Where did you get such a broad brush Tom? 76% of Americans agree with me that Bush has not handled this war very well. What made JF....HF....was her very public displays such as the much covered trip to Hanoi and her cross country tours. Turns out she was dead-on right about our ill-fated involvement in Vietnam and we should have vacated long before we did. I support 110% the troops that are already there in Iraq as long as they are there and we should double what they ask for to defend themselves and get the job done. I would vote for a "war tax" to be imposed on all of us if that is what it took to do that. I just think with the present leadership we are going nowhere and we should not draw this out like Vietnam.
:?: Vietnam...Vietnam...Vietnam... The great political triumph of the liberal Democrats was Vietnam. They started the war, they mismanaged it, then they gave away the victory two and a-half years after the final shot was fired. Then the real killing began. Nearly six million people were peacefully murdered by dictators through out the region after the "war" was over, including more than 2/3rds of the population of Cambodia... "Peace" is not an option this time. We can't just "go home" and watch the slaughter of the innocents from afar. The whole point of this war is us and our concepts of freedom and democracy and our support of other free nations. That's what the Islamofascists have sworn to destroy. Its us. There is nowhere to "retreat." There is nowhere to "redeploy." If we leave Iraq, the real killing will begin on a scale not seen since WWII and the enemies of freedom will have secure bases and unlimited access to most of the world's energy reserves... 76% what? Say what? Oh that's right, we forgot. When Republicans win they cheat or steal the elections. When Democrats win, its "the will of the people." What crap. Here come the Clintons! (again) When will Democrats tell us what they believe? When will they help? When will they take responsibility for something...anything? You have the Congress now...what's the plan? Don't like the war? Cut off the funds! Then what?
The Vietnam war was drawn out buy a less than an all out effort mainly because of public outrage. Public outrage was stoked by miss Fonda when she condemned our troops... the very people that were laying down their lives to protect her freedom to open her mouth and remove all doubt that she is a traitor. If Hanoi Jane was to ever cross my threshold, I would consider her a threat to every American's existence, including mine. It would be extremely difficult for me not to rid the world of her presence.
Do you read in my posts anything close to a "condemnation" of our troops? I believe what I have always said strongly is the polar opposite of that. Yet...you choose to draw a cockeyed comparison.
I don't know the answer to this but does anyone have concrete facts as to how many S. Vietnamese were murdered by the N. Vietnamese AFTER we left? No B/S.....how about supported facts. On Cambodia.....Pol Pot was atrocious....evil...one of the worst. However, were we truly fighting his regime? Was our intense effort focused in Cambodia and not just a stray firefight here or there? Be truthful.
One more thing....send your own sons to Iraq.. Not me.....I have three. If yours want to go....let em go......we'll give em extra support as we should and as we hope should happen. But mine aren't going...
Never said you did. My exact words were: Jane Fonda has now chosen to speak out against the war. You have done the same. That to me sonds like you are on the same side. Matters not whether I am for or against the war, I want nothing to do with that mental midget and would distance myself at all costs. Now, where did I say that YOU condemned the troops? Hanoi freeking Jane... Yes. You, no.
It's a volunteer army. No one is sent, they volunteer to serve. At least those that have daddy's that will let them go. But then, those that aren't allowed to go probably aren't the service type in the first place.
My son is not stupid either, MCG. He has a bachelor's degree, is a NJ state trooper,owns his own home and is engaged. He has served 6.5 years in th USAF including 7 months in Saudi and Kuwait. He is 26 years old. His enlistment was finally up. He just re-upped for an other three years in the NJ Air National Guard and volunteered for over seas deployment. He is tentatively scheduled for Afghanistan in spring 2008. There is not a day that I don't worry about him. There's not a day that I don't look on him in wonderment for the paths he has selected, his committment to public service and his love of country. I asked him why he re-enlisted because, to be honest, his mother and I felt that he has done enough and has a hazardous "day job" to begin with. His response was that he "missed it and felt he had to". Now to you, this is stupidity on his part. To us, it's a little more than that. He's a volunteer, not an idiot. There is no need for you to respond. You be safe, there are other's out there who got you covered.
