[quote]Scott aka Rice wrote:
I don’t watch the news, I read the paper. If you want to really know what’s going on in the country I suggest you do the same.
[/quote]
Just a quick note: Don’t think that news papers are unbiased, because they’re not, by far.
[quote]PGA wrote:
Brian Chontosh. Reading about what he did was nothing short of amazing. The guy was an absolute beast.
This is really the stuff that the media needs to show more of!
http://www.wtv-zone.com/Mary/THISWILLMAKEYOUPROUD.HTML
[/quote]
good one pga we need more of this …
[quote]JokerFMJ wrote:
Just a quick note: Don’t think that news papers are unbiased, because they’re not, by far.[/quote]
Depends on where you get your information from. If you read enough you can tell their agenda. It’s at least a better alternative to the brainwashing people are forcefed.
[quote]TornadoTommy wrote:
aikigreg wrote:
I still wish the troops were home. I’d love to see the military might brought against something more honorable.
Building schools, hospitals, roads etc. and bringing freedom to the oppressed IS honorable, which is exactly what my son-in-law did during the year he was in Iraq… It’s just that the media doesn’t want support for the war and therefore won’t report what is really happening except for the casualties and controversies. God bless our troops![/quote]
Yep! I don’t hear any of the military folks complaining about the mission. The multiple deployments suck bad, but the military is in support of the mission. It is honorable, and the troops are making a diference.
I think our TROOPS are extremely honorable - it’s the management I question. And it took a lot of personal pain for me to come to that conclusion, being from a VERY military family and signing up myself after 9/11. And I hear a lot of complaints from many enlisted and deployed - as well as many who believe in what they are doing.
As much as Saddam needed to be deaded, I’m just not sure the Iraqis are going to get freedom, no matter how much we might want them to.
I believe the world should be free and democratic. But doing so at the point of a sword makes me feel icky.
I could say more, but I don’t want to weigh the thread down. I love our soldiers - many of them are my friends and family, and I wish every single one were out of harms way.
[quote]PGJ wrote:
TornadoTommy wrote:
aikigreg wrote:
I still wish the troops were home. I’d love to see the military might brought against something more honorable.
Building schools, hospitals, roads etc. and bringing freedom to the oppressed IS honorable, which is exactly what my son-in-law did during the year he was in Iraq… It’s just that the media doesn’t want support for the war and therefore won’t report what is really happening except for the casualties and controversies. God bless our troops!
Yep! I don’t hear any of the military folks complaining about the mission. The multiple deployments suck bad, but the military is in support of the mission. It is honorable, and the troops are making a diference.
[/quote]
Iron Maiden, This song is perfect for this thread! Rock on military man, this is for you.
[b]Another prophet of disaster
Who says the ship is lost
Another prophet of disaster
Leaving you to count the cost
Taunting us with visions
Afflicting us with fear
Predicting war for millions
In the hope that one appears
No point asking when it is
No point asking whos to go
No point asking whats the game
No point asking whos to blame
cos if youre gonna die, if youre gonna die
cos if youre gonna die, if youre gonna die
If youre gonna die, die with your boots on
If youre gonna try, just stick around
Gonna cry, just move along
If youre gonna die, youre gonna die
In 13 the beast is rising
The frenchman did surmise
Through earthquakes and starvation
The warlord will arise
Terror, death, destruction
Pour from the eastern sands
But the truth of all predictions
Is always in your hands
If you’re gonna die, die with your boots on
If you’re gonna try, just stick around
Gonna cry, just move along
If you’re gonna die, you’re gonna die[/b]
[quote]aikigreg wrote:
I think our TROOPS are extremely honorable - it’s the management I question. And it took a lot of personal pain for me to come to that conclusion, being from a VERY military family and signing up myself after 9/11. And I
hear a lot of complaints from many enlisted and deployed - as well as many who believe in what they are doing.
As much as Saddam needed to be deaded, I’m just not sure the Iraqis are going to get freedom, no matter how much we might want them to.
I believe the world should be free and democratic. But doing so at the point of a sword makes me feel icky.
