Absolutely!
I agree. And you can't pin this on one party or the other. Both parties have been short changing the military for some time now. Even Reagan who by all accounts was extermely pro-military did little in the way of actual troop support. His support went mainly to the contractors and defense companies. The average troop went ignored. And I agree that changing the C-IN-C wouldn't solve this problem either. Though it might have helped the overall planning errors. Nor would changing out Rummy. But it's too late for that now. Now we're going to war with the Sec of Def. we have, not the one we might like to have. I believe the problems are so deep rooted that I'm not sure even that would solve anything. I'm sorry to say that in this case I can easily see the problem but the solution doesn't seem so readily apparent. One thing is to get the average citizen more involved with how their elected officals are voting on these issues. We can best support our troops by holding those people we elect responsible for their votes.CSA_TX said:
Yes, But did you know that the bill changed? That's one of the reason Sen. Kerry changed his vote. The first version of the bill was to be funded, in the second it was going to be borrowed. Adding more to the ever increasing deficit.vauge said:
Humans have been in wars since the beginning of time. Forever. This is not a justification for war to continue. The ultimate hope of humanity is to live in harmony - very utopia - I know, and Mixmedia seems to hold strongly to the idea. But we have had to wage wars to get us to the place we are now and fight back those abominations. And we have managed to avoid annihilation thus far and I'd have to say that as a whole, individual humans are much better off living now than in centuries and millennia past. Or would you disagree?Mixmedia said:
Circumstances are keeping you from going? What circumstances? Couldn't be money, lot's of people are losing money. I've got friends who had great jobs and are now earning 1/2 or less doing their duty in Iraq. Some of them may or may not be able to return to their old occupations (some jobs you can't do with one leg, law enforcement is one of them). But they do it because they believe in what they're doing. Couldn't be kids, lots of soldiers have kids they've left behind. I mowed a friend's yard all summer long as she went off to Iraq, left her daughter with her mother. Lot's of people still go to do what they think is the right thing regardless of circumstances. So are you over 35? Are you injuried? Unable in some way? Or do you just support it as long as you don't really have to sacrifice anything? So just how "right" do you think this war is?WKL815 said:
CSA_TX said:
Sounds to me like you have a medical situation that would keep you from going. For me you get a pass. You can support the war from here and I'll still respect you in the morning. My message was aimed at all those people out there that are physically able, are of age and seem to think this war was the greatest idea since indoor plumbing. I'm constantly running in to people who say things like we need to fight this war, we should be doing this, there no question it's something we need to do. Almost without exception by WE they mean somebody else. It's exactly what Cheney did during Nam. He was all for doing it, as long as somebody else was doing the doing. So for all you ardant supporters who are young enough and fit enough here's a site that should get you on your way:vauge said:
So the people here who so support the war but aren't willing to actually go serve are doing their part by being "Armchair Quarterbacks?" Seems to me that we've got an over abundance of armchair quarterbacks. A lot of the "special kind of person's," as you put it, are being given a special kind of surprise by having their deployments and enlistments extended. They'd probably like it if a few more of you armchair quarterbacks would get in the game.vauge said:
Mission accompished, as they say. I watched the Movie "Control Room" last evening. Interesting to say the least. Still working on doing a fact check. So far fairly fair and fairly factual. Kind of scarey. Makes one look at what we're being told as opposed to what a lot of the rest of the world is being told. I had heard that story about the men tearing down the Saddam statue being planted before. I think the Wa. Post did a story it or may have been the BBC. So that's a least the second time I heard that story. The story I read also noted that the men didn't speak with Iraqi accents or dialects. Still don't know what's the truth, probably never will. But I find it odd that when you see Iraqi's really protesting things, they seem to be in large numbers, yet in that scene there appears to be realitively few. I heard one arguement that the reason for that was the war was still ongoing and people were afraid to be in the streets. Well at the same time that was happening people were, in large numbers, tearing through office buildings and museums looting. Even on the same street. They didn't seemed too scared. So I don't find that arguement very factual.mixedmedia said:
Pacridge said:
I have always been able to recognize the Iraqis, or anyone for that matter, as just folks. A lot like us in many ways. Not like us in other ways. But in the end only cultural differences. My preception was that Aljazeera was a completely anti-American network just out to make us look bad. In my attempts to wade through the smoke, fog and spin I've come to have a somewhat different opinion. They do report items that make us look bad. But it's completely possible that our actions are making us look bad and they're merely reporting our actions. It's becoming more and more difficult to defend all of our actions. Though I tend to believe we're trying to the right thing, however misguided the attempt may be. The logic and reasoning for going into Iraq has not been supported. Some say the administration knew these facts all along and merely covered them up. I really don't know and at this point really don't care. But it never made any sense to me to go after Saddam when we knew bin Laden was the mastermind of the attacks on us. Even if we truely did believe he was supporting bin Laden shouldn't we have at least finished one job prior to starting another? I mean we only comitted some 10,000 troops to going after the guy we knew attacked us. Then sent over 100,000 (now nearly 150,000) troops to go get the guy we thought might have had something to do with it. I've never been able to follow that logic.mixedmedia said:
Actually, I was referring to the folks at Al Jazeera, but you are right. Watching Control Room you can't help but be struck by the fact that they are not foaming at the mouth, fanatical, American-haters. They are just people going to work and doing their job everyday. Naturally, being Arab they are going to have a different "spin" (or call it sympathy) than we have in our reportage over here but I have seen no evidence that they fabricate or "proselytize" against America. Sometimes the facts hurt.Pacridge said:
Most of our troops are trying to do the right thing, but I think they are being misguided. I am not at all convinced that the neo-cons are trying to do the right thing. Not at all. And from what I've seen and read, not even all of our troops believe they are being used for a good purpose.Pacridge said:
That's because it is not logical. It is the beginning of a long pined-for neoconservative agenda cloaked in "the interests of national security." Read up on the neocons & their aims then it will all make sense. http://www.csmonitor.com/specials/neocon/index.htmlPacridge said:
Yes. I have a nephew going to Iraq in March. One of the sweetest young men I know. He is in the Marines. Yet, I know that it is distinctly possible that he could - through fear, instinct, anger - do things he wouldn't normally do. Everyone has that capacity in them. Which is why I have a fundamental disagreement with the concept of "the good war." It's like saying a little bit of evil is okay. You can give into your darkest impulses as long as you are doing it for your country. I can't wrap my mind around that as an acceptable fact of life.Pacridge said:
Wow, that is quite a story. See what I mean, though? How is that acceptable? It reminds me of the School of the Americas story. Only heard about that recently and came to find people have been protesting it for 15 years! Have you heard about it? Here's a link if you're interested. http://www.soaw.org/new/type.php?type=8Pacridge said:
Amen. Nice talking with you Pacridge. Have a great day!Pacridge said:
Speaking for myself only, I would only agree that there need to be more concerted efforts to try and prevent such things as Darfur, Rwanda and Nazi Germany. Yes, we have been fighting these wars since forever, but are they really, really solving the world's problems or throwing a blanket of domination over them? I would like to see more commitment to healing the societal ills of the world before I will personally validate the necessity of war. And speaking specifically to this war in Iraq, the human rights abuses that occurred there under Hussein are far from the worst that have been/are being carried out on the planet. President Assad of Syria ordered the killing of 20,000 of his countrymen, fundamentalists Muslims who were challenging his secular government yes, but their community was slaughtered and their homes razed, bulldozed over without media coverage or anyone able to go in and find their loved ones. 70,000 in Darfur. How many hundreds of thousands in Rwanda? The horror of having your children dragged out of their beds at night to have their arms hacked off by machete-wielding militants in Sierra Leone. And, tragically, so many others...We felt no compulsion to go in and stop these atrocities in the name of humanity. Thus, justification of the Iraq war because we want to free the Iraqi people is quite frankly, ten loads of b******t.WKL815 said:
But do you really think that betterment of human existence today is due to fighting wars? I don't see that as justification. After all, it doesn't seem to deter their occurrence. Imagine if we had developed the same faith in other ways of conflict resolution. How might things have turned out? It's not too late!WKL815 said:
Maybe we don't have to sacrifice as much as we think. After all, what is more painful to sacrifice than what we are sacrificing now - the lives of our loved ones? I don't purport to have all the answers. I only know what lies in my heart.WKL815 said:
Not really. I mostly limit that endearment to folks like Cheney and Wolfowitz.WKL815 said:
I think most of our troops are trying to the right thing. But in their training they're being given mixed messages. It's hard to train someone to kill, but only some of the time. I know when I was in training we were constantly told we were "killers" and killing was our job. You end up with a "Kill'em all let God sort'em out" mentality. But do you want Girl Scouts defending the nation? There's just no way to wage war in a nice way.mixedmedia said:
Rhadamanthus said: