And Still They Reenlist

[vern_humphrey]

Thekla:

It was clear to many that we were being lied to from the onset and I would not support our government’s disasterous foreign policy. My way of undoing the damage would be to admit that we made a complete mess of it, apologize to the Vatican, and beg for international help.

Some would say that we should have those who believe we are there to “liberate” the Iraqis march down and sign their children up. They’ve been noticeably absent; prefering to let others go in their stead. However, I value their childrens’ lives in a way that they don’t reciprocate.

And so all I can do is hope that military leadership can find a way to quickly extricate our young men and women from a bad foreign policy.

In other words, you – who have never been there and never personally seen what’s going on – only endorse solutions that don’t involve any sacrifice on your part.

The people who are actually on the ground, doing the work, taking the risks and seeing what’s happening at first hand – they’re all wrong.

 

[ElizabethJoy]

vern humphrey:

How about we support them by NOT giving our enemies hope that our political will will collapse and they can win the the streets of the United States what they cannot win on the battlefield in Iraq?

Let me point out, I am one of the victims of the “Anti-War Movement” during Viet Nam.

Absolutely spot on, Vern!

This tactic worked sooooo well during Vietnam - and today you look at who the leaders are of the IVAW - (Iraq Veterans Against the War) - they’re the same people as led the VVAW! The same old socialists and anarchists jumping into every anti-American cause that comes along.

We Americans didn’t realize until many years later that our “anti-war” and “peace” movements were being scripted, funded and equipped by the KGB.

The propaganda was spoon-fed to us every night by the likes of good ol’ Uncle Walter and Dan Blather. The leftist media turned one of our greatest triumphs and what was about to become a victory into what appeared to be a terrible defeat (Tet) and turned the tide of public opinion against our involvement in that war, just as the North Vietnamese were coming to a decision to surrender and admit defeat.

This was a just war, poorly managed. We could have won if we’d had some spine in the White House and some spine in Congress. Instead we got Johnson, Nixon and the Fulbright Commission. (which was quite happy to build its case upon false testimony)

Vern, God bless you for going off to fight in a war that our politicians did not have the will to fight to win.

What a bitter, brutal betrayal you came home to. My heart aches to even think about it. We betrayed and marginalized an entire generation of our own brothers and sisters, fathers, uncles and friends. Sickening and indefensible.

And look what happened to the Vietnamese after our precipitous pull-out. And the Cambodians and the Laotians. Millions slaughtered and sent to “re-education camps,” families torn apart or murdered en masse, perhaps hundreds of thousands more drowned in the attempt to flee in rickety boats.

John Kerry testified in 1972 that perhaps the US would have to accommodate 2-3,000 political refugees - a claim so low that even the Fulbright commission had to correct him on it, and they still undershot the estimate by a few million people.

Is it any wonder that Cambodian and Vietnamese and Laotion immigrants to America turned out in record numbers to vote for the President in this last election? They voted for him in overwhelming majorities - 79-82%, by country of origin.

Listen to the longing in this man’s voice - this is the voice of Vietnam, today:
theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,15116942^7583,00.html

South Vietnam could be a democracy of prosperity rivalling South Korea, today, but its per capita income is roughly $500 year, and people are still being assassinated for Christianity and speaking even the mildest wish for democracy.

The Iraqi people are getting in three years what millions have died for in Vietnam - they haven’t gotten it in thirty years and they’re not likely to get it in thirty more.

Support our troops, support our military, support our attempts to democraticize the Middle East.

They’re all that’s standing between us and the (conservatively) estimated 1.1 million jihadi in this Third Great Jihad who want to slit your throats.

Elizabeth

 

[gilliam]

Fitz:

Thekla, I will make this simple. I don’t feel like I was lied to. I have a daughter that has had one deployment and will have another to the Persian Gulf. I think you should refrain from calling the soldiers children. I don’t think anyone on this forum could value her life more than I . I am proud to be a parent of one in the military and I know the sacrifice that has been made and continues to be made by our military personell.

