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Originally posted by Bookman
You have to consider that people like O'Reilly and the rest of the better offs send their children to Ivy League schools while most of the soldiers signed up out of desperation (having nothing lucrative to do).
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They still made the choice. It doesn't matter what income bracket they're in; they're legal adults who made a decision to fight for their country. Asking people if they would "sacrifice their children" is demeaning and disrespectful to those in uniform. It makes soldiers seem as if they were unwitting pawns in some kind of insidious low-income draft, when in reality every one of those soldiers made the decision to join on their own.
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Originally posted by cthulu23
Arguing about the legal status of an 18 year old misses the point of what Moore was trying to say. Would a parent want to send their child (and it will always be their child regardless of the child's age) to Iraq? If O'Reilly is so convinced of the justness of this conflict, would he be willing to "let" his son go to war?
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No parent would want to send their child into harms way, but O'Reilly wouldn't have much of a choice if his son decided to enlist. What Moore is trying to do is use images of dead soldiers to emphasize just how pointless he feel this war is, and to use the fear of casualties to get Bush out of office.
It all boils down to whether you feel this is a "just war" or not. Moore obviously feels the war is not justified, and will therefore consider any casualty to be a needless waste of human life. In contrast people like O'Reilly, who believe the war is justified, will look at casualties as heroic sacrifices.
I personally feel that the war is justified, and that we are doing good in Iraq. I think Bush was acting on intelligence that, at the time, he considered valid and important to act on. Few people can argue that removing Saddam was a bad thing to do, and that the people of Iraq are now better off under a less oppressive system of government. But these are my opinions and my perspective is skewed because of them. Your opinions may be different, and while I disagree with them I still respect them.