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Reinstate the Draft

  • #21
[b said:
Quote[/b] (Outsiders71 @ Nov. 20 2006,12:52)]But the fact is we live in a fast-paced globalized world today and hesitation leads to more innocents dying.
And this is any better?
US Soldiers Crush Iraqi Citizen's Car as 'Punishment'
Take a look at this and then tell me we're not the bad guys. Don't even get me started on what they don't have video of. I'm sure glad we have our troops in all these evil, heathen nations to show them what freedom and democracy is all about.
~Joe
 
  • #22
I agree with you seedjar, but there are bad apples in any large population. Unfortunatly those bad apples in the military can do so much more damage.
 
  • #23
It's more than a few bad apples, and unfortunately many of them are in command. I know people who were made to do horrible, unspeakable things by their commanding officers during their recent deployments. Things that make the video above look like a time-out. My very dear friend Mary was the fourth person in her squad to kill herself in the space of a month after returning from Iraq, and if I tried to describe why here, I would probably recieve a stern rebuke from the mods. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that our behavior there has been totally inappropriate and unjustifiable - perhaps someone needed to take Saddam out of power, but we jumped the gun, alienated the rest of the world, and then proceeded to commit terrible war crimes because we didn't have the resources to do the job right. Even if there were an excuse to go before, the US military has forfeited their honor and demonstrated that they are not capable of handling this war.
~Joe
 
  • #24
[b said:
Quote[/b] ]the US military has forfeited their honor and demonstrated that they are [not] equipped to handle this war.

Well i dont think they have forfeited their honor, but whenever something goes wrong, the accusations never move up the command chain. Just goes to show that equality in their eyes is reletive to your superiority.
 
  • #25
When you go to war on false pretenses and proceed to terrorize the populace that you set out to aide, I think that's pretty dishonorable. I have utmost respect for soldiers and their situation, but I've lost faith in the military as an institution and the people who are supposed to run it.
~Joe
 
  • #26
Imposing our will is NOT democracy! For christ's sake! We have a VP who supports torture! Is democracy crushing someones car for stealing wood? WOOD! Is it the raping and killing of innocent civilians by soldiers? Is it torture?


What does "isolating" ourselves have to do with ANYTHING? Are you saying that your isolated if you don't police the world? Who are we to police the world?
 
  • #27
Um....

i agree with u about the pretenses but I dont think the operations of a minority of soilders and officers actin bad means you can paint them all as people out to terrorize the polpulace.

However, i cant even imagine what things the administration and military has not released that has gone wrong for political and public relatins reasons.
 
  • #28
Sen. Rangel has long been a draft supporter. But the reason is that he thinks we won't engage in disastrous and ill-conceived wars like the mess in Iraq if we had a draft. With an all-volunteer army, the tendency is to consider the soldier more expendable than if the pool of soldiers consists of everyone. That's his whole political point with this, and he is well aware that there is no public support for his proposal. There is no chance of a draft, so don't worry about it. The only exception is if the crazies in charge decide to invade Iran or whatever enemy du jour comes up next. We've blown our mission in Afghanistan, and made a complete mess of Iraq by spreading our troops too thin. Another war may just necessitate a draft.

Capslock
 
  • #29
That's exactly it, Finch. The responsibility for these actions is being loaded on to small fry, without any discipline for their COs for ordering these warcrimes. I'm not saying all soldiers are out to terrorize - I think very few of them are. But they still do it unintentionally, through their mere presence. Remember 'shock and awe?' Our military 'strategy' was to make the Iraqi people so insanely afraid of our military power that they would simply lay down their arms. But the problem with that is that Iraqis are dedicated to their social and religious principles in the same way that we Americans are devoted to ours, and just like America, they won't tolerate being bullied. So now, shock and awe has given us nothing except a nation of extremely angry, extremely defensive people who think that the only way to save their families and their way of living is to put their lives on the line fighting the occupying presence. And honestly, I think they might be right.
~Joe
 
  • #30
[b said:
Quote[/b] ] I'm not saying all soldiers are out to terrorize - I think very few of them are. But they still do it unintentionally, through their mere presence

then prehaps 'terrorize' is not the best term for it.
 