Thank you and your daughter. By the way, my son graduates OSUT (Basic training) very soon.

 

[gilliam]

CanonAlberic:

The Iraq invasion was based on bogus and manipulated information from the “get-go”. Since we are up to our keisters in it now, I think that we should stay to finish the job, but what a tragic and criminal waste of the lives of some of our finest and bravest young souls. I pray for them and America every night.

They are fighting for freedom. That is never a waste of souls.

 

[Thekla]

As a citizen, my opinion is no more or less valuable than any other. When it comes to the military, in the end, they are under civilian control and trained to obey orders. That’s as it should be, but it can limit debate. However, to suggest that all military personnel think the same way is a gross exaggeration.

The idea that we should have people determined to leave Iraq quickly IN Iraq, may have merit. If you keep sending people who think we should stay, then that’s what we’ll do.

 

[Richardols]

Fitz:

You don’t have a clue about the average military person. For one thing, they are not at all average. Perhaps it is their self sacrifice that you just can’t understand.

My “clue” is derived from 12 years of military service in the Air Force, of which two years were in Vietnam, and three in Southeast Asia. The five years in Asia should serve as my “understanding” of self-sacrifice.

And the average military person is a reflection of our own society, some knuckleheads, some brilliant people, but mostly as average as the rest of us.

BTW, Big Hero, what war did you serve in?

 

[Richardols]

Scott_Lafrance:

Not that YOU have ever made an ad hominem remarks before.

Please cite an example of my ad hominem remarks to any person on this Forum.

And, if you can find any such example (I may knock what a person says, but not the person), then tell me how it excuses your characterization of me as a habitual drug user, as senile, and as insane.

I respect your liberal perspective,

Apparently not.

but to imply that we use the Marines to exploit Iraq was about as offensive as I’ve seen.

Please cite my phrase that implies that we use the Marines to exploit Iraq.

At least I only insulted you, not the entire US Marine Corps, and the country in general.

Implying that:

1. I was insulting the entire US Marine Corps
2. I was insulting the country in general

Please cite my phrase of insult to the Corps or the nation.

 

[Shoshana]

Fitz:

What about the mass graves? What about the lives that are being saved now that the people can elect a government? What about the lies the media perpetuates so that people like yourself don’t have a clear picture of the good we are doing there?

Hi Fitz,

I am trying to be respectful here and I try to understand but if this reasoning is what brought the US to Iraq, then, there is just as many other atrocities happening in Africa. Nobody pays heed to that and millions are dying. This genocide has been happening for YEARS and yet no one pays attention.

There was a special on the Holocaust and a celebration of Canadian troups helping the Netherlands and this one person said that he would’ve hoped this would not have been repeated in his lifetime. But he said he was wrong…in Africa MILLIONS and MILLIONS of victims are dying in genocide. A holocasut of souls…The world has not learnt its lesson.

Maybe there is no help for Africa is because Africa has nothing to offer the world. Why bother…

And then we have the holocaust happening in the Americas with Millions and Millions of babies who are totally defenseless who are being decapitated, dismembered and burnt alive. Arghhhhh. I see too much ‘a hella of’ a big double standard…and it doesn’t jive…

My own two cents Fitz…still friends?

Christ is risen…truly H eis risen!
Shoshana

• . *http://by104fd.bay104.hotmail.msn.c...4-3F0B39A9513A&start=0&len=250916&mimepart=14

 

[gilliam]

Shoshana:

Hi Fitz,

I am trying to be respectful here and I try to understand but if this reasoning is what brought the US to Iraq, then, there is just as many other atrocities happening in Africa. Nobody pays heed to that and millions are dying. This genocide has been happening for YEARS and yet no one pays attention.

There was a special on the Holocaust and a celebration of Canadian troups helping the Netherlands and this one person said that he would’ve hoped this would not have been repeated in his lifetime. But he said he was wrong…in Africa MILLIONS and MILLIONS of victims are dying in genocide. A holocasut of souls…The world has not learnt its lesson.

