"support our troops" offensive to troops?
 

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. :D

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:

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?

"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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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:

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

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.

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.

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). :)

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.

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 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."

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.

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.

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 :p)

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.
What?
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.

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?

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:


<b>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:
</b>

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?

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.

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.

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.

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:
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".

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.

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...

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.

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:

underequipped, you've kept them there in Iraq, yet another year, since this poll, 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:
.....this administration fails test after test:
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".

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?

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.

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?

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

A 2 front war?

I get it.

http://talks.php.net/presentations/s...gging/evil.jpg
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.

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!

A predictable "non-response" response to the facts presented. :thumbsup:

I reject the issue as you would have it. I'm sure the soldiers are thankful to the media for telling them how to outfit their vehicles. The US Army owes an enormous debt a gratitude to CNN, wonderful. I wonder if CNN correspondents have offered themselves to be strapped to humvee front bumpers as IED triggers. Talk about helping out a brutha.

Back to the point: There is absolutely no excuse for a so-called prominent, responsible american newspaper to publish internet VIDEOS of american soldiers getting KIA.
Under any circumstances. Ever.
None.
Period.
End of story.
Wouldn't you say?

UNLESS, of course, you're an antiwar media empire pushing an antiwar sentiment.
Then it's cool.

The only absolute in journalism for as long as independent journalists have been covering US wars is to not reveal infomation of value to the enemy.

Mathew Brady took photos of KIA in the Civil War. There are news archives of US troops being shot landing on Normandy Beach and Peter Jennings and Ed Bradley brought Vietnam firefights to the evening news.

The only difference is that the news is now reported in real time. I would agree that today's war reporting requires a different set of ethics and standards that pays greater attention to the family of casuaties. In this case, without knowing the full story, I would agree that the NY Times may have stepped over the line in the timing of the story/video. But I would not say such reporting should be NONE....PERIOD.

YOu dont seem to place the same value or the need for independent war journalists as I do....and the coverage of the good, the bad and the ugly, so that Americans sitting safely at home can really understand the cost of war. Or perhaps, you believe they (NY Times reporters, CNN reporters, etc) have an ulterior motive in their reporting...but I would suggest that is your own bias.

I think very highly of 3 NYT war reporters: John Burns, Dexter Filkins, and Michael Gordon. They very much put into perspective the likes of Arkin et al. These 3 have consistently been compelling, informative, enlightening, comprehensive and above all as neutral as possible, to my mind. I very much look forward to reading their articles. I also like Thomas Friedman, although he's not a war reporter in this war.

Ask yourself this question: If the NYT are simply providing a neutral public service, to whom are they servicing? What demographic wants to see american soldiers KIA? Would you have reservations about foreign news agencies airing americans KIA?

You don't want news reporting, powerclown, you want a conduit for the broadcasting of the message that you already agree with....

powerclown, here's a "crash course" on why you probably like Dexter Filkins' "work". He trades "access" to exclusive information from the US military and political authorities, by acting as Tim Russert on MTP does. They are both reliable, uninquistive, non-confrontational "shills", and hence, satisfy you that they offer "fair and balanced" reporting. But....they are not news reporters.

The truth is, that they offer whatever is in the interest of the agenda of the military and government officials "SAOs" to disseminate. As Cathie Martin described, Russert is not even a propagandist, just a "stage manager" for the newest episode of the "Dick Cheney show".....

It is telling that you think highly of Dexter Filkins, powerclown. He doesn't probe or investigate, he simply has the same job as president Bush....self admitted propaganda "catapult".

It's a small world.....that "news world" of yours, powerclown....the narrow little "corner" of the NY Times where an embedded "mouthpiece" like Filkins can sooth you with reporting that "fits" your views.

Between May 3, 2003 and July 9, 2006, Dexter Filkins filed 45 reports that mentioned Ahmed Chalabi. To Iraqis, Chalabi had the voter appeal equivalent to that of a Dennis Kucinich in the US. He is described in Filkin's 14 page article, published just three months ago, as a "close friend" to Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz. How would an article of this length, with such gushing praise towards Chalabi, be received in the US, more than a year after a "no voter appeal candidate", like Chalabi...... was a losing candidate who received less than one precent of the popular vote in a US presidential race?

Filkins never bothered, in his years filing reports from Iraq, to do anything more than convey the reporting about Chalabi that satisfied the US administration. Three months ago, Filkins reported at length about a neo-con sponsored shill who held no influence in Iraq. Why? Who does Filkins and his editors think are interested in reading his long tribute to Chalabi?

What? You couldn't find anything negative to rake up about Friedman, Gordon or Burns? Christ host, I said I liked some of his reporting - I never said I wanted to fuck him. He's not my role model or someone I would blindly follow to the ends of the earth. And the NYT isn't my only source of information. The Grey Lady is usually my final source, when all other options have been exhausted, but not ever my only source. You really should give people more credit for their opinions.

host, why do you think the NYT shows snuff films of american soldiers?

The NYT is the paper I read on the way in to work in the morning. It's the voice of the Upper East Side and Upper West Side of Manhattan (more east than west, actually). I live in Queens, so it makes an interesting spectacle. I can only imagine what people living in Council Bluffs must think.

Host, if you think the NYT isn't liberal enough, well......... <shaking head>

You appear to be part of the NYT demographic..and you dont live on the upper east side.

BUt I guess you like your compllellng, informative, enlightening, comprehensive and neutral coverage of the war also to be varnished of anthing that might offend your sensibliities.

When it comes to offending my sensibilities, the NYT doesn't dissapoint. With people like Bill Arkin reporting, its pretty easy. I don't know about you, but watching american soldiers being killed is offensive to me. Maybe you enjoy it...maybe you think they're getting whats coming to them. Maybe you secretly root for the insurgency. Maybe you celebrate over every dead american soldier. It's not a stretch at all, going by the way some people talk here. Some people hate this country with a derision bordering on psychosis. This war has opened my eyes to a whole new level of anger, alienation and desperation I never knew existed. Some people will literally say or do anything. So nobody wants to address the NYT's snuff films...thats fine. Avoiding the question is an answer in itself.

...on edit, powerclown, after reading your last response to dc_dux, your technique of debating is so low that I regret that I showed you the deference to bother to post all of this. Your Orwellian "doublespeak" is what it is.

powerclown, I have to observe that, by posting the distraction of the NY Times photo/video reporting of a dying US soldier, KIA in Baghdad, you "pulled" a "Duncan Hunter ploy". I don't think that it worked for the yet to be indicted, Duke Cunningham co-conspirator and bribe taker, Hunter, and I don't think that it will work for you. It all comes down to what does demonstrably greater harm to the defense of the US and the safety and well being of "the troops". Is it a huge, corrupt, "quid pro quo" that included Duncan Hunter using his house committee chairmanship to force unwanted and expensive "programs" down the Pentagon's throat, in exchange for, at minimum....campaign contributions from Cunningham briber Wilkes, and rides on Wilke's executive jet....or is it the bullshit that you and Hunter trot out to divert the indignation where it obviously should be directed?

I'm astounded at the triviality that causes you such concern, and the appalling corruption, amounting to treason in a "time of war", that you choose not even to respond to:

The new NIE on Iraq, seems to agrees that our leaders have done what they promised not to do, keep our troops deployed in Iraq in the midst of a civil war:
<b>powerclown....you chose to dredge up yet another non-issue, just as Duncan Hunter did:</b>
<h3>The real problem that powerclown and Duncan Hunter exhibit no concern about. How many of our troops would be safer...unwounded....even alive, today, if these "patriots" in congress, had none traded precious defense dollars away for....what ???</h3>
powerclown you claim to "support the troops", but you diverted the discussion here by inserting the "no impact" NY Times video reporting of an American "KIA" in Iraq. You're on display here, objecting the "injury" to "the troops" of the least consequence, while they struggle in a deployment that the CIC knows, or worse....should know...but is too much in self-denial to admit, is impossible for the troops to "win"...whatever that word means to the CIC and others who use it in the context of Iraq. I'd advise you to spend time reading what I've posted, clicking on all of the links in the articles and reading what they contain, too. Then...examine what you are upset, or not upset about, and why??? Events have and will continue to unfold in ways that leave your posted positions exposed to even more scrutiny, unless you are prepared to whitewash this war, too, as a "noble" one, circa late '70's Reagan, on Vietnam.

Have you seen the recent wave of Army commercials? There are two types: one is the clever, low income teen trying to talk their parents into lettting them join up. They make their convincing arguments about how the military will lead to great opportunities in stable and impressive careers and such, then it's the parent's turn! What will the parent say? Go to www.goarmy.com to find out, apparently. The second type of commercial features someone flying a helicopter somewhere or testing a new type of super jet engine or working on a computer. No where do we see anyone in live battle or anything of the sort, they just portey it as an adventure with cool things to do and see and learn.

