Whatever happened to the McCarthurs and the Pattons

Originally Posted by Undertoad

It seems all sides will spin it however they like anyway; one can, for example, do a remarkable job of avoiding civilian casualities and still have whining, frightened people wringing their hands over invented ones. Kill them all or kill only the bad ones, the argument will be the same. So I'm with Walrus; separate politics from war, both will be more effective for it.

Hello? Come on, UT, you're conservative and I'm liberal. Much as we disagree on just about everything, I have always considered you to be a pretty intelligent person. You CANNOT seperate politics from war. You cannot seperate international law from the acts of war committed by commanders in the field. Sooner or later the final bomb will be dropped, the last soldier, the last civilian will die and the smoke will clear from the eyes of a watching world, and judgements will be made.

When it comes to civilian casualties, I agree to some extent, that a spin can be made either way - at least in certain cases. Take a communication center that is vital for the enemy forces. This communication center is actually the telephone company. Suppose you are a computer systems administrator for QWEST (or whoever the big phone co back East is). You are going about your work, making sure that Joe from from Indiana and Ma and Pa Kettle and all your friends and neighbors can jump on the telephone and share the latest gossip. The pentagon also happens to make use of Qwest's phone lines. An invading army sends a missle aimed straight at your office. Are you an enemy combatant or an innocent civilian? That's just one example and there are jillions of others.

I am going to share with you all some comments made by a friend of mine who is a veteran of the First Gulf War. I have mentioned this individual before. He didn't have some safe behind the lines job. He was in a tank that led the first wave of assault in that war. In the course of that engagement he saved the lives of the men in another tank crew. I read the letter those men wrote him afterward thanking him for his heroism, and every single man on that crew signed the letter. In other words, my friend is no wussie-boy and he also supported Bush in this past election.

A few nights ago he came over to my house to talk. He hadn't been able to sleep for two days. He told me, "I keep dreaming about a man who is a serial killer. I see him and look into his eyes and I know, and I know that he knows that I know. Everyone else can't see this person for who he is. Then in the dream I look into a mirror and I see the killer's face reflected back at me. I AM the serial killer. The military made me into a serial killer except that I have a conscience and a sense of right and wrong. I killed nine men in the First Gulf War. I wonder what their mothers' faces looked like. I wonder what their names were. I wonder if they left behind children or wives who mourn them. I am a veteran and I can tell you this much: No one wins in a war. No one."

This easy talk of killing some of you like to engage in is easy talk. Nothing more.

[iamthewalrus109]

War is hell, I think most people have an incling of that. I have a friend who also served in combat. He doesn't sleep anymore, it's just a nightmare fest. Yeah it's easy to say and hard to do, of course. Why are we there? Well there are initial reasons, but those for the time being have been made to be false. Have we gone into Syria to check? no, not yet anyway. Have we heard of any clear intel on movements of large vehicles shortly before the war? No, not yet. In any case this is where we are today. Of course there is always politics in war, but to be totally contolled by what's going on here is doing the effort a diservice, it's either we're there to win or just blow up a bunch of impoverished Iraqi homes, kill there children, and call it day, give me a break. No amount of training will ever prepare you to deal with a combat kill, even when it's a combatant trying to kill you. It's true we will have severly mentally damaged people in our society after this, that is if one still exisits. I think we need to make some decisions here. In hearing that story of First Gulf war vet, I have heard similar from a host of other veterans, hence why we honor them so highly. It's probably one of the worst jobs in the world to have, to be haunted by the memories of every kill. Of course there are some that it doesn't really bother, they can justify the kills. Then there are some that killed a child mistakenly, or an old woman, these people will never be the same.

In the end what's to be done. We are already there. Unilateral withdrawal I think is not the best choice. There needs to be less civilian control, I'm sorry, it's the only way. To keep a civilian leadership in place when the war is still being faught is living in a state of denial. Let's face it, it's all politics. They put the civilian leadership in control prematurely due to the speed of the victory of convential forces and to heighten PR effect. This was a mistake, and I'll wanted to voice by starting this thread is that someone with Kahonies will have to take charge to get us out of this mess without us ending up with no credibilty with who is still allied with us while emboldening enemies, either quiet or vocal.

One frigtening factor to add to all this is that, we are the only ones really putting in the time and money here. While we fight this war, China and the EU are exploding on to the global trade scene. Inflation is on the rise and the cost of living increases. To pull out on Iraq and just try to play nice and play catch up with our competiors is not going to do it, we need leverage now, and a win in Iraq, and some diplomacy in the wake of Yasser Arafat's death will help. We need to secure the region, get energy costs down, stabalize then try to find our way out of dependency on foriegn nations for anything, period. Will any of this happen, most likely not, but its really the direction we should be going in.

-Walrus

[iamthewalrus109]

It has stared back, it's my reflection in the mirror every time I look into one.

-Walrus

[richlevy]

Originally Posted by iamthewalrus109

One frigtening factor to add to all this is that, we are the only ones really putting in the time and money here. While we fight this war, China and the EU are exploding on to the global trade scene. Inflation is on the rise and the cost of living increases. To pull out on Iraq and just try to play nice and play catch up with our competiors is not going to do it, we need leverage now, and a win in Iraq, and some diplomacy in the wake of Yasser Arafat's death will help. We need to secure the region, get energy costs down, stabalize then try to find our way out of dependency on foriegn nations for anything, period. Will any of this happen, most likely not, but its really the direction we should be going in.

-Walrus

What? I'm sure that I heard our leader in the debates stress that we are part of a coalition, and that it is disrespectful to our allies to denigrate their contribution.

But seriously, I sort of agree that we need to come up with a graceful exit strategy. The problem is that noone has defined the term 'win' in terms of Iraq. Is it just getting the elections through? What if the Shi'ite majority elect a primarily or exclusively Shi'ite government? It's a lot harder to play Red State - Blue State when both sides have guns and will not meekly become the minority party. Even if we get a stable Iraq, we have lost our credibility with many Arab nations. They know we want oil. They know that the Bush administration got away with invading Iraq on a technicality and that the UN was unable to stop it or even condemn it.

In terms of economic power, China and the oil states have all of the power. If they wanted to, they could start selling dollars and take a hammer to the US economy.

We have placed a large burden on our military. If we decided to invade another country, the draft would be a necessity. Saddam isolated himself by invading Kuwait, but the other Arab states are more connected. It's possible that a US invasion of another country in the Mideast might draw in other countries who would interpret it as the US trying to establish a hegemony in the Middle East.

There is NO graceful exit strategy to a situation we made fools of ourselves by entering into in the first place. How many lives did we throw away over some bullshit notion of "peace with honor" in Vietnam? How honorable were those final scenes of the fall of Siagon with the last US helicopter flying out with desperate Vietnamese trying to hang on? How many "dominoes" fell as a result of our leaving that godless war behind? Remember who our REAL enemy in the Vietnam conflict was? The "red" Chinese. Now look around and see how many items made in China are sitting around in your home, your office, the very clothes you wear on your backs. The Chinese won, not because of the Vietnam conflict, but because the American people went to sleep and allowed our government of the people to become the government of the international corporations which happily outsourced American jobs to the lowest third world bidder.

You bet China and the oil producing countries have all the economic power. Why? Because the American people handed it over to them, giving away our manufacturing capacity and ensuring that this country would do NOTHING when it came to viable solutions for a petroleum based economy. Where are our mass public transit systems? Where are our alternative energy programs? I'll tell you where - in the pockets of sociopaths like George Jr. who doesn't give a damn about the American people, only about ensuring that the wealth of the Bush dynasty and its friends at Halliburten will be secure.

Economic power = wealth = military prowness. We can skate along for maybe another 20 or 30 years, but without manufacturing, without an educated and productive population, we will ultimately meet the same fate as did the USSR - brought down by outrageous military expenditures, and foolish refusal to invest in its own people.

We can kill every last man, woman, and child in Iraq, and sit like some bloated spider on the resulting petroleum spoils of war and all we will have done is to sow the wind in order to reap the whirlwind. Your children will mark my words.

[jaguar]

So I'm with Walrus; separate politics from war, both will be more effective for it.

Tell me when you get to the 21st century. War has always been a political tool, to try and separate the two is foolish, to attempt to do so in the this day and age, where the relationship between political machinations and military muscle has never been closer is silly. The way in which forces operate is dictated by the environment they operate in, to try and disconnect it is to deny reality. Asymmetrical warfare is not a new concept, while the realities of it are only starting to hit home to the armchair crowd there are enough papers and discussions on the topic to fill a stadium, if there was a better way of doing it that was accepted by the US military establishment, they would be doing so.

Furthermore, this isn't world war two. This isn't the US in shining armour rescuing the world for fascism, this is, really, a morally bankrupt conflict, better than Vietnam only by virtue of scale. The forces aligned against the US are fighting in essence a downhill battle, they only have to destroy. While Hearts and Minds has become yet another addition to the political lexicon it doesn't yet seem to have sunk in. The British forces managed to hold a peace in soft hats though engagement and understanding, the US tries to win by force. Guess who is doing a better job.

The funny thing noone seems to be mentioning is that the US does not want 'free and fair' elections in Iraq. It'd be a disaster, Shia hardliners in power, Sunnis up in arms and the Kurds threatening to go off and form their own state properly. I'm looking with trepidation and what kind of dodgy dealings they're going to do to pull that off without a disaster.

[Undertoad]

Nothing like a little whining and frightened hand-wringing over invented dangers to underscore my point.

If you're scared, get a dog.

[jaguar]

iamthewalrus109 - when one chooses to stare into the abyss one should be be shocked when it stares back and looks pretty familiar.

[jaguar]

*laughs.