Maybe there is no help for Africa is because Africa has nothing to offer the world. Why bother…

And then we have the holocaust happening in the Americas with Millions and Millions of babies who are totally defenseless who are being decapitated, dismembered and burnt alive. Arghhhhh. I see too much ‘a hella of’ a big double standard…and it doesn’t jive…

My own two cents Fitz…still friends?

Christ is risen…truly H eis risen!
Shoshana

Are you saying that because there are crimes being done in place A, and you don’t do anything about it, you shouldn’t do something about crimes being done in place B?

sorry, doesn’t wash as a moral justification, with me anyway.

 

[Thekla]

I’d love to see a candidate run on a platform of world liberation and all I ask for is that we are told the truth ahead of time. Since I have little confidence in the morality of my current government, I have difficulty in attributing to them any altruistic motives.

The truth is that soldiers, as well as civilians, are children; they are the children of their parents on Earth and Our Father in Heaven. I called our members of the military “young men and women,” but in the end, they are all someone’s children.

You and I look at the US media and see two different things; I see a media complicit in covering up the facts ahead of the war and still cheerleading for the government. And nothing has happened to change my opinion.

 

[vern_humphrey]

Richardols:

My “clue” is derived from 12 years of military service in the Air Force, of which two years were in Vietnam, and three in Southeast Asia. The five years in Asia should serve as my “understanding” of self-sacrifice.

And the average military person is a reflection of our own society, some knuckleheads, some brilliant people, but mostly as average as the rest of us.

There’s a big difference between this war and Viet Nam. Yes combat troops stick together and fight for each other. But in Viet Nam, you didn’t see this high re-enlistment rate. You didn’t see the committment to finishing the job.

Morale is the highest I’ve ever seen among combat troops – they KNOW what they’re doing, and are committed to it.

 

[vern_humphrey]

Thekla:

I’d love to see a candidate run on a platform of world liberation and all I ask for is that we are told the truth ahead of time. Since I have little confidence in the morality of my current government, I have difficulty in attributing to them any altruistic motives.

The truth is that soldiers, as well as civilians, are children; they are the children of their parents on Earth and Our Father in Heaven. I called our members of the military “young men and women,” but in the end, they are all someone’s children…

And that’s why we shouldn’t encourage the enemy to keep killing them, in the hopes we will lose the political will to finish the job.

Thekla:

IYou and I look at the US media and see two different things; I see a media complicit in covering up the facts ahead of the war and still cheerleading for the government. And nothing has happened to change my opinion.

That’s your problem – you look at the media.

I talk to the troops. I make it a point to keep in contact with men who served under me, and men who served under them. I work with the families of men and women who are overseas. I rely on what THEY tell me.

 

[wabrams]

gilliam:

Are you saying that because there are crimes being done in place A, and you don’t do anything about it, you shouldn’t do something about crimes being done in place B?

sorry, doesn’t wash as a moral justification, with me anyway.

I think what she means is that you clean up place A first, then move on to place B.

 

[Shoshana]

gilliam:

Are you saying that because there are crimes being done in place A, and you don’t do anything about it, you shouldn’t do something about crimes being done in place B?

sorry, doesn’t wash as a moral justification, with me anyway.

No. It seems that what is being said is that the US went to war because of the massacre by Sadaam. People needed to be saved from the torture they were experiencing.

I say nonsense! Africa was in the middle of a genocide and it stands to reason that if the US was going to liberate Iraq from such tryranny…Africa should have been on the agenda before Iraq. The atrocity being done in Africa is a lot more horrendous than even Iraq.

What I am saying is that there is a lack of transparency in this situation and I truly believe that the US had other motivations than only ‘liberating’ Iraq. There is corruption in every government and nationalism cannot erase this great defect in any government…even the American’s…

Christ is risen…truly He is risen!
Shoshana

 

[Scott_Lafrance]

Shoshana:

No. It seems that what is being said is that the US went to war because of the massacre by Sadaam. People needed to be saved from the torture they were experiencing.

