wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But fraud on the part of the California Guard is an internal matter. If I form a contract with a company that says they will pay me some amount of money, but the company representative was committing fraud internally then too bad. The company needs to deal with that. It can't reneg on its agreement years later after having already fulfilled the terms of the agreement.

If you buy a piece of electronic equipment from a dealer at a flea market, and it is later found out that the merchandise was stolen, you have to return the merchandise to the original owner. Even if there was a valid contract between you and the dealer that sold it to you. I think this is seen as something similar -- the people giving out the bonus money basically "stole" it, so it wasn't theirs to give. Kind of lik…

This seems to resemble more a problem of agency law. The recruiter was an agent of the government. Is the government liable for their agent's statements to potential soldiers?

>[Considering a swimming pool salesman...] Envision a situation in which a third party questioned the agent about the expected life of a chlorinator. Suppose the agent told the third party that the chlorinator's expected life was twenty years when it was actually only five years. Suppose further that the agent made this representation knowingly and with the intent to induce the thirty party to buy the equipment, and that the third party did buy this equipment in reasonable reliance on the agent's misrepresentation.

> Even assuming the manufacturer did not authorize the agent's misrepresentation, and in fact told him always to be truthful with potential customers, the manufacturer would be liable if the third party brought a common law fraud action against him. The court would determine liability under an authority analysis, applying the general rule that an innocent principle is liable for an agent's misrepresentations if the misrepresentations fall within the general class of statements that the principal apparently authorized the agent to make.

http://scholarship.law.wm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=21...

Re: Thousands of California soldiers forced to repay enlistment bonuses

#79

Post by Keverw » Sun, Oct 23, 2016, 12:32 AM UTC

This is so unbelievable they could mess up somthing like this. I hope this becomes major news. These people shouldn't be paying for someone else mistakes. If the money is mentioned in the contract, I don't see how they could just take it because of their mistake.

Re: Thousands of California soldiers forced to repay enlistment bonuses

#80

Post by partisan » Sun, Oct 23, 2016, 12:32 AM UTC

mnem wrote: post #29

dogma1138 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm surprised that this is somehow even passed the slightest political oversight. You need to be a special kind of bastard to ask some one who willingly signed up to get shot at while defending their country to pay back any amount of money they got paid for doing so. Wars aren't pretty, regardless of what you think about them, and especially about Iraq and Afghanistan never ever take it out on the soldiers, they are…

Well, they decide when they enlist to go kill people when told to.

That is a pretty flat take on what exactly is happening. If you've never had to view military service as a "good" path out of poverty then it might seem as simple as that but surely if you sat and thought for a few minutes, you might be able to conceive of a situation in which someone might sign up for reasons other than the one you've given.