"support our troops" offensive to troops? - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

boatin · 01-30-2007, 11:54 AM

So I'm surrounded by family that deliver two lines to me on a regular basis:

support our troops
support the office of the president

As the only liberal leaning person in the family, I get those statements in response to my peace-sign and my "is it 2008, yet?" bumper stickers. As I don't (EVER) bring up these conversations, the frequency with which I'm bombarded with those two statements makes me nuts. With the article I just found and posted about the pentagon, I've just boiled over. So I bring my complaints here.

Please consider that 'deep background' to my real question.

It seems to me that the line "support our troops" is used to mean "support our administration's decisions about the troops". Really, who DOESN'T support the troops? I think the closest argument one could make for who doesn't support our troops is whatever administration doesn't fund veteran services. I suspect there are threads to that affect already in politics.

I was listening to a Springsteen song called "Brothers Under the Bridge" (last song on disc 4 of "tracks") which has some heartbreaking lyrics:

Quote:

Saigon, it was all gone
The same Coke machines
As the streets I grew on
Down in a mesquite canyon
We come walking along the ridge
Me and the brothers under the bridge

Campsite's an hour's walk from the nearest road to town
Up here there's too much brush and canyon
For the CHP choppers to touch down
Ain't lookin' for nothin', just wanna live
Me and the brothers under the bridge
Come the Santa Ana's, man, that dry brush'll light
Billy Devon got burned up in his own campfire one winter night
We buried his body in the white stone high up along the ridge
Me and the brothers under the bridge

Had enough of town and the street life
Over nothing you end up on the wrong end of someone's knife
Now I don't want no trouble
And I ain't got none to give
Me and the brothers under the bridge

I come home in '72
You were just a beautiul light
In your mama's dark eyes of blue
I stood down on the tarmac, I was just a kid
Me and the brothers under the bridge

Come Veterans' Day I sat in the stands in my dress blues
I held your mother's hand
When they passed with the red, white and blue

So I started to wonder if all this "support our troops" business was offensive to actual troops. Particularly the ones from Vietnam. I was a bit too young for Vietnam, but it seems like it would piss me off to hear/see that line and know that it was being used as a political slogan and that more troops were going to come home and get the shaft for the rest of their lives, too.

Any chance that makes any sense?

Jinn · 01-30-2007, 12:06 PM

"Support our troops" is a political tactic designed to make those who do not support our military actions feel guilty, as if they're not supporting the men and women who execute those actions.

I can "support the troops" without agreeing with their position or deployment, so I've stopped taking it offensively. If they place more meaning in the phrase, then they're free to, but it holds as much water as "love thy neighbor" to me. There are two things in this world; words and actions. I'd prefer those saying "support the troops" did so with actions, rather than words.

loquitur · 01-30-2007, 01:01 PM

Well, you can ask the troops what they think. Here is what some of them told NBC News: <EMBED SRC="http://www.youtube.com/v/uyqk1LsCDBQ"></EMBED> They might be wrong, they might be right, but that's what they perceive: support what we're doing or don't say you support the troops.

Willravel · 01-30-2007, 01:23 PM

I hope the troops are offended by the anti-war talk. Maybe it'll get them thinking instead of shooting. People are dying for no good reason, and they expect us to follow that? It's absurd, and any military officer that supports the war is a military officer that supports meaningless loss of life. We've lose so many good people there.

Seaver · 01-30-2007, 01:29 PM

Quote:

I hope the troops are offended by the anti-war talk. Maybe it'll get them thinking instead of shooting. People are dying for no good reason, and they expect us to follow that? It's absurd, and any military officer that supports the war is a military officer that supports meaningless loss of life. We've lose so many good people there.

So with that logic do you support Islamofacism? No, I'm not saying you do but it's the same line of logic.

Willravel · 01-30-2007, 02:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Seaver

So with that logic do you support Islamofacism? No, I'm not saying you do but it's the same line of logic.

I don't support any action of offensive violence. Defensive violence may, on rare occasiona and as a last resort, be neccesary, but offensive military action is wrong and I will not support it, espically when the track record of the US shows that preemtive strikes occour before we've even discovered evidence that we're in danger. I do not support any type of facism, be it Islamic or otherwise. Muslims are just like Christians in that their religion teaches peace and understanding and most of them believe in that, but only a radical few twist the words to try and excuse violence.

Xazy · 01-30-2007, 02:45 PM

Imagine you are a soldier in iraq now, and you hear that someone is protesting the war. And you think I just had 2 people I know die, I am in the front line...

The soldier has to think to himself he is there for the better good of the American People or why else is he there, why else is his friends and brothers in arms are dying. To the average soldier any criticism of the war will be considered not supporting the troops.

It is hard to be able to express to the soldier that it is not anything against them, but you want them safe and here, or supporting our national causes, but just ones.

This is not my personal total view on the war cause I am torn on the war on a number of fronts. A very good friend of mine is a psychologist who helps with the troops when coming back from Iraq, and I have had this conversation with her about how they feel when they come back.

aceventura3 · 01-30-2007, 02:58 PM

Here is how I see it.

A) The men and women in the military are obligated to follow orders.
B) If you think the mission is wrong, you show support of the men and women in the military by doing everythin in your power to remove them from a mission you think is wrong.
C) The people most vocal about the mission being wrong in Congress have not and are not doing everything in their power to remove the men and women from a mission they think is wrong.

D) Playing political games, playing word games while our military is in a war zone is not showing support.

The folks in Congress and many here can split hairs and play with words in many creative ways beyond my imagination. I am often impressed with their ability, but their positions lack clarity and conviction once you get to the root of what they are truely saying. Bush has been very clear about what he wants and how he is going to do it, agree or disagree. However, most Americans think Bush is a lier, when it is Congress actually doing the decieving. It is amazing, and very sad.

CSflim · 01-30-2007, 03:20 PM

I guess it all comes down to a single question:

If someone carries out orders, are they morally responsible for their actions?

If you believe that they are not, it makes sense to say that you "support the troops", even though you are against the war.

If you take the (in my opinion more reasonable) opinion that people are morally responsible for their actions, even if they are carried out under orders, then it seems to me that it becomes impossible for you to claim to be against what these guys are doing, while at the same time saying that you support them. Without the soldiers doing what they are doing, the war would be impossible. As such they are personally guilty of any crimes that are committed in the name of war.

At the risk of being perceived* as "Godwinning" the thread, allow me to use an example:

"Of course I don't think that the genocide of 6 millions Jews was a good thing. I don't support that, but the guys in the gas chambers; they were only doing their job, so I support the gas chamber attendants"

That being said it is perfectly acceptable to say that you don't believe that what American troops are doing in Iraq is right, but that at the same time you do not wish any harm on them, and that you hope that as many as possible of them return home safely. This in my eyes is not really the same thing as "supporting" them.

*Lest there be any argument, this is not a genuine Godwin: I did not compare an opponent to a Nazi. Nor did I claim that what America is doing is in any way comparable to crimes committed by Nazi Germany. In fact I did not even make any statement regarding whether or not America's war in Iraq was justified (truth is, I am somewhat conflicted on this point). I was merely illustrating a purely philosophical point.

dc_dux · 01-30-2007, 03:33 PM

In the latest (dec 06) annual Military Times poll, members of the active duty military express their opinion about the war and the Bush war policy:

Quote:

The American military — once a staunch supporter of President Bush and the Iraq war — has grown in creasingly pessimistic about chances for victory.

For the first time, more troops disapprove of the president’s handling of the war than approve of it. Barely one-third of service members approve of the way the president is handling the war, ac cording to the 2006 Military Times Poll.

When the military was feeling most optimistic about the war — in 2004 — 83 percent of poll re spondents thought success in Iraq was likely. This year, that number has shrunk to 50 percent.

Only 35 percent of the military members polled this year said they approve of the way President Bush is handling the war, while 42 percent said they disapproved.

Just as telling, in this year’s poll only 41 percent of the military said the U.S. should have gone to war in Iraq in the first place, down from 65 percent in 2003. That closely reflects the beliefs of the general population today — 45 percent agreed in a recent USA Today/Gallup poll.
[/B]

article: http://www.militarycity.com/polls/2006_main.php
poll: http://www.militarycity.com/polls/2006poll_iraq.php

Xazy quote:
To the average soldier any criticism of the war will be considered not supporting the troops.

loquitor quote:
Well, you can ask the troops what they think. (which is what the MT poll does on a broader, more statistically accurate manner)...Here is what some of them told NBC News..(vid) They might be wrong, they might be right, but that's what they perceive: support what we're doing or don't say you support the troops.

Is the growing disapproval of the Presidents handling of the war by active duty members of the military considered not supporting the troops or an expression of concern regarding a failing Commander in Chief and a failing policy?

Just to make Ace happy

, these same active duty military have less regard for Congress:

Quote:

President George W. Bush has my best interests at heart.
Strongly agree 14%
Agree 34%
Disagree 24%
Strongly disagree 16%
No opinion/no answer 11%

Congress has my best interests at heart.
Strongly agree 2%
Agree 21%
Disagree 46%
Strongly disagree 23%
No opinion/no answer 8%

http://www.militarycity.com/polls/2006poll_morale.php

But the poll was taken before the new majority Dem Congress took office.

roachboy · 01-30-2007, 04:52 PM

1. "support the troops" was is and remains little more than a rightwing political meme. its function is internal debate management. it must work to some extent, because folk are still stuck on it. but that generally indicates that you are chumped by the meme: you accept the position it places you in and the logic that it imposes on you. for an example of this meme in action, see seaver's post above.

but outside the context of conservative opinion management, it means nothing.

(2) i continue to be baffled by the general conservative tendency (in this thread represented by ace, in fine fashion) of denigrating the representative/legislative body and fetishizing the Leader. it doesnt seem to square with the libertarian side of conservative politics, so it doesnt seem to follow logically. how does this work?

personally, methinks enough of the pretending to think democracy viable: conservatives should argue for a king or a dictator.
be done with the pretenses.

aceventura3 · 01-30-2007, 06:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by roachboy

(2) i continue to be baffled by the general conservative tendency (in this thread represented by ace, in fine fashion) of denigrating the representative/legislative body and fetishizing the Leader. it doesnt seem to square with the libertarian side of conservative politics, so it doesnt seem to follow logically. how does this work?

What is baffling about what I write? Nothing. The differnence between you (Bush and I speak the same language literally and figuratively) and me is I see things in black and white. You see things in shades of gray. In my view, it is far to easy for you and others who see the world in shades of gray to have positions that are not clear and then change those positions slightly without ever admitting a change. I think we fight to win, or we should get out of the fight. I don't know what the hell you think.