You're still thinking in the padigram of conventional warfare. Declaring war is easy enough, so is killing some bad guys, declaring peace however is a touch more difficult, you won't see columns of surrendering officers marching down the streets of bagdhad at the 'end' of this conflict. You're also still a touch stuck in an economic period that was well over before we were born, every nation is interdependant in thousands of different ways and as time goes on only more and more so. The real threat to your SUV fuel bill and mortgage comes from the US deficit and the spectre of the collapse of fiat currency.

[Undertoad]

Mari, you need like three or four dogs. You're afraid of shadows cast by objects that don't exist, created by light sources that are truly dim bulbs. They move and you move with them so you can make sure you can still see the shadows, so you can still be afraid of them. You live on the adrenaline created by your fear. If somebody says boo you'll jump out of your shoes. Cowgirls are supposed to be brave?

Alternative energy: remember, this question has been considered by the best and the brightest for about 50 years. Every single physics and engineering student has spent a good deal of time thinking about it. After the Carter presidency the government put a ton of money into that particular rathole. If this one were easy, it would be solved by now. But actually there is a very proven alternative energy source and the Europeans you like so well use it a lot. It's called nuclear fission. It's extremely clean, unless you happen to screw up and make an entire area of the planet uninhabitable.

But before you advocate for it you should spend some time living next to one of these plants. The towers cast a long shadow, and you may be frightened of it.

UT, Reagan dismantled the better part of the government research programs into alternative fuels back in 1980. I watched the whole oil shale thing out on the West slope of Colorado go from boom to bust, literally over-night. There are parts of the Uncomphaghre Plateau where you can take a cigarette lighter and literally set fire to the dirt, the oil shale content is so high. But the US would rather spend $200 billion dollars and countless lives in a foreign war than spend the money to come up with the technology to make shale oil a viable resource. The same for every other form of alternative energy.

I have spent time in Europe and been extremely impressed with their modern, efficient forms of public transportation and their use of energy sources like hydro-electric and, yes, nuclear. In Europe I know that extremely rigorous training for nuclear power plant operators is required. In the US, Homer Simpson runs them.

I can't afford to own a dog. I barely can cover the expenses for my cat. Besides, I'm not afraid. I'm older than most on this board, and I have no children. I figure the US will probably hold on for the rest of my lifetime. What happens after I'm dead is a matter of indifference to me, other than the fact that I wish my country and future generations well.

[flippant]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

Mari, you need like three or four dogs. You're afraid of shadows cast by objects that don't exist, created by light sources that are truly dim bulbs. They move and you move with them so you can make sure you can still see the shadows, so you can still be afraid of them. You live on the adrenaline created by your fear. If somebody says boo you'll jump out of your shoes. Cowgirls are supposed to be brave?
But before you advocate for it you should spend some time living next to one of these plants. The towers cast a long shadow, and you may be frightened of it.

Let's show How Very Afraid you are on Inauguration Day. We'll go digital that day. Is fear an alternative energy resource? Specious poetics.

[Undertoad]

Mar, as much as you would like to think so, the US government does not control whether shale oil is used. Simple economics does. If the price of oil remains high, your burning carcinogenic rocks will be used, as well as the burning corn they grow in the next state over, and the turkey guts processor, and all the other $50/barrel "alternatives". It would cost much more than $200B to demand the economy run on it when it is a more expensive approach.

Lastly, The Simpsons is a fictional cartoon, and should not be used to advocate public policy or determine the nature of our world. HTH.

Originally Posted by Undertoad

Lastly, The Simpsons is a fictional cartoon, and should not be used to advocate public policy or determine the nature of our world. HTH.

Duh, really? I am soooo disappointed! Bart was my role model! Now what do I do? I can't give a cite for this, but about a million years ago I read an article in some respectable magazine - "Atlantic Monthly" or "New Republic" or one of those - that outlined the differences in certification for nuclear power plant operators in Europe versus the US, and the US showed very poorly in the comparison. Maybe things have changed. I'm too tired to look it up, and I don't feel like going to the barricades over a relatively minor point. But it does bring me to my next point, which is this:

Just as "The Simpsons" is a vast over-simplification of the credentials of real life nuclear power plant operators, your statements about alternative energy energy are a vast over simplification of the role of government in a nation's energy use. For example, policies encouraging reliable mass transit systems both locally and nationally could make an incredible difference. Tax breaks for corporations using alternative energy sources could speed up research and development in that area by light years. It's a complex issue where government policy DOES play an important role.

Oh yeah, by the way, since when is shale oil any more "carcinogenic" than petroleum? I've camped on the Uncomphaghre Plateau on a regular basis for 20 years now and have yet to come down with cancer. This despite the fact that the place thrills the latent pyrromaniac (however you spell that) in me, and I spend countless happy hours setting bits of cliff face on fire everytime I'm out there.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Cyber Wolf

This objective seems to change though...when it seems that the objective simply cannot be reached for some reason, it shifts.

That's the beauty of it, he can't fail. The path of least resistance has been a lifelong pattern and he got to be Prez......twice.