[/quote]
I understand where you are coming from but i have to respectfully disagree man. The best response I have for that comment is part of a speech made by frederick Douglas in 1857 (might be wrong about the date)
Let me give you a word of the philosophy of reform. The whole history of the progress of human liberty shows that all concessions yet made to her august claims, have been born of earnest struggle. The conflict has been exciting, agitating, all-absorbing, and for the time being, putting all other tumults to silence. It must do this or it does nothing. If there is no struggle there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightening. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters."
"This struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, and it may be both moral and physical, but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will…
[quote]aikigreg wrote:
I think our TROOPS are extremely honorable - it’s the management I question. And it took a lot of personal pain for me to come to that conclusion, being from a VERY military family and signing up myself after 9/11. And I hear a lot of complaints from many enlisted and deployed - as well as many who believe in what they are doing.
As much as Saddam needed to be deaded, I’m just not sure the Iraqis are going to get freedom, no matter how much we might want them to.
I believe the world should be free and democratic. But doing so at the point of a sword makes me feel icky.
I could say more, but I don’t want to weigh the thread down. I love our soldiers - many of them are my friends and family, and I wish every single one were out of harms way.
PGJ wrote:
TornadoTommy wrote:
aikigreg wrote:
I still wish the troops were home. I’d love to see the military might brought against something more honorable.
Building schools, hospitals, roads etc. and bringing freedom to the oppressed IS honorable, which is exactly what my son-in-law did during the year he was in Iraq… It’s just that the media doesn’t want support for the war and therefore won’t report what is really happening except for the casualties and controversies. God bless our troops!
Yep! I don’t hear any of the military folks complaining about the mission. The multiple deployments suck bad, but the military is in support of the mission. It is honorable, and the troops are making a diference.
[/quote]
I agree that we (the U.S.) should not be the world’s police force though it seems that’s where we’re headed. You, sir, have my respect for serving your country.
[quote]Mad Titan wrote:
aikigreg wrote:
I think our TROOPS are extremely honorable - it’s the management I question. And it took a lot of personal pain for me to come to that conclusion, being from a VERY military family and signing up myself after 9/11. And I
hear a lot of complaints from many enlisted and deployed - as well as many who believe in what they are doing.
As much as Saddam needed to be deaded, I’m just not sure the Iraqis are going to get freedom, no matter how much we might want them to.
I believe the world should be free and democratic. But doing so at the point of a sword makes me feel icky.
I understand where you are coming from but i have to respectfully disagree man. The best response I have for that comment is part of a speech made by frederick Douglas in 1857 (might be wrong about the date)
Let me give you a word of the philosophy of reform. The whole history of the progress of human liberty shows that all concessions yet made to her august claims, have been born of earnest struggle. The conflict has been exciting, agitating, all-absorbing, and for the time being, putting all other tumults to silence. It must do this or it does nothing. If there is no struggle there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightening. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters."
"This struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, and it may be both moral and physical, but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will…
[/quote]
Absolutely brillant. Frederick Douglas was a genius. Thank you for sharing.
[quote]TornadoTommy wrote:
aikigreg wrote:
I think our TROOPS are extremely honorable - it’s the management I question. And it took a lot of personal pain for me to come to that conclusion, being from a VERY military family and signing up myself after 9/11. And I hear a lot of complaints from many enlisted and deployed - as well as many who believe in what they are doing.
As much as Saddam needed to be deaded, I’m just not sure the Iraqis are going to get freedom, no matter how much we might want them to.
I believe the world should be free and democratic. But doing so at the point of a sword makes me feel icky.
I could say more, but I don’t want to weigh the thread down. I love our soldiers - many of them are my friends and family, and I wish every single one were out of harms way.
PGJ wrote:
TornadoTommy wrote:
aikigreg wrote:
I still wish the troops were home. I’d love to see the military might brought against something more honorable.
Building schools, hospitals, roads etc. and bringing freedom to the oppressed IS honorable, which is exactly what my son-in-law did during the year he was in Iraq… It’s just that the media doesn’t want support for the war and therefore won’t report what is really happening except for the casualties and controversies. God bless our troops!
Yep! I don’t hear any of the military folks complaining about the mission. The multiple deployments suck bad, but the military is in support of the mission. It is honorable, and the troops are making a diference.
