These sailors are starving and trying to jump from the ship? Trump says they should be there longer? This is absolute rage bait for me. Fuck you Guardian for soft-balling that headline. They lost 30 lbs in 6 months, this is starving them. Plus, they're dirty because nothing is working. Fucking fix this.
this post was submitted on 16 Aug 2026
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kinda funny because I remember people saying that with the navy you never have to worry missing a meal or sleeping out in the elements.
In 2026 Republican trump's Department of "War" starves our deploy troops.
In 1943 Democratic President FDR during WWII had entire ships that just made ice cream for sailors and deployed soldiers/Marines. These would circulate around the fleet of deployed troops to give them comfort and calories during their wartime deployment.
This was in addition to larger warships that had ice cream creation facilities onboard:
"This one ship was capable of 1500 gallons, five tons, a day. The American navy provided ice cream as a morale boost. In addition, all ships larger than a destroyer had ice cream facilities. It is reported that after the USS Lexington issued the order to abandon ship during the Battle of Midway in 1942, sailors on their way off, rushed by the ice cream bar and scooped some using their helmets. In another instance, in 1944 aboard the battleship USS New Jersey, two newly minted junior grade lieutenants pulled rank to cut into the ice cream line. Unfortunately for them, they tried cutting ahead of none other than Admiral Bull Halsey. Despite his rank, he was waiting in line with everyone else. The two officers got reprimanded in a way only Halsey could. Ice cream had become the great equalizer."
That's awesome, did the ships play the ice cream music?
War is won with good logistics and good morale. Somehow I think Kegsbreath wouldn't agree. That's why guys like him never win wars.
I feel sympathy for these sailors, at the same time I'm not really enthusiastic about the mission they're on.
Is my political goal supposed to be to feed these sailors better so they can more efficiently service the machinery that kills children who did not sign up to be killed the way these sailors signed up to be killers?
They did nothing to deserve being starved by our own government. This is the most likely scenario:
- Person joins military to pay for college or stay in and have a life so they can have a family.
- Gets sent on this mission by a dementia ridden narcissist because he thinks he's the king
- Instead of basic human treatment, they're being starved and left with no supplies.
- Some are trying to commit suicide.
They are not the problem.
Trump is not the first president to send soldiers to war, the USA is a war machine, since the '50s there hasn't been a year the USA wasn't invading or bombing another country, even though the last country to have attacked the USA was Japan in 1941. Trump is just the first to call the Department of Defense by its real name. Absolutely no sympathy for the cogs of the war machine.
How very privileged of you to say.
You're attacking the messenger. Look at what they said and just take it on face value. What did they say that was false or untrue? I don't see anything false. One of my grandfather's fought in World War ii. The other in korea. My father was drafted into Vietnam. What about all our military mucking about in Afghanistan and Iraq and now Iran. Bosnia/Serbia? The African continent and South America. All the myriad of miscellaneous groups we armed with the goal of destabilizing governments in the region.
Now step back for a moment from whether you think X or Y was justified. Just look at the overall volume and frequency of it. Yes some of them were in response to Russian imperialism. But just the sheer number of military or weapons aid interventionism on the part of our country we absolutely have a problem. One that I definitely see China taking up the banner of as we collapse. But that doesn't make it right. Or make those pointing it out wrong.
Imagine what kind of healthcare we could have, how much our cities and communities could be, how good our schools could be. If our first response wasn't to blow people up or enable others to blow people up. Imagine what goes effective hundreds of trillions of dollars could have gotten us at home if it hadn't just been blown up or thrown away.
One that I definitely see China taking up the banner of as we collapse.
I hate starting sentences with, "I'm not a tankie, but", but:
I'm not a tankie, but, China has leaned a lot on economic soft power and seems to be steadily taking over Africa with consensual development deals that would be in a US context just a pallet of M-16s shipped to some random pedophile warlord.
I know China domestically is pretty gross, especially in Tibet and with the Uighurs, but as far as foreign policy goes, China is light-years ahead of the United States.
The same China that's currently saber rattling at every single direct neighbor they have? The United States Used to Know the value of soft power too. But it's the nature of states. They always corrupt. And the corrupt don't value soft power or diplomacy.
And don't bother trying to argue that China isn't corrupt. Billionaires and millionaires exist there. Allowing that from the start was a corrupt move. Don't question that the state doesn't covet that power. Just because they will imprison or kill those Millionaires and billionaires if they cross "the state". Does not make them uncorrupted.
As to the tanky bit...... Honestly outside of the horrendous social policy, China has actually done a number of things right or at least better than the US, which isn't a great achievement. I honestly wouldn't mind discussing and dissecting those things if it wasn't for disingenuous defense of their cultural and social abuses by them or the ML. That think the world will be a better place if they were the bully. Without understanding that who the bully is, isn't the problem. It's the existence of said bullies.
Yeah, I remember not being able to express any criticism of Ana Kasperian (feminist using video games to explore feminist themes and idea) without being immediately disgusted by the people agreeing with me, which is the same problem from a different end--that is to say, it's difficult to have a neutral discussion on some topics on the internet.
Honestly don't follow the news that much, but notice that for all the saber-rattling, China hasn´t actually done anything, in contrast to the US over the last, oh, 200 years. And I find the Belt and Road Inititiative creepy AF but a welcome change from the United States funding civil wars and murdering leaders to get its way... so, yeah, there's plenty there to discuss. But you did say it looks like China's stepping up militarily, so maybe it will fill the hardpower vacuum left by the United States' overpriced military (though I think the technology that has all but defeated the United States in the Persian Gulf also makes US-style interventionism increasingly obsolete).
I also have a theory that power eventually corrupts society as the powerful enrich themselves to the detriment of their supporting society--the parasite kills the host. It's already happening the United States. I'm honestly wondering how China, with it's centralized authority structure, has managed to not only survive so long, but actually make advancements as a whole.
Honestly don't follow the news that much, but notice that for all the saber-rattling, China hasn´t actually done anything, in contrast to the US over the last, oh, 200 years.
Honestly, China has had a history of it as well. Though that China technically isn't this china. There were technically at least a China or two between then and now. Maoism was mostly toxic at home. Dengism ramped it up and will eventually export it sooner or later. This China is only just getting to the position where they can start doing it. Which is why they are starting. The main reason that it hasn't escalated into military conflict. Is that most of the people they've been intimidating know that they would lose in that sort of conflict.
I also have a theory that power eventually corrupts society as the powerful enrich themselves to the detriment of their supporting society--the parasite kills the host. It's already happening the United States. I'm honestly wondering how China, with it's centralized authority structure, has managed to not only survive so long, but actually make advancements as a whole.
The same way the US did. If we would be around 250 years post Chinese empire. I would 100% wager you that they will take a very similar path as the us. Because the US did similar to the countries that came before it. And they did similar to the countries that came before them. I'm 100% on the same page with you about power corrupting. That's why it happens and with their centralized system they may not let the information or data out that it is happening. But it is happening.
Likewise the victims of your military did nothing to deserve to be killed.
- Person joins military for financial gain
- They make the military an effective tool for US imperialism
- Military invades foreign country and bombs innocent children
It’s not ethical, and the needs of these people is so far down on the things to worry about list but troop fetishisation gives them unwarranted attention.
What’s next posts about ICE agents not getting paid and unable to make rent or dinner?
Soldiers are always a problem.
You kind of do need soldiers to fight wars, so their existence as volunteers is sort of a problem [edit: if wars of aggression are a problem for you; maybe they're not].
But tell me, if you live in reality, your options are either:
a) to feed these soldiers well and thereby by making them more able to kill other people
b) do nothing and allow these soldiers to starve, thereby making the war machine less effective and saving lives of other people.
I mean, if you want to be morally serious, it's either:
- these soldiers--who voluntarily signed up to enlist in a military that has been at constant war since before all of them were born
or
- innocent civilians who have done nothing but be born in the wrong country
and, you know what? fuck it. I'll go there:
along with
- the soldiers in a military that are defending themselves against an unjustified and unprovoked attack by a country that isn´t even pursuing its own best interests in a vain attempt to prop up the military might of an allied state bent on genociding their way to lebensraum.
You can feel sorry for them all you want, but you can´t feed them without supporting a war that will probably ultimately cause a lot more starvation than on a few ships.
This is what happens when you run wartime Ops and you forget to run wartime logistics. It's partially to do with bad decisions from 20 or 30 years ago where they gutted the merchant Marine. and engage in really stupid wars of choice
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/fox-news-joey-jones-uss-lincoln_n_6a811d8ae4b0b3bc96f6cc45
Fox News anchor Joey Jones unloaded on sailors aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln for complaining about the ever-deteriorating conditions aboard the aircraft carrier deployed to the Middle East since late last year.
Jones on “The Big Weekend Show” Saturday night was specifically responding to a recent CNN segment featuring an unnamed service member aboard the Lincoln that aired on Thursday.
