Politics – Nothing destroys troop morale faster than being in a war you know is pointless. As the situation continues to deteriorate in Iraq, anti-American feelings will increase. Cursed for staying, we will now be cursed for leaving. Iraq will become an ever more dangerous place for any American to be.
The key is that its the same o same o- does the author say its unconstitutional??
The point I disagree with as retired Military is the only thing worse than a pointless war is an apathetic or hateful US Public that blames (allegations) the soldier, too (and I've heard it starting already - dont uphold the constitution, killers, torturers, etc) and the Impeach, jail or worse the current Admin (on allegations) without due process (seeing that alot on the boards recently, too)
Oh no (yes) (I've been slammed on a lot today- not by U here- for not being clear) I agree his is a very (just as) valid point - hope I didnt infer it wasnt...
and unconstitutional or not- it would still be a pointless war.
Fighting a cold and cold medicine....
Illuminate. I agree with you that what happened to the soldiers returning from Vietnam was disgraceful. I will personally be right in the face of any American I see treating Iraq War veterans in the same way. The war, whether just or unjust, wasn't the fault of the soldiers. They did their duty and put their lives on the line doing it. Far too many lost their lives. Far to many more are returning with lives and limbs in tatters. They deserve our thanks and love.
But I don't follow your logic about calls for impeachment being unjust. Correct me if I have missed something, but I though that impeachment WAS part of due process and did involve the discovery of evidence, presentation of defense and a trial.
Absolutely. If you look at the reasons most of these soldiers are in Iraq I think fighting an idealogical war would be far down the list.
How can we blame the soldiers when it was us, the American voting public, who installed the current leadership? Maybe if Cheney had been the face of the party in '00 we wouldn't be in this mess. But Karl found Georgie and that unlikely pairing made it happen.
So don't spit on a soldier. Find a neo-con or someone with a Bush sticker on their car.(just kidding). They are the ones responsible for this mess.
The mob mentality of Impeach, Imprison Without due process is rampant here on Nutscape. A lot are calling for their heads and want to deny (the Pres et al) US Citizens their right (whether Bush et al did take away someone elses- US Citizen, US Citizen Terrorist, Non US Citizen, Non US Citizen Terrorist) is irrelevant to them deserving rights or due process) The get 'em. Period.
If that happens we are no better than Bush et al and have become what so many despise.
ET, if impeachment is the best option, then we have to get a huge holding cell to include almost the entire Congress and Senate, because I'm sure you know that the president can't just send the troops into war without a majority of their votes. Oh, wait, you are saying that many of the politicians had their hands tied and had to go along? If thats true, they should be bannished as gutless pawns of the administration, no matter the party affiliation.
Also, to all you so called patriots that never served this great country, as a vetran of the Vietnam war, I want you to know that we "were" treated like dirt. People threw things out of their car windows at me and cursed us as murderers. We were commanded not to wear our uniforms in public. Also, in Vietnam we lost 50,000 soldiers in that war and at the present number in Iraq, it would take about 50 years to reach the number again. Our troops are better readied, armed and equipped than back then. There is no comparison.
on being clear: look up "infer" -- it means exactly opposite of what you intended. The word you want is "imply."
SO now spelling and grammar are being graded??- if I incorrectly type something my points not valid and I get a 'Didnt meet the Standard' stamp.
Thanks for the vocabulary lesson
No, your coherence is being commented upon, because you said you were getting dinged for being unclear. I simply showed you why; you used the wrong word, so unless someone could read your mind -- I did; it was very short story :-)-- how could they be expected to get your point? It's all for your edification.
Spelling didn't enter into it, nor did grammar.
And you're welcome... (smile)
I did look up 'infer' and check this out:
American heritage Dictionary:
infer: 4) to hint; IMPLY.
It also means to draw conclusions from evidence and premises, sure, but I found it funny that the 'opposite', 'imply' was actually a part of one of the definitions.
synonyms under 'conjecture'
also imply means to 'hint at' hence to give someone something to draw inferences from, so even the 1st 3 definitions connect the words, and I wouldn't call them opposites even without definition four.
