Why newspapers are dying: A Case Study.

Some papers just deserve to die out. And this article here is one reason why. The tongue bath that Michael J. Mooney lays on this deserter would qualify as “Bad Touch” in every state in the union, and possibly every country but Thailand.
The article is ostensibly about yet another deserter who flew the coup to go to Canada, this one a chap named Aslan Lamarche. I am always leery of dudes named after fictional lions, and once again that has proved eerily prescient. First off, here is a picture of Aslan with his requisite USMC tattoo. Now mind you, former leatherneck here made it out of basic, and then ran away like the uber-clown he is.

The Miami New Time Fish Wrap, with Captain Mooney at the rudder informs us that:

When he answers his phone, Aslan Lamarche speaks in a voice that’s shaky and nervous. He’s slow to speak and takes long pauses until he’s sure he recognizes the voice on the other end. Lamarche knows that any call — especially one from a number inside the United States — could mean the end. And for Lamarche, like his fellow war deserters living in Canada, the end probably means deportation to the States and spending at least a year in prison.

Yes, how dramatic, at any moment, brown shirted thugs of the Bush Family Evil Empire might fastrope right out of this clowns phone to capture him, no doubt then shipping him to Swaziland to be tortured by specially trained Haliburton thugs.

South Florida apparently breeds deserters, maybe something in the water?

South Florida is no stranger to Iraq War resisters. Camilo Mejía, a Nicaraguan-born former staff sergeant in the Florida National Guard, was the first soldier to refuse to serve in the war. After six months in Iraq, Mejía did not return from his two-week furlough. His application for conscientious objector status was rejected by the Guard. He eventually spent a year in the Fort Sill military prison in Oklahoma.

Yeah, we’ve been through Camilo’s story enough that I know it by heart. Unfortunately for Camilo, he can’t seem to keep his own stories straight, depending on the venue.

But back to Aslan. Why would he flee?

As for critics who might argue that Lamarche volunteered to fight and then later refused to go, he says he refused to honor a contract for a government that lied in order to go to war. “Why should I give my body for a contract with a government that doesn’t honor me? My government lied to me. They’ve lied to the world and to the American people, and draft or no draft, there’s no excuse. This is a poverty draft. Most of the people in the military are from poor backgrounds in bad neighborhoods.”

Hold up a minute there. Marine Basic is a total of 13 weeks, 1 of which is in-processing. Infantry Basic after that is 59 days. That’s a total of 150 days. Let’s just add in a week for travel. Aslan graduated in October of 2007. So this clown is claiming the Government lied about the war, but did it sometime between when he enlisted and when he graduated? Give me a break. And how exactly is it that he found out AFTER basic, but didn’t know when he enlisted? Lot of access to the news while you were at Infantry Basic Aslan?

How about his other claim, that most the military is poor….. Well, also not based in fact.

In summary, we found that, on average, 1999 recruits were more highly educated than the equivalent general population, more rural and less urban in origin, and of similar income status. We did not find evidence of minority racial exploitation (by race or by race-weighted ZIP code areas). We did find evidence of a “Southern military tradition” in that some states, notably in the South and West, provide a much higher proportion of enlisted troops by population.

The household income of recruits generally matches the income distribution of the American population. There are slightly higher proportions of recruits from the middle class and slightly lower proportions from low-income brackets. However, the proportion of high-income recruits rose to a disproportionately high level after the war on terrorism began, as did the proportion of highly educated enlistees.

More from our Narnian friend:

“It’s hard to be 20 years old and be hated by two governments,” he says. “And Canada is a very strange country in a lot of ways. They just have this blind trust that their government will do the right thing. The majority of Canadians want us to stay. They say, ‘Don’t worry. Everything will be fine.’ But at the end of the day, none of them are willing to fight for us.”

BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! Now that is rich, a guy who got paid to fight for his country but decided to run away, lamenting that people in another country wouldn’t fight for him.

But, the story ends with such a dramatic moment, that for me anyway, it saves the entire article:

Though he lives by himself, he takes solace in the friends he’s made among the other deserters. “There’s a camaraderie among the guys up here,” he says. “We might be from different branches of the military, but we’ve become best friends. For a lot of people, this is the only family they have.”

One friend Lamarche made eventually turned himself in. Before he got on the plane headed back to the States, he turned, saluted, and uttered four words to Lamarche.
Those words are now tattooed on Lamarche’s left wrist, just above the Miami ink: “Live Free or Die.”

Aslan, you are an assclown.

Category: Politics