These are commercials. I expect that of commercials. They are there for the simple reason to sell a product, in this case to improve enrolment. They fudge and smudge the reality of military life in order to make it seem ideal, and because it's an advertisment, it can be biased and such.



The news is not commercials. The news isn't meant to have bias. The news is here to tell us what's going on. If thousands of soldiers are dying and tens of thousands are being injured, SOME of that has to leak through. When they, on very rare occasion, show military officers under fire or being injured or killed, they are showing what is actually happening. They are being honest. They aren't hiding the truth. When we vote and decide on who we want to command our military, we should be able to make an informed decision. We have a dishonest coward for a president, and a lot of people are drying because of it. Why hide that? To protect the secret of the Emperor's clothes.

It's not "anti-war sentiment", it's pro-soldier's lives sentiment. I don't want soldiers to die. I want them to live.
I want them to not be in a place where they don't belong, I want them to be home.
I want them to be able to do their job, protecting the US, effectively and efficiently.
I don't want them to die for nothing.
End of story, woudln't you say?

UNLESS, you're so blinded by partisanship that you place loyalty to a lying president over the lives of our troops.

I personally think that some embedded reporters should fall "victim" to a few friendly fire incidents, maybe they would learn what should be published or not.

And Host why do you repeatedly quote Reagan on his Vietnam noble cause?
Perhaps you might not have noticed while you were hiding from the US government in those years, but a Democrat started that noble war and Reagan was just trying to remove the defeatest stygma we recieved from all the draft dodging, card burning, Hanoi Jane loving, losers in this country who would not allow us to win that war.

It's becoming apparent that you have an uneasy obsession with Duke Cunningham and his merry band of weasels. You bring it up in almost every thread in politics lately, regardless of whether it has anything to do with the OP or not.

Venezuela? Let's mention republican corruption.
Health care? It's about republican corruption.
Sadaam Hussein? republican corruption.
Military expenditures? how bout that republican corruption.
China? never mind - republican corruption.
Tax incentives? No, republican corruption.
United Nations? yeah right, republican corruption.
Economic stimulus? republican corruption.
War on Terror? republican corruption.
Evangelism? republican corruption
Abortion? republican corruption
Gun control? republican corruption
Asteroids hitting earth? republican corruption.
Global warming? republican corruption.
Britney Spears crotch? republican corruption.
Harry Potter? republican corruption.
SUV sales? republican corruption
Endangered species? republican corruption.
Chocolate chip cookies? republican corruption.
Tub & tile cleaner? republican corruption.
Anal sex? republican corruption
Smoking? republican corruption
Dandruff? republican corruption.
Internet? republican corruption.
Heroin addiction? republican corruption.

No host, I won't be clicking on any of your links. Just more articles from those who sensibilities match your own. And since I disagree with you about basically everything concerning this war, by default your cut and pastes carry no weight with me. I understand what your are trying to point out, I just don't agree with any of it.

Without responding directly to the ignorant implied insult, I would simply suggest that maybe I place a higher value on the truth than you.

I quote Reagan because his "noble war" campaign rhetoric was symptomatic of the same politics of denial....the failure to observe, digest, learn from, and then avoid making the same mistakes that get our troops and innocent civilians in places like Vietnam, killed....for nothing....in avoidable "expeditions" that end up showing us what those of us who didn't fall under Reagan's fiction, already knew. Vietnam was a mistake, a series of mistakes, that subsequent generations of US leaders and the populace, could have learned mcuh more from....if not for the "story telling" of Reagan and of his supporters.

That crap is written all over your post, reconmike. The contradictions in your post make it incoherent. You've got a president who has given us another Vietnam, in or own generation, complete with US troops inserted in the midst of a civil war, in a country where the local boys who are of similar age of our own troops, refuse to make the commitment that our troops are ordered to make....to fight for a corrupt and ineffective national government that locals themselves are not willing to fight and die for....

....and you have it wrong, mike...what you refer to as "the defeatest stygma" is the lesson of prudence and discernment in deciding when and where to commit US troops...to place them "under fire", only when it is absolutely necessary.....thanks to the bullshit rhetoric of these two guys....commanding a gullible audience of "the faithful", much more impressionable and willing to believe than any that "Fonda" could ever attract (hell....you and powerclown still believe it.....)...the potential to learn those "lessons" was detoured:
....death to the press....shoot the messenger.....ignore Duncan Hunter and Duke Cunningham, and blow the insignificant press reporting, up beyond all rational scale, compared to it's impact.....way to go boys....I'm a yankee doodle dandie.....born on the fourth of july.....

read it again, reconmike.....the "party" line.....report on the war the way we tell you, or lose your embedded status.....or maybe be executed by reconmike......the "liberal press"...the hippies....."Hanoi Jane"....convenient scapegoats trotted out to ignore the spectacle of the Vietnam, "groundhog day", that is Iraq !
When asked by Blitzer, Duncan Hunter, corrupt war profiteer and peddler of the influence of his high office, in a "time of war", was not able to,
....disagree.....and neither is reconmike or powerclown....instead, out comes the broad brush...to paint all of those who want the new Vietnam to stop....
as non-patriots who don't support "the troops"......

“The open-minded see the truth in different things: the narrow-minded see only the differences.” ~ chinese proverb

Well Host, the spitting on vets in Vietnam might be hard to pin down, but this war isn't. How about trying these on for size?

http://www.kirotv.com/news/9765757/detail.html
http://michellemalkin.com/archives/004021.htm

Yeah, it's a political site but you post 10 a day so it'll have to do.

http://hotair.cachefly.net/media.mic...mages/sick.JPG

By the way, I won't post the dozens of anti-military posters which are posted during every single anti-war protest I've seen. Only one (and it's a relatively gentile one at that).

http://i61.photobucket.com/albums/h5...tOfficers3.gif

This should be interesting.
Rummy compared Hugo Chavez to Hitler last year.
Despite the fact that Federal Healthcare was actually introduced by a GOP Senator, the Rupublicans are opposed to most health legislation.
Bush gave him permission to attack the Kurds, then attacked him in response.
Well duh. Which party overwhelmingly supported the war and did so for years afterward?
Expenditures = instability. Loans to China = instability.
Abramoff set up many tex-exempt organizations to raise money for the RNC.
They're trying, but failing. And Bolton quit.
Well the republicans like to give money to those that horde it (Haliburton) instead of spend it, they make policies that take a while to take effect, and worsen the long term fiscal situation through spending and not taxing.
Obviously. No self respecting democratic president would suggest a war on an ideal. Gore, according to several interviews, would have declaired the al Qaeda an enemy of the state and would have probab ly captured Bin Laden by now because he wouldn't have invaded Iraq, sending much needed troops away from the search.
No, but some republican corruption does have it's roots in extreemist Christianity.
They made it a religious issue which killed it. It should have been a logistical issue.
Huh?
Instead of spending on defences, they have spent on a needless war.
Have you read the clean air act?
Using meaningless distractions to keep people to busy with tripe to be concerned about the big issues, like the war, is second nature to politics.
When did this become carcastic? Oh, right the whole thing was meant to be sarcastic.
Clean air act.
Clean air act.

Enjoy, and /end threadjack

Seaver...I think if you were being honest (but you would have to violate the Michelle Makin propaganda policy), you would also acknowledge that those posters do not represent the sentiments of the overwhelming majority of the millions of Americans who oppose the war....but who respect or tolerate their rights to protest in that manner.

BTW, UStwo would use the same technique with graphic posters of a few angry muslims shaking their fists. ..and somehow from that..the Muslim religion is out to kill us all...which "justified" the invasion of Iraq.

so you see in powerclown and seavers' posts how this "support our troops" nonsense plays out. so as for the arguments about the characteristics and functions of these claims, q.e.d.

I hear what you're saying, but you should understand something:

It is a soldiers job to fight for his country and his people, to the death if necessary. This is a soldier's purpose in life. It is arrogant, patronizing and condescending to imply that a soldier doesn't know what he is getting himself into when he signs up for service. Don't you think soldiers want to live, too? Do you think they join the service because they want to die a horrible death in a foreign land, away from friends and family?

I wonder why it is that you don't want american soldiers to die?

What do you know better than the fighting men know?
Have you experienced war yourself? Do you know what it's like?
Who are you to tell a soldier he doesn't know his business?
Are you sure you just don't want them following the war orders of their commanders? ARE YOU SURE?

I've never said you either support the war or hate the troops. If you read my post it was pointing out Host's argument that nothing like this ever happened in Vietnam, that it's made up by the Right (like everything else).