What would the opposite of 'imply' be?
Defintion 1 says to 'entail, involve by necessity', but going with the 'hint, suggest' def., I would say maybe to spell something out in no uncertain terms, black and white elucidation and clarification? I don't know, maybe.
seems an odd correction either way.
I know there was a problem with Vietnam War protesters deriding soldiers in the '60s, but everyone I know personally who speaks out against the war in Iraq, supports the soldiers.
Many of them have complaints about the cost-cutting way this war's being fought. (Yes, for those of you whose jaws dropped to the floor, though it's been very expensive, much of that money has been wasted and not gotten through to the soldiers who need it.)
But all of them just want to get the soldiers home, out of harm's way--they have no problem with the soldiers. Just the chickenhawks in DC who're running--and profiting from--an unncessary and ill-advised war.
I disagree. A pointless war is far more damaging than a few (and I mean very few, I've never meet one) hatefull people that would blame the soilders. Far worse are those who would take a single instance of such behavior and ascribe it to all who disagree with the war.
BTW impeachment is due process for a President accussed of High Crimes.
{{and the Impeach, jail or worse the current Admin (on allegations) without due process (seeing that alot on the boards recently, too)}}
Ok, have you actually read the constituion? Impeachment, by it's very definition IS DUE PROCESS! Impeachment is the same as "indictment". It's simply a preliminary trial. I agree that we shouldn't be hateful toward returning vets. They've been screwed over by this administration worse than anyone else. And I'm against ANYONE who crashes ANY funeral be it "left wingers" or "right wingers". (Like the church that crashes military funerals so they can blame the failure in Iraq on homosexuality.)
That said I think it's JUST as wrong to try to tie support for the vets to support for the current administration. Let them stand, or fall, on their own two feet. If purposefully lied about reasons to go to war in Iraq (and the evidence suggests they did) then let the DUE PROCESS OF IMPEACHMENT sort this out.
The Dems agreed with the war too. Only Al Gore stood out on the Left against it.
Doesn't Gore look good on this one. Of course, there were others. The support was a political move. Remember that Bush was at 80 % approval and could do no wrong.
That was a long, long time ago in a distant galaxy, wasn't it?
There was palpable fear that any vote against the war would spell political doom. I give many of them credit for coming to their senses. Nothing wrong with watching the polls and expressing the change in sentiment.
Amen to that "illuminate". Nothing can demoralize a soldier more than lack of support at home. This lack of support was expressed by the media during Vietnam. The media then as now is not directed by the news, it creates it's own news to suit their political agenda. The media shaped public opinion and did not reflect opinion or what was happening on the ground. Now the media also includes posts on the WWW which gives our opponents an instantaneous false sense of victory. The terrorists are partly correct by believing just, "wait it out, US resolve will falter". Saying that the war is pointless, unconstitutional and so on is not only stupid, it offers comfort to the enemy. Free speach while necessary in any Democracy is that Democracies weakness. It is up to our citizens to exercise our freedoms responsibly.
While in RVN the papers received from home didn't reflect what was happening on the ground. The same thing is happening now. Two wars same old crap!
So, Bush lies us into invading Iraq and through sheer incompetence fails to plan for anything so Iraq falls apart and you think that we should support sending our friends and family into a meat grinder to make Bush look good? You see our lack of support to the administration as the lynchpin to the debacle in Iraq and not the administration's incompetence and criminality?
No one, especially another American, will dictate to me how to act as an American. We never should have went in because Saddam posed no threat because he was contained. The troops were failed by a press that and our politicians who refused to bully Bush about his lies about Iraq while we were in Afghanistan. If our elected officials and the Fourth Estate had done their jobs in the first place, the stupid American people may not have been lead so easily and so no troops would be deployed in Iraq.
The real problem with troop moral is the lack of critical analysis by the American people in the first place.