Here is the problem and it is based on what I know about how people like Bush and I think. We are "pitbulls" when we get our minds set on something we have a singular focus and won't let go. When Bush says he want the authority to wage war, he is going to wage war. When Congress says they want to wage war, to them it means only as a last resort, only after diplomacy, only after we have support of the world, etc, etc. Now Bush is saying he wants more troops and more money for the war. He will use the troops and spend the money. Congress will send him a letter saying don't send the troops, and give him more money because they "support the troops" or whatever.

The way to deal with people like me and Bush is to snap us out of it, look us in the eye and say no! If you give us Washington double speak, it is like white noise, we ignore it. I supported Bush, the war and removing Sadaam, now I say Bush no longer has the "authority" from the American people to lead, his plan will fail without that authority.

If Congress supports the troops and cares about the impact this war is having they need to act now. there is nothing baffling about that.

Elphaba · 01-30-2007, 06:13 PM

I believe "support our troops" is just another jingoistic slogan of this administration's intent to build unquestioning allegiance to the never ending "war on terror." This particular slogan brings with it the additional power of guilt for those that objected to the Viet Nam war and held the soldiers equally responsible with those making foreign policy. I see it as a not too subtle attack on the values of "liberals" and it has been immensely successful in silencing the opposition party, post 9/11.

I view "support the office of the president" as valid to the extent that the country's president fulfills the oath of office to defend the Constitution. My support of the office of this president is to impeach and remove George W. Bush for his failure to uphold his oath.

boatin, I don't envy you and have no advice to offer. Have you thought about bringing up religion for a change of subject? (Yes, I'm going to hell for that one).

aceventura3 · 01-30-2007, 06:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Elphaba

I believe "support our troops" is just another jingoistic slogan of this administration's intent to build unquestioning allegiance to the never ending "war on terror."

Here is an example of what I mean. If Bush or Cheney says your critic of our plan means you don't support the troops. I say bullshit, and go about my business. For some reason this gets under the skin of liberals. So now you never hear a Democrat say anything without saying "we support the troops". It's a diversionary tactic that works on liberals. Yes, conservatives play word games too.

Willravel · 01-30-2007, 06:24 PM

If Clinton said "Support our troops", he'd be full of shit, too. The first candidate to say, "I'll support the troops when they defend the country instead of work as a private army for the rich" will not only have my vote, but I'll work on his or her campaign.

powerclown · 01-30-2007, 07:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aceventura3

I think we fight to win, or we should get out of the fight.

I agree, but I think this war was unwinnable from the start, made so by the politicians who were more interested in fighting on the cheap than coming up with a realistic and effective post-invasion plan. They skimped on everything from number of soldiers to creating newer, smaller mechanized cavalry units that looked good on the balance sheet (Stryker Brigades) but have proven miserably ineffective in real world scenarios. Talk about R&D on the job...The sheer ignorance, inflexibility and neglect was appalling, and is reflected in the soldier's own opinions of the war at this point I believe. They seem to be getting the sense that the politicians put them into an unwinnable position. Ironic how these same politicians interested in military fiscal responsibility in the beginning are the ones responsible for the cost of this war heading north of 400 billion dollars.

willravel, I think your portrayal of the us military as a private army for the rich is ludicrous, to be honest. Are other nations' armed forces private armies for the rich too? Even Chavez has an army.

The people who cast off "support the troops" as nothing more than a political slogan are fooling themselves imo. If you are against this war, or any war, have the guts to say you don't support the fighters of the war. It's easy to blame the politicians, but when it comes to the actual people doing the actual killing, somehow they get a free pass. It's like saying "I'm against capital punishment, but I support the executioner."

Willravel · 01-30-2007, 08:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by powerclown

willravel, I think your portrayal of the us military as a private army for the rich is ludicrous, to be honest. Are other nations' armed forces private armies for the rich too? Even Chavez has an army.

Chavez's army isn't the US military.

The military fights for corporations, oil companies, and ultra rich families like the Bush family. I think we can both agree that those three organizations are ultra-rich, and I think we can agree that the military works in their interest. Sure, it's a bit more complicated than I layed it out, but it covers some of the broad strokes.

powerclown · 01-30-2007, 08:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by willravel

The military fights for corporations, oil companies, and ultra rich families like the Bush family. I think we can both agree that those three organizations are ultra-rich, and I think we can agree that the military works in their interest. Sure, it's a bit more complicated than I layed it out, but it covers some of the broad strokes.

Much more complicated. The military also fights for a free press (unfortunately, at the moment) civil rights, due process of the law, small business owners and entrepreneurs, artists, universities, unions, Noam Chomsky...they fight to maintain everything that is American. It ain't all bad here. Without them, we'd just be another Canadian province. Imagine that horror.

djtestudo · 01-30-2007, 09:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by willravel

If Clinton said "Support our troops", he'd be full of shit, too. The first candidate to say, "I'll support the troops when they defend the country instead of work as a private army for the rich" will not only have my vote, but I'll work on his or her campaign.

I believe in that as what the army should be.

I also believe that Iraq is a part of defending the country.

So, do I have one worker for the "DJTestudo for President 2020" campaign?

(Actually, I think it makes you the campaign manager at this point

)

Willravel · 01-30-2007, 09:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by powerclown

Much more complicated. The military also fights for a free press (unfortunately, at the moment) civil rights, due process of the law, small business owners and entrepreneurs, artists, universities, unions, Noam Chomsky...they fight to maintain everything that is American. It ain't all bad here. Without them, we'd just be another Canadian province. Imagine that horror.

The free press, civil rights, mall business owners, artists, universities, unionts et all are not located in Iraq. Foriegn oil is in Iraq. Without the military a hell of a lot less people would be dead, but I'm not suggesting that there shouldn't be a military. There should be a strong domestic military that defends the citizens of the US and the our Constitution. There should be a strong intelligence community that works with our allies in order to smoke out potential enemies, gather real evidence, and then better defend our nation and our allies. Everyone, even the most deluded troops in Iraq, know that Iraq's government did not warrent invsasion. Instead of defending freeom and protecting the peace, our soldiers dig a deep hole in a place we don't belong.

Quote:

Originally Posted by djtestudo

I believe in that as what the army should be.

What?

Quote:

Originally Posted by djtestudo

I also believe that Iraq is a part of defending the country.

No, you *think* Iraq is a part of defending the counrty, and you're wrong. Belief suggests opinion, this is a case of fact or fiction.

I've already established time and time again how Iraq was not a danger to you or me, or any other american, or any of our allies even. I've already explained how Saddam's power had dwindled to almost nothing. If we invaded South Africa or Brazil tomorrow, it would not safeguard freedom or justice or anything else for that matter. It would just be another in a long, long line of stupid military decisions carried out by idiots who couldn't look past their own self interest. There is nothing as ignorant as pure selfishness, and the current administration fits well into that.

Mojo_PeiPei · 01-30-2007, 11:12 PM

I oft wonder if people are serious in their beliefs of the movers behind the scenees, those who dictate policy. I think you do yourselves a disservice in labeling them; for example I don't see this as a war that has been initiated so that Haliburton can do some creative accounting, skim profits, and get a jump in their stock shares. I see it as policy dictated by people like me or you, making a decision based on their understanding of things, on their convictions, and I accept that people don't agree with said decision.

The way I understand it all, people like me that favored the war, regardless of our justifications, can never win even if "we" (our side) is ultimately successfully, read someone declaring "military victory". Where I'm coming from is this war has not been fought to be won; it has been overly politicized and hampered by peoples idealistic views out what should be, especially how we procede forward. Further more and the bottom line of this point I'm trying to make is that the ultimate success of war can never be realized because it is a pre-emptive action, in this case we are shaping the future. We all know whats at stake, we all know how bad it is right now, and likely problems to come. The problem is perspective: A bold move was made, it was a power play, a bunch of old fogie's who were movers and shakers from the cold war made a policy in light of a post-soviet changing world, there were new threats and new issues to address, thats what Iraq to me attempts to do, and sadly best case to people like Will or others, it will never be clear as such.

Perhaps to sum up my point because I admit it might be hard to follow let me pose a question, its almost a utilitarian (hoping my mind isn't failing me here) Kantian point, a greater good thing: But what if you could stop a great tradegy such as world war/conflict by making a bold play now? People will die and things will be ugly, thats the nature of the beast, people need to stop kidding themselves about humans and our nature. But what if actions in Iraq now would stop said problems later (best case), or (worst case) if problems are inevitable give America the upper hand, would it be worth it?

host · 01-30-2007, 11:52 PM

You conservative "boys" on here, with your black or white "thinking", and your belief in an "islamofacism" fairytale that exists nowhere else but in your dreams and in the rhetoric of your failed "figurehead", have me at a disadvantage.

I let you see what I see....and you show me....nothing....to support the misguided conclusions that you embrace. Certainly, they are not supported by the historical record of the last few years, last few decades, or even of the last 125 years....

Here is the record.....the documentation of where the facism, aka "corporatism" actually is....and signs of it are documented right up until.....Jan. 29, 2007.

The "enemy" is not where you think it is....right there in "black and white". You enable it....via your ignorance....you're part of it......it is indistinguishable from what you stand for....believe in....what you support and try to defend. You can't though, and it's killing our country, our security, our children's future, and you'll be the last to recognize it....if you ever even do:

Quote:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/30/wa...erland&emc=rss

President Bush, seen here at the White House Monday, has signed an executive order that in effect increases his control over guidelines the government issues regarding health, safety, privacy and other issues.

By ROBERT PEAR
Published: January 30, 2007

.....In an executive order published last week in the Federal Register, Mr. Bush said that each agency must have a regulatory policy office run by a political appointee, to supervise the development of rules and documents providing guidance to regulated industries. The White House will thus have a gatekeeper in each agency to analyze the costs and the benefits of new rules and to make sure the agencies carry out the president’s priorities.

This strengthens the hand of the White House in shaping rules that have, in the past, often been generated by civil servants and scientific experts. It suggests that the administration still has ways to exert its power after the takeover of Congress by the Democrats.

The White House said the executive order was not meant to rein in any one agency. But business executives and consumer advocates said the administration was particularly concerned about rules and guidance issued by the Environmental Protection Agency and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration......

Quote:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...902090_pf.html
With Iran Ascendant, U.S. Is Seen at Fault
Arab Allies in Region Feeling Pressure

By Anthony Shadid
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, January 30, 2007; A01

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates -- Kuwait rarely rebuffs its ally, the United States, partly out of gratitude for the 1991 Persian Gulf War. But in October it reneged on a pledge to send three military observers to an American-led naval exercise in the Gulf, according to U.S. officials and Kuwaiti analysts.

"We understood," a State Department official said. "The Kuwaitis were being careful not to antagonize the Iranians."

Four years after the United States invaded Iraq, in part to transform the Middle East, Iran is ascendant, many in the region view the Americans in retreat, and Arab countries, their own feelings of weakness accentuated, are awash in sharpening sectarian currents that many blame the United States for exacerbating......

