John RE... I guarantee that "seasoned veterans" think about survival first and foremost. Consistent with Armed Services doctrine.
Of course they do. But saying a soldier is"thinking about survival"; is saying something different from what you first said which is men are out there in Iraq are trying to figure out a way to survive; which has a different meaning. In the first meaning, you are saying the soldiers think about the best ways to do their job,and of course they do. In the second, you are implying that the soldiers don't know how to survive yet, and are hunkered down in their base camp, too afraid to go out, because they are having trouble figuring out how to survive. What if I said the same thing about you? John is investing in the stock market, and he is trying to figure out a way to survive. Which is fundamentally different form me saying; "John thinks the best way to survive is to think, be one step ahead of the crowd, and take profits. In the first, that implies, that you, like the rest of us the last 3 yrs, don't have a successful strategy in place, and you was in survival mode, trying to protect profits, until the market turns and you could make money. The second implies that you already have a successful survival strategy figured out, and it is just a matter of applying your strategy properly, to maximize your profits.
If Ten gets drafted, you don't think that would up the average IQ in the Armed Services? And they could certainly use some good engineers over there.
You didn't say you was talking about Tench. Of course Tench would raise the average IQ in the army. Tench is one of the most brilliant engineers at Intel, possibly even in the whole world. (Cough, Cough, cough, on this board, flattery is everything.) I thought you was talking about the average draftee, being smarther than the average professional soldier; in which case, I totally disagree. The main reason is, the professional soldier has a different mindset, than the draftee. No matter how smart someone is, if he doesn't care, he very likely won't do as well as, as someone does care, and has a good attitude. Besides, form your posts, I take it that you lean deomocratic; and Kerry is looking like your nominee. Kerry wasn't drafted. He quit college, and volunteered, with the intention of serving in Vietnam. By your way of thinking, why would you want a dumb volunteer running to be president. So, for every Tench you can bring up, I can bring up a guy like Kerry.
The thing to remember is that it's not Bush's war, it's America's war
Agreed.
The price of democracy is that you and I and Al and Ted and DR are equally responsible
You are doing good so far.
for the death of every Iraqi adult and child and every dead or maimed US soldier.
Oops, your train just broke a wheel and went off the track. There are justifiable reasons for going to war. Self defense, humanitarian, etc. Often times,war can save deaths, and Iraq was just a circumstance. The amount of lives lost in the war, should be counted against the amount of lives lost, if we hadn't gone to war. Haven't you heard about Saddam's torture chambers and mass graves. It is said Saddam killed between 300,000 and one million people. In addition, Ramsey Clark claims another 30,000 children died each yr from starvation. You claimed, in an earlier post, 10,000 to 15,000 Iraqi citizens, and 500 US soldiers died in the war. If you want to blame GW for 13,000 deaths, in the war, fine, then give him credit for saving 60,000 deaths, which would have happened, had GW not gone to war. And that is for just one yr. From now on, we might have another 500 US deaths and 2000 Iraqi deaths,per yr, against 60,000 lives saved.
The most basic conservative dogma. You don't agree?
Participatory Democracy.
Absolutely, and I agree with that dogma. However combat is no place for participatory democracy. In fact, the military chain of command is a strict hierarchy command structure; and the US has been very successful with it. Paying taxes is another matter.
The first person that steps up and says I'm volunteering to go to Iraq because I believe that Iraq is a direct threat to my family, I'll give them the ultimate respect. But frankly, I don't see anyone here that's ready to defend the homeland in Iraq. Just a bunch of bluster and pretend intellectual debate.
What intellectual debate? How can you call the debate on the war intellectual,if one side refuses to acknowledge all sides of the debate. If you think this war was just about Iraq, the state attacking the US, then you have no conceptualization of the geopolitics involved.
Think about this. How did we defeat communism?
We defeated communism by keeping the communist countries, (USSR, China, N. Korea), from expanding their empires, while at the same time, bettering the lives of our citizens, plus bettering the lives of the citizens of all countries under US influence. Eventually, the communist countries imploded, such that basically, only two countries call themselves communist today, N. Korea, and Cuba. Communism imploded, because communism, the dogma, offered nothing but misery and starvation for its people. It has been shown worldwide that, Democracy, and capitalism can greatly improve the lives of its citizens. The same thing will happen in the middle east. Islamic fundamentalism offers nothing, to improve the lives of its citizens. Dictatorships and monarchies offer nothing. Both rule through fear and terror. enough, such that the people fear the loss of democracy and the resulting poverty, more than they fear dictators and fundamentalists. Therefore, to get rid of the fundamentalism and the dictatorships, one simply needs to improve the lives of the central countries in the region. Iraq is a central country in the region, and it had one of the worst dictatorships in the world; and as such, Iraq was the best country, in the middle east to start the transformation. Secondly, the fundamentalist Sunni's hate Shias. Empowering the Shias in Iraq, to their rightful status, will force the fundamentalists, such as Al Qaeda, in SA, Syria, etc. to concentrate, and spend their resources upon a different foe, the resurging Shias in Iraq. Eventually, if the Shias are given enough protection and fertilizer, the fundamentalist will have to concentrate upon improving the lives of its own citizens, because they will want the same prosperity their neighbor have. That is how the terrorists will be defeated.
My (WAG) prediction... assuming Bush wins, and assuming he can't extricate the military from Iraq (the Iraq civil war), Bush WILL propose we reinstate the draft.
Nah. Barring a reversal in Iraq, or Afghanistan, there are plenty of unnecessary troops in Europe and Asia, to take care of Iraq, and Afghanistan.
The fact is, the "chicken-hawk" term has never been as appropriate.
Actually the term "chicken hawk" was coined by the so called intellectuals on the left, who have proven themselves to be utterly devoid of intellectual capacity. If you think GW was wrong on WMD in Iraq, how about Garafolous's prediction of 100,000 dead US soldiers, and George Clooney's assertion that fundamentalism couldn't be defeated. Did you know the West Wing is being cancelled for low ratings. Low ratings because Sheen, as president, in the series, is decisive, aware of the geopolitics involved,and willing to use force when necessary. In real life Sheen is seen as a wuss, who couldn't make a decisive decision, if a million votes depended upon it. |
