Articles by Fred Reed

We found 5 results.

Military, a Most Sordid Profession
Fred Reed | The Unz Review – TRANSCEND Media Service, 14 May 2018

A few thoughts on our disastrous trillion-dollar military: It is unnecessary. It does not defend the United States. The US has no military enemies. No nation has anything even close to the forces necessary to invade America, and probably none the desire. “Our boys” are not noble warriors protecting democracy, rescuing maidens, and righting wrongs. They are, like all soldiers, obedient and amoral killers. Pilots bombing Iraq or Syria know they are killing civilians.

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No Hope For Peace? Because Men Love War, And Women Love Warriors?
Fred Reed - LewRockwell, 24 Sep 2012

When feminists speak of “testosterone poisoning,” they are exactly right (though they often seem to suffer from it themselves). Through all time young males have dreamed of becoming warriors. They still do. Maybe you are a fresh-caught new Marine just back from boot, heavier by thirty pounds of muscle and killer cocky toward those sorry stay-at-home dweebs you left behind. Either way, the girls will be all over you. We can laugh at it, with reason. But it works. We are what we are. We do what we do. Therein lies the rub.

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Oo-rah: War and the Free Will of Pool Balls
Fred Reed – TRANSCEND Media Service, 7 Nov 2011

Honor? A soldier is just a nationally certified hit man, perfectly amoral. When he joins the military he agrees to kill anyone he is told to kill. Sacrifice? GIs do not make sacrifices. They are sacrificed for big egos, big contracts for the shareholders of military industries. One thinks of the excitement of a high-school basketball game, cheerleaders twirling and emitting exhortations to invincibility. “Ricky, Ricky, he’s our man! If he can’t do it, nobody can!” Oo-rah. If this is honor, I’ll pass.

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IS MILITARY SERVICE HONORABLE?
Fred Reed, 15 Jul 2009

Last night Vi and I watched for the first time a documentary, shot by my friend Jim Coyne, on Joan Baez and the movement against a war no one any longer remembers, far away, on another planet. It was lovely filmwork. Jim is a genius. I may have to stop having friends. I feel inferior […]

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THE IDIOCY OF ‘HONOR’
Fred Reed, 9 Jan 2009

I read that America must find an “exit strategy” from Iraq that will bring “peace with honor.” My God. Honor? I’d rather have infected hemorrhoids. These at least are not a mental aberration. Well, depending on where your head is. Honor means nothing more than prickly infantile vanity dressed up, usually, in desperate class-consciousness. Of […]

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