....As that struggle deepens, many in the Arab world find themselves on the sidelines. They are increasingly anxious over worsening tension between Sunni and Shiite Muslims across the Middle East, even as some accuse the United States of stoking that tension as a way to counter predominantly Shiite Iran. Fear of Iranian dominance is coupled, sometimes in the same conversation, with suspicion of U.S. intentions in confronting Iran.

"It was necessary to create an enemy to justify the failure of the American occupation in Iraq," Talal Salman, the editor-in-chief of as-Safir, a Lebanese newspaper, wrote in a column this month. "So to protect ourselves against the coming of the wolf, we bring the foreign fleets that fill our lands, skies and seas."

<h3>Iranian rivalry with its Sunni Arab neighbors is centuries old, but as with most conflicts in the Middle East, its modern contours are shaped by politics and interests.

Iran has found itself strengthened almost by default, first with the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan to Iran's east, which ousted the Taliban rulers against whom it almost went to war in the 1990s, and then to its west, with the American ouster of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, against whom it fought an eight-year war in the 1980s.</h3>

Arab rulers allied with the United States issued stark warnings. Jordan's King Abdullah in 2005 spoke darkly of a Shiite crescent that would stretch from Iran, through Iraq's Shiite Arab majority, to Lebanon, where Shiites make up the largest single community. President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt suggested last year that Shiites in the Arab world were more loyal to Iran than to their own countries. And in a rare interview, published Saturday, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia suggested that Iran, although he did not name the country, was trying to convert Sunni Arabs to Shiism. "The majority of Sunni Muslims will never change their faith," he told al-Siyassah, a Kuwaiti newspaper.

Across the region, Iran has begun to exert influence on fronts as diverse as its allies: the formerly exiled Shiite parties in Iraq and their militias; Hezbollah, a Lebanese group formed with Iranian patronage after Israel's 1982 invasion; and the cash-strapped Sunni Muslim movement of Hamas in the Palestinian territories.....

Quote:

http://www1.umn.edu/scitech/ike.htm
President Dwight D. Eisenhower's Farewell Address
January 17, 1961

......A vital element in keeping the peace is our military establishment. Our arms must be mighty, ready for instant action, so that no potential aggressor may be tempted to risk his own destruction.

Our military organization today bears little relation to that known by any of my predecessors in peacetime, or indeed by the fighting men of World War II or Korea.

Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations.

This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence--economic, political, even spiritual---is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.

Akin to, and largely responsible for the sweeping changes in our industrial-military posture, has been the technological revolution during recent decades.......

Quote:

http://www.mclm.com/tohonor/sbutler.html

Major General Smedley D. Butler
USMC

Smedley Darlington Butler was born at West Chester, PA on July 30, 1881. Over his parents objections, at the age of 16 he left home and enlisted as a Marine. He was commissioned a Second Lieutenant in 1898, just 38 days short of his 17th birthday. He was promoted to Brevet Captain for his heroic action during the Boxer Rebellion in China in 1900. Thus began a career that lasted 33 years and saw him become one of only two Marines ever to hold double awards of the Navy issue Medal of Honor.....

....By 1927 Butler was again in China and upon his completion of his tour there he returned to the States in 1929 as a Major General. He was the youngest Marine ever to have been so promoted. However, as a result of a remark made by him which was not flattering about the Italian dictator Mussolini and political maneuvering by civilians unused to Butler's direct method of action, he failed to be selected for the position of Commandant Marine Corps. By October 1931 Butler had retired form the Corps. He died in Philadelphia in 1940.

Quote:

http://www.fas.org/man/smedley.htm
Smedley Butler on Interventionism
-- Excerpt from a speech delivered in 1933, by Major General Smedley Butler, USMC.

War is just a racket. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of people. Only a small inside group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the masses.

I believe in adequate defense at the coastline and nothing else. If a nation comes over here to fight, then we'll fight. The trouble with America is that when the dollar only earns 6 percent over here, then it gets restless and goes overseas to get 100 percent. Then the flag follows the dollar and the soldiers follow the flag.

I wouldn't go to war again as I have done to protect some lousy investment of the bankers. There are only two things we should fight for. One is the defense of our homes and the other is the Bill of Rights. War for any other reason is simply a racket.

There isn't a trick in the racketeering bag that the military gang is blind to. It has its "finger men" to point out enemies, its "muscle men" to destroy enemies, its "brain men" to plan war preparations, and a "Big Boss" Super-Nationalistic-Capitalism.

It may seem odd for me, a military man to adopt such a comparison. Truthfulness compels me to. I spent thirty- three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country's most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high class muscle- man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.

I suspected I was just part of a racket at the time. Now I am sure of it. Like all the members of the military profession, I never had a thought of my own until I left the service. My mental faculties remained in suspended animation while I obeyed the orders of higher-ups. This is typical with everyone in the military service.

I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912 (where have I heard that name before?). I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested.

During those years, I had, as the boys in the back room would say, a swell racket. Looking back on it, I feel that I could have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.

Quote:

http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstra...D9415B848FF1D3
FREE PREVIEW
Gen. Butler Bares 'Fascist Plot' To Seize Government by Force; Says Bond Salesman, as Representative of Wall St. Group, Asked Him to Lead Army of 500,000 in March on Capital -- Those Named Make Angry Denials -- Dickstein Gets Charge. GEN. BUTLER BARES A 'FASCIST PLOT'

November 21, 1934, Wednesday
Page 1, 462 words

DISPLAYING FIRST PARAGRAPH - A plot of Wall Street interests to overthrow President Roosevelt and establish a Fascist dictatorship, backed by a private army of 500,000 ex-soldiers and others, was charged by Major Gen. Smedley D. Butler, retired Marine Corps officer, who appeared yesterday before the House of Representatives Committee on Un-American Activities, which began hearings on the charges.

Quote:

http://www.informationclearinghouse....ticle13911.htm
The Plot To Seize The White House

By Jules Archer

PART THREE

The Conspiracy Explodes

The McCormack-Dickstein Committee agreed to listen to Butler's story in a secret executive session in New York City on November 20, 1934. The two cochairman of the committee were Representative John McCormack, of Massachusets, and New York Representative Samuel Dickstein, who later became a New York State Supreme Court justice. Butler's testimony, developed in two hours of questions and answers, was recorded in full.

Simultaneously Paul Comly French broke the story in the Stern papers, the Philadelphia Record and the New York Post. Under the headline "$3,000,000 Bid for Fascist Army Bared," he wrote:

Major General Smedley D. Butler revealed today that he has been asked by a group of wealthy New York brokers to lead a Fascist movement to set up a dictatorship in the United States.

General Butler, ranking major general of the Marine Corps up to his retirement three years ago, told his story today at a secret session of the Congressional Committee on Un-American Activities.

McCormack opened the hearing by first noting that General Butler had been in the Marine Corps thirty-three years and four months and had received the Congressional Medal of Honor twice, establishing his integrity and credibility as a witness. Then he invited the general to "just go ahead and tell in your own way all that you know about an attempted Fascist movement in this country."

"May I preface my remarks," Butler began, "by saying, sir, that I have one interest in all of this, and that is to try to do my best to see that a democracy is maintained in this country?"

"Nobody who has either read about or known about General Butler," replied McCormack promptly, "would have anything but that understanding."

Butler then gave detailed testimony about everything that had happened in connection with the plot, from the first visit of MacGuire and Doyle on July 1, 1933.

Some of his testimony was not released in the official record of the bearings, for reasons that will be discussed later, but was nevertheless ferreted out, copied, and made public by reporter John L. Spivak. This censored testimony is indicated by the symbol † to distinguish it from the official testimony eventually released by the McCormack-Dickstein Committee. The same was true of testimony given by reporter Paul Comly French, who followed Butler as a witness, and the same symbol (†) indicates the censored portions.*

Butler first described the attempts made by MacGuire and Doyle to persuade him to go to the American Legion convention hand make a speech they had prepared for him.

BUTLER: . . . they were very desirous of unseating the royal family in control of the American Legion, at the convention to be held in Chicago, and very anxious to have me take part in it. They said that they were not in sympathy with the . . . present administration's treatment of the soldiers. . . . They said, "We represent the plain soldiers. . .We want you to come there and stampede the convention in a speech and help us in our fight to dislodge the royal family."......

Entire book by Jules Archer, published in 1973 and offered for sale here:
http://www.amazon.com/plot-seize-Whi.../dp/B0006COVHA
can be freely viewed, here:

Quote:

http://www.clubhousewreckards.com/pl...whitehouse.htm

THE PLOT TO SEIZE THE WHITE HOUSE

How Corporations Sought to Install the First American Dictator

Jules Archer

In 1933, at the height of the Depression, a confederation of wealthy industrialists and political reactionaries looked to fascism for deliverance from their woes. They had lost their fortunes on Wall Street and their power structure of political favor in Washington. They thought they stood to lose everything if they condescended to allow President Franklin Delano Roosevelt to enact the New Deal and the silver standard. And they would stop at next to nothing in order to continue their grip on the levers of America’s most powerful institutions. In THE PLOT TO SEIZE THE WHITE HOUSE, veteran author Jules Archer details tells this sordid, secret history of the most shocking act of sedition and intrigue since workmen drained the swamps to lay the foundation for Washington D.C.
The plotters studied Mussolini’s rise to power on the shoulders of nationalistic veterans’ groups, and devised a strategy to subvert or replace the leadership of the American Legion. If that failed, they would pull Legion’s funding and create their own. This would be followed by a call to law-and-order, local chapters deputized to break strikes and crush opposition demonstrations, and a brazen military organization arrayed against FDR and the U.S. Army. It would be a paramilitary police force beholden only to the party leaders; a fifth column: the American equivalent of Hitler’s Brown Shirts. Under the pretext of helping the ailing FDR with his duties, they would pressure him to appoint a strong-man dictator. They were linked to nationalist organizations with patriotic-sounding names, anti-Semitic groups, and the Ku Klux Klan. And they were led and bankrolled to the tune of millions of dollars by a constellation of industrialists and financiers whose inclusion is still shocking even today.
Their selection for dictator was tough-talking two-time Medal of Honor recipient and Marine Major General Smedley Darlington Butler, a thirty-five year veteran of global U.S. gunboat diplomacy who was once a Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania. He was also a patriot, and having misplaced their trust in him, Butler broke the news through trusted journalists and friends on Capitol Hill. The McCormack-Dickstein Committee took testimony, some of which was under seal and is revealed only here. There were no consequences for the instigators however. The entire affair was swept under the rug, left out of history books, and conveniently forgotten, until the publication of THE PLOT TO SEIZE THE WHITE HOUSE......

pan6467 · 01-31-2007, 12:02 AM

Look I don't support the war, I do not support Bush in anyway.... and I believe this war was started based on lies from a warmongering President and powers that be.

that said:

I support the troops and I support every man and woman over there that is doing what they have to to survive. I don't have to agree with the principle reason they are over there, but I can support them by understanding and accepting they are doing what they believe they need to do.

