"Sacrificing the few to save the many". A rant.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

When I got out of boot camp, we went to something called the Infantry Training Regiment (ITR) for 4 weeks. We got to learn how to shoot off all kinds of weapons, everything from BARs to flamethrowers. The various courses were called “ranges” for some reason.

One day we were marched off to the “Machine Gun” range. We were spread out in front of an open field and two machine guns, loaded with tracers, in “enfilade” shot across the field. It was very impressive. It was impossible to imagine anything, or anyone, crossing that field not being dismembered by the machine gun bullets.

Then they marched us to another “range” where we were taught how to take a machine gun nest. It was made out of logs and sand with slits for the 2 machine guns inside. There really wasn’t 2 machine guns or anyone inside. Some were told they were to be the “diversionary” force that would stand up and march forward at a steady pace with their trusty M1s on their hips shooting at the bunker. Another group was to flank the nest and toss hand grenades into the slots while the “diversionary” group was being mowed down.

It was a logical, even reasonable, plan based on the military axiom that sometimes it is necessary to “sacrifice few to save many”.

There is only one problem with that plan. It’s kind of unpleasant to be part of the “few” who are sacrificed.

But, that’s how the world works.

The bosses, the politicians, the generals, the CEO’s, the wealthy, the powerful, get to decide who is to sacrificed for the “greater good”.

That axiom of “sacrificing few to save many” has been used, and is being used, to this very day.

Some examples:

The GI’s in Iraq are being sacrificed to save the many (us Americans) from the devious designs of Al-queda. Or, is it the WMD? Or, the “IslamoFascists”? Or, having our SUV’s run out of gas? Or, something important that the politicians will dream up.

The Iraqi people are being sacrificed to save the Middle East, and the whole world, from the same things - to the tune of somewhere between 50 - 650,000 corpses and over a million refugees.

The people of the 3rd world, particularly Africa, are being sacrificed for the “greater good” of the Pharmaceutical and Petro-Chemical industries and the whole of the 1st world. To the tune of millions dying of poverty and disease every year.

The CEO’s of multi-national corporations, 51 of which are wealthier than the majority of the world’s countries, are willing to sacrifice, for the “greater good” the workers in their companies when they offshore or buy out smaller companies.

Somehow, I think that military axiom has been turned on it’s head.

The “many” are being “sacrificed to save the few.”