  • #31
This is a dictionary definition:
Terrorize: (verb) to create and/or maintain a state of extreme fear in (someone)
If this is the meaning of terrorism, then I think we're more the terrorists than anybody else in this situation, except maybe Saddam when his regime was in power. The terrorists in the 'war on terror' didn't do much to maintain our fear, and I wouldn't even call it extreme fear, at least not after the initial 9/11 press fiasco died down. Not next to a nation of people living in fear of occupying forces right outside their door.
~Joe
 
  • #32
[b said:
Quote[/b] (seedjar @ Nov. 20 2006,4:01)]
[b said:
Quote[/b] (Outsiders71 @ Nov. 20 2006,12:52)]But the fact is we live in a fast-paced globalized world today and hesitation leads to more innocents dying.
And this is any better?
US Soldiers Crush Iraqi Citizen's Car as 'Punishment'
Take a look at this and then tell me we're not the bad guys. Don't even get me started on what they don't have video of. I'm sure glad we have our troops in all these evil, heathen nations to show them what freedom and democracy is all about.
~Joe
I'm sorry Joe but you cannot discredit everyone who is serving over there in Iraq and the objective because of a few a-wall soldiers. I know we can both agree that the objective over there wasn't to kill innocent lives.
 
  • #33
I'm not discrediting everyone. I'm actually discrediting a very small portion of the military - those people in command who had the power to stop this kind of behavior. Aside from that, these weren't just a few soldiers, and they certainly weren't AWOL - they were acting on direct orders. Look up the definition of your acronyms before you use them.
I know Paul believed that the ends justify the means, but he was talking about casual lies to lead people to Christiandom and presumably salvation. But this is a petty, earthly matter of politics - should we say that it's OK to kill thousands of innocent people simply because we have unsupported assertions that the dictator of their nation might have dangerous weapons that they might (at some indefinite point) turn on us? This doesn't seem right to me, not logically, and not by any code of morals that I follow or am familiar with. It's like me saying that I have the right to kill you because some time down the road you might take a job that I need.
~Joe
 
  • #34
[b said:
Quote[/b] (Outsiders71 @ Nov. 20 2006,9:52)]The fact is just because the U.S.A. exists, and because our principles exist people will hate us and want to destroy us. It's the same with Israel (who's neighboring countries will not accept its existance). When you have enemies who do not accept your existance and despise that you exist how do you go about solving this problem? Ignoring them will just enable them to do more damage to us on our own ground because they will grow in numbers and sophistication. You can try to diplomatically fix things but once again we tried this before in the past and this just allowed for us to be minipulated by countries as Iraq and N. Korea. I whole heartedly wish that these things could be solved by us isolating our selves from everyone elses business and by diplomacy. But the fact is we live in a fast-paced globalized world today and hesitation leads to more innocents dying.
First off, the reason we are hated is because of things like our ill concieved invasion of Iraq. Isreal is not reacognized by its neighbors because Palestine was an ally of Syria, Iran, Iraq, Jordan (who actully does recognize Isreal, though they do not like them) when Isreal was set down in the middle of Palestine and the Palestinians were told to leave, but thats a whole different issue which you should really research the truth behind instead of believing what your Isreali sympathetic Media tells you(many of whom are Isreali or have family in Isreal) The United States Blind support of Isreal is another reason we are hated, Isreal commits numerous war crimes and we rush them more bombs and ammunition and refuse to denounce their actions which target civilians. Also the fact that we keep our troops stationed in Saudi Arabia and do not respect the cultural values of the Saudi's is another reason we are hated. Our existance does not generate hatered and the only value the United States holds that generates hatered is our imperialistic goals. Also president Bush's clearly anti-Islamic stance doesnt help.