So everyone is stupid who doesn't agree with you. The UN thought he was a threat. Keep on blathering nonsense! Words like, incompetence, criminality, lies, stupid American people, all do a lot of good. Yes, only Bush lied, no one lied to him. Our lack of intelligence on the ground just may have had something to do with this (mess). Let's not examine the intelligence cuts in the 90's. It's just simpler to vilify one man. What academic laziness. When you can't debate a point, you vilify your opponent. Real mature! How did this thread degenerate into a discussion about someone not supporting the troops? I thought this was to be another Bush bashing party! Let's see, we have one group bashing B... and and another not. Just another story about the same negativity!
No, not anyone who agrees with me but only Bush apologists.
What does anyone "thinking" that Saddam was a threat mean? Nothing. That's what. He wasn't. That would have come out had Bush not fixed intelligence and facts around his policy.
Don't give me that crap about bad intelligence. We had intelligence that indicated that Saddam was not a threat and intelligence that indicated that Saddam may be a threat and intelligence that indicated Saddam was a threat. Only the intelligence inidicating he was threat was used.
As for when this thread degenerating into discussion about not supporting troops: "Nothing can demoralize a soldier more than lack of support at home...The same thing is happening now."
Bush has destabilized the region and that comforts the enemy.
Careful Rogue, jeffery1 has ties with the communist Nutscape editors, the libbies can say anything they want and not get cut, but if an American says anything that can be construed in any way... zzzzzzip. Your gone.
I wish Teagen were here, she wiped the floor with the libbies yesterday, on their own ground.
Yes this war is bad, but why is it that we wont listen to those who are there, and KNOW what it takes to win this and GET OUT! There is where the tradgic similiarity to Vietnam begins.
Nobody knows what it takes to "win" this, including those who are there, because nobody knows what "winning" this means. There are no reasonable benchmarks to measure the objective, and that objective has not been made clear.
Are we to get rid of Saddam? Mission accomplished. (But then why are we still there?)
Are we to unite all factions so they can live peacefully in a democratically elected government? How is that possible? Can you FORCE democracy on a people? Once it's established, and we leave (and of course, no matter how long it takes, we WILL have to leave), what will keep others from outside, such as al-Qaeda in Iraq--look at that! maybe WE created the link between Iraq and 9/11--or other nasty factions from Iran or Syria) from taking over? Or other native parties (like Shiites and Sunnis and Kurds) from fighting over the country?
(continued)
Are we to stay there forever and build our economy through war? Are we to gain control of the oil fields? Maybe we want to destabilize the entire region in order to build our own influence. Does anyone really think that a further destabilized Middle East will be controllable? That is, won't cause more future trouble than we can even imagine at this time? How many more enemies of the US are we creating? How many more al-Qaedas?
Beau7890, If you are not there, you cant say that the people who are there dont know what they are talking about. I would much sooner believe a person in the middle of the situation than some armchair expert that hasnt seen anything.
Almost all of the fighting is coming from terrorists streaming in from Iran, not the local population who just want to get on with their lives.
But just like Vietnam, the politicians here think they know everything, just like the mob here running around with their torches looking for someone to bar-b-que.
eddie107, I never said that the people in Iraq don't know what they're talking about. I said that the people running the war are in the position of trying to stop the bleeding, rather than trying to achieve any sort of non-military, long-term objective that is feasible--not that they have one. (Unless they're hiding another agenda from us.)
But you're right. Terrorists are streaming in from Iran. Which is a lot closer to where they're from than we are. They can wait forever to resume streaming in, any time we beat them back. As long as our forces stay there, we create more of them. And when we leave, it's the end. It's bad either way. So what exactly are we fighting for, and how will we know when we win?
(continued)
If we were just removing an unpopular tyrant, like Saddam, then I could understand where the justification for this war comes from, even though I might not buy into it.) But now we're fighting a movement of people who actually live there. Regardless of how we feel about them, the advantage of time is theirs.
Maybe it's time to CHANGE the course...and keep things from getting worse.
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The key here is that the war is pointless - unconstitutional - and entirely ruinous. The time to get out is now.
The invasion was a strategic blunder that will likely haunt us for decades.
Since accepting aid from the US in fighting our proxie war with Iran, to the first gulf war, then sancations, and now the US invasion and occupation, Iraq, once the most modern and secular of all the Arab nations, has decended into civil disorder and chaos. This disorder is giving the terrorist more resources to attack us with than ever before, and threatens to spread throughout the entire region.
I say we give it to Iran.
Let them and the Saudis duke or nuke it out.
Oil at $200 a bbl will be worth it.
Who ever wins that war will control an even bigger share of the world's oil supply. And have lots more money to push their version of Islam on the world.
Not to mention all the Iraqis that were partners with us in that misbegotten adventure who will be killed along with lots of other Iraqis. Serves them right.
A win win all around.
If it turns out no worse than Vietnam (Iraqis under a murderous dictatorship and not more than 2 or 3 million dead in Iraq and the surrounding region and a huge loss of American prestiege) it will be wonderful.
I think Clinton had it right. We feel our pain, the pain of others not so much. Which is what makes Americans such wonderful humanitarians.
Yea you just right M.Borat.
Wa-va wi-va I like you.
Who needs the Jews?
Just what we need - another fanatic. If it's not anti-America, it's anti-Jew or anti-Islam or anti-whatever. What happened to kindness, tolerance and goodwill toward your fellow man? Those are tenets of almost every major religion on the planet. Good grief.
I think they should be allowed to duke it out as well - but I disagree that anyone is going to be a "winner" because it will be a never-ending war illustrating the terrible hold this Islam has on the people of that region.
Also, was this meant as sarcasm "what makes Americans such wonderful humanitarians" - if so, there is a lot of do gooders among the American population, especially relative to the rest of the world who only whine and complain about terrible Americans, and your sarcasm is an insult to your fellow countrymen.
What you are leaving out is the fact that for the time being our civilization depends on oil and the protection for world trade America provides.
http://powerandcontrol.blogspot.com/2006/12/declin
Oil is the life blood of our current civilization. A lot of people will die if it stops flowing.
However, we have a way to get off oil if we would just move on it:
http://powerandcontrol.blogspot.com/2006/11/easy-l
That just summed up the entire article. Once again a good article and comments Populist.
Just like Vietnam, we quit then latter found out that
a few more feet of tunneling we would have uncovered
North Vietnams' underground headquarters and won the
war!!!!!!!!!!. But instead we bowed to the propaganda
machine that North Vietnam used aganist us and quit.
North Vietnam knew the only way they could win the war
was to hold out long enough to let the propaganda work and
their strategy did work. There are published works that document the Norths Strategy and that had we held on for just a few more days we would have WON THE UNWINNABLE WAR.
Delusion springs eternal...
Yeah... the liberals started this war, remember? :-)
War? what War? The war was over before it even started. What we have now is a conquered country trying to re-establish its self as a democracy, with rebels vying for power illegitimately. We need to bolster the fledgling government so they can keep the radicals(sheits) from overthrowing the legitimate government and killing millions of Kurdish men women and children, (guess which faction of Islam Iran is...You guessed it the troublemakers). Then we can leave and go home. What part of that don't you get? Also, if you'd have been there, and talked to the soldiers and Iraqi people there is nothing shameful or pointless about what has been accomplished. Your just self centered and don't want to fork out a couple lousy thousand dollars on anyone but you self.
Its hard to say what's more laughable about the previous post:
is it the "couple thousand dollars" part? or the pretense that it's all about altruism...
or the part about Shiites being the "troublemakers" of Islam... hmmm.. then why'd we overthrow the Sunni gov't and hand it over to them...?
Or... the part about the war being over... I guess that's the part he forgot to ask the Iraqi people about.
That's the lesson you learn from this article? Getting out now is what will make this a Vietnam. The answer is to win the war.
Nothing will change this being what it is -- an unwinnable war with the enemy being the people we were supposedly liberating. In other words, Vietnam II.