If you lefties don't like it F* you..... if you righties take umbrage to what I said F* you also.... because you both are F*in hypocrites who just want to be "right" and want the other side to be "wrong" and don't want to see what I and MANY like me, say and believe is possible.

And guess what...... I thank veterans who had to do what they had to do so that I may say F* you.

And yes, I did vote for a congress that will get our men and women out ASAP.... but I also expect them to get the men and women out as safely as possible.

host · 01-31-2007, 12:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pan6467

Look I don't support the war, I do not support Bush in anyway.... and I believe this war was started based on lies from a warmongering President and powers that be.

that said:

I support the troops and I support every man and woman over there that is doing what they have to to survive. I don't have to agree with the principle reason they are over there, but I can support them by understanding and accepting they are doing what they believe they need to do.

If you lefties don't like it F* you..... if you righties take umbrage to what I said F* you also.... because you both are F*in hypocrites who just want to be "right" and want the other side to be "wrong" and don't want to see what I and MANY like me, say and believe is possible.

And guess what...... I thank veterans who had to do what they had to do so that I may say F* you.

And yes, I did vote for a congress that will get our men and women out ASAP.... but I also expect them to get the men and women out as safely as possible.

pan, please point out the "hypocrisy" in my last post. The US president comes from a family where his father, paternal grandfather, and of his great-grandfathers, Bush and Walker, are well documented as "investors" and profiteers in war, in nations engaged in preparing for and financing war, and in war related industries. Indeed, his grandfather and his great-grandfathers invested in and helped finance the facist "side" of what became WWII.

The president is reported as actively attempting to circumvent and undermine the regulatory intent of congress, as recently as last week. The president and his administration have dramatically destabalized the political balance of the region of the world where 30 percent of the global petroleum supply currently is sourced, and the locale of at least half of known petroleum reserves are situated.

I'm responding to people who neither accept or consider any of the above to be "the way it is".

I'm presenting "what I know", to everyone willing to take it in.
It's a diverse argument, and it's well sourced.

What are you doing?

pan6467 · 01-31-2007, 12:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by host

pan, please point out the "hypocrisy" in my last post. The US president comes from a family where his father, paternal grandfather, and of his great-grandfathers, Bush and Walker, are well documented as "investors" and profiteers in war, in nations engaged in preparing for and financing war, and in war related industries. Indeed, his grandfather and his great-grandfathers invested in and helped finance the facist "side" of what became WWII.

The president is reported as actively attempting to circumvent and undermine the regulatory intent of congress, as recently as last week. The president and his administration have dramatically destabalized the political balance of the region of the world where 30 percent of the global petroleum supply currently is sourced, and the locale of at least half of known petroleum reserves are situated.

I'm responding to people who neither accept or consider any of the above to be "the way it is".

I'm presenting "what I know", to everyone willing to take it in.
It's a diverse argument, and it's well sourced.

What are you doing?

Host, I wasn't in anyway responding to your post.

I was responding to the self righteous on both sides posting here, saying, "you can't support the troops without supporting the President" and those saying, " 'support our troops' is just an excuse the right uses to garner support".

Both sides from what I gather, will try to say I am not being political enough, I am not taking a true side.....

To them I say but I am...... I'm taking the side I believe shows the troops my support the best possible way in these times.

And again, (not you Host...but the self righteous and they know who they are and we will too because they'll post how F*'d up my view is).... to that I say F* YOU.... you want me to respect your side and how you support the troops... fine respect my way of supporting them.

Sorry Host, but I get so tired of seeing the Left-Right self righteous BS that allows no middle ground.

BTW Host, I've said it many times before and I say it now, I believe Bush will take total control and become a dictator. Before he leaves office we'll be hit hard and he'll take Martial Law action.

IMHO one of the things he is doing with the action in Iraq is to weed out anyone who will create "problems" for the above action.

I pray to God I am wrong and that January of '09 we see a new president being sworn in...... but I ain't holding my breath and I am prepared as best as I can be for the worst.

loquitur · 01-31-2007, 10:39 AM

The Dem party keeps saying "we support the troops" because so many of them and their predecessors treated Vietnam soldiers and vets very poorly, and now they are correctly ashamed of that and don't want to repeat the mistake. Learning from history is a good thing. At least that much - that you don't shit on someone who is in the way of a bullet on behalf of his country - did sink in. Good for them. Just as the isolationist right learned its lesson from WW2.

What troubles me about all this is that, whether you agree with the decision to go to war in Iraq or not, once the country is committed to it there should be only one acceptable result, and that is victory. I know that is a very Jacksonian point of view, but Andrew Jackson was one of the more successful presidents. Rumsfeld tried fighting the war on the cheap, no one called him on it - and now that the folly is exposed, instead of correcting the error, Congress is standing on the sidelines tossing rotten tomatoes. What is especially troubling is that to my eyes it looks like domestic political wrangling seems to be taking precedence over national security. If we end up with a new terror base in Mesopotamia, it is not going to help the next president even if s/he is a Democrat. Accepting anything less than success in Iraq is going to come back to bite us.

In the end, Colin Powell was right: never go to war unless you go in with overwhelming force and have a well-thought-out exit plan. In this war we didn't do either of those things. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't fix it. If you do a war, do it to win. Otherwise don't do it. If we're not fixed on winning, bring the troops home now, this minute.

host · 01-31-2007, 10:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by loquitur

The Dem party keeps saying "we support the troops" because so many of them and their predecessors treated Vietnam soldiers and vets very poorly, and now they are correctly ashamed of that and don't want to repeat the mistake. Learning from history is a good thing. At least that much - that you don't shit on someone who is in the way of a bullet on behalf of his country - did sink in. Good for them. Just as the isolationist right learned its lesson from WW2......

Post an example of this "treated.....very poorly" "as fact" talking point that is not sourced from conservative myth/misinformation; share with us how you come to "know" what you are so sure of.

Quote:

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/edi..._image?mode=PF
JERRY LEMBCKE
Debunking a spitting image

By Jerry Lembcke | April 30, 2005

STORIES ABOUT spat-upon Vietnam veterans are like mercury: Smash one and six more appear. It's hard to say where they come from. For a book I wrote in 1998 I looked back to the time when the spit was supposedly flying, the late 1960s and early 1970s. I found nothing. No news reports or even claims that someone was being spat on.

What I did find is that around 1980, scores of Vietnam-generation men were saying they were greeted by spitters when they came home from Vietnam. There is an element of urban legend in the stories in that their point of origin in time and place is obscure, and, yet, they have very similar details. The story told by the man who spat on Jane Fonda at a book signing in Kansas City recently is typical. Michael Smith said he came back through Los Angeles airport where ''people were lined up to spit on us."

Like many stories of the spat-upon veteran genre, Smith's lacks credulity. GIs landed at military airbases, not civilian airports, and protesters could not have gotten onto the bases and anywhere near deplaning troops. There may have been exceptions, of course, but in those cases how would protesters have known in advance that a plane was being diverted to a civilian site? And even then, returnees would have been immediately bused to nearby military installations and processed for reassignment or discharge.

The exaggerations in Smith's story are characteristic of those told by others. ''Most Vietnam veterans were spat on when we came back," he said. That's not true. A 1971 Harris poll conducted for the Veterans Administration found over 90 percent of Vietnam veterans reporting a friendly homecoming. Far from spitting on veterans, the antiwar movement welcomed them into its ranks and thousands of veterans joined the opposition to the war.

The persistence of spat-upon Vietnam veteran stories suggests that they continue to fill a need in American culture. The image of spat-upon veterans is the icon through which many people remember the loss of the war, the centerpiece of a betrayal narrative that understands the war to have been lost because of treason on the home front. Jane Fonda's noisiest detractors insist she should have been prosecuted for giving aid and comfort to the enemy, in conformity with the law of the land.

But the psychological dimensions of the betrayal mentality are far more interesting than the legal. Betrayal is about fear, and the specter of self-betrayal is the hardest to dispel. The likelihood that the real danger to America lurks not outside but inside the gates is unsettling. The possibility that it was failure of masculinity itself, the meltdown of the core component of warrior culture, that cost the nation its victory in Vietnam has haunted us ever since.

Many tellers of the spitting tales identify the culprits as girls, a curious quality to the stories that gives away their gendered subtext. Moreover, the spitting images that emerged a decade after the troops had come home from Vietnam are similar enough to the legends of defeated German soldiers defiled by women upon their return from World War I, and the rejection from women felt by French soldiers when they returned from their lost war in Indochina, to suggest something universal and troubling at work in their making. One can reject the presence of a collective subconscious in the projection of those anxieties, as many scholars would, but there is little comfort in the prospect that memories of group spit-ins, like Smith has, are just fantasies conjured in the imaginations of aging veterans.

Remembering the war in Vietnam through the images of betrayal is dangerous because it rekindles the hope that wars like it, in countries where we are not welcomed, can be won. It disparages the reputation of those who opposed that war and intimidates a new generation of activists now finding the courage to resist Vietnam-type ventures in the 21st century.

Today, on the 30th anniversary of the end of the war in Vietnam, new stories of spat-upon veterans appear faster than they can be challenged. Debunking them one by one is unlikely to slow their proliferation but, by contesting them where and when we can, we engage the historical record in a way that helps all of us remember that, in the end, soldiers and veterans joined with civilians to stop a war that should have never been fought.

Jerry Lembcke, associate professor of sociology at Holy Cross College, is the author of ''The Spitting Image: Myth, Memory, and the Legacy of Vietnam."

loquitur · 01-31-2007, 11:41 AM

the "spit" story is apocryphal, or at least it hasn't been documented. But Host, I was alive during that time and of news-watching age. There was plenty of abuse directed at returning soldiers that I remember quite well. And you're not that much different in age than I am.

host · 01-31-2007, 12:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by loquitur

the "spit" story is apocryphal, or at least it hasn't been documented. But Host, I was alive during that time and of news-watching age. There was plenty of abuse directed at returning soldiers that I remember quite well. And you're not that much different in age than I am.

loquitur, my point is that it is not a black or white world. The "gray" is the color of clouds, and issues are always more clouded than many conservatives usually will consider or admit.

Do you remember the brutality of the Chicago police against peaceful protestors, members of the press, and innocent passersby at the 1968 Democratic party convention? The mindset of the country was literally torn apart in the Vietnam years. Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, democrat and host of the '68 convention, was shocked by the comments of fellow democrat and senator Abe Ribicoff of Connecticut:

Quote:

NPR : Recalling the Mayhem of '68 Convention
Abraham Ribicoff interrupted his nomination of George McGovern and looked Mayor Daley straight in the eye. SOUNDBITE FROM 1968 BROADCAST Mr. ABRAHAM ...
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...toryId=3613499 - Similar pages

Quote:

May15/1969 speaking to a news conference about clearing the protesters from the University of Califorina Campus, Gov. Ronald Reagan blurted.

