I know the post wasn't addressed to me but I can't help but comment.
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If this war was all about supporting those high ideals, I would be in support of it, 100%, just as I supported the (now lapsed) campaign against Osama bin Laden, al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan, 100%.
Now lapsed? Did you know that we (apparently) caught Khalid Sheik Mohammad? Did you know that we recently launched 3K more troops into Southern Afghanistan?
Lapsed indeed!
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This war isn't about regime change: Ari Fleischer let that one out of the bag yesterday when he said that even if Saddam Hussein and his henchmen left Iraq by 5pm Pac time Wednesday, the US would still attack.
I happened to catch that exact bit on some radio show. He said US forces would still go in, except there would be no resistance. Do you honestly think that Saddam leaving would remove his regime? Or that if his regime just left that Iraq could be left without a peacekeeping force without total chaos ensuing? Be reasonable.
And you'll also be careful not the selectively quote. He followed that immediately by saying they would be going in also to disarm Iraq, to find and destroy the weapons Iraq has been hiding.
Very weak.
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This war isn't about defending the US and its constitution: we haven't been attacked by Iraq.
Explain what the hell that means, please.
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This war has *nothing* to do with human rights, or promoting democracy in Iraq. Anyone who is taken in by that claptrap is living in cloud cuckoo land.
Convincing argument.
"It's wrong because it is!"
Could it be *part* of the reason?
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Is this war all about "weapons of mass destruction"? That we will have to see....It would be sad if stashes of VX, Sarin and anthrax were found in the early stages of the war, because that would indicate that the intelligence existed, but was denied to the inspectors....who are "angry as hell" with the Bush administration, claiming that they "obstructed every move" by persistently providing garbage intel, and sending them on wild goose chases.
Using inspector quotes from 1998 against Bush?
US intelligence also provided them with some relevant stuff. Like the drones they ended up finding. Some intelligence is bad, other intelligence is good. That's the name of the game.
Trying to characterize the US's involvement with inspections in such a negative way is just dishonest and one-sided.
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This war isn't about eliminating terrorism or retaliating to 9-11 (although some 45% of the American public believe that Saddam Hussein was personably responsible for 9-11, and over 80% of Americans believe that Iraqis were the hijackers...a big reason for much of Bush's war support at home). If that much ignorance exists within the public, it is hard to believe that regular service personnel have an intimate background in the politics behind this war. That is not their job...the job of the serviceman is to obey the orders of his superior 100% of the time and carry those orders to the best of his ability.
I remember Bill Clinton telling us that terrorists could just go through Baghdad and get chemical weapons. He must've been a blood-thirsty, oil-grabbing war-monger as well.
Iraq has supported terrorism. An undeniable truth.
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In the case of Iraq, the "cause", as you put it, is more down to who is going to make a very large amount of money from a war, given that the Federal Government, in a worse-case scenario, may spend $1,000 Billion on this adventure in the next 5 years. Nobody can deny that the motivation to go to war, given those incentives, is extremely strong, specially when the primary beneficiaries are corporations with intimate ties to the Bush administration.
So tell me, SJO, since this is THE motivation, HOW exactly are we going to recoup that 1000 billion?
I'd like to see you spell it out instead of just spewing dishonest rhetoric. Of course you can't, but I'd like to see you try.
When our troops came back from Vietnam, their reception was markedly different from that offered returning troops from WWII. Many blame the mark of failure and a reluctance to celebrate troops of a war we didn't win, but there's another angle that's worth looking at. A contributing factor just may have been the abundance of protests against the war. Irrespective of people's assertions that they support the troops despite opposition to the war and the administration, the protests lead to an atmosphere of general negativity regarding anything related to the war.
I really hope that all those who claim to support our troops show up and voice their appreciation when it is all over. It is shameful to look back and see how we treated the brave men who fought in Vietnam, risking their lives in order -- from their perspective -- to preserve freedom and the American way of life.
I support everyone's right to disapprove of the way the government is run. Hell, as a libertarian I am personally appalled by many of the policies that have recently emerged. But the fundamental basis of this country, the unavoidable reality of our existence, is the number of patriots who have fought and died for liberty. We owe unconditional support to anyone personally willing to continue the fight. Yes, even if we believe the fight must not be continued in this particular case.
The decision has been made. By all means, protest if you believe it's the right thing and will put an earlier end to what you perceive to be a wrongful action. But at the end of it all, don't pay lip service to the concept of supporting our troops. Go out and show it.
Speaking of support, this is how not to draw support from your fellow San Franciscans:
1) Intentionally paralyze *all* traffic in the city.
2) Draw the ire of thousands of impressionable commuters and business owners.
3) Don't budge for emergency response vehicles like ambulances rushing to an elderly woman's house because she was having chest pains.
The publicity of today's protests is so negative, I think a centralized rally in a single location like Union Square would have been more effective anyway. At least it would have looked more effective on TV.
Do these people support the troops? It looks like they don't even give a damn about the rest of the people who live and work here.
There were probably about a thousand folks in Seattle out marching ("milling about"?) today. The usual crowd that supports/opposes [insert fashionable cause here] by skipping classes at Seattle CC and marching to the Federal Building. What I really enjoyed was when the TV anchorman relayed that "police have said they will respond only to emergency calls, due to the heavy manpower demands of" babysitting the treehuggers.
Yeah. Good to know that when someone tries to blow up the Space Needle, all those cops will be otherwise employed letting people exercise their Constitutional right to stupidity.
Shhhh. What's that I hear? Is that the sound of the anti-war movement slitting its own throat?
Comments
If this war was all about supporting those high ideals, I would be in support of it, 100%, just as I supported the (now lapsed) campaign against Osama bin Laden, al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan, 100%.
Now lapsed? Did you know that we (apparently) caught Khalid Sheik Mohammad? Did you know that we recently launched 3K more troops into Southern Afghanistan?
Lapsed indeed!
This war isn't about regime change: Ari Fleischer let that one out of the bag yesterday when he said that even if Saddam Hussein and his henchmen left Iraq by 5pm Pac time Wednesday, the US would still attack.
I happened to catch that exact bit on some radio show. He said US forces would still go in, except there would be no resistance. Do you honestly think that Saddam leaving would remove his regime? Or that if his regime just left that Iraq could be left without a peacekeeping force without total chaos ensuing? Be reasonable.
And you'll also be careful not the selectively quote. He followed that immediately by saying they would be going in also to disarm Iraq, to find and destroy the weapons Iraq has been hiding.
Very weak.
This war isn't about defending the US and its constitution: we haven't been attacked by Iraq.
Explain what the hell that means, please.
This war has *nothing* to do with human rights, or promoting democracy in Iraq. Anyone who is taken in by that claptrap is living in cloud cuckoo land.
Convincing argument.
"It's wrong because it is!"
Could it be *part* of the reason?
Is this war all about "weapons of mass destruction"? That we will have to see....It would be sad if stashes of VX, Sarin and anthrax were found in the early stages of the war, because that would indicate that the intelligence existed, but was denied to the inspectors....who are "angry as hell" with the Bush administration, claiming that they "obstructed every move" by persistently providing garbage intel, and sending them on wild goose chases.
Using inspector quotes from 1998 against Bush?
US intelligence also provided them with some relevant stuff. Like the drones they ended up finding. Some intelligence is bad, other intelligence is good. That's the name of the game.
Trying to characterize the US's involvement with inspections in such a negative way is just dishonest and one-sided.
This war isn't about eliminating terrorism or retaliating to 9-11 (although some 45% of the American public believe that Saddam Hussein was personably responsible for 9-11, and over 80% of Americans believe that Iraqis were the hijackers...a big reason for much of Bush's war support at home). If that much ignorance exists within the public, it is hard to believe that regular service personnel have an intimate background in the politics behind this war. That is not their job...the job of the serviceman is to obey the orders of his superior 100% of the time and carry those orders to the best of his ability.
I remember Bill Clinton telling us that terrorists could just go through Baghdad and get chemical weapons. He must've been a blood-thirsty, oil-grabbing war-monger as well.
Iraq has supported terrorism. An undeniable truth.
In the case of Iraq, the "cause", as you put it, is more down to who is going to make a very large amount of money from a war, given that the Federal Government, in a worse-case scenario, may spend $1,000 Billion on this adventure in the next 5 years. Nobody can deny that the motivation to go to war, given those incentives, is extremely strong, specially when the primary beneficiaries are corporations with intimate ties to the Bush administration.
So tell me, SJO, since this is THE motivation, HOW exactly are we going to recoup that 1000 billion?
I'd like to see you spell it out instead of just spewing dishonest rhetoric. Of course you can't, but I'd like to see you try.
I really hope that all those who claim to support our troops show up and voice their appreciation when it is all over. It is shameful to look back and see how we treated the brave men who fought in Vietnam, risking their lives in order -- from their perspective -- to preserve freedom and the American way of life.
I support everyone's right to disapprove of the way the government is run. Hell, as a libertarian I am personally appalled by many of the policies that have recently emerged. But the fundamental basis of this country, the unavoidable reality of our existence, is the number of patriots who have fought and died for liberty. We owe unconditional support to anyone personally willing to continue the fight. Yes, even if we believe the fight must not be continued in this particular case.
The decision has been made. By all means, protest if you believe it's the right thing and will put an earlier end to what you perceive to be a wrongful action. But at the end of it all, don't pay lip service to the concept of supporting our troops. Go out and show it.
-- ShadyG
1) Intentionally paralyze *all* traffic in the city.
2) Draw the ire of thousands of impressionable commuters and business owners.
3) Don't budge for emergency response vehicles like ambulances rushing to an elderly woman's house because she was having chest pains.
The publicity of today's protests is so negative, I think a centralized rally in a single location like Union Square would have been more effective anyway. At least it would have looked more effective on TV.
Do these people support the troops? It looks like they don't even give a damn about the rest of the people who live and work here.
Signs and chants make you smart!
Yeah. Good to know that when someone tries to blow up the Space Needle, all those cops will be otherwise employed letting people exercise their Constitutional right to stupidity.
Shhhh. What's that I hear? Is that the sound of the anti-war movement slitting its own throat?
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