I've never said these sentiments were the majority of the anti-war crowd. I don't want to be grouped up with Jerry Falwell (sp?) or Anne Coulter, so I don't do that to others. Once again, my post was about Host claiming that no soldiers were ever spit on, that it was a Reaganite's wet dream.

Let me quote Reagan, Host "there you go again"

You are correct and wrong all for the same reasons,
we haven't learned from Vietnam, the powers that be should have learned that you do not let the american public decide how and where battles are fought.

Where does it say that reporters have a right to embedded status? Where does it say that the american public has a right to know what happens every minute of every battle? It doesn't.

And you can bet your ass that if a reporter captured something I did on film that I didnt want to be published and he didnt surrender the film, HE would be a casulity of war. Better a dead reporter the RM in prison.

How many soldiers thought that Iraq had direct links to 9/11 when they signed up? It's not condescending to explain that everyone was fooled. I think that most soldiers sign up to protect their country. There are no soldiers in Iraq defending the US right now. Not one. They have been fooled or confused or indoctrinated. If it makes me arrogant to point that out, then maybe arrogance is what the soldiers need to hear in order to figure out what's really going on. I don't think I'm arrogant, I know I'm a realist. If soldiers can't take the sting of truth, how can they be expected to take the sting of battle?

Also, I know a lot of military officers. I'm not operating in a vaccum. I talk with my friends in Iraq all the time, and they will, on occasion, get read the riot act. I had one of my friends start to tell me how they scared the shit out of some Iraqi family one night, and I calld him on it immediatally. I think a lot of soldiers are scared and confused, and I think that a lot of the bullshit rhetoric that comes out of the white house is accepted as gospel by the troops because they want to believe that what they are doing isn't a waste. That's what we professionals call denial.
A meaningless death is probably the worst thing for any soldier. My grandfather, one of my biggest role models, was a career army officer. He was a big part of my development of the understanding of concepts like honor and sacrafice. When a soldier dies meaninglessly, it is as if their honor has been stolen from them. I can't imagine anything worse for someone who regards honor highly.
I'm seperated from groupthink, and you're trying to make an appeal of emotion argument, which is a fallacy. Support our troops doesn't mean our troops are always right.
I've been shot in the leg with a pistol, but no. I've not been a soldier, because I know that I would be required to answer to a president who usually doesn't know jack shit about war, but that's a personal position. I don't hold others to that specific belief necessarily. This has more to do with allowing the fog of confusion to allow our defensive fource to become a personal military to a few corrupt people.
I'm Willravel, and I'm right. Don't pretend like a soldier is automatically right because he's a soldier, as that insults both of our intelects.
I want them to defend the country as they want to do. Iraq has nothing to do with the defence of our country. When the want to fight in Iraq is based on misconceptions because of continued lies....well you can see the death count. You can see the fighting continue. You can see terrorism on the rise. Nothing good has come of this. We are killing more people than Saddam would have had he remained in power.

Who are you? Some "professional" that sits in an office playing arm chair quaterback?
Most who join the military and combat units do so because they are warriors,
I know it is hard to believe but there are still men out there that want to do that, be a warrior.
Whether you know this or not when someone joins the military they volunteer,
meaning they can get a contract stating what their MOS, (job, for you professional types) will be.
Who says you that what you speak is the truth, you aren't arrogant, but what the "professionals" call having delusions of granduer.

Most combatants there aren't scared or confused, most are seasoned veterans, who also know what to do under fire and how to do it.
They are "professional" soldiers, and trained in the arts combat.
Again sit in that office and speak for "most" of the people bearing what is going on there.

Honor and sacrafice? Did you learn either of these from your grandfather?
What gives you the experience to know any of our troop's deaths were without honor. Sounds like selfeshness was learned also since you alone know the meaning of dying with or without honor.


Were these the same views your grandfather, the career army / role model had? Because I am sure the during his tenure, he had one or two presidents that filled that descripton.


Again who says your right? He asked you who are you to tell a soldier his business? Untill your on the business end of a firearm, bb guns excluded,
you haven't a clue what soldiering is about.

Terrorism on the rise? I am finding it hard to locate the terror attacks on the US post 9/11.


Death count on the rise? Really? Someone with such a strong military background should know this happens in war.

mike...I think your underlying assumption that most join the military because they are warriors is wrong.

I recall seeing a recent DoD survey that identified educational benefits as the number one reason for enlistment, followed by serving and protecting the country and learning a valuable or technical skill (I forget the order of these two reasons). Most have no interest or intent of becoming career soldiers.

Thats not to say that the volunteers dont also have a sense of patriotism and understand that they may be asked to put their lives on the line to defend the country.

But they(and their families and the country as a whole) should also expect that their Commander in Chief respect their commitment and their lives as well by never putting them in harms way based on lies or in pursuit of a political ideology that is not defensable by necessity or geo-political realities.

It doesn't matter if they're scared, or confused, or in denial, or against the policy - none of that matters, the military isn't a democracy. When the commander gives an order, the soldier obeys without hesitation, or he/she is immediately discharged, court-martialed or otherwise removed from his post. Insubordination is insubordination in any walk of professional life, and magnified tenfold in the military - any military - for reasons of practicality and ultimately, survival. And again, the US military is a volunteer army.


Now were getting to the heart of the matter. If one is ready to acknowledge that a military force is an extension of government policy, than how are the two to be separated, ideologically speaking? Can one blame the troops for anything they do, when they are only following orders? If one disapproves with a government's decision to use military force, can one approve of those individuals directly responsible for implementing the government decision? I'm questioning the consistency of maintaining separate ideological positions relative to a central government and the military branch of that government.

Who am I? I already answered that. I'm Willravel, and I'm right (at least on this). It's really simple: why does the military exist? To protect the lives and liberties of it's citizens. Is that being done in Iraq? No. The logic has to start there. Before you tell me about warriors and how everyone in the military is a volunteer (duh), we have to start at the basics. Our soldiers are not protecting american lives or liberties. Those who have had the misfortune to lose their lives or be injured over there have not done so to protect american lives or liberties. Also, I am hardly the only one who has correctly been taught what honor is. I'm sure that plenty of people here would agree that this is a travesty and is stripping the honor away from the military.
He fought in Vietnam because he was orderd to, but he made it very clear to me that we had no business being there. He explained how many lives were wasted and that he prayed that it never happened again. I'm glad he can't see this.
Who said anything about a "bb gun"? It was a 9mm round that I'm told was probably from a Browning handgun (pistol is another word for hand gun, and is hardly a toy). It went clear through my calf. Have you ever been shot?
Since the War on Iraq, global deaths from terrorism have increased a great deal. Each year, the death count shows definate signs of increases globally. Terrorism is on the rise.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5889435/
Someone with two ears and a TV should know that the war was over years ago. Don't you remember the speech from the aircraft carrier by the president? Don't you remember "Mission Accomplished"? We won. Yay for us, eh?


Thank you for making a reasonable argument. I'm not asking anyone to disobey orders that they can't prove on the spot are a breach of the UCMJ or Geneva Conventions. Most of the peope over in Iraq are very honorable people, of that I have no doubt. The problem is that we, those who are still here on US soil, are not fighting hard enough to return our soldiers to defending the country, their job. I see many doing a lot, but it clearly isn't enough. 20,000 more brave souls are headed over there because the monkey in the oval office want's to salvage one of the most ignorant and selfish decisions made by a president in recent history. In order to "support the troops" we should fight to defend them with the same resolve that they fight to protect us. I have copies of letters I've sent to every Senator in the US on my computer. Each has been printed and mailed twice. I've recieved one response that basically read: "Don't call us, we'll call you."

The only main difference between Vietnam and Iraq is the draft. At the rate we are going now, Iraq will either end with the US leaving sooner, or the US having a draft and leaving later with an exponentially higher death count.
I do blame a few of the soldiers for allowing some of the horrible corruption from the top to drip down on them, the rapists, the torturers, those that kill in cold blood, but most of the soldiers, as you have correctly pointed out, are good men and women who are stuck. I feel it's our responsibility to make sure that what they are fighting for is rightous and justified.

Defend them by bringing them home in shame? Sorry will, I'm not seeing it. Especially when you had such virulent opposition to them from the start. People were clamoring for their return even during the early stages of the conflict. Some people want them out of Afghanistan as well. IMO, once the troops leave their barracks, the public should stand behind them for the duration, especially through hard times. Yet, the media and left had to keep droning on about petty foibles and trivialities from day one, in their efforts to sour the war effort. I don't think that is right. I don't think that is supporting the troops.

Shame? Who said anything about shame? The only shame should be from being there in the first place. People should be proud that we are smart and just enough to leave. Going from invading countries to actaully defending our country should be a source of pride, not shame. Anyone who would feel shame from that need to reevaluate what's going on.

