If you're so quick to jump to knee-jerk reactions and labeling then I don't think a response would be so adequate in persuadeing you any. However this is for those that are actually reading this debate.
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Well I am that rare breed, because I have served, and I have studied political science and foreign policy. However, our soldiers do not set the agenda when it comes to policy. They unfortunately have to be the ones that clean up the messes that politicians make. Well you celebrate the just wars against totalitarian tryanny in Europe, that is all well and fine, from you statement then, I take it you don't justify wars against totalitarian tryanny elsewhere??? The idea of defensive war is noble, that one should only fight when attacked. So how many more Spetember 11th should we have to sit through? Power politics supposes that a country is going to do what is in their best interest, utilizing the capabiliites that the country has to best support its security. Our current policy is that we will use when necessary preemptive attacks to defen our nation. Rather than sit back and wait until we are attacked, we suppose that we will attack before we are attacked. I am sure that the 3000 people who perished on September 11th would have like the idea of this policy had it been implented prior to that day. But since it was not, they paid the price with their lives. Our policy is deliberate to make sure that we as a nation will not have to face another tragedy like again.
The disdain members of the military have towards civilians was created by the civilians themselves. The populaces disdain for the war in Vietnam spread to the soldiers. It was they who spat on the soldiers, who disrupted their funerals, who threw shit on returning soldiers, and who called them baby killers and murderers. It was civilians, many of whom, were secure in the college campuses thanks to mommy and daddy.
I remember all that time I spent at Fort Bragg, listening to the local civilians saying that they did not need those of us n the military. Some many of them tired of the way local businesses favored the military over civilians. Wellm they got their wish during the first Gulf War, Fort Bragg deployed, pretty much the whole post. Many of the wives and children went home to be with family. Fayetteville ground to a halt. When we returned 10 months later, so many businesses had gone belly up, Kmart, a national chain store was only able to be opened from 10 am to 2 pm in our absence. They sang a different tune when we returned, but we all recalled the tune that they had been singing.
You said that the military needs to recognize its place in our society. And what place is that?? It was the military that secured the liberties that all citizens enjoy today. It is the military that protects those liberties to this day. The military doesn't ask much in return some simple respect. Instead, the military is time and again judged by the few bad apples in the ranks. The military gives up many of its freedoms, yes they can vote, but it is frowned upon if they take part in political rallies or campaigning for a candidate. Many will in a moments notice pick up their bags and leave their families for Lord knows how long to do their jobs. So what exactly is our place in society again???
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Now you just engaged in a very hyprocritical argument. I just sat here and read what you said in response to Mr. Jones, that people are too quick in judging the entire military based on some individual instances. Now you are here, blasting away at the
American people because of what the upper top plutocratic rich have done, as well as a select few who were upset with the killing of millions of Vietnamese and thousands of Americans. You hold the American people in contempt because a select few rich and powerful morons in office think they can use our military how they please? You should be in favor of the American people, you should be in support of a
democratic consensus, you are a part of the few, you are apart of the brave, you are a part of an organization designed to defend the democratic process, essential liberties, and the socratic questioning that makes up this great country! Not hold it in contempt.
THAT is what I mean by a lot of the military needs to refind its place in our society!
I praise the retaliation onto the Japanese Empire and its allies because they committed a direct military attack onto our country. The Japanese Empire declared war onto us, not us onto them. They are the aggressors. As a part of their Imperial conquest into South East Asia, the Japanese Imperial Army and Navy thought it to be imparative to strike the United States and push them out of the Pacific. WWII was one of the last truley justified wars this nation has ever entered.
You're confusing September 11th with Iraq and the supporters of Saddam Hussein! If you want to talk about retaliation onto those who attack us, do
not support this administration and its Iraq war. If you want to talk about retribution onto those who committed such horrible acts, then you are in support of the wrong war, of the wrong President, and the wrong policies. According to the national consensus, those that attacked us on September 11th was the al-Qaeda,
not Iraq. Those that attacked us on September 11th were Saudis, and orchrestrated by Osama bin Laden. Right after September 11th while all American passanger planes were grounded, the United States government was busy deporting family and freinds of Osama bin Laden to the safety of their own countries. When the al-Qaeda attacked us, the President failed to act immediately, giving Osama and his co-conspirators months of head start. When the United States went into Afghanistan and toppled the Taliban, the United States government failed to committ enough troops for the search of the al-Qaeda ring. When we should have been focused on retribution onto those that attacked us, this administration engaged in a war of aggression in defiance to the world, onto a country that did not pose a threat onto us, let alone its neighbors.
Instead of working in his office talking with specialists about the al-Qaeda and catching bin Laden, the Bush administration was too busy cherry-picking and manipulating evidence, lying to congress, and to the American people to engage in a war of aggression. Instead of drawing out a new true-democratic Afghanistan, and promoting toleration and peace in the Middle East, we're setting up American facades in Iraq and Afghanistan, building permanent military bases, securing oil fields, securing record breaking profits to oil companies, and engaging in religious and political intolerance at home and in occupied territories. Instead of promoting freedom and democracy, the Bush administration continues to eliminate essential liberties of the American people, and promote the stomping-out of dissent and socratic inquirey.
Instead of catching Osama bin Laden and his co-conspirators, and watching their war crimes tribunals, we're watching the killing of hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis, killing of thousands of brave men and women in the military, and the tramatic wounding of tens of thousands of US military men and women, and watching the war crimes tribunals of Saddam Hussein. Instead of eliminating the al-Qaeda, those who attacked us on 9/11, the Bush administration has increased its recruiting numbers to unprecedented levels as a result of its policies. Instead of unifying the Arab world into a pro-democratic and pro-western policy, the Bush administration has further alienated the Arab world from progressivism, democracy, and human rights. Instead of elminating the last elements of those that attacked us, the Bush administration shakes hands with Saudis. Instead of seeing a democratic peace finally in Afghanistan, we see two violent occupations and quagmires in Iraq and Afghanistan. Instead of engaging in tolerance and freedom of dissent, the US military is engaging in violent torchure of guilty and innocent alike.
If you want to talk about retaliation against those that attacked us, this is
not your administration. If you want to talk about the true morals of this country, this is not your administration.
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Aren't you now the one ignoring your political science studies???? The enemy of my enemy is my friend. We supported Iraq over Iran, because Iran had an anti-American/anti-West faction in control of their government. Remember, it was Iran who held Americans working in the Embassy hostage for some 400-plus days. President Reagan rejected the Breshnev Doctrine, and supported those nations that were opposed to the spread of communism. If you want to argue history, then include it all, don't focus on single aspects. Come what has happened to your study of political science, you threw it out in this argument.
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And just because Iran is anti-American, it makes it morally alright for us to give direct military and financial aid to an even more brutal dictator? Is it alright to give a brutal dictator that directly uses the policies of Stalin and Hitler as his guide book chemical weapons that will be used on innocent people?
02-11-2006, 03:36 PM
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