"If its a blood bath, then let it be now."

May 3/1970 Republican Gov. of Ohio James Rhodes blurted.

"We're going to use every weapon possible to eradicate the problem."
It was Gov. Rhodes Nat. Guard that killed 4 students at Kent State U. on that date....

Why do you suppose that the conservative "mantra" is similar to the sentiments that you posted, and I challenged....to the point that the phoney MIT"Study" that Mr. Fallows writes about, below, was drafted and touted?

Can you consider that the majority of the folks who served in Vietnam came from the working class that favored democratic candidates and policies/programs? That same party served up the Vietnam war, and many continued to be killed and wounded, even after Nixon was elected in '68 on the strength of his "secret plan", to end the war.

Clinton did not go to Vietnam, nor Bush, nor Cheney, nor Dan Quayle....but Al Gore did. If you were "college material", or your daddy had money and connections, you could "opt out" of going to Vietnam. The divide was about what it's always about.... class, money, influence, intellect.

You seem to want to make it about something else. The "left" were shot in small numbers, and had their heads clubbed open, in larger numbers, for protesting the war. Reagan's comments and actions were un-American, and inexcusable. Just because he has been elevated to "sainthood" by vast numbers of uninformed and nostalgic admirers, does not mean that he was a "great" man.

The "left" did not "let down" or villify "the troops" who served in Vietnam, any more or any less than Cheney did, via his excuse that he "had other priorities".

Quote:

http://archives.cjr.org/year/92/6/draft.asp

.....A few months after the fall of Saigon, Fallows wrote a memorable article called "What Did You Do in the Class War, Daddy?" Fallows, who starved himself to get a deferment, tallied his 1,200 Harvard classmates and found only fifty-six who had entered the military at all, and only two who had gone to Vietnam.......

Quote:

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/199304/class-war
The Atlantic Monthly | April 1993

Low-Class Conclusions

A widely reported new study claiming that all classes shared the burden of the Vietnam War is preposterous

by James Fallows

.....

I 'M waiting for someone to ask me what "sophistry" means. I'll pull out my copy of Operations Research magazine and say, "See for yourself!"

I'll be carrying the September-October, 1992, issue, and I'll point to an article called "America's Vietnam Casualties: Victims of a Class War?" The article was written by Arnold Barnett, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Sloan School of Management, and two recent graduates of the school, Timothy Stanley,and, Michael Shore. Operations Research is not a mass-circulation journal, and I am sure that most of the journalists who have written about this article never bothered to read what it actually said, as I'll explain in a moment. Still, the article is surprisingly important, for the impact it has already had on public discourse and for what it shows about the corruption of educated thought.....

Quote:

http://www.pbs.org/thinktank/transcript1227.html

Transcript for:
James Fallows on America
THINK TANK WITH BEN WATTENBERG
#1409 James Fallows on America.
FEED DATE: April 13, 2006
James Fallows

Opening Billboard: Funding for this program is provided by the Bernard and Irene Schwartz Foundation, the Smith Richardson Foundation, and the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation.

WATTENBERG: Hello, I’m Ben Wattenberg. Today we are joined by one of the most eclectic minds of journalism and editorial thinking in America: James Fallows. His topics have included Iraq, the market place, Japan, Vietnam, to just begin a long list. Today we are getting his general take on where America has been, where it is now, and where it is going. Fallows is the national correspondent for the Atlantic Monthly, chairman of the New America Foundation, and author of several books, including “Breaking the News: How the Media Undermine America Democracy”. The topic before the house: James Fallows on America, this week on Think Tank.

WATTENBERG: Welcome to Think Tank, Jim Fallows. You are a very interesting and eclectic man in American life and letters. Can you tell us a little bit about how you grew up and, mostly, what are the important events that you have covered or been involved in as an activist and what do you think about America?

FALLOWS: My personal story, in a very brief nutshell, is I grew up in Southern California. My parents were, sort of, working class people from Pennsylvania. My dad went to college and medical school thanks to the GI Bill. I was – went east to college at Harvard during the tumult of the late 1960s Vietnam War era. I sort of changed my political orientation then from a Reagan-supporter to a Vietnam War critic. I went to graduate school in Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar shortly after Bill Clinton was there. But I met him soon after that. So I had known him in the early ’70s. And then I’ve worked mainly as a journalist since then, since the mid-1970s for a number of magazines, the Washington Monthly, Texas Monthly, Atlantic Monthly...

WATTENBERG: And a book author.

FALLOWS: Yes, I’ve written a number of books. The main stories and events, if I had to sort of tick off the things that have affected me, during college it was both working for a Civil Rights newspaper in Alabama and being sort of involved in the anti-Vietnam War movement was one. I worked for Jimmy Carter for two-and-a-half-years as a speechwriter...

WATTENBERG: So you’ve been on the ground.

FALLOWS: Yes.

WATTENBERG: You’ve had boots on the ground.

FALLOWS: I worked in politics one time. My argument there was that people who are going to be political journalists should work in politics once. Once rather than zero because you’ve done it. Once rather than more than once so that you’ve done it and you’re not going to go shuttling back and forth. I lived in Japan, in East Asia, through much of the 1980s. That was very important for me in sort of establishing how American I am in my roots and values. I’ve covered the military a lot. I think precisely because I’ve never been in the military myself. And, indeed, was deliberately avoiding service in Vietnam. I wanted to learn as much as I could about the realities in the military. I’ve covered technology a lot. I worked at Microsoft as a program designer for a while. And I like to spend time outside the U.S. since I’ve traveled to, I guess I could say, most countries of the world.

WATTENBERG: In some ways you have been a spokesman for at least a certain part of your generation. Although, as I say, very eclectic. Tell us about your refusal to serve in Vietnam. Because you’ve written about it.

FALLOWS: I was in college – started in 1966 and I graduated in 1970 – and for the last two or three years – a very clear memory of my freshman year at Harvard was Robert McNamara paying a visit to the Harvard campus. He was then secretary of defense. And it was the first real protest on the Harvard campus. And there was a kind of sense of shock in the fall of ’66. There was a sort of rudeness to the sitting secretary of defense and a friend of the Kennedy family, which was so important at Harvard. Two or three years after that it was just complete chaos there and at many other campuses in the country. When I was graduating in 1970 it was shortly after the Cambodian invasion, so there was no end to my senior year, so the school was called off while they reconvened people for graduation. And I was determined not to go to Vietnam, just because I was so much against the policies. It was going to be so ruinous for the country to be involved that way. And so – as I’ve written about in the Washington Monthly, there was the famous physical examination at the Boston Naval Yard, which they did by local draft boards: they had the Cambridge draft board, the Harvard and MIT kids, the Chelsea draft board, the white working class kids. All the Cambridge people had medical excuses. Mine was being too skinny. All the Chelsea people basically were sent on. And that was sort of the class division of the Vietnam War. So with complete retrospect, I would actually have refused rather than avoided.

WATTENBERG: Let me ask you about your refusal to serve in Vietnam. I mean, there were a number of arguments, one of which was that it was an immoral war. And not only did some of the people against it want - say we should get out, therefore, but wanted us to lose in a humiliating way so we would never do it again. And then there was another group that said it was the wrong war in the wrong place in the wrong time.

FALLOWS: I was in the camp saying this was a disaster for the United States. That it was, I think, it was originally well-intentioned, probably better-intentioned and more defensible in its beginnings than I would argue the current Iraq war is. But it just had become – certainly, by 1970 when this choice was sort of coming to me, Nixon had already announced that the U.S. was getting out. It was a question of sort of face-saving and the getting out period. And half the casualties were from that point onward. Half of the American casualties were from that point onward. And so, it just seemed to me, a disaster for the United States. And so that was the essence of my view, not immoral but a disaster.....

loquitur · 01-31-2007, 06:37 PM

Host, you're changing the subject. Look, there is a reason the Dem leadership keeps saying they support the troops - it's because they at least perceive that there is a historical feeling in the country that the last time there was an unpopular war, returning soldiers weren't treated right. That's why they're doing it. And they are 100% right: people who sign up to fight for our country -- whether or not the war they are ordered to fight is one you or I agree with -- deserve our respect and gratitude. The political aspects of the war are not the fault or responsibility of the soldiers. The war opponents do not want people to come back years from now and say they didn't support our soldiers - which was done to the anti-Vietnam war people. Remember "we support our troops - when they shoot their officers" didn't materialize out of thin air.

Saying that other people "diss" the country in other ways is less than irrelevant to the discussion.

boatin · 01-31-2007, 07:19 PM

I would suggest the reason that the dems keep saying they support the troops is that (for reasons roach spells out) the republicans have equated 'supporting the troops' and 'supporting the plan'. Since the dems don't support that plan, they clearly aren't supporting the troops. The only connection it has to the past is the connection that's grown between anti war talk and mythical non-support of troops.

When I get used the way the soldiers are getting used, I tend to get annoyed. I'm just surprised there aren't more soldiers upset...

powerclown · 02-01-2007, 10:52 AM

Quote:

Really, who DOESN'T support the troops?

This guy, for a start.

---

The Troops Also Need to Support the American People
By William M. Arkin | January 30, 2007; 8:51 AM ET

I've been mulling over an NBC Nightly News report from Iraq last Friday in which a number of soldiers expressed frustration with opposition to war in the United States.

I'm sure the soldiers were expressing a majority opinion common amongst the ranks - that's why it is news - and I'm also sure no one in the military leadership or the administration put the soldiers up to expressing their views, nor steered NBC reporter Richard Engel to the story.

I'm all for everyone expressing their opinion, even those who wear the uniform of the United States Army. But I also hope that military commanders took the soldiers aside after the story and explained to them why it wasn't for them to disapprove of the American people.

Friday's NBC Nightly News included a story from my colleague and friend Richard Engel, who was embedded with an active duty Army infantry battalion from Fort Lewis, Washington.

Engel relayed how "troops here say they are increasingly frustrated by American criticism of the war. Many take it personally, believing it is also criticism of what they've been fighting for."

First up was 21 year old junior enlisted man Tyler Johnson, whom Engel said was frustrated about war skepticism and thinks that critics "should come over and see what it's like firsthand before criticizing."

"You may support or say we support the troops, but, so you're not supporting what they do, what they're here sweating for, what we bleed for, what we die for. It just don't make sense to me," Johnson said.

Next up was Staff Sergeant Manuel Sahagun, who is on his second tour in Iraq. He complained that "one thing I don't like is when people back home say they support the troops, but they don't support the war. If they're going to support us, support us all the way."

Next was Specialist Peter Manna: "If they don't think we're doing a good job, everything that we've done here is all in vain," he said.