I say nonsense! Africa was in the middle of a genocide and it stands to reason that if the US was going to liberate Iraq from such tryranny…Africa should have been on the agenda before Iraq. The atrocity being done in Africa is a lot more horrendous than even Iraq.

What I am saying is that there is a lack of transparency in this situation and I truly believe that the US had other motivations than only ‘liberating’ Iraq. There is corruption in every government and nationalism cannot erase this great defect in any government…even the American’s…

Christ is risen…truly He is risen!
Shoshana

The problem, Sho, is that in Iraq, you could point your finger directly at Saddam as the source of their troubles (actually, you can point at the Qu’ran, but lets keep this political). Africa is a completely different problem. The things happening in Africa as tribal wars that have been going on since before Christ, and will continue to happen until Christ returns.

 

[Richardols]

vern humphrey:

But in Viet Nam, you didn’t see this high re-enlistment rate.

There was a Draft. A high re-inlistment wasn’t necessary.

You didn’t see the committment to finishing the job.

Finishing what job? The tours of duty were one year. After that, there were other soldiers to carry on.

they KNOW what they’re doing, and are committed to it.

And you and I didn’t know what we were doing in Vietnam? I didn’t compare as a trained, effective prisoner interrogator with those in Iraq? And I wasn’t committed to do the best I could in that job? You didn’t compare in commitment or competence with company commanders today? I reject both your premises. I think that you and I did the best jobs we could do back then and to no lesser degree than any one today.

 

[Scott_Lafrance]

Richardols:

There was a Draft. A high re-inlistment wasn’t necessary. Finishing what job? The tours of duty were one year. After that, there were other soldiers to carry on. And you and I didn’t know what we were doing in Vietnam? I didn’t compare as a trained, effective prisoner interrogator with those in Iraq? And I wasn’t committed to do the best I could in that job? You didn’t compare in commitment or competence with company commanders today? I reject both your premises. I think that you and I did the best jobs we could do back then and to no lesser degree than any one today.

By your own admission, there was a draft. A voluntary army is always more skilled and committed than a conscripted one. Finishing the job would have been a peace accord allowing South Vietnam to exist as a non-communist society, or the complete withdrawal of the North and a completely free vietnam. Since we left before fighting was over, the North was emboldened by our withdrawal and took the South. And there were reprisals for those who sided with the Americans.

 

[vern_humphrey]

Richardols:

There was a Draft. A high re-inlistment wasn’t necessary.

Non sequitor – the issue isn’t was reinlistment necessary, it was did it happen at a high rate.

Finishing what job? The tours of duty were one year. After that, there were other soldiers to carry on…

That’s the point – troops in Iraq see a clear goal, and want to accomplish it.

Richardols:

And you and I didn’t know what we were doing in Vietnam? I didn’t compare as a trained, effective prisoner interrogator with those in Iraq? And I wasn’t committed to do the best I could in that job? You didn’t compare in commitment or competence with company commanders today? I reject both your premises. I think that you and I did the best jobs we could do back then and to no lesser degree than any one today.

If you had worked as closely with our armed forces as I have since I retired, you’d have seen an amazing increase in professionalism and skills. We also have a dramatic increase in morale to go with it. These are the best troops we’ve ever fielded. No other army we’ve ever raised (or anyone else has ever raised) can compare with it.

 

[Richardols]

vern humphrey:

That’s the point – troops in Iraq see a clear goal, and want to accomplish it.

What clear goal is that?

If you had worked as closely with our armed forces as I have since I retired, you’d have seen an amazing increase in professionalism and skills.

With all the new weaponry and Buck Rogers technology, I’d expect skills to rise. I reject the notion that these men are any more professional than we or other soldiers of other wars were.

These are the best troops we’ve ever fielded.

Your opinion to which you are entitled.

 

[wabrams]

Scott_Lafrance:

Africa is a completely different problem. The things happening in Africa as tribal wars that have been going on since before Christ, and will continue to happen until Christ returns.

I competely understand what you are saying, and you are pretty much right. But the Arabs have been fighting each other since before Christ and will keep doing it until the Apocalypse.