Quote:
Originally Posted by cashc
This sort of got me fired up because a generalization of any kind is almost always wrong. In this case, my community has a tremendous amount of respect and love for the troops in Iraq right now, many of whom has sons and daughters serving in the military now.
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A) Your emotions have no place in a checklist of reality. One can express extreme love for every soldier. But if one sends them wastefully to death out of ignorance (ie battle of Syracuse or Vietnam), then the conclusion remains same: total contempt for that soldier.
If emotions are involved, then one becomes his own worst enemy. I don't care how blindly one is devoted or in love with the troops. If one does not think logically, then one has 100% contempt for those troops.
B) Troops don't decide to go to war. Enlisted men particularly must go to war blinded from any knowledge of the purpose or strategic objective. Enlisted men in particular must ignore everything but their tactical objectives - such as keeping their buddies alive.
Enlisted men especially are dependent on us for demanding and performing logical thought. When we so hate our beloved soldiers as to waste them in places like Nam, then that is 100% contempt for the same soldiers we emotionally love. Love - the emotion - is irrelevant. Love - by being responsible - only matters.
C) People such as Goering in 1930s Germany and Karl Rove today play on emotions of the weak. And so we even had mythical WMDs. Patriotic Americans instead are intelligent - divorced from silly emotions - instead think judiciously. Why? One reason: because those enlisted men have no choice. WE decide whether they go to a foolhardy war.
So ask yourself. Were you thinking emotionally - and therefore acting with contempt for the troops? Or did you think logically and therefore recognize that logic existed to justify war? A patriot is never one to blindly wave flags. A patriot is the person who thinks – pushes out the envelope – sees things long before failure happens – is innovative. Name anyone who was a great and patriotic America – and you show us a person who is instead smart and therefore really is patriotic.
D) Let's look at the checklist to justify war. Notice flag waving, "god and country", etc don't appear anywhere on this checklist. 1) Was there a smoking gun? Was there a Pearl Harbor or an 11 September event? 2) Was a strategic objective defined? 3) Is there an exit strategy? Did you first ask these fundamental three questions? If not and if you advocated "Mission Accomplished", then that is contempt for the enlisted man. Emotion appears nowhere in that checklist because patriotic Americans don’t let silly emotions create conclusions. A patriot’s checklist demand coherent and unemotional thinking.
Nothing new here. Demonstrated is why America lost the Vietnam war or why anti-Americans are also so quick to get into bar room fights. Demonstrated is why the book “Making of a Quagmire” made obvious in 1965 the defeat that would finally occur in 1975. Ever hear of “The Ugly American”? Or for that matter, the so many books from Kurt Vonnegut. No difference. In every case, logical questioning must replace wacko extremist principles of ‘good verses evil’. What was the ugly American? A classic ‘big dic’ thinker who believes in ‘might makes right’ and ‘we are good; they are evil’. Just more examples of conclusions based in emotions; not in what is required to be a patriotic American.
E) So that post made you angry. But then you responded with a logical reply. Kudos. That is how one starts becoming a patriotic American. One starts asking many questions. One does as Kennedy did during the Cuban Missile Crisis so that we are still alive. He kept demanding of his staff answers to questions that 'big dics' like Gen Curtis LeMay would not ask, such as, "What does he see? What is he being told? What is his perspective? Why does he say this? What does he want?" Questions that patriots ask are not found in emotion, 'good vs evil', righteousness, or a "political agenda". Those emotions are sources of anti-American thinking that even created McCarthyism, black-listing, and Nixon's enemies list. Remember, an enlisted man counts on us to think logically. WE send him to war. Therefore WE must ask hard and unemotional questions.
Above was a checklist? When did an extremist 'liberal or conservative' ever mention that checklist? Provided was a simple benchmark for those who really love the troops; who work to be a patriotic American.