These soldiers should be grateful that the American public, which by all polls overwhelmingly disapproves of the Iraq war and the President's handling of it, do still offer their support to them, and their respect.

Through every Abu Ghraib and Haditha, through every rape and murder, the American public has indulged those in uniform, accepting that the incidents were the product of bad apples or even of some administration or command order.

Sure, it is the junior enlisted men who go to jail. But even at anti-war protests, the focus is firmly on the White House and the policy. We don't see very many "baby killer" epithets being thrown around these days, no one in uniform is being spit upon.

So, we pay the soldiers a decent wage, take care of their families, provide them with housing and medical care and vast social support systems and ship obscene amenities into the war zone for them, we support them in every possible way, and their attitude is that we should in addition roll over and play dead, defer to the military and the generals and let them fight their war, and give up our rights and responsibilities to speak up because they are above society?

I can imagine some post-9/11 moment, when the American people say enough already with the wars against terrorism and those in the national security establishment feel these same frustrations. In my little parable, those in leadership positions shake their heads that the people don't get it, that they don't understand that the threat from terrorism, while difficult to defeat, demands commitment and sacrifice and is very real because it is so shadowy, that the very survival of the United States is at stake. Those Hoovers and Nixons will use these kids in uniform as their soldiers. If it weren't about the United States, I'd say the story would end with a military coup where those in the know, and those with fire in their bellies, would save the nation from the people.

But it is the United States, and the recent NBC report is just an ugly reminder of the price we pay for a mercenary - oops sorry, volunteer - force that thinks it is doing the dirty work.

The notion of dirty work is that, like laundry, it is something that has to be done but no one else wants to do it. But Iraq is not dirty work: it is not some necessary endeavor; the people just don't believe that anymore.

I'll accept that the soldiers, in order to soldier on, have to believe that they are manning the parapet, and that's where their frustrations come in. I'll accept as well that they are young and naïve and are frustrated with their own lack of progress and the never changing situation in Iraq. Cut off from society and constantly told that everyone supports them, no wonder the debate back home confuses them.

America needs to ponder what it is we really owe those in uniform. I don't believe America needs a draft though I imagine we'd be having a different discussion if we had one.

---

Gold star on his forehead for honesty.

host · 02-01-2007, 11:10 AM

You are in a closed loop in an increasingly small circle of "feedback" that suits your discredit "strategy".....I told you that this was "over", back when you sponsored your "good news in Iraq" thread, 19 months and more than a thousand US troops' lives ago.....IMO, you're not supporting the troops, you're supporting the "leaders" who have sold the troops out:

Quote:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/n...ck=1&cset=true
Audit: Millions wasted in Iraq
Report focuses on reconstruction aid

By Hope Yen and Pauline Jelinek
Associated Press
Published January 31, 2007

Quote:

http://www.businessweek.com/print/bw...130_624241.htm
Top News January 30, 2007, 8:37PM EST text size: TT
Military Equipment: Missing in Action
A new Defense audit says the Pentagon has failed to properly equip soldiers in Iraq—just as the President struggles to find support for a troop increase

by Dawn Kopecki

The Inspector General for the Defense Dept. is concerned that the U.S. military has failed to adequately equip soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, especially for nontraditional duties such as training Iraqi security forces and handling detainees, according to a summary of a new audit obtained by BusinessWeek.

The findings come as the Pentagon prepares to send another 21,500 troops to Iraq and as Democratic leaders levy threats to restrict funding for a war that's already cost about $500 billion. The Army alone expects to spend an extra $70 billion on an additional 65,000 permanent troops from fiscal year 2009 through 2013. According to Army officials, $18 billion of that will be spent on equipment.
Soldiers Poorly Equipped

The Inspector General found that the Pentagon hasn't been able to properly equip the soldiers it already has. Many have gone without enough guns, ammunition, and other necessary supplies to "effectively complete their missions" and have had to cancel or postpone some assignments while waiting for the proper gear, according to the report from auditors with the Defense Dept. Inspector General's office. Soldiers have also found themselves short on body armor, armored vehicles, and communications equipment, among other things, auditors found.

"As a result, service members performed missions without the proper equipment, used informal procedures to obtain equipment and sustainment support, and canceled or postponed missions while waiting to receive equipment," reads the executive summary dated Jan. 25. Service members often borrowed or traded with each other to get the needed supplies, according to the summary.

Pentagon officials did not immediately return phone calls seeking comment. ......

Quote:

http://www.louise.house.gov/index.ph...id=756&Itemid=
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Wednesday, January 31, 2007

Slaughter Condemns Military Equipment Shortages as Waste Persists
New Pentagon Audit Confirms Troops Sent into Iraq and Afghanistan Without Adequate Equipment, Armored Vehicles, while Reconstruction Funds Squandered by Perpetual Waste, Fraud, and Abuse

Washington, DC - Rep. Louise M. Slaughter (D-NY-28), Chairwoman of the House Rules Committee, today responded to a newly released Inspector General audit detailing equipment shortages for the American troops sent into Iraq and Afghanistan that forced many to fight without the benefit of adequate body armor or armored vehicles.

"The recently released findings of the Inspector General confirm our greatest fears: that brave young men and women were routinely sent into battle without the equipment they needed to protect themselves," Rep. Slaughter said. "And yet, despite the equipment shortages that already exist, the President is increasing the number of troops in Iraq. Why should we expect that they will be given what they need for success?" ....

underequipped, you've kept them there in Iraq, yet another year, since this poll, powerclown:

Quote:

http://www.zogby.com/NEWS/ReadNews.dbm?ID=1075
Released: February 28, 2006

U.S. Troops in Iraq: 72% Say End War in 2006

* Le Moyne College/Zogby Poll shows just one in five troops want to heed Bush call to stay “as long as they are needed”
* While 58% say mission is clear, 42% say U.S. role is hazy
* Plurality believes Iraqi insurgents are mostly homegrown
* Almost 90% think war is retaliation for Saddam’s role in 9/11, most don’t blame Iraqi public for insurgent attacks
* Majority of troops oppose use of harsh prisoner interrogation
* Plurality of troops pleased with their armor and equipment

An overwhelming majority of 72% of American troops serving in Iraq think the U.S. should exit the country within the next year, and more than one in four say the troops should leave immediately, a new Le Moyne College/Zogby International survey shows.

The poll, conducted in conjunction with Le Moyne College’s Center for Peace and Global Studies, showed that 29% of the respondents, serving in various branches of the armed forces, said the U.S. should leave Iraq “immediately,” while another 22% said they should leave in the next six months. Another 21% said troops should be out between six and 12 months, while 23% said they should stay “as long as they are needed.”

Different branches had quite different sentiments on the question, the poll shows. While 89% of reserves and 82% of those in the National Guard said the U.S. should leave Iraq within a year, 58% of Marines think so. Seven in ten of those in the regular Army thought the U.S. should leave Iraq in the next year. Moreover, about three-quarters of those in National Guard and Reserve units favor withdrawal within six months, just 15% of Marines felt that way. About half of those in the regular Army favored withdrawal from Iraq in the next six months.....

powerclown · 02-01-2007, 11:21 AM

Quote:

I told you that this was "over"...19 months and more than a thousand US troops' lives ago

Indeed, I'm sure you (and reporters like Arkin) thought this war was over the day American troops landed in Qatar in late 2002.
They never had a chance.

host · 02-01-2007, 11:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by powerclown

Indeed, I'm sure you (and reporters like Arkin) thought this war was over the day American troops landed in Qatar in late 2002.
They never had a chance.

....yup, because of me and Arkin and his ilk, the troops never had a chance....

I think that Duke Cunningham, after admitting that he diverted US defense dollars to "programs" that the pentagon did not need or want, when troops in the field, were, and still are short of protective and offensive military equipment, is a candidate for the death penalty, for treason. I think that Scooter Libby, fingered publicly by Ari Fleischer for obstructing an investigation and lying to it's grand jury about the circumstances of a CIA requested criminal investigation into the leaking of classified information, in a "time of war", should be indicted and tried for treason, after he is found guilty in this trial. I think that Mr. Cheney should be investigate for treasonous acts.

You will experience the announcement of indictments against Cunningham briber Wilkes, and his best friend, former #3 at CIA, Kyle Foggo, for corruption involving defense and US intelligence funds, in a "time of war", as soon as in the next ten days. Former conservative "luminaries", Rep. Jerry Lewis, and former Rep., Katherine Harris, are under investigation for related crimes against the United States.....and you proclaim that my political views are compromising the war effort?

The war is phoney, powerclown,,,,it is a contrived means to funnel the wealth and power that the people of the US owned until Jan. 20, 2001, to a narrow collection of criminals masqerading as leaders.

That is too painful a concept for you to consider, so blaming "host" and Mr. Arkin is a means of escape from dealing with what is really going on here in 2007 America. America that has been manipulated into a propagandized, Boston like, gulag of fabricated fear.....

We are seeing a corporatist led "initiative", unparalled since this one:

Quote:

http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstra...D9415B848FF1D3
FREE PREVIEW
Gen. Butler Bares 'Fascist Plot' To Seize Government by Force; Says Bond Salesman, as Representative of Wall St. Group, Asked Him to Lead Army of 500,000 in March on Capital -- Those Named Make Angry Denials -- Dickstein Gets Charge. GEN. BUTLER BARES A 'FASCIST PLOT'

November 21, 1934, Wednesday
Page 1, 462 words

DISPLAYING FIRST PARAGRAPH - A plot of Wall Street interests to overthrow President Roosevelt and establish a Fascist dictatorship, backed by a private army of 500,000 ex-soldiers and others, was charged by Major Gen. Smedley D. Butler, retired Marine Corps officer, who appeared yesterday before the House of Representatives Committee on Un-American Activities, which began hearings on the charges.

.....this administration fails test after test:

Quote:

MC I had recently bc a WH correspondant. Set about finding out as much as I could. How did it wind up in speech thoroughly checked and vetted

F Mr Wilson's wife

MC Friday July 11, with Karl Rove, a member of WH staff.

MC Put in a call to Rove's office routed to office, at first, he wasn't there, was busy, but then put me through, we talked.

MC Ah sure, we're interested in Wilson story. And he immediately said, don' t get too far out, don't lionize or idolize him. He said a number of things would be coming out. He said DCI had not sent him. He said VP had not been involved. THen he said, it would come out who was involved in sending him. He said his wife. I until that point didn't know Wilson had a wife. I said the wife. He said she worked in WMD at the Agency, I took the CIA, not EPA. We talked a bit more, at the end he said, I've already said too much.

F HOw long

MC couple of minutes.

F Statement

MC Yes, I paid attention.

The exchange in the last quote box took place with MC (Matt Cooper) under oath, yesterday in a public federal courtroom in DC. Special Counsel F (Patrick Fitzgerald) was questioning Cooper.