Do you agree the war was a mistake?
Do you know why?
Osama isn't in Afghanistan anymore. We probably should at least try to clean up the mess we made their, but the suspected mastermind behind 9/11, the reason we invaded, is no longer there. Intel points to Pakistan.
That's nuts. That's, and forgive the perfectly apt Godwin, like good germans supporting the Nazi soldiers despite being against the war. The Germans had no good reason to invade anyone, and neither does the US. If you want to support the troops, do so by helping them do their real job, defending the US. They aren't being ordered to do their job. They are being ordered to invade and occupy a soverign country.
No WMDs and no al Quaeda links are the entire basis of the war, not trivia.

If your way of supporting the troops is allowing them to be in harms way for no reason, then I guess that's your call. I strongly disagree.

seaver: i'd probably not have mentioned your post in another context. but in this one, i think it functions as i argue it does. the response you post concerning vietnam is at the (mythological) core of the historical narrative that lay behind how the meme "support our troops" is currently used.

maybe you'll see what i mean by my take on your post if you read through the thread at a bit of a remove. that's how i worked out my argument. what do you think?

I understand that this is the rationalization, but I don't support it. Again, once the troops were given the responsibility to fight, the american people had the responsibility to support their troops.

I've said it before Ill say it again. No I don't think it was a mistake. It might have been poorly implemented, but not a mistake. No other country's army was "officially" involved in 9/11, yet someone had to pay, for a variety af reasons. No leading world power should be allowed to be attacked like that and not have the right to retaliation. It would set a terrible precedent.

Everyone knows he's hiding along the border between Afgahnistan/Pakistan, but Pakistan won't let the US into the region, for its own political well-being. In other words, Pakistan is sheltering OBL and al-Qaeda and the Taliban. I am for a NATO presence in Afghanistan. The entire area is a cesspool of anti-western sentiment and religious fanaticism. Those systems are in dire need of reform, and I believe it can be done, in the same way South Korea, Germany and Japan were reformed. Something one nevers hears from the left, yet, they say they support their troops by god.

Again this goes back to the first question in this post. Something major needed to be done post-9/11. Every rational nation on earth condemned 9/11. There needed to be a paradigm change. The americans didn't hit Iraq out of an ambition to invade, conquer and enslave the entire middle east like the germans wanted to do to europe, so the german analogy doesn't stand. Globalization means defending the US is more than just standing at the border waiting for an attack.

But, but, but...

What the heck did Iraq have to do with 9-11? I know this has been done to death, how can anyone still connect the two?

I know many people who had no issue with the war in Afghanistan, but huge issues with Iraq. Are you saying "We were attacked, someone had to pay, we chose Sadam?" It looks like you are saying exactly that.

We randomly chose a villain, sent in our troops to fail, and when we object about how they are being wasted somehow we "aren't supporting the troops". It's kafka-esque...

Sorry, I re-read your prior post and still not understanding how you intended it but I'll take it on faith. However I fail to fully grasp your argument. Are you stipulating that the Vietnam anti-war stories (true or false) directly influence the support the troops defensiveness on both sides or just one?

If you are arguing that the stories directly affect both sides, the "I'm supporting the troops by pulling them out" as well as the "I'm supporting the troops by supporting what they're fighting for" crowds, then I would agree with you 100%. However to simply say that the conservative crowds are the only ones affected I could not disagree with more.

Two symptoms of the same disease. Two tumors of the same cancer. The theory was, that if you show you're serious about shutting down bad guys, only the first couple of dominoes need to be pushed and then the rest will fall.

If your kids gets bitten by a scorpion in the backyard, do you go find that single scorpion that bit the kid, or do you hire an exterminator and make the yard inhospitable for scorpions?

The theory was a good one. The problem was in not following the Powell Doctrine.

seaver: what i meant is that as a meme, as a device that operates in a context of opinion management, "support our troops" has a simple effect of creating false dilemmas. the logic of these false dilemmas should be obvious--they are not rocket science to work out. you support "our boys" then you support the war, the administration blah blah blah: if you oppose the war, then you oppose our boys, blah blah blah.

the meme has effects all the way around, but i dont see them as "evenly distributed"---those who are inclined to the right seem much more willing to internalize the meme-logic and to speak through it than those who are not so inclined. but it effects all sides in that it sets up a wholly fake set of questions/problems that you have to get through before you can have anything like a rational debate about the iraq debacle across political lines.

loquitor: that last post....its reasoning...is nonsense.
a reverse domino theory on top of it?
geez.
are you speaking on your own behalf, or working in some ironic way with assumptions that you know about but do not share?

i vote that you should answer (b).

rb, if you can't remember what was being openly discussed four years ago, I can't help you.

I'll put this really simply: the idea was that there is some severe pathology in the Muslim world, particularly in the Arab world. That pathology was what led to 9/11. The boil had to be lanced. There was a very bad actor who was actually shooting at people, had invaded his neighbors, gassed his citizens, and refused to comply with UN ceasefire resolutions for a decade. He was a good candidate to be taken down and an example of civil society put into its place - the idea being that you'd only need to use force once, that once the momentum of healing the pathology took hold, it would spread.

Surely you remember all that? It wasn't kept secret. The president pretty much said so.

And as I said, in hindsight the mistake was not following the Powell Doctrine. The rest is history. But there is no mystery about why 9/11 led to the invasion of Iraq.

And how do we support our troops? By making sure that they don't die in vein.
No evidence exists linking Iraq, Saddam, or any Iraqi official to 9/11. Does that register with you yet? Bush himself has said that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11, desite what they said back in 2003 and 2004. Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. Iraq has never attacked the US. They lacked the means and the will. The "leading world power" invaded a soverign nation based on no real evidence. None. You couldn't be more wrong if you tried.
Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11 and we invaded Iraq because of an ambition to instal a puppet government on one of the largest oil sources on the planet, so the german analogy is actually apt. No, we aren't trying to commit genocide, though a 150,000 death count in Iraq is hardly inconsequential, but we're the evil invaders in this tale.

Btw, on the issue of returning troops being spat on, see this: http://openweb.tvnews.vanderbilt.edu...27-CBS-17.html

I was apparently wrong: the stories aren't apocryphal. There's other stuff too.

loquitor:

i asked about you about your relation to the information that you posted. which you did not answer.
do you think you could manage?

i did not set out a list of reasons why the argument for invading iraq floated by the administration are...um....worthless are (1) i couldnt work out the answer to the question above and (2) will has done a pretty good job of laying out that case in this thread already. so it'd have been redundant.

but hey, who knows?
maybe the linkages between arguments that purport to be based on a description of reality and the reality they purport to describe are not tops on your list of evaluation criteria.
you might enjoy busharguments for aesthetic reasons because they make the world simple and pretty;
or maybe because they enable you to impute legitimacy where there is none and that action fulfills some desire and so makes the world all pretty again;

or you might find them funny, in which case it hardly matters whether they are true according to other criteria or not;

or you might just like the manly feel you get from thinking about them, and that's all that matters--in which case they can't not be true because your manliness depends on the opposite being the case.

there are any number of frames that you can lay around an argument: whether the claims about the world they make line up with the actually existing world those arguments purport to describe is only one of them.
but the least you could do, if you cant manage to say whether you are serious or not, is to be up front about which logical game you are playing.

so far as i can tell, it cannot possibly be one in which the arguments about the world and the conditions these arguments purport to describe need have anything to do with each other.

but maybe we just play different games and happen by accident to find ourselves on the same board and are momentarily confused by that.
why not?
it's possible....

Sorry, I disagree. There you go again with the condescension. You are presupposing that you know better than they do about what they are doing. You are implying that what they are doing is useless, meaningless. You are implying that what they are trying to do in Iraq is for nothing, in vain. You say all this, as they fight and die this very minute! This is support???

The time for dissent has passed. Congress has debated, and they have spoken. Our troops are in place and under fire. It is now (or was) the Public's job to express approval for the mission of the troops. It is the Public's job to support the mission with the intent of keeping troop morale high, so as to better insure a preferred outcome.

I've heard this once or twice. It might make sense in a vacuum, but not since 9/12/01. If Iraq behaved as Greenland I could agree, but alas. Now, it is about trying to establish an ally in a hostile land.

I am a soldier and I see it several different ways:

First, the phrase "I support our troops" and those like it are wielded by both sides as a weapon and I resent that. It is used to make the opponent look unpatriotic or unsupportive of "our great young men and women in uniform" and it is so patronizing it makes me feel ill.

I hear republicans say it in order to make it look like democrats who don't support the war are somehow betraying individual soldiers. I also hear democrats use it in the exact context: that yanking funding for troops and leaving a job half finished is being done out of a heartfelt desire to protect soldiers. Of course, if you yank out most of the soldiers life will be that much worse for the ones who are left.

I hear talk show hosts preface any criticism of the war effort with equally patronizing language and I really don't appreciate it. It seems like people use such phrases to legitimize anything war related.

However, I am very glad that the attitude is not the same as it was in years previous. I would much rather have to deal with some false support than real abuse.

Whether you agree with the war or not you have to respect that soldiers are willing to risk thier lives for their country and are trying to do the right thing. While some people here are willing to lead sheltered lives and pretend that without the US the world would be a very gentle place, many soldiers are tired and scared in other countries getting a very different first hand perspective.

They are forced to do what they did not sign up for. I am supporting them by taking on their biggest enemy, the POTUS. He and his cronies have done more danage to the military than anyone else. I am supporting them by raising awareness that they don't belong there so that we, the people, can say in one voice to our "leadership" that our troops are coming home. We need to be united in our struggle to save the troops. That's how I have been and am serving the troops best interest. Also, more than half the troops in Iraq think we don't belong there. Did you know that? So even from your perspective I am supporting the troops because I am agreeing with them.
The time for dissent has passed? Dubbuyuh, is that you? Are you the decider now? It's the public's job to make sure that our government doesn't run amock, and we're not doing a good enough a job at that. Ther prefered outcome to this is to salvage the impossible mess, so that we stop losing lives. Congress was tricked and misled, and as a result the public has elected a Democratic majority Congress AND House. We've spoken. Bring 'em home and do it as fast as possible.
I need like 3 gallons of "what the hell are you talking about?!" for this one. I'm really certian you don't know what you're talking about any more. You connect Iraq to 9/11, and then when I prove how wrong you are, you talk about how Iraq isn't Greenland? What in god's name are you trying to communicate? What is your point?


Edit: Maybe I should make this more blunt. To all those brave soldiers here on TFP, did you sign up to protect your country from dangers both foreign and domsetic, or did you sign up to invade a country that could not harm us?

First hand experience is what blowhards like me greatly appreciate. Thank you for your post.

Willravel: Actually, Military enlistments are rarely for more than 4 years and are often for only 2. I can guarantee that everybody in the army today knew about the war when they signed up (or reenlisted).

Some national guard guys may have attempted to get easy money by signing up and hoping not to deploy, but they still signed on the dotted line knowing full well what conflict we were engaged in.

Also, an awareness that we don't belong in Iraq is very different entirely from an opinion that we shouldn't be fighting the war or that we are not needed. Of course we don't belong in the middle east. But an asshat of a dictator necessitated our return.

Whether you agree with the war or not, you should realize that the original war has been won...we kicked the crap out of saddam hussein, his army, and the bath party. We could have pulled out and left Iraq in ruins.

But that wouldn't be very nice. So we are trying to help get Iraq back up and running again. But since we displaced the ruling Sunni minority (basically like apartheid) and for the first time installed a predominately Shia government in the arab league of nations we are facing a lot of opposition from the Sunni radicals in Iraq who had it good living under Saddam and extorting people.

We have made some committments in that part of the world that require us to either 1: finish the job or 2: leave and betray all the people who stood up and have been working with the US to get their country up and running again...they will most likely be slaughtered if we leave. Not to mention Kuwait (one of our allies) will probably get taken over (again) during the resulting civil war. Democracy in the middle east is considered a threat by many neighboring countries (*Cough* *Iran* *Cough*) and they are actively working to undermine US interests as well. To pull out now is to simply hand them (and all others working against the US) the ball game.

Even if you were against the war you shouldn't be against reconstruction and the honoring of our national committments. Could you sleep at night if you had all our troops pull out only to have all former Interpreters, Interim Government members, Iraqi Police, and all their families tortured and killed? Not to mention the bloodbath that ensue from the civil war. What would you do when Kuwait gets sacked, again?

It is far easier to fight and win wars when you adopt a scorched earth policy. If we wanted to simply crush Iraq and leave the country in ruins we would have been home years ago. Instead we have a broader goal...helping people escape tyranny. Which, if I recall, is the reason we fought our war of independance and I can think of none better to fight a war over.

I wonder if you see the issue in black & white. That is, if individual civilians claim not to support the war effort, they also, by default, do not support the troops. Do you agreee that the success of a given mission is in large part based upon public opinion? I think this is especially relevant now, when you have so many prominent media outlets weighing in on the subject pro and con in an effort to shape and manipulate opinion.

I guess that's life in the real world.

What annoys me is how some people talk as if soldiers don't understand what they've gotten themselves into, as if they are mindless pawns on a chessboard. I'm simply saying that I think they deserve more respect than they are getting for trying to do something positive.

It is good to hear from a soldier on the matter.
What branch of service are you in? Have you served in Iraq?

--

willravel, you are apparently invested in seeing the whole thing as simply a hostile invasion with malicious, underlying intentions. I do not see it as such. Agree to disagree...as usual, eh?

That's a good point, but enlistment is down and people are being required to extend their tours now more than ever.
That actually just reminded me of a discussion I had about this with a military friend back in 2003. He said that even though it was probably wrong to invade Iraq, it wasn't illegal and he had to follow orders. He gave me the "Saddam must be stopped" line. I'm afraid it's not that simple.

I'm going to summerize my answer as I talked at him for like 3 hours. When you take the oath to join the military, you swear to obey lawful orders, yes? And you can't obey unlawful orders, yes? 'Members of the military have an obligation to disobey unlawful orders.' The idea was coined most prominantly at the Nuremberg trials, when the "I was just following orders" defence was finally and totally forbidden. So, if I can prove the invasion of Iraq is illegal, then you have a legal obligation to refuse the order?

The United States Constitution makes treaties that are signed by the government equivalent to the "law of the land" itself, Article VI, para. 2. The Nuremberg Principles, which define as a crime against peace, "planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression, or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements, or assurances, or participation in a common plan or conspiracy for accomplishment of any of the forgoing." specifically names a war of aggression as a crime. Also, under the UN charter, which the US has signed in good faith, there are only two circumstances in which the use of force is allowed: in collective or individual self-defence against and actual or imminent armed attack, or when the Security Council has allowed the use of force to maintain or restore international peace and security. Neither of the circumstances existed in 2003, therefore the action of invading was unlawful. Read Article 51 of the UN Charter for yourself. It's really cut and dry. While Bush used the language in 2003 of a "preemptive" strike, the reality of the situation is better described as a preventive strike. There was no claim made or evidence produced before the war to prove that Iraq was supplying WMDs to terrorists or that they even possesed them. The "regime change" excuse used by the administration is specifically and clearly barred under Article 2(4) of the UN Charter, which forbids "the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state." Even former House Majority Leader, and Republican Dick Armey said that an unprovoked attack against Iraq would violate international law.

As you are, judging by your post, an honorable and loyal military officer, isn't it possible that it's your duty to refuse an illegal order?

We could have continued to work with the UN. Obviously the inspectors and sanctions were a success, as he had no weapons of mass destruction.
That is, of course, the problem. We should have seen an insurgency coming and we should have done the entire thing differently. Even if the war weren't illegal, the war was waged wrong. We should ahve worked with members of both parties together in order to remove Saddam from power. The idea is to empower both sects and allow them to see that they can work together for a common goal. We didn't do that. We dropped bombs on crowded cities and there was a great deal of collateral damage. To them, this was more of the same. More American bombs killing civilians while targeting political figures. That's a big part of why we're hated over there. We should have learned from Korea that we need to understand a potential enemy before entering into a potential conflict situation. The North Koreans to this day think that the US was trying to invade, not to protect the South. Watch Fog of War, as it sheds amazing light on that.
What if we're just making it worse? We obviously don't have the manpower to stop the civil war, and our soldiers are targets out there. The real question to ask is: are we making it better or worse? I don't have an answer for that, and I doubt there are more than a hanful of military commanders on the ground who could answer that. The president can't answer it. Stephen Colbert can't answer it.
What if they get sacked again while we're there? Who's to say we're preventing that?

I can agree to disagree with you on the intent, but I'd really apprecaite it if you were to reevaluate your thoughts on the connections between Iraq and 9/11. I think that if you were to really step back and look at this thing, you'll see that the only connection between 9/11 and Iraq was in the words of our president.

I prefer not to get caught up in the whole Bush cult-of-personality thing. He's too banal to be as evil as people give him credit for. America will go on long after George W. Bush. What is past is past. I mentioned above my feelings about the invasion of Iraq. It is now time to get on with trying to establish an ally in the region.

I'm not talking avbout the personality of the president, I'm just refering to the facts. I do know, based on evidence, that there were and are no known links between Iraq and 9/11. While links were ascerted time and agiain, we now know that no link exists. I'm concerned because you seem to believe differently, and it's effected your whole take on the current situation.

I will try to respond, though I am tired and a bit rushed now.

First: Enlistments are not down: The army exceeded it's recruiting goal for 2006 and the national guard (or reserves, not sure) hit 99.6%. People are not being required to extend their tours. Sometimes soldiers get stoplossed, which sucks, but it is only temporary and they automatically get discharged from the army as soon as they return home (unless they reenlist, which most do). Meeting the enlistment goals will go a long way towards making stoploss unecessary.

Soldiers are required to obey lawful orders, however, no international law will superseed the constitution for as long as our government continues to exist. There is absolutely no way we should allow potential enemies to decide the fate of US soldiers or the justness of US actions. To do so would be to totally surrender our national Sovereignty. There is a big difference between participating in a military action that many people feel shouldn't have been undertaken and committing genocide. Also, since you brought nuremburg into the discussion I would like to point out that saddam hussein has, like those who were tried originally, committed genocide. Why would you accuse the soldiers who took him out of power and liberated his people of committing war crimes? I am in a crash Arabic course right now and one of my teachers was on the Iraqi soccer team and you can see the burns Uday left on his hands for losing games. Another fled Iraq in 1994 and his family was tortured and jailed to punish him and were not released until US forces let them out. But we are the bad guys?

Yes, it is my duty to refuse an illegal or unjust order. But it's also my duty to not be retarded. There is a big distinction between an unjust war and a war that is perfectly just but not quite in our national best interest.

The UN inspectors did nothing. It seems that Saddam sabatoged himself by killing everybody who brought him bad news. He really honestly thought he had a strong chemical weapons program because nobody was willing to tell him the bad news... We made the mistake of believing him when he told us he had them. He disclosed his chemical weapons and agreed to destroy them but never destroyed anything. It followed that he still had them. Also, he purchased chemical weapons suits and atropine injections for his army and issued them to troops surrounding baghdad shortly before our invasion. Why would he do that if he wasn't honestly planning on using chemical weapons he thought he had?

I really don't care what we should have done. I don't want to get into a protracted debate about justification as I don't think either of us are going to turn 180 and switch sides. So regardless of what we should have done, what is done is done and now we have a country to either rebuild or abandon. Pulling out is equal to abandonment regardless of any excuses or 'aid' that would be offered. Lots of people would die.

We are hated over there because we exist. It really has nothing to do with Iraq perse. Most of the insurgents are coming from other countries because now, for the first time, do they have the opportunity to kill some americans without coming to the US. Also, have you noticed that most of the insurgent attacks are not aimed at Americans but at other muslims? They are not so concerned about where our bombs hit so much as how many people they can kill with theirs. We preach tolerance, they (insurgents, not all muslims) want to get along with everybody by eradicating everyone who dares to disagree with them, even other muslims. Look at Somalia for a perfect example of this: Radical Wahabis (Sunni extremists) tried to convert the country at the point of a sword. They even went so far as to execute people for the immoral offense of watching soccer games. Do you really think we can teach them to hold hands and sing songs with us? How often did you get beat up as a kid? Did explaining your feelings afterwards ever keep you from getting beat up again?

"empowering both sects" would mean arming the Shia against the Sunni's who were already very empowered. It was tried, lots of people died in the Shia rebellion following the first gulf war. Saddam had an absolute stranglehold on his country and ruled through sheer terror and ruthfulness.

There is absolutely no way we are making the situation in Iraq worse. Things are better now than they were under saddam. There are dozens of cities on Iraqi maps that were wiped of the face of the earth because saddam considered them to be...less than completely loyal. He would have all the men and children killed (sometimes buried alive to save bullets) and dumped in mass graves, the women taken off and raped before joining their husbands, and would then bulldoze the entire city to totally erase it. He had honest to god card carrying rapists who were tasked of raping the family members of men who spoke badly of saddam. Saddam gassed his own people. The Iran Iraq war cost over a million lives. The Shi rebellion ended very badly for the Shia. Were you an Iraqi speaking about Saddam the way you now speak about Bush you would have been tortured and your family would suffer as well.

We do have the manpower to stop the civil war and our general in charge (who has some experience with army matters, being a general and all) has requested 20,000 troops to put the matter to rest. Who are you or I to question him considering that we know comparatively little about the subject?

Our soldiers are targets, but we are fighting those who would do us harm on their side of the world rather than ours. Also, we are keeping millions of Iraqis safe (relatively speaking) by our presence. Kuwait has no real ability to defend itself against anything and it is a very rich country. If it weren't for us, they would have been sacked long ago. And we are preventing that because they are an ally, which means we are willing to help defend them.

That's all for tonight, hope it is at least mostly coherent. Will check back in tommorrow to clarify or repost.

Edit: I was never under the impression that we established a link betwen 911 and Iraq (aside from Saddam paying the families of the hijackers 20,000 dollars each, of course). I just figured we had had enough with saddam and in light of current events decided to go ahead and get rid of him before he had the opportunity to do more damage.

Lembke addresses these stories in his book, I wish people would read the damn thing. It's so short, hardly take more time than slogging through any number of posts based on supposition on this board...

in any case, I'm not sure if he tackles this specific incident, but I wouldn't be surprised, and he points out a few things...one being the date of this incident...coupled with the dates of returning vets...who some of you may remember were the original agitators of anti-war protests and no love was shown to them by supporters of the war, including various administrations.

but the point is, and that news story itself gives no refutation to this claim so you'll actually have to watch the damn footage for yourself, but that the incidents as Jerry saw the raw footage turned out to be people for the war spitting on war vets! hmm, support for the troops indeed. this gets twisted in our collective conscious into peace activists spitting on vets. which is pretty much horseshit for anyone who can put two and two together and would realize that while vets and peacniks who were lying down in front of buses coming to drop recruits off, and that in reality war supporters were the ones who unkindly greeted soldiers returning because they were failures.

now, it's true that college students took it upon themselves to chant at LBJ, hey how many babies did you kill today, and the irony is marked in Lembke's book as a matter of fact for reasons a number of you SHOULD be aware of...but that in no way transposed to the soldiers who were by and large IN COMMUNICATION AND ALLEGIANCE with the anti-war movements.

fuck man, ignorance may be bliss, but why does it take a rocket scientist to remember that the earliest and for a time the only protestors were VETS THEMSELVES....oh primarily because no one even knew were at "war" for a the first few years of the conflict? but oh yes, our soldiers were on a rotation system that was bringing them stateside after a year so obviously large numbers were "in circulation" before the nation even had the realities plastered up on their tellies. that came much later...and THEN moved the populace slowly and kicking and screaming to the realization that our nation had fucked up and that our government had pulled some dasterdly shit...that there really wasn't any good way out. then on to the scapegoating...who to blame...well, not the poor poor mentally scarred vets...who have little rationality left after their sights and sounds (later to blossom into PTSD in the DSM) to be listened to about what they thought of the situation...and surely not the peaceniks who couldn't even have the respect to have love for the brave vets (although, like now, they were the ones making sure the damaged bodies and psyches of their relatives and friends were met with love, support, and flowers at the VA...when even vets from previous wars couldn't find it in themselves to do so)...

I never met Jerry personally, but he is a personal friend of my friend and advisor and chair of the soc dept. from my undergrad education. he's a vet, for what it's worth, and I think I recall he may have been decorated.

he deserves your time of the read, if nothing else. and especially if you are concerned with hearing an actual researched account of this wound on our nation's collective conscious. not that you have to agree with it, but you ought to at least contend with the points he raises.

willravel, as I mentioned, I see the Iraq invasion as reprisal for 9/11. I do not believe Sadaam Hussein had anything to do with planning or executing 9/11. I do believe he was guilty of being a threat to the region, and by extension, beyond. I fully understand the difficulty people have with taking the existential leap of faith in connecting the validity of invading Iraq to the occurrence of 9/11. And I blame the Bush Administration for cocking up the explanation so badly. Again, I do not believe Sadaam Hussein had anything to do with 9/11 occurring. I do believe he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. He wore out his welcome as a counterbalance to regional Iranian theocracy, and sought to re-invent (arm) himself into champion of the arab-muslim world and sworn enemy of the US. That was obviously his final mistake. He took the fall for 9/11, and good riddance. The job now is to establish an ally in the region. It is obviously a gamble. The troops involved (and politicians) have my support to this end, for whatever thats worth.

I appreciate your time and efforts.