See, here's the thing... We talk about this war in terms of being "opposed" to it or "supporting" it...it seems stupid to me...nobody "supports" war and nobody condemns our troops. (well, nobody here anyway). Those that feel the war have been mishandled certainly have a lot of valid talking points. But we can't go back and redo it...we have to decide what is best for us and best for the rest of the world from where we are right now. Most all of the experts, even the Dems who would have us withdraw soon, acknowledge that this would cause a blood bath that would make Cambodia look like a picnic. This wouldn't be like Vietnam, where the North took over and bumped off some of their political enemies...the civil chaos in Iraq will be horrifying if we can't find a way to do this right. So most of the folks in Congress who want us to get out are knowingly and admittedly supporting a policy that will allow this to happen...then they will blame Bush for getting us into it in the first place. It's all political. What we are doing now isn't working...we have to try something... I am really afraid that this new strategy won't work either...I hope and pray that it will and I support it because the cost of failure to the Iraqi people and to our own security is enormous.
What is wrong with these people??... Iraq Girls School Attacked With Mortars; 5 Students Die Where is the condemnation of this stuff?...let one stray US or Israeli bullet knock a chip of paint off a school or hospital and the blame starts flying. How do you stop these people from killing each other? Maybe it really is futile.
"Most all of the experts, even the Dems who would have us withdraw soon, acknowledge that this would cause a blood bath that would make Cambodia look like a picnic. This wouldn't be like Vietnam, where the North took over and bumped off some of their political enemies.." Sounds like you are trying to answer the questions I posed above and yet have no definitive answer. Were we engaged enough in Cambodia to stop Pol Pot? Our mission would have to have changed from stopping the spread of communism in Nam to one of a more humanitarian nature in Cambodia as in Bosnia.
Uh, I don't think a humanitarian effort would have helped in Cambodia... Bosnia was totally different from Cambodia. I'm trying to live in the here and now...not relive Viet Nam, Bosnia, or the Spanish-American War. I'm not sure which of the "questions you posed" that you think I am trying to address...I'm trying to say that Bush's proposal is so far the ONLY proposal anybody has come up with to try to end the bloodshed and prevent a catastrophe...I say to the Dems let him try it or come up with something on your own.
First of all, I appreciate the kind words for my son but he is no different than any other man or woman who has chosen that path. They are volunteers fighting for their country. I can count five young men who I coached in Little League who have fought in either Iraq, Afghanistan or both. I would not chracterize anyone in the military as stupid; perhaps patriots would be a better word. I still believe strongly in the cause. Radical Islam ( is there really any other kind ) is out to kill us all. Iraq is the line that was drawn in the sand by the U.S. We cannot cut and run. I do not believe in the conduct of the war to date. But as Stu has pointed out, that was then and this is now. Let's hear some strategy from the left that neither begins nor ends with "I surrender".
George your son is a true patriot. My closest friend has a son who flys F15s. His youngest son who graduated from Fordham 2 yrs. ago has just decided to join the army and request special forces. I've know both boys since the day they were born and am proud and worried for them. Our biggest mistake was our belief in the wonder of democracy. The plan as I understood it was to overthrow a brutal tyrant and introduce democracy into the heart of the Middle East. But democracy is only cherished by those that have fought for it. Those that are handed it, see it only for another form of government where the majority can oppress the minority. In Iraq we have a minority who was used to suppressing the majority and a majority that just doesn't get the difference between governing and ruling. This whole campaign started after the deaths of 3,000 Americans. It is precipitating the deaths of tens of thousands of Muslims. The irony is often overlooked.
Gipper, Your analysis of regarding democracy in Iraq is right on the money. We are willing western values on people who live best in a brutal pecking order of oppression. Regarding 9.11. We had a ringside seat here; I'm only 30 miles south of the WTC right down the coast. I remember the phones going out, smoke wafting down the beach and the small airport across from my office being used to medivac survivors to local hospitals. My son told me once that the one thing that keeps his desire to fight in this conflict burning above all else was a funeral he attended right after the attack for the wife of one of his fellow sargeants in his squadron in the USAF at Mcguire AFB. She was in the south tower when it was hit. They gathered around the closed casket, hundreds of both family and military. The casket contained only her foot which was identified by DNA. Her husband never recovered from that and eventually was discharged from the USAF for medical reasons. He said he'll never forget that day. I can fully understand why others around the country are not as emotionally involved in this as we are in the metro New York area. Distance is a great sedative. But around here we took it it personally. You don't walk into an Irish bar in lower Manahattan waving a British flag and you don't blow up the WTC without expecting payback.
Afghanistan has always been so right....so awesome in it's appropriateness as a military response to 9-11. Iraq has always had a different feel due to it's vague agendas and misrepresentations and changing objectives and announced faux "accomplishments". Iraq has been rife with political overtones and backroom squabbles and Bush staff defections over it's direction. I could not with a clear conscience endorse my son's participation in the quagmire that Iraq has become and in consideration of how it has been run from the start.