If this was really a "time of war", the Bush administration, after curiously, not previously doing so, even though Cooper's "revelation" yesterday, has been public knowledge for the last 18 months, would suspend Roves security clearances NOW. But that won't happen, because the "war" is only a means of political repression via FEAR....and Rove is the man who runs the "Bostonizing" propaganda machine for the folks who sponsor Bush and Cheney the two front men who are the face of the phoney "war on terror".

powerclown · 02-01-2007, 03:49 PM

Quote:

Really, who DOESN'T support the troops?

Perhaps the editorial board of the New York Times, for a start?

---

Images of Dying Soldier Renew War Coverage Debate

By MICHAEL HEDGES and JAMES PINKERTON
Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle
Jan. 31, 2007, 9:46AM

WASHINGTON — A photograph and videotape of a Texas soldier dying in Iraq published by the New York Times have triggered anger from his relatives and Army colleagues and revived a long-standing debate about which images of war are proper to show.

The journalists involved, Times reporter Damien Cave and Getty Images photographer Robert Nickelsberg, working for the Times, had their status as so-called embedded journalists suspended Tuesday by the Army corps in Baghdad, military officials said, because they violated a signed agreement not to publish photos or video of any wounded soldiers without official consent.

New York Times foreign editor Susan Chira said Tuesday night that the newspaper initially did not contact the family of Army Staff Sgt. Hector Leija about the images because of a specific request from the Army to avoid such a direct contact.

"The Times is extremely sensitive to the loss suffered by families when loved ones are killed in Iraq," Chira said. "We have tried to write about the inevitable loss with extreme compassion."

She said that after the newspaper account, with a photograph of the soldier, was published Monday, a Times reporter in Baghdad made indirect efforts to tell the family of the video release later that day. The video was still available for viewing on the Times' Web site Tuesday night, when the newspaper notified clients of its photo service that the photograph at issue was no longer available and should be eliminated from any archives.

Patrol turns deadly

The controversy was ignited by the newspaper's account of the 27-year-old soldier's death in combat. It described in detail events on Haifa Street in Baghdad during a patrol Jan. 24 that turned deadly after a bullet struck Leija in the head.

Leija's family lives in the South Texas town of Raymondville. His Army material records show his home of record as Houston, according to a military spokesman at Fort Lewis, Wash., home of Leija's unit. Records showed a driver's license and voter registration for Leija in Raymondville, none in the Houston area.

Chief Warrant Officer 4 Robert Lobeck, serving as the Army's casualty assistance officer with Leija's family in Texas, said seeing the images of Leija on the Internet was very upsetting to the relatives.

"Oh God, they shouldn't have published a picture like that," Leija's cousin Tina Guerrero, who had not seen the images but was aghast about them anyway, told the Houston Chronicle on Tuesday in Raymondville. She said the images would be especially hurtful to the soldier's parents, Domingo and Manuela Leija, who have remained in the family's home on the edge of town. ''It's going to devastate them," Guerrero said. ''They're having enough pain dealing with the death of their son."

Accompanying the Times article was a picture of Leija on a stretcher, an Army medic using his right hand to compress the sergeant's wounded forehead. Leija was alive in the photograph. The story noted that he died later in the day.

Later Monday, the Times posted on its Web site a five-minute, 52-second video taken at the scene of the shooting, showing an interview with Leija before he was wounded, then the frantic moments after he is downed by a single shot.

14 rules govern journalists

The media and the Pentagon have sparred about the issue of the portrayal of Americans killed in Iraq — or even caskets containing remains — since the beginning of the war.

Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism in Washington, said the incident was typical of the dilemmas that face news organizations in war.

"The fact that a photograph upset people, even family members, is not always sufficient reason not to run it," Rosenstiel said. "Editors may decide that there is a compelling public interest in running a photograph precisely because it does upset an audience."

The agreement that journalists are asked to sign as a condition of embedding has 14 rules. Rule 11 covers military casualties: "Names, video, identifiable written/oral description or identifiable photographs of wounded service members will not be released without service member's prior written consent."

The ground rule goes on to say, "In respect for family members, names or images clearly identifying individuals 'killed in action' will not be released." The rule says names of soldiers killed can be released a day after family notification, but it does not address photographs or video images.

Chira said as far as she knew, the journalists had signed the forms. But she also said: "This issue has never been raised before when the New York Times has shown photographs of wounded soldiers."

The Times said it planned to discuss the issue today with Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno, commander of the Multi-National Force Iraq.

Chira also said she had been told by the reporter in Baghdad that he had reached out to two people with Texas connections to act as intermediaries to alert the family that a video was going to be posted. They were Kathy Travis, a press aide to Rep. Solomon Ortiz, D-Corpus Christi, and Principal Gilbert Galvan of Raymondville High School.

Travis had a different account.

"Whoa, that isn't what happened," she said Tuesday night in a telephone interview. "The reporter called me late Monday afternoon and said he understood that the family was upset and that he wanted us to know that he had the utmost respect for the soldier and wanted us to let the family know that."

Galvan said a New York Times reporter called Monday, saying he could not reach Leija's relatives and asking Galvan to notify the family of the story and the impending release of the video.

Galvan said he went to the Leijas' house and relayed the message. "They looked upset," he said.

Leija's death saddened many in the close-knit agricultural community 45 miles north of the Texas-Mexico border, where he was an honor student and a member of the football team.

The flag was at half-staff at City Hall and was also lowered at the American Legion Post.

Family has little comment

A brother of the slain soldier, Domingo Leija Jr. of Raymondville, said the immediate family would not have anything to say directly about the images. "And it's going to stay that way," he said, as he emerged from a City Hall meeting Tuesday afternoon with local officials who are assisting with funeral plans.

Lobeck said he passed the family's concerns to Leija's chain of command at Fort Lewis, who then informed the Multi-National Corps Iraq in Baghdad and the Pentagon. Army Col. Dan Baggio, chief of media relations at the Pentagon, said the Army was still gathering facts.

"From a soldier's perspective, when I first saw it, I was stunned," said Baggio, who has served a 14-month tour in Iraq, of the images. "With the freshness of the loss the family has endured, this just seemed inappropriate."

Hedges reported from Washington, Pinkerton from Raymondville.

--

Perhaps a more pertinent question would be: Who, in the media, DOES support the troops?

dc_dux · 02-01-2007, 04:03 PM

THe American public saw horrific images from WW II, Korea, Vietnam...and rightly so IMO. It has nothing to do with supporting the troops and everything to do with reporting on the ugliness of war at a very personal level.

I would suggest that the outrage be directed at the Pentagon...not the media.

Quote:

An audit by the Pentagon’s Inspector General released to Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY) shows that U.S. soldiers have had to go without the necessary weapons, armor, vehicles, and equipment in Iraq and Afghanistan:

The Inspector General found that the Pentagon hasn’t been able to properly equip the soldiers it already has. Many have gone without enough guns, ammunition, and other necessary supplies to “effectively complete their missions” and have had to cancel or postpone some assignments while waiting for the proper gear, according to the report from auditors with the Defense Dept. Inspector General’s office. Soldiers have also found themselves short on body armor, armored vehicles, and communications equipment, among other things, auditors found.

“As a result, service members performed missions without the proper equipment, used informal procedures to obtain equipment and sustainment support, and canceled or postponed missions while waiting to receive equipment,” reads the executive summary dated Jan. 25. Service members often borrowed or traded with each other to get the needed supplies, according to the summary.

Summary of DoD Inspector GenerAl Equipment audit (pdf)

I guess it goes back to Rumsfeld's cavalier response to a soldier (nearly 3 years ago) asking about body armour being told "you go to war with what you have".

And the 21,000 new troops that Bush is sending...what will they have?

powerclown · 02-01-2007, 04:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dc_dux

It has nothing to do with supporting the troops and everything to do with reporting on the ugliness of war at a very personal level.

I'll bet a dime that this was exactly the conversation the NYT's editors had amongst themselves as well.

Quote:

Originally Posted by dc_dux

And the 21,000 new troops that Bush is sending...what will they have?

A 2 front war?

dc_dux · 02-01-2007, 04:22 PM

I get it.

You do understand that it was through the media that families and the troops themselves brought to light the initial inadequecy of body armour and properly equipped humvees when this fiasco started, in some case using very graphic images.

powerclown · 02-01-2007, 04:34 PM

Ladies & Gentlemen, we are seeing for the very first time ever documented on film: The Editorial Board of the New York Times.

This explains everything!

01-30-2007, 12:06 PM	#2 (permalink)
Jinn Lover - Protector - Teacher Location: Seattle, WA	"Support our troops" is a political tactic designed to make those who do not support our military actions feel guilty, as if they're not supporting the men and women who execute those actions. I can "support the troops" without agreeing with their position or deployment, so I've stopped taking it offensively. If they place more meaning in the phrase, then they're free to, but it holds as much water as "love thy neighbor" to me. There are two things in this world; words and actions. I'd prefer those saying "support the troops" did so with actions, rather than words. __________________ "I'm typing on a computer of science, which is being sent by science wires to a little science server where you can access it. I'm not typing on a computer of philosophy or religion or whatever other thing you think can be used to understand the universe because they're a poor substitute in the role of understanding the universe which exists independent from ourselves." - Willravel

01-30-2007, 01:01 PM	#3 (permalink)
loquitur Junkie Location: NYC	Well, you can ask the troops what they think. Here is what some of them told NBC News:<br><br><EMBED SRC="http://www.youtube.com/v/uyqk1LsCDBQ"></EMBED><br><br>They might be wrong, they might be right, but that's what they perceive: support what we're doing or don't say you support the troops.

01-30-2007, 02:58 PM	#8 (permalink)
aceventura3 Junkie Location: Ventura County	Here is how I see it. A) The men and women in the military are obligated to follow orders. B) If you think the mission is wrong, you show support of the men and women in the military by doing everythin in your power to remove them from a mission you think is wrong. C) The people most vocal about the mission being wrong in Congress have not and are not doing everything in their power to remove the men and women from a mission they think is wrong. D) Playing political games, playing word games while our military is in a war zone is not showing support. The folks in Congress and many here can split hairs and play with words in many creative ways beyond my imagination. I am often impressed with their ability, but their positions lack clarity and conviction once you get to the root of what they are truely saying. Bush has been very clear about what he wants and how he is going to do it, agree or disagree. However, most Americans think Bush is a lier, when it is Congress actually doing the decieving. It is amazing, and very sad. __________________ "Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on lunch." "It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions on vegetarianism while the wolf is of a different opinion." "If you live among wolves you have to act like one." "A lady screams at the mouse but smiles at the wolf. A gentleman is a wolf who sends flowers."