I agree that we (the U.S.) should not be the world’s police force though it seems that’s where we’re headed. You, sir, have my respect for serving your country.[/quote]
I don’t particularly like being the world’s police either, but that’s just the way it is. I understand that if we don’t do something, nobody else will. Thank God for England and Australia, America’s only true friends.
Nobody wants to fight, but somebody has to be willing and able.
Chesty Puller is smiling.
Semper Fi
[quote]JFS wrote:
Chesty Puller is smiling.
Semper Fi[/quote]
“So they have us surrounded. That makes it easier to get at these people and kill them.”
-Lewis “Chesty” Puller, USMC
He’d know how to handle the terrorists.
Mad Titan,
That quote by Douglas was outstanding.
[quote]aikigreg wrote:
As much as Saddam needed to be deaded, I’m just not sure the Iraqis are going to get freedom, no matter how much we might want them to. [/quote]
From an outsider’s (Canadian) point of view, I think that part of the problem was the way that the true objective was utterly abandoned by the powers that be to pursue a conflict in another land long before the real fight was done.
Afghanistan was the heart of the Taliban, and the lack of international resources in that nation have it slowly slipping back into a state of chaos. It’s now predicted that unless things change, the Taliban could be welcomed back with open arms within a couple years.
It’s an old truth of history: if people suffer war and chaos long enough, they will embrace anyone who can bring them peace. After a period of chaos, a medieval king could be a right bastard, just so long as he gave good law (re: order). It didn’t even need to be fair, just so long as it kept things quiet.
Things went to Hell on 9/11. In this nation alone, your neighbours, people wept, millions of dollars were raised to help the survivors and families of the deceased. A record amount of blood was donated to the Red Cross in that first week, in the desperate hope that there would be survivors who would need it.
Construction crews headed south, without pay, to help with the rubble (but were turned back at the border). So when the finger was pointed at Afghanistan, we, along with the rest of the USA’s allies, jumped up to offer what meager help we could – because, let’s face it, there’s no denying that the USA is the big kid on the block.
Thing is, the big kid took a swing, then picked up and went to pick a fight with somebody else while his friends were still scrapping the brawl that had been started in his name. Sure, the US still has a presence there, but it’s a tiny fraction of the effort put into Iraq… a nation that posed no clear and present danger.
If Afghanistan slips back into Taliban control, they win. Period. Even if they’re wiped out again, those who hate the West will always remember that focus was lost and with it, a nation. Afghanistan’s actually quite well off in terms of natural resources.
It could be a prosperous and democratic nation. God knows the people there are desperate for it – they crave it like a man craves water when staggering out of the desert. But attention has been shifted elsewhere, and a noble fight that should have been engaged whole-heartedly has been done in half-hearted fashion.
Yes, Saddam needed to be taken down. He was a monster, of that there’s no doubt. But there’s also little doubt that this split in focus has brought a terrible cost in resources, internation reputation, political capital, and most importantly, in lives. There’s still a great deal to pay on that toll.
If either Afghanistan or Iraq slip into chaos now, it’ll be a black eye that’ll haunt an otherwise fine nation (the USA) for generations… at the very least. To say nothing of the lives that have yet to be lost, or the chaos that could come from the Taliban reasserting themselves once again.
It’s an old truism that war is young men paying for the folly of old men. The reason WWII had better coverage is because it was a war with little question as to the sense and justice of it. A focus on Afghanistan would have provided a similar reaction.
[quote]PGJ wrote:
TornadoTommy wrote:
aikigreg wrote:
I still wish the troops were home. I’d love to see the military might brought against something more honorable.
Building schools, hospitals, roads etc. and bringing freedom to the oppressed IS honorable, which is exactly what my son-in-law did during the year he was in Iraq… It’s just that the media doesn’t want support for the war and therefore won’t report what is really happening except for the casualties and controversies. God bless our troops!
Yep! I don’t hear any of the military folks complaining about the mission. The multiple deployments suck bad, but the military is in support of the mission. It is honorable, and the troops are making a diference.
[/quote]
The only complaining i’ve heard from troops is the seeming lack of confidence/support from a lot of the Government and Americans.
[quote]PGJ wrote:
Thank God for England and Australia, America’s only true friends.
[/quote]
That’s so ironic when you look into History. With the now USA and Australia being two big “prison islands” of England…
It’s just ironic.
