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Citizen Carrier
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
322 Posts |
 Posted - 11/18/2007 : 12:23:18 PM
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Terrahawk,
Yes, lifelong Ohioan. Born in Middletown. Currently living in Columbus.
Warden, yes, Republicans were critical of Clinton's military useages during his presidency. Most notably Bosnia, where Republicans were asking "What is the vested American interest in Bosnia?" and "You can't stop Serbia with just aerial attacks, there needs to be boots on the ground." If I remember right, McCain was a big proponent of the latter.
And he and everybody else was wrong about that. Clinton did it with just bombardment.
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But Bush gets a free pass... and worse, anyone who expresses in prose, song, or film any frustration with the war and its consequences is branded an out-of-touch traitor who hates the troops.
Well, I wouldn't say that Bush gets a free pass. When his high profile opponents accuse him of sending soldiers off to die because it amuses him (Pete Stark, D-Calif.), it does tend to make such war opponents look like hysterical, hate-filled kooks.
We should not paint with broad strokes and say that EVERY person who expresses opposition is an out-of-touch traitor who hats the troops. My friend's grandmother, a Democrat who unfortunately doesn't understand that all the FDR/Truman Democrats are either dead or turned into Republicans, doesn't hate the troops. She does hate Bush. Unreasonably so. She has equated him to Hitler.
But we're talking about the people who are pretty up front about hating the troops and hoping that we withdraw from Iraq before finishing the job.
Zombiewhacker already posted that DePalma set out to portray American soldiers in the worst possible light. He did not do this by accident. He admitted it.
My favorite example of this type of anti-war protester is Chrissy Heines from the band "The Pretenders". In 2003 she told an audience at a concert, "I hope the Iraqis give America the defeat it deserves."
Speaking as a soldier, I did not find that comment amusing. In order for Iraq to do that, it will have to kill a lot of people like me.
To this day, I cannot listen to any song sung by her on the radio without thinking, "She wanted you to get killed". I invariably end up turning the channel. Too bad. I used to like some of her stuff.
Protesters, as has already been pointed out, come in different flavors.
When I talk about the actual out-of-touch, hate the soldiers, blame America, I hope we lose type, that is exactly who I mean to be talking about.
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Terrahawk
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
644 Posts |
Posted - 11/18/2007 : 1:04:11 PM
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R. Dittmar, maybe we could claim that war protesters are always fighting the last war (to modify a military phrase).
CC, you're near where I grew up in Circleville. Today, I'm up near the Socialist Paradise of Toledo.
- While science has societal benefits, science is not a social virtue. - |
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The Warden
Minister of the Sacraments of Jabootu
USA
44 Posts |
Posted - 11/18/2007 : 1:57:37 PM
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With all due respect... some of you guys need to get out and actually talk to a liberal or a democrat, and not just your grandmother.
I don't know anyone who wants to see us "lose" whatever that means given that Iraq is disarmed, Saddam is dead, etc. Clinton doesn't. Obama doesn't. Edwards doesn't. Not even Harry Reid or Nancy Pelosi want to see American soldiers killed. The claim that they do is a fantasy invention of demagogues. You can't ascribe to mainstream Democratic opinion the beliefs of crackpots like Crissy Heind. I don't believe all Republicans are Ann Coulter-clones, so there is no justification to take a quote from a nut and assume it reflects the opinion of others.
About calling people names... I don't think anyone in this thread called Bush Hitler... but Senator Clinton did get referred to as a horrid woman. So let's not get into the teapot calling the kettle black. And while I promised not to ascribe the opinions of extremists to others, I will suggest that anyone who reads both DailyKos and FreeRepublic will find that personal insults are at least as prominent on the latter as the former.
Finally, about staying until we "get the job done." What is the job now? I mean seriously. Iraq was a nasty, brutal place before we got there. It is a nasty, brutal place now. It will be a nasty, brutal place when we leave. It is what it is. For the past 2 years we have been fighting desperately to get back to where we were in 2004 -- in terms of terrorist attacks, presence of al Qaeda, etc. Even with the success of the surge, we are not there yet. Are you telling me the job was done back in 2004, but we just didn't know it? Or are we really going to stay until violence is down to zero? "Getting the job done" is a nice bit of rhetoric, but what does it mean? And why does its meaning keep changing? At one point it meant democracy. Then in meant a strong central government capable of keeping order. Now it seems to mean well armed militias cooperating to defeat AQ.
Finally, about "talking the gloves off." Fine, okay. This is the antithesis of General Petraeus' approach and is contrary to our new counter-insurgency doctrine, but whatever. Who would you like to whack? I mean in terms of a class of actors. Who should we beat up on, and how does that achieve our goals, whatever they might be?
You can talk all you want about anti-war folks not being serious, but I think that is a heck of an accusation coming from people whose approach is as vague as "getting the job done," "talking the gloves off," and "scaring the s___ out of them."
In the meantime, I am not sure what any of this has to do with the fact that filmmakers want to address the war and that doing so honestly necessarily means dealing with some unpleasant issues. War is unpleasant. I can't see any justification in seeking to whitewash it.
--The Warden --
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www.prisonflicks.com
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zombiewhacker
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
1475 Posts |
Posted - 11/18/2007 : 4:22:18 PM
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| A simple question before I delve further: Warden, do you believe that the US lost the Vietnam war? |
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Citizen Carrier
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
322 Posts |
Posted - 11/18/2007 : 4:46:39 PM
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You can't ascribe to mainstream Democratic opinion the beliefs of crackpots like Crissy Heind. I don't believe all Republicans are Ann Coulter-clones, so there is no justification to take a quote from a nut and assume it reflects the opinion of others.
Indeed, I did not. If you will re-read the last paragraph of that post I made, you will see that I wasn't attributing those types of stupidities to anyone other than those who utter them, such as Pete Stark, Chrissy Heines, and yes, Brian DePalma--who admitted that he intentionally put soldiers in the worst possible light in order to advance his political agenda.
As such, DePalma is doing to soldiers what you incorrectly believe I am doing to all war protesters.
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Edited by - Citizen Carrier on 11/18/2007 4:50:03 PM |
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The Warden
Minister of the Sacraments of Jabootu
USA
44 Posts |
Posted - 11/18/2007 : 5:41:26 PM
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>>A simple question before I delve further: Warden, do you believe that the US lost the Vietnam war?<<
I think that is about the antithesis of a simple question.
Our goal was a non-communist South Vietnam. In the end, the Communists took over. In that sense we lost. On the other hand, we delayed that outcome for over a decade, which undoubtedly had some strategic value, so perhaps we won. I had the honor of traveling to Vietnam with a group of senior military officers last year -- this was prior to the port call and the president's visit, and the Vietnamese officials we met with were eager for good relations with the U.S., so maybe in the long-run we won in that sense as well. On the other hand, following our withdrawal, there was a tremendous humanitarian crisis in Southeast Asia with the Cambodian genocide and the Vietnamese boat people. Then again, regardless of the outcomes was the cost -- in lives, in money, in political discord in the United States. So, I don't know. Unfortunately, war outcomes are rarely as simple as winning and losing.
--The Warden --
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www.prisonflicks.com
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Pip
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
333 Posts |
Posted - 11/18/2007 : 9:54:21 PM
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Hillary Clinton is an evil witch.
Rudy/Barack in '08!
Carry on...
Pip
"These five fingers: individually they're nothing, but when I curl them together like this into a single unit, they form a weapon that is terrible to behold!" - Lucy Van Pelt |
Edited by - Pip on 11/18/2007 10:38:11 PM |
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R. Dittmar
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
420 Posts |
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Greenhornet
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
1791 Posts |
Posted - 11/19/2007 : 6:17:03 PM
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Warden
I'm a registered Democrat, but I don't vote that way because of the socialists who took over my party in the seventies. The "Democrats" lost the South in the eighties because they decided that the Constitution was in their way on the road to power. Of course, they expected us to support them no matter what, so they angerly spread the roumer that we left them in the SIXTIES because of the civil rights thing. Screw them.
I am also a disabled veteran who served in seventies. I don't like the way this war has been carried out (We should have hit them hard as hell) but I have learned that you can't let every forigne punk push your country around. Even a half-assed military reaction is better than none. (Did you know that Spain KNEW that they would l;ose the Spanish/American war, but HAD to fight or they would have lost all credibility and respect?)
Back to the war. Do you know how we "lost" the Viet Nam war? The thing is that we WON on the ground, but lost the PROPIGANDA war. After "Tet", the NVA was pretty much whiped out and General Giap suggested a conditional surrender. But then they saw the "anti-war" crowd burning recruting centers and heard Cronkite say that America has lost the war and they knew that all they had to do was keep up the APPIERANCE of fighting a war. All they had to do was DELAY, fire ONE bullet a day. Set off ONE bomb a week. Make a firey speach now and then and the war would drag on and on. Thanks to the "anti-war" jerk-o**s shouting commie slogans, the war dragged on for several more years. (thanks a LOT, you ba****ds!)
Now the Muslims have the GREATEST propiganda machine ever devised, the FREE MEDIA, EDUCATION SYSTEM and ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY of the United States. If they had not tried to bring down President Bush, if they could have just set aside their hate for little awhile, this war would have ended LAST YEAR and the Muslims in America, France and England would not be making their demands for concessions that impose THEIR customs on others.
I do not hesitate in blaiming the Liberal "useful idiots" for dragging this war out for years, causeing thousands of deaths and injuries, it's what they did in the sixties and seventies.
"The Queen is testing poisons." CLEOPATRA, 1935 |
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Prankster
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
Canada
727 Posts |
Posted - 11/20/2007 : 02:22:45 AM
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Yeah, get that future history book written, Hornet. Just like archconservatives are doing right now for Vietnam. "America was THIS close to victory in Iraq, but Liberals lost us the propaganda war!" This handy statement is sitting, ready to be used the INSTANT America withdraws from Iraq. The troops could be there for fifty years with no further progress, but the instant they withdraw, BAM! It'll be the Liberal Media's fault for Losing the Propaganda War. I don't suppose it bothers you that what you're advocating is essentially letting our leaders do whatever they want for as long as they want, with no clear goals, without criticising them in any way? I guess not.
As for the Vietnam stuff, this guy takes it apart better than I could...
[url]http://doghouseriley.blogspot.com/2007/08/pyorrhic-victory-snatching-defeat-from.html[/url]
[url]http://doghouseriley.blogspot.com/2007/09/shut-up-he-explained.html[/url]
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Check out my online comics at [URL]http://www.phantasmictales.com[/URL]! |
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Greenhornet
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
1791 Posts |
Posted - 11/20/2007 : 6:50:40 PM
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Prankster, I said NO SUCH THING as "what you're advocating is essentially letting our leaders do whatever they want for as long as they want, with no clear goals, without criticising them in any way" and you know it!
OK, let's talk about how long it will take to defeat the Muslims.
It took us THIRTEEN years to defeat the Moros in the Phillipines. It took us over a HUNDRED years to defeat the various indian tribes. It took over TEN years and TWO wars to force England to recognise our soverenty. We have a CEASE FIRE with North Korea, that war never ended. Viet Nam has been covered. We have been unoficialy fighting MEXICO since 1848. We are still in BOSNIA, sent by President Clinton to protect MUSLIMS.
The thing is, we are in Iraq because our government had the INTEGRITY to enforce the United Nations' mandates. Sadaam's military had FIRED ON our patrols many times, yet we "turned the other cheek". He put RESTRICTIONS on the weapons inspectors, telling them where and when they could inspect, then forbidding inspections and throwing them out. The "sanctions" were violated by France, Germany and Russia. SEVENTEEN resolutions were issued by the UN and IGNORED by Sadaam.
Diplomacy FAILED. We told him that we would invade and he didn't believe it because we had "played nice" and RAN AWAY in the past. They learned much from Viet Nam, the "Iranian Hostage Crisis", Lebanon, and Somaolia, but we seem to have learned NOTHING from history.
"The Queen is testing poisons." CLEOPATRA, 1935 |
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BT
Preeminent Apostolic Prelate of the Discipleship of Jabootu
USA
168 Posts |
Posted - 11/21/2007 : 07:43:18 AM
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Hornet, I find the "we were enforcing UN mandates" arguments from those on the Right rather confusing. In virtually all other cases, the UN is derided by the Right as incompetent, corrupt fools who all hate America. Yet in this case, this ONE case, it was imperative that we back their mandates? That doesn't seem consistent to me. As an aside, how many mandates has the UN issued against Israel, and when do you suppose we are acting on those (and no, I'm not advocating that we do)?
Look, my initial thoughts on the war were pretty simple. Bush, with quite a few members of PNAC whispering in his ear, thought invading Iraq was in the best interests of the United States. I think (and I'm fairly certain there are quite a few accounts which will back this up) that he believed this very strongly on September 10, 2001. September 11 gave him his excuse to do it. You'll note that multiple sources have come out since then, explaining how in the hours after the attack, Cheney and others were pushing hard to find an Iraq link to the attacks, a link which ultimately didn't exist.
ALL of the reasons for attacking Iraq that you mention might be valid. NONE of them, at least in my opinion, elevated Iraq to any sort of immediate threat, certainly not one that required us to kick out inspectors once Hussein had actually let them back in. Am I happy Hussein is gone? Of course. He was an example of what the worst of humanity is capable of. Do I think getting rid of him was worth 4,000 dead, a trillion dollars, and our subsequent loss of standing in the world? No, I don't think so.
I believe this was a war of choice, not necessity (the Iraq war, mind you, not the war on terror, as at least initially they were clearly not the same thing. Now they are intertwined, but a "victory" in Iraq won't be a "victory" over terrorism). And even if Bush made that choice with the best intentions, and with America's best interests in mind, it was still a bad choice. |
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R. Dittmar
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
420 Posts |
Posted - 11/21/2007 : 09:22:45 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by BT
Hornet, I find the "we were enforcing UN mandates" arguments from those on the Right rather confusing. In virtually all other cases, the UN is derided by the Right as incompetent, corrupt fools who all hate America. Yet in this case, this ONE case, it was imperative that we back their mandates? That doesn't seem consistent to me. As an aside, how many mandates has the UN issued against Israel, and when do you suppose we are acting on those (and no, I'm not advocating that we do)?
B.T.,
I’ve actually got to agree with you here in a sense, because I still think that involving the UN was both a tremendous tactical and strategic error. The UN is not just incompetent and corrupt, the UN is an evil organization. At it currently exists all it does is serve as a forum for granting legitimacy and respect to some of the most horrendous, murderous and tyrannical regimes on earth. Have you ever heard that saying – “When you dance with the devil the devil doesn’t change, but you do.”? That’s the UN in a nutshell – democratic governments constantly compromising on their own ideals and principles just to appease a bunch of dime-store Stalins and Hitlers.
If Bush believed that the invasion of Iraq was necessary to protect the people of the United States, then we didn’t need to spend more than a year jibber-jabbering with these clowns. We should have done it immediately. Not only did it send the wrong strategic message – U.S. interests can only be protected given the sufferance of a bunch of third world dictators in the United Nations – but it was also a big tactical mistake. It gave Saddam month after month to prepare for war and even hide or dismantle the very weapons that were at issue under the UN resolutions. I’ve even seen some arguments to the effect that the early insurgency in Iraq was planned by Saddam in the run-up to the war. There are hints that he hid stockpiles of weapons all over the country so that partisans could immediately begin guerilla-style operations.
Perhaps ironically, however, the fact that Bush thought it a good idea to go to the UN makes me disagree at least somewhat with this:
quote:
Originally posted by BT
Look, my initial thoughts on the war were pretty simple. Bush, with quite a few members of PNAC whispering in his ear, thought invading Iraq was in the best interests of the United States. I think (and I'm fairly certain there are quite a few accounts which will back this up) that he believed this very strongly on September 10, 2001. September 11 gave him his excuse to do it. You'll note that multiple sources have come out since then, explaining how in the hours after the attack, Cheney and others were pushing hard to find an Iraq link to the attacks, a link which ultimately didn't exist.
Bush’s opinions about Iraq were certainly complex given his dad’s involvement in the region, so I can’t rule out a certain fixation on his part. I do not believe, however, that Bush was obsessed with Iraq to the point of constantly being on the look-out for some reason to invade. I think that once he and the advisors starting formed this plan to “drain the fever swamps” in the Middle East, he wanted to get as much international support as possible. (Contrary to all the thoughtless criticism of him as a “cowboy”.) If you compare Iraq with other possible targets at the time like Iran and Syria, what difference do you see? Iraq had a bunch of UN resolutions against it that it wasn’t complying with, while Iran and Syria were probably chairing the UN women’s rights panel or something. Bush naively thought that the UN weenies would actually want to see their own resolutions enforced, so he thought they would cooperate and help if we went as defenders and respecters of the “world community”. As we now know they spat in our face, as almost any precocious 1st grader could have told them ahead of time. |
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Prankster
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
Canada
727 Posts |
Posted - 11/21/2007 : 1:38:22 PM
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Yes, Hornet, I know you never explicitly said that. But I fail to see how else we're supposed to win this "propaganda war" which you place so much emphasis on. According to you, dissatisfaction with a war at home is going to cause us to lose. But what if the war is being badly handled? What are we supposed to do? Nothing, apparently. The only option most on the American right have allowed us when it comes to expressing dissent is "vote for someone else, then," and I remember very clearly the hysterical cries from the right in 2004, that a vote for Kerry was a vote for losing the war. Literally any and every criticism of the current administration can be, and has been, spun as "undermining the troops" or "losing hearts and minds" or some such thing.
Here's a tip: if the war is really so fragile that it can be lost by criticism at home, maybe it's a poorly conceived war to begin with. Do you honestly think that WWII would have been lost if people had been critical of it at home? More crucially, why do you think there wasn't any real criticism of America's involvement (after Pearl Harbour was bombed, that is)? It's because it was a noble cause, and one with real stakes and definite goals against powers that were roughly the U.S.'s equivalent in military might. Vietnam, and now Iraq, are America playing in the imperialist sandbox for shifty reasons, unable to clearly define their missions to the American people, fought against tiny countries that, militarily, ought to have been pushovers. And indeed, as you point out, they were defeated pretty handily from a military perspective. You're correct in your assertion that these wars are "lost" in the hearts and minds of the people, but what you're not questioning is whether there was anything inevitable about that.
Back when the invasion was first launched, I mentioned that I thought a draft was inevitable. That was because I thought Bush was serious about winning the war. It quickly became clear that he wasn't serious, that he simply wasn't going to commit the troops neccessary to secure the country, and that he had no real commitment to nation building beyond allowing his corporate buddies to suck as much money and resources out as he could. The war was a PR exercise from the start, and still is--it's not about winning, it's about Bush not being able to lose face and hoping to hand over the mess to someone who might actually clean it up for him, just as he's been doing his entire life. If I critize that PR exercise, I'm "undermining the war". Except there is no real war to undermine--that's the problem. If Bush had "hit them hard" as you suggest--which I'm going to be charitable and assume would have meant sending enough troops to stabilize the country, as Shinsecki and co. suggested--there still would have been valid ethical criticisms of the war to be made, but at least the PR war and the actual military conflict would have been two separate animals. There wouldn't have been any of this "don't say X, you'll undermine the troops!" nonsense. That, more than anything, is my criticism of the conflict, and of the people who propagate it.
By the way, that war I mentioned? The World one? Number Two? It took SIX YEARS--FOUR of them with AMERICAN INVOLVEMENT--and that was the greatest military conflict the world has ever seen. Amazing how we dispatched that one so efficiently, isn't it? Without a lot of politicians making excuses for why it was dragging on and on? Might be something to do with the fact that it was a just war, mightn't it? Whereas your hundred-year war against the Indians (!) might constitute something just a tad more morally vile. But, I guess it's a good thing there weren't any subversive commie Indian-lovers to suggest that maybe it was their land to begin with, and that wiping them out might constitute an act of genocide. We were just able to get on with the business of killing them.
Except it still took centuries. Huh. Why, it's almost as though, the more morally grey a war is, and the worse the intentions of the instigators, the harder it goes for them. Funny that.
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Check out my online comics at [URL]http://www.phantasmictales.com[/URL]! |
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Food
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
342 Posts |
Posted - 11/21/2007 : 1:56:20 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by Prankster
\By the way, that war I mentioned? The World one? Number Two? It took SIX YEARS--FOUR of them with AMERICAN INVOLVEMENT--and that was the greatest military conflict the world has ever seen. Amazing how we dispatched that one so efficiently, isn't it?
Actually, those weren't efficient at all. The casualities the US suffered were sky-high. There were single days in each of those wars that had more US soldiers die than in the entire Iraq War. |
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