01-30-2007, 03:20 PM	#9 (permalink)
CSflim Sky Piercer Location: Ireland	I guess it all comes down to a single question: If someone carries out orders, are they morally responsible for their actions? If you believe that they are not, it makes sense to say that you "support the troops", even though you are against the war. If you take the (in my opinion more reasonable) opinion that people are morally responsible for their actions, even if they are carried out under orders, then it seems to me that it becomes impossible for you to claim to be against what these guys are doing, while at the same time saying that you support them. Without the soldiers doing what they are doing, the war would be impossible. As such they are personally guilty of any crimes that are committed in the name of war. At the risk of being perceived* as "Godwinning" the thread, allow me to use an example: "Of course I don't think that the genocide of 6 millions Jews was a good thing. I don't support that, but the guys in the gas chambers; they were only doing their job, so I support the gas chamber attendants" That being said it is perfectly acceptable to say that you don't believe that what American troops are doing in Iraq is right, but that at the same time you do not wish any harm on them, and that you hope that as many as possible of them return home safely. This in my eyes is not really the same thing as "supporting" them. Lest there be any argument, this is not a genuine Godwin: I did not compare an opponent to a Nazi. Nor did I claim that what America is doing is in any way comparable to crimes committed by Nazi Germany. In fact I did not even make any statement regarding whether or not America's war in Iraq was justified (truth is, I am somewhat conflicted on this point). I was merely illustrating a purely philosophical point. __________________ Last edited by CSflim; 01-30-2007 at 03:22 PM..*

01-30-2007, 04:52 PM	#11 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	1. "support the troops" was is and remains little more than a rightwing political meme. its function is internal debate management. it must work to some extent, because folk are still stuck on it. but that generally indicates that you are chumped by the meme: you accept the position it places you in and the logic that it imposes on you. for an example of this meme in action, see seaver's post above. but outside the context of conservative opinion management, it means nothing. (2) i continue to be baffled by the general conservative tendency (in this thread represented by ace, in fine fashion) of denigrating the representative/legislative body and fetishizing the Leader. it doesnt seem to square with the libertarian side of conservative politics, so it doesnt seem to follow logically. how does this work? personally, methinks enough of the pretending to think democracy viable: conservatives should argue for a king or a dictator. be done with the pretenses. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite

01-30-2007, 01:23 PM	#4 (permalink)
Willravel ... a sort of licensed troubleshooter.	I hope the troops are offended by the anti-war talk. Maybe it'll get them thinking instead of shooting. People are dying for no good reason, and they expect us to follow that? It's absurd, and any military officer that supports the war is a military officer that supports meaningless loss of life. We've lose so many good people there.

01-30-2007, 02:45 PM	#7 (permalink)
Xazy People in masks cannot be trusted Location: NYC	Imagine you are a soldier in iraq now, and you hear that someone is protesting the war. And you think I just had 2 people I know die, I am in the front line... The soldier has to think to himself he is there for the better good of the American People or why else is he there, why else is his friends and brothers in arms are dying. To the average soldier any criticism of the war will be considered not supporting the troops. It is hard to be able to express to the soldier that it is not anything against them, but you want them safe and here, or supporting our national causes, but just ones. This is not my personal total view on the war cause I am torn on the war on a number of fronts. A very good friend of mine is a psychologist who helps with the troops when coming back from Iraq, and I have had this conversation with her about how they feel when they come back.

01-30-2007, 06:13 PM	#13 (permalink)
Elphaba Deja Moo Location: Olympic Peninsula, WA	I believe "support our troops" is just another jingoistic slogan of this administration's intent to build unquestioning allegiance to the never ending "war on terror." This particular slogan brings with it the additional power of guilt for those that objected to the Viet Nam war and held the soldiers equally responsible with those making foreign policy. I see it as a not too subtle attack on the values of "liberals" and it has been immensely successful in silencing the opposition party, post 9/11. I view "support the office of the president" as valid to the extent that the country's president fulfills the oath of office to defend the Constitution. My support of the office of this president is to impeach and remove George W. Bush for his failure to uphold his oath. boatin, I don't envy you and have no advice to offer. Have you thought about bringing up religion for a change of subject? (Yes, I'm going to hell for that one). Last edited by Elphaba; 01-30-2007 at 06:16 PM..

01-30-2007, 06:24 PM	#15 (permalink)
Willravel ... a sort of licensed troubleshooter.	If Clinton said "Support our troops", he'd be full of shit, too. The first candidate to say, "I'll support the troops when they defend the country instead of work as a private army for the rich" will not only have my vote, but I'll work on his or her campaign.

01-30-2007, 11:12 PM	#21 (permalink)
Mojo_PeiPei Kiss of Death Location: Perpetual wind and sorrow	I oft wonder if people are serious in their beliefs of the movers behind the scenees, those who dictate policy. I think you do yourselves a disservice in labeling them; for example I don't see this as a war that has been initiated so that Haliburton can do some creative accounting, skim profits, and get a jump in their stock shares. I see it as policy dictated by people like me or you, making a decision based on their understanding of things, on their convictions, and I accept that people don't agree with said decision. The way I understand it all, people like me that favored the war, regardless of our justifications, can never win even if "we" (our side) is ultimately successfully, read someone declaring "military victory". Where I'm coming from is this war has not been fought to be won; it has been overly politicized and hampered by peoples idealistic views out what should be, especially how we procede forward. Further more and the bottom line of this point I'm trying to make is that the ultimate success of war can never be realized because it is a pre-emptive action, in this case we are shaping the future. We all know whats at stake, we all know how bad it is right now, and likely problems to come. The problem is perspective: A bold move was made, it was a power play, a bunch of old fogie's who were movers and shakers from the cold war made a policy in light of a post-soviet changing world, there were new threats and new issues to address, thats what Iraq to me attempts to do, and sadly best case to people like Will or others, it will never be clear as such. Perhaps to sum up my point because I admit it might be hard to follow let me pose a question, its almost a utilitarian (hoping my mind isn't failing me here) Kantian point, a greater good thing: But what if you could stop a great tradegy such as world war/conflict by making a bold play now? People will die and things will be ugly, thats the nature of the beast, people need to stop kidding themselves about humans and our nature. But what if actions in Iraq now would stop said problems later (best case), or (worst case) if problems are inevitable give America the upper hand, would it be worth it? __________________ To win a war you must serve no master but your ambition.

01-31-2007, 12:02 AM	#23 (permalink)
pan6467 Lennonite Priest Location: Mansfield, Ohio USA	Look I don't support the war, I do not support Bush in anyway.... and I believe this war was started based on lies from a warmongering President and powers that be. that said: I support the troops and I support every man and woman over there that is doing what they have to to survive. I don't have to agree with the principle reason they are over there, but I can support them by understanding and accepting they are doing what they believe they need to do. If you lefties don't like it F* you..... if you righties take umbrage to what I said F* you also.... because you both are Fin hypocrites who just want to be "right" and want the other side to be "wrong" and don't want to see what I and MANY like me, say and believe is possible. And guess what...... I thank veterans who had to do what they had to do so that I may say F you. And yes, I did vote for a congress that will get our men and women out ASAP.... but I also expect them to get the men and women out as safely as possible. __________________ I just love people who use the excuse "I use/do this because I LOVE the feeling/joy/happiness it brings me" and expect you to be ok with that as you watch them destroy their life blindly following. My response is, "I like to put forks in an eletrical socket, just LOVE that feeling, can't ever get enough of it, so will you let me put this copper fork in that electric socket?"

01-31-2007, 10:39 AM	#26 (permalink)
loquitur Junkie Location: NYC	The Dem party keeps saying "we support the troops" because so many of them and their predecessors treated Vietnam soldiers and vets very poorly, and now they are correctly ashamed of that and don't want to repeat the mistake. Learning from history is a good thing. At least that much - that you don't shit on someone who is in the way of a bullet on behalf of his country - did sink in. Good for them. Just as the isolationist right learned its lesson from WW2. What troubles me about all this is that, whether you agree with the decision to go to war in Iraq or not, once the country is committed to it there should be only one acceptable result, and that is victory. I know that is a very Jacksonian point of view, but Andrew Jackson was one of the more successful presidents. Rumsfeld tried fighting the war on the cheap, no one called him on it - and now that the folly is exposed, instead of correcting the error, Congress is standing on the sidelines tossing rotten tomatoes. What is especially troubling is that to my eyes it looks like domestic political wrangling seems to be taking precedence over national security. If we end up with a new terror base in Mesopotamia, it is not going to help the next president even if s/he is a Democrat. Accepting anything less than success in Iraq is going to come back to bite us. In the end, Colin Powell was right: never go to war unless you go in with overwhelming force and have a well-thought-out exit plan. In this war we didn't do either of those things. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't fix it. If you do a war, do it to win. Otherwise don't do it. If we're not fixed on winning, bring the troops home now, this minute.

01-31-2007, 11:41 AM	#28 (permalink)
loquitur Junkie Location: NYC	the "spit" story is apocryphal, or at least it hasn't been documented. But Host, I was alive during that time and of news-watching age. There was plenty of abuse directed at returning soldiers that I remember quite well. And you're not that much different in age than I am.

01-31-2007, 06:37 PM	#30 (permalink)
loquitur Junkie Location: NYC	Host, you're changing the subject. Look, there is a reason the Dem leadership keeps saying they support the troops - it's because they at least <i><b>perceive</i></b> that there is a historical feeling in the country that the last time there was an unpopular war, returning soldiers weren't treated right. That's why they're doing it. And they are 100% right: people who sign up to fight for our country -- whether or not the war they are ordered to fight is one you or I agree with -- deserve our respect and gratitude. The political aspects of the war are <i><b>not</i></b> the fault or responsibility of the soldiers. The war opponents do not want people to come back years from now and say they didn't support our soldiers - which was done to the anti-Vietnam war people. Remember "we support our troops - when they shoot their officers" didn't materialize out of thin air. Saying that other people "diss" the country in other ways is less than irrelevant to the discussion.

01-31-2007, 07:19 PM	#31 (permalink)
boatin Psycho	I would suggest the reason that the dems keep saying they support the troops is that (for reasons roach spells out) the republicans have equated 'supporting the troops' and 'supporting the plan'. Since the dems don't support that plan, they clearly aren't supporting the troops. The only connection it has to the past is the connection that's grown between anti war talk and mythical non-support of troops. When I get used the way the soldiers are getting used, I tend to get annoyed. I'm just surprised there aren't more soldiers upset...

02-01-2007, 04:22 PM	#39 (permalink)
dc_dux Location: Washington DC	I get it. You do understand that it was through the media that families and the troops themselves brought to light the initial inadequecy of body armour and properly equipped humvees when this fiasco started, in some case using very graphic images. __________________ "The perfect is the enemy of the good." ~ Voltaire Last edited by dc_dux; 02-01-2007 at 04:32 PM..

02-01-2007, 04:34 PM	#40 (permalink)
powerclown Junkie Location: Detroit, MI	Ladies & Gentlemen, we are seeing for the very first time ever documented on film: The Editorial Board of the New York Times. This explains everything!