The total number of recruits has dropped off, and goals have been reduced to compensate. They have reached the reduced goals, so we're both right.
Our Constitution neither forbids or allows preemtive invasions of soverign countries, so then the law falls to our international treaties. No law I mentioned has superceeded the Constitution.
Neither Saddam nor any of his fellow Iraqis had any ability to decide the fate of US soldiers. It was first the office of the President, and then Congress who are ultimately responsible for the lives of our soldiers in time of war.
The idea is that it's the law, and the prescedent for the law is Nuremberg. I'm not suggesting that the US is comparable to Nazi Germany in my case. The Nazi war of aggression, WWII, made evident that laws about justifications for following orderes were necessary. It was deemed necessary by the court that a soldier was required to do more than follow and order, and was responsible for determining if the order given was lawful. If the order was found to be unlawful, the soldier was required to disobey the order.
I made my case. I'm not suggesting that Saddam was not guity of war crimes (he was, and was executed). I was simply stating that the act of invading a soverign country that was not an immediate threat to the US was an illegal action. Those who would be heald responsible if this ever reaches a high court would most likely be high ranking members of the administration, not the troops. The point is that it should be the responsibility of every free thinking individual to stop him or herself from breaking the law.
This thread is about the troops, not Saddam or the Iraqi government. In another thread, I'll be glad to agree that Saddam Hussain was a dispicable murderer and his government commited unspeakable acts of cruelty.

Let's say that your neighbor is abusive to his 4 year old son. One day you go over there and stab him. You are arrested. While your intent was noble, you have still broken the law. While I'm sure the intent of removing Saddam from power is noble, it is still against the law.
I agre that there is a marked difference between the two, but take a look at the aftermath. Compare the death toll of Iraqi citizens between 2003-2007 versus the death toll from 1998-2002.
That's not true. According to intel from a defector in 1995, most if not al of Saddam's chemical weapons were destroyed in the early 90s after Desert Storm. That information had been circulating for 8 years before Iraqi Freedom. Isn't it likely that the suits were there in case Iraq was attacked with chemical weapons? He knew we were going to invade.
It would be nice to learn from history. We obviously didn't learn from NK or Vietnam, as we're right back in the thick of it again.

How do you expect that we can rebuild Iraq during a civil war?
So Iraqi's were born hating us, for no rational reason? I'm very glad to hear you're learning Arabic. If you are deployed to Iraq, I invite you to speak with some of the civilians over there. Ask them where the animosoity comes for the west, and let them explain. Let them explain how many starved because of UN sanctions that the US supported (yes, Clinton was wrong). Ask them about the Iraq Iran war and what role the US played. Ask them about when the US supported the Israeli bombing of the Iraqi nuclear power plant in 1981. Ask them about Saddam meeting with former Ambasador April Glaspie, who said the US wouldn't interfere if he wanted to attack the Kurds for being suspected of cross drilling. Ask them how often they have lost power, water, food, medicine, family or friends in US bombings. Aks them how it was to endure a 120 degree summer without power because it's not a priority. Ask them about group punishments and airstrikes instead of trying to catch individual terrorists or insurgents.

Again, I'm not calling our troops bad or evil or anything of the sort. I'm not saying they are ever justified for firing on you or planting bombs or anything of the sort. I'm simply letting you know that from the perspective of these people you are not saints.
I'm not a military tactician. I do my best to try and think of a solution, but I am not a seasoned general. I'll bet you $5 that if I were to allow any one general or admiral control the policy on rebuilding Iraq, it'd stand an honest chance of being done. The problem is with the commander in cheif of the armed forces, who's military experience is draft dodging and pretending to fly a plane in Texas while his generation was forced to go to war.

In a perfect world, there would be an admiralty or staff of generals that worked in conjunction with an ethics comitee in order to wage and control war. We have to work with what we've got, and we've got laws. We can't just break the law when we feel like it.
Read what I wrote about the death toll.
20,000 troops won't even cover the number that's been injured or killed, right (wounded: 22,834 + killed: 2,089 = 24,923)? So we're back to square one. Also the general that was just replaced disagrees and thinks that 20,000 troops is a mistake.
Refer back to the story of the stabbed neighbor.
It's coherent. :thumbsup: I look forward to your response.

Powerclown thinks that Iraq was somehow tied in with 9/11, and he's making me kinda worried. I can understand why he'd be confused when Bush said, "The reason I keep insisting that there was a relationship between Iraq and Saddam and al Qaeda: because there was a relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda," but times have changed and it was made clear when he said "...we've had no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved with September the 11th...". We live in a confusing world.

Let's say that your neighbor has severely abused/tortured 2 of his 5 kids. He had 2 favorite kids which ate lavishly and were never harmed. The fifth kid he killed. While knowing full well what's going on, you repeatedly call the Police. The Police tell him to stop, come over 7 times and each time give him lots of warnings. One day you find out that the Police are getting paid by the neighbor, who happens to be rich. You know full well that the neighbor will never stop, and after he dies the kids will go to his even sicker siblings. Your other neighbors keep asking you why you don't help, his remaining kids keep asking you why you don't help. One day you attempt to put an end to it, and the paid Policeman says what you did was illegal and that you should have gone to him to stop what was going on.

Sorry, fixed.

how about we not say any of that and keep the discussion on topic...

Hope Rides Alone
USA Sgt. Eddie Jeffers, USA (Iraq)
February 1, 2007

I stare out into the darkness from my post, and I watch the city burn to the ground. I smell the familiar smells, I walk through the familiar rubble, and I look at the frightened faces that watch me pass down the streets of their neighborhoods. My nerves hardly rest; my hands are steady on a device that has been given to me from my government for the purpose of taking the lives of others.

I sweat, and I am tired. My back aches from the loads I carry. Young American boys look to me to direct them in a manner that will someday allow them to see their families again...and yet, I too, am just a boy....my age not but a few years more than that of the ones I lead. I am stressed, I am scared, and I am paranoid...because death is everywhere. It waits for me, it calls to me from around street corners and windows, and it is always there.

There are the demons that follow me, and tempt me into thoughts and actions that are not my own...but that are necessary for survival. I've made compromises with my humanity. And I am not alone in this. Miles from me are my brethren in this world, who walk in the same streets...who feel the same things, whether they admit to it or not.

And to think, I volunteered for this...

And I am ignorant to the rest of the world...or so I thought.

But even thousands of miles away, in Ramadi, Iraq, the cries and screams and complaints of the ungrateful reach me. In a year, I will be thrust back into society from a life and mentality that doesn't fit your average man. And then, I will be alone. And then, I will walk down the streets of America, and see the yellow ribbon stickers on the cars of the same people who compare our President to Hitler.

I will watch the television and watch the Cindy Sheehans, and the Al Frankens, and the rest of the ignorant sheep of America spout off their mouths about a subject they know nothing about. It is their right, however, and it is a right that is defended by hundreds of thousands of boys and girls scattered across the world, far from home. I use the word boys and girls, because that's what they are. In the Army, the average age of the infantryman is nineteen years old. The average rank of soldiers killed in action is Private First Class.

People like Cindy Sheehan are ignorant. Not just to this war, but to the results of their idiotic ramblings, or at least I hope they are. They don't realize its effects on this war. In this war, there are no Geneva Conventions, no cease fires. Medics and Chaplains are not spared from the enemy's brutality because it's against the rules. I can only imagine the horrors a military Chaplain would experience at the hands of the enemy. The enemy slinks in the shadows and fights a coward’s war against us. It is effective though, as many men and women have died since the start of this war. And the memory of their service to America is tainted by the inconsiderate remarks on our nation's news outlets. And every day, the enemy changes...only now, the enemy is becoming something new. The enemy is transitioning from the Muslim extremists to Americans. The enemy is becoming the very people whom we defend with our lives. And they do not realize it. But in denouncing our actions, denouncing our leaders, denouncing the war we live and fight, they are isolating the military from society...and they are becoming our enemy.

Democrats and peace activists like to toss the word "quagmire" around and compare this war to Vietnam. In a way they are right, this war is becoming like Vietnam. Not the actual war, but in the isolation of country and military. America is not a nation at war; they are a nation with its military at war. Like it or not, we are here, some of us for our second, or third times; some even for their fourth and so on. Americans are so concerned now with politics, that it is interfering with our war.

Terrorists cut the heads off of American citizens on the internet...and there is no outrage, but an American soldier kills an Iraqi in the midst of battle, and there are investigations, and sometimes soldiers are even jailed...for doing their job.

It is absolutely sickening to me to think our country has come to this. Why are we so obsessed with the bad news? Why will people stop at nothing to be against this war, no matter how much evidence of the good we've done is thrown in their face? When is the last time CNN or MSNBC or CBS reported the opening of schools and hospitals in Iraq? Or the leaders of terror cells being detained or killed? It's all happening, but people will not let up their hatred of President Bush. They will ignore the good news, because it just might show people that Bush was right.