Nice post, well written.
Here’s my take, though.
To say that Iraq was not part of the “real” fight is like saying that Japan was not part of the real fight in World War II.
In my eyes going into Iraq was necessary in the war on terror. They had terrorist training camps, Saddam had broken the regulations set at the end of the first Gulf War 14 times, and intel that everyone had (foreign and domestic) was telling us that Iraq had WMD’s.
Also, in my eyes and mind, Hezbollah is more dangerous to America than Taliban anymore. They’ve been caught in America selling cigarette’s and doing other things and amking millions to send back to their “home base” to support their terrorist actions. If something is not done about them soon, they’re going to bring a sort of “terrorist social reform” to Lebanon which will be embraced by the people of Lebananon as you say the Taliban could be in Pakistan.
We (America) have made some terrible decisions as far as this war go, but I don’t believe initiating it was one of them.
[quote]JokerFMJ wrote:
Nice post, well written.
Here’s my take, though.
To say that Iraq was not part of the “real” fight is like saying that Japan was not part of the real fight in World War II.[/quote]
Except that in WWII, Japan was part of the Axis. Whereas in the current situation, Saddam and the Taliban leaders actively and openly hated each other’s guts. Hussein wasn’t exactly loved by Islamic circles until he was turned into a freakish martyr – and I’d still love to know how that works. How does someone go from enemy to martyr so quickly?
But it remains that Iraq was not a part of the equation until it was made part of the equation. The powers that be in Iraq had no connection to 9/11. None. They had, at best, tenous and shakey relations with the Taliban.
The surest path to victory would be to have focused on Afghanistan with the same vigour which is now split over too many battle fronts. All it takes to win is to take one nation and turn it into a stable, prosperous democracy. Afghanistan was the first nation to fall into the crosshairs, and a perfect opportunity to pursue that plan. Unfortunately, it was abandoned.
Both foreign and domestic intel was unquestionably viewed as highly dubious at the time. It was clearly marked as such, and the veracity of the intelligence was questioned extensively. Much of the world watched in horror as it was pushed through and branded as the truth – and that was a large part of the reason for the reaction received from much of the developed international community.
As for the rest, I won’t in any way, shape, or form try to imply that Hussein deserved any less than what he got. He was a monster of the worst kind, as were his demonic offspring. I’m a big believer in finishing one job before moving on to the next, however. Make sure the foundation’s solid before you build a house on top of it.
At that point, really, the attention shouldn’t have been on Iraq – it should have been on Saudi Arabia.
Only in indirect terms. The Taliban have one massive trump card in the wings: if they send Afghanistan into chaos, they win. Period. If that nation collapses back into a state of anarchy and requires the brutality of the Taliban to put them back into a state of (false) peace – if they embrace fanatics to save their own skin – then the USA, and the west, lose in a huge way. It will act as a rallying call on an epic scale.
Blowing them up was the easy part. The condition for victory, however, is nothing short of a national transformation in that country.
I’m sure you meant Afghanistan… though apparently there are concerns about Pakistan’s involvement here.
Initiating it? Perhaps not. The timing of initiating it, however, was (in my opinion) a colossal error. A stable Afghanistan would have provided a much stronger ground to work from, both in terms of PR and in terms of troop movement.
It’s a pleasant change to be able to have a rational talk from opposing viewpoints about this.
[quote]PGJ wrote:
By the way, Capt Chontosh is a Marine, not a soldier. The media always screws that up also.
[/quote]
No, they just don’t care!..
[quote]PGJ wrote:
JFS wrote:
Chesty Puller is smiling.
Semper Fi
“So they have us surrounded. That makes it easier to get at these people and kill them.”
-Lewis “Chesty” Puller, USMC
He’d know how to handle the terrorists.
[/quote]
Chesty Puller said that at the Chosin Reservior when the Marines were surrounded by 10 Chinese divisions. They took out 7 divisions in their “retrograde” to the sea. He lived up to that comment!!
That’s one of my favorite quotes of all time!!!
Chesty Puller, earned 5 Navy Crosses during his career as a Marine, yeah he’d know how to handle terrorists!!!
Great Post, Thanks!!!
Semper Fi