“I would say morale’s pretty low, and not just in the division, like in the ship entirely,” the service member told CNN. “We’re running pretty low on rations, I mean at some points in the day it would just be about noodles and tuna mixed in together, and that was it … sometimes you get a corndog, sometimes you get a hot dog.”
Jones let out an audible sigh as the segment ended before ranting for nearly three minutes, comparing the sailor’s experiences to his deployment with the Marines to Iraq and Afghanistan.
“That little … you know what I ate in Afghanistan for six months using a little burner? I ate Ramen noodles … that’s what I ate, and I was happy to have it, because the alternative was an MRE or something cooked by the Afghan guy who was too stupid to be given a gun and they let him be the cook,” Jones said.
Jones went on to ask the soldiers, “How weak are you?” before continuing his rant.
“On TV, complaining about tuna and noodles?” Jones said. “I’m sorry, you volunteered to serve your country. You can come back, get out of the military, and do like all of these Democrat veterans and complain about it and make commercials and be a sellout if you want to.”
Jones served the Marine Corps for eight years, eventually reaching the rank of staff sergeant, and was wounded in 2010 when an improvised explosive device detonated while he was deployed to Afghanistan. He suffered major injuries that led to him having both legs amputated.
Joey’s got a big angry.
you know what I ate in Afghanistan for six months using a little burner? I ate Ramen noodles … that’s what I ate, and I was happy to have it, because the alternative was an MRE or something cooked by the Afghan guy who was too stupid to be given a gun and they let him be the cook,
Six months times around 30 days in a month times three meals per day is 540 packets of ramen noodles. My maruchan beef (flavored) packet says 370 calories per packet, so that's 1110 calories or so per day, for six months, in a war zone. Press X to doubt.
Hyperbole is fine in some contexts, but that's not enough calories to operate with, and you'd have gotten diseases from malnutrition. You supplemented that all-ramen diet with something, likely ratfucking MREs as you felt like it since you're too good to eat one and call it a meal, AND you had access to a chef (hyperbole)!
Reports are starting to trickle in that the drinking water is dirty/tainted with oil and there's not enough to drink/bathe/clean. I've read comments that suggest some percentage of the people on the ship are bedridden. No parts to repair the thing that was broken yesterday, the day before, last week, last month means no parts and the thing stays broken. Extend that to all the little systems on a ship in a hot/humid area, and yeah, things are probably looking worse than being marooned on an island.
It's a little immaterial anyway. The job of getting the ship headed back home is done. The questions about how the people in charge evidently didn't plan for that deployment, didn't see this coming, didn't listen to reports while it was happening, had to bend to media pressure to get it fixed, and had to weaken US positions in other areas in the world to adjust are still valid and unanswered. The people on the Lincoln aren't going to stop existing now. You can't keep them locked on the boat for six more months in port to put back on 40 pounds of bodyweight in some cases, and everywhere else there will be cameras. You can't expect everyone to lie forever.
And, yet again, this easily avoidable situation with an easily predictable outcome carried out by the world's best logistics operation is bringing up questions about what else isn't being done that we're just not hearing about?
One wonders if the worst sailors, the ones who said things publicly, are gonna get transferred to another ship to get Libertied. I can see Israel doing that again to help cover things up. I can also see us sinking our own destroyer or cruiser or supply ship off Cuba to justify THAT war. Two birds, one stone. A little tinfoil-y, but I'm long past putting much above this administration.
I don't see that happening. It'll be like what happened with the Ford where it quietly goes into maintenance. Maybe the crew doesn't get medals because of the attention they drew.
Yeah, sure, the guy with no legs just ate noodles. Total coincidence.
So, the US has more carriers than the rest of the world combined... why not rotate the Abraham Lincoln back to a base and deploy another one to bomb Iran? This is the kind of thing that leads me to believe that the current military command is incompetent and that they would have no chance trying to take Greenland, Canada or Cuba. This is especially true if they are low on munitions and morale is low. If the US tries to annex more territory and starts a war, I'll bet they lose. Shit, they may be fighting their own citizens at home defending their upcoming coup.
This is the kind of thing that leads me to believe that the current military command is incompetent. . .
I think you can safely rest assured in that belief.
First off, fuck that fascist legless bastard to hell and fuck every dumb fuck who watches Fux News. They voted for and are responsible for all this shit.
As far as treatment of US soldiers, no sympathy from me. The system is corrupt to the core, most of them and their families voted for this too.
This is what we deserve as a nation in throes of collapse amid the most corrupt government our country has yet to see.
We deserve worse. Likely coming soon to a theatre of war near you.
Our weakness has been exposed for world to witness.