America has lost its will to fight. It has lost its will to defend what is right and just in the world. The crazy thing of it all is that the American people have not even been asked to sacrifice a single thing. It’s not like World War II, where people rationed food and turned in cars to be made into metal for tanks. The American people have not been asked to sacrifice anything. Unless you are in the military or the family member of a servicemember, its life as usual...the war doesn't affect you.

But it affects us. And when it is over and the troops come home and they try to piece together what's left of them after their service...where will the detractors be then? Where will the Cindy Sheehans be to comfort and talk to soldiers and help them sort out the last couple years of their lives, most of which have been spent dodging death and wading through the deaths of their friends? They will be where they always are, somewhere far away, where the horrors of the world can't touch them. Somewhere where they can complain about things they will never experience in their lifetime; things that the young men and women of America have willingly taken upon their shoulders.

We are the hope of the Iraqi people. They want what everyone else wants in life: safety, security, somewhere to call home. They want a country that is safe to raise their children in. Not a place where their children will be abducted, raped and murdered if they do not comply with the terrorists demands. They want to live on, rebuild and prosper. And America has given them the opportunity, but only if we stay true to the cause and see it to its end. But the country must unite in this endeavor...we cannot place the burden on our military alone. We must all stand up and fight, whether in uniform or not. And supporting us is more than sticking yellow ribbon stickers on your cars. It's supporting our President, our troops and our cause.

Right now, the burden is all on the American soldiers. Right now, hope rides alone. But it can change, it must change. Because there is only failure and darkness ahead for us as a country, as a people, if it doesn't.

Let's stop all the political nonsense, let's stop all the bickering, let's stop all the bad news and let's stand and fight!

Isn't that what America is about anyway?

Sergeant Eddie Jeffers is a US Army Infantryman serving in Ramadi, Iraq.

--

What is to be made of a story like this? It appears to have been written in some amount of anger by an American soldier in Iraq. So he too is pissed off. Another young, scared, pissed off American, this time a soldier, looking for answers to ever deeper questions. When you think about it, there is a certain madness to it all. No doubt there are vestiges of recognizable humanity on both sides, yet they both are trying simultaneously to kill eachother, sometimes in the most horrific, depraved ways. Ethics and morality seem to vanish, and all we're left to ponder - as spectators - is the utter barbarity of it all, barbarity and violence that we sometimes recognize deep within ourselves in moments of introspection and acute emotion. Reason inevitably forces us, like walking a plank, to try and make sense out of madness, and we use reason truly or falsely to distract ourselves for the time being.

At other times, waves of certainty flow and the choices seem to narrow. Uncertainty is replaced by a sort of benign acceptance and understanding of human nature. Repetition of experience solidifies the certainty and replaces the fear of unknown, internal locales with an incomplete familiarity. Why would one leave the comforts of home - friends and family - to play violent games of life and death with strangers? Is it the pack instinct, the comfort of brotherhood? Then why not join a poker club? Is it the promise of friendship forged in blood, a deeper, truer kind of friendship? Is it the personal search for the dissolution of paternal/maternal anger or disappointment? They say it is noble to fight for a friend. They say it is noble to fight for peace. They say it is noble to die for a cause. They say it is noble to fight for one's country. What is a person, if not a member of something larger than himself? Is there such thing as an individual? Or is there only an individual in the context of fitting in to a larger group of individuals. What would happen if we didn't care about the group? Would it cease to exist? Would one be liberated from the gravitational pull of the group? Is an individual anything more than the manifestation of like-minded individuals? Freud might say no. That we are simply animals that choose to behave for the benefit of the group. I happen to believe this is true. Reason then forces us into symbol recognition. It makes all the sense in the world to love one's group. It makes all the sense in the world to despise one's group. One is simultaneously trapped, liberated, identified, characterized, formed, described, and judged by other groups based on the identity of their own group. Narcissism and dissolution happening simultaneously...one wonders if it was designed to be this way.

IN 1981, REAGAN said that US troops in Vietnam had 'been denied permission to wiin"
 

I've read that Joshua Sparling rec'd a "hate card" in Dec., 2005 and displayed it on the wall next to his bed at Walter Reed Army hospital. Along came Ollie North & Brian K. from Fox News, Brian's reporting was seen by Malkin. Malkin posted the report and appealed to the public to send Sparling cards. Malkin sez he got 20,000. The White House invited Sparling to sit next to cheney's wife at last years SOTU address. Hannity promised him a trip to NYC.

Sparling's father, in "letter" below, claimed Sparling was verbally abused at airport by anti Iraq war folks. NY Times reporter Ian Urbina who wrote the Sparling spit "reporting", also wrote this article, 5 years ago,
http://www.villagevoice.com/generic/...kwNDcsMS5odG1s
Will Sparling's supporters as eagerly embrace Urbina's "psyops" reporting, as they seized upon his reporting of a spitting incident against oft "victimized" Cpl. Josh Sparling?

Sparling is reported to have been in the company of a group of freerepublic.com counter-protestors when spit "flew" in his direction.

A few days after the spitting reporting, I watched a video of Sparling proposing marriage on Fox & friends to his girlfriend, as he discussed the "incident". The video also cut away to a clip of Sparling's father, who mentioned that his son is having a tough financial time.

<b>Links to Sparling reports and the Fox & Friends video here:</b>
http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/20...off.html#links
<b>Lightening does not often strike twice, but I am starting to believe that the folks who believed Reagan, and now Josh Sparling, but ignored Cronkite, Ellsberg, and the 'Winter soldiers" are going to:</b>
<b>If Reagan's purpose was to make a factual speech, the following, 35 days after his 1981 inauguration, was available in FBI records, from the mid-1970's:</b>
<b>Read the previous line and then try to persuade me that it isn't necessary, given the slim democratic party senate majority, to provide extra bodyguards to all democrats and independents in the US senate from states with republican governors....</b>
On sunday,Sept. 10, 2006, Cheney was saying this, during a prominent news program, telecast:

<b>Cheney was saying it, even though this was reported, just two days before:</b>
powerclown, the Reagan "view" and the compartmentalized propaganda that brands critics of the war as "troop hating" "liberals" (a small number were...) is no more accurate or fair as branding all Vietnam vets as "baby killers" (a small number were...) would be.....

Your dimissal of the Iraq war as a legal "problem" iis contradicted by the deliberate duplicity of Bush and Cheney, et al. Why would they need to be so slimey if it is as you say? You're mindset strands the principled stand of Lt. Watada. Why dismiss the opiinion of Ben Ferencz and so much iinformation that you and the rest of the remaining 30 percent try to ignore?

<b>You folks have never stopped "dogging us", have you?</b>

Please don't stretch my analogies. Mine was apt, yours is silly.

The bottom line is that we had no legal right to invade Iraq and, even though we all agree that Saddam was a horrible monster, we did the wrong thing. We broke a treaty the US signed in good faith and we have done more damage (see: death toll) in the past 4 years than Saddam could have possibly done in the rest of his lifetime had we not invaded.

How is it silly? Are any of the analogies less true than yours?

And yes, we had legal right to invade Iraq. 7 UN Resolutions all pronounced a threat of military action if he did not comply. Or are you talking about our Constitution? The Tonkin Gulf Resolution pretty much takes care of the legal ground for that argument, which is why the President keeps having to ask Congress for more money.

TFPolitics is infamous for overblown analogies. I was using the analogy to explain that while intent may be noble, action was illegal. You analogy proved what? That my analogy was simple? That's what analogies are for. They cimplify concepts in order to try and clarify them. Now read yor analogy. It doesn't simplify anything. Also, if you're going to get into more direct detailed comparisons, we have to also make clear that, in this analogy that grows, you told your bneighbor that if he attacked his children that you wouldn't call the police or interferem in any way, and when he did finally attack his kid, then you came over and beat the living crap out of him. You also failed to mention that when he attacked his kid, the neighborhood decided to boycot selling him stuff at the grocery store and one of his kids starved to death and he lost a lot of his power over his household. When we finally did go over to shank him, he had lost almost all his ability to hurt his children.

You see how silly this can get? The analogy had a job to do, and it was done. Stretching it too much makes the analogy itself leave reality, and then what purpous does it serve?
We're not the UN. The UN has to decide as a whole body if it wants to take action against someone or something. The US is a soverign nation and does not have legal authority over Iraq. As I stated clearly above:
As for the Tonkin Gulf Resolution, well guess what, we're right back in Vietnam again. Maybe we can learn from history next time, though I don't hold out much hope. We signed the UN Charter in 1945 and by so doing agreed to all rules included in said charter. One very important rule has been broken and as such, we have breached our agreement with the UN.