• @Notserious@lemmy.ca
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    102 days ago

    I felt this feeling as we were finding out we invaded Iraq under false pretenses to make money for blackrock. We never did anything. I figured people would change but after voting in same clown after the shitshow he did last time……

    • Prehensile_cloaca
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      82 days ago

      The average American reads at an 8th grade level, with slightly more than half reading at a 6th grade level.

      We have been cognitively neutered, by design.

    • hopesdead
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      32 days ago

      Didn’t that actually happen (not the Blackrock part)? I thought it came out in a Congressional hearing that there was oil which motivated the whole thing. The U.S. went in to find WMDs but after many years could not find evidence of any.

      • @MDCCCLV@lemmy.ca
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        72 days ago

        It was just because W wanted to finish what his dad started and remove Saddam. There was no exit plan or grand strategy.

        • hopesdead
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          32 days ago

          That doesn’t necessarily mean Saddam wasn’t bad, but why not let the citizens of Iraq decide that?

      • @Notserious@lemmy.ca
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        12 days ago

        I guess to call out Blackrock exclusivity is incorrect as they were just security in Iraq. My point was using private contractors and then allowing firms to profit. This government to private is now infecting everything.

        2007, an internal Department of Defense census on the industry found almost 160,000 private contractors were employed in Iraq (roughly equal to the total U.S. troops at the time, even after the troop “surge”). Yet even this figure was a conservative estimate, since a number of the biggest companies, as well as any firms employed by the State Department or other agencies or NGOs, were not included in the census

        • hopesdead
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          2 days ago

          I was 12 when the U.S. went into Iraq. I remember watching cable news the moment that began. I think I was too young to understand. Why was Blackrock there?

          • @Notserious@lemmy.ca
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            12 hours ago

            It was the first time that (as I remember) private firms were used for security in a foreign war. They ended up shooting a bunch of civilians when they came under fire. I read that it started in Afghanistan but it was the start of private firms fighting our wars. It made war profitable by getting rid of only being a manufacturer for weapons. It’s our biggest industry and totally hidden