Who ever said we should nuke Terran, yeah thats not going to give the extremists more ammunition to recruit more people into a Jihad to protect Islam from the United States. Hell that would probably get most moderates to believe indeed the U.S. is trying to wipe out Islam.

But the real reason I think they want to institute the draft is that it takes alot of troop to maintain a police state. Our military cant possibly keep us all in line with its meager numbers left in this country. Now that they have pesky things like the right to privacy and the writ of habeas corpus out of the way all they need now is a large military force to keep us all bowing down to the government. All of you are right those European contries with their rights to privacy and freedom from unjust imprisonment, they are so much worse off than we are.

All sarcasm aside though, if you really dont like a draft when it passes, dont leave, use your democratic rights in this country and try to start a recall election, remember the Vietnam war is still fresh in my (and many of your) parents generation and if a draft is instituted just remind them of that, they will likely help you bring down those who pass this measure if it passes. Dont forget there are ways to remove those in power if they do not serve you. Your government should be afraid of the power of the people, this is a democracy.
 
  • #35
[b said:
Quote[/b] (JustLikeAPill @ Nov. 20 2006,4:28)]Imposing our will is NOT democracy! For christ's sake! We have a VP who supports torture! Is democracy crushing someones car for stealing wood? WOOD! Is it the raping and killing of innocent civilians by soldiers? Is it torture?


What does "isolating" ourselves have to do with ANYTHING? Are you saying that your isolated if you don't police the world? Who are we to police the world?
So you are concluding that no one over there in Iraq wanted freedom from Saddams brutal dictatorship?

We may have a VP who supports torture to get vital information from terrorists however we also have citizens who feel that these terrorists deserve the same rights as U.S. citizens. You tell me what is worse...

Yes we already know there have been some a-wall soldiers who did terribly wrong things. No one supports what they did but thankfully they are the few and not the many.

Isolation is a foreign policy option. We stay out of other countries businesses and don't interfere with anything they do. We let terrorists cells recruit and grow. We let them get better weapons and more training. Sound familiar?

Who are we to sit and watch horrendus acts such as genocide happen when we can do something to prevent millions of people from dying? Who are we to just sit there and watch starving peoples die while we have surpluses of food? Who are we to watch sickly people die because they don't have access to vaccines and medicines? Who are we to just sit around and watch the AIDS cases grow in Africa when we have the knowledge to teach and educate Africans how to avoid contracting the disease?
 
  • #36
"Aside from that, these weren't just a few soldiers, and they certainly weren't AWOL - they were acting on direct orders. Look up the definition of your acronyms before you use them."


You mean like US Soldiers Crush Iraqi Citizen's Car as 'Punishment', and such? I havent heard that... can you cite some recent examples?

[b said:
Quote[/b] ]instead of believing what your Jewish controlled Media tells you

Exuse me, but... um... i havent heard that either... could you, um, cite some examples also?
 
  • #37
Most of my examples are from the personal experiences related to me by my friends stationed in Iraq and elsewhere. Watching news coverage on this stuff makes me too upset, ever since the prison torture thing surfaced. And like I said, most of the things I know of can't be repeated here. But I can give you one relatively tame example relayed to me by my friend Jonathan while he was in Afghanistan in 03/04 - he, and the rest of his unit, were ordered to take a village where there was said to be weapons smuggling going on. They had no translator - only a phrasebook - and things quickly turned violent. They ended up killing several dozen women and children taking shelter in the building that was used as a school before they learned that they had been deployed to the wrong town.
I should note that not all of these things are the result of direct orders - many of them are, but other times these horrible things happen because soldiers don't have orders or training appropriate for the situation, and have to make a very stressful guess as to what they should be doing.
But I can say that the guys in that video (and many other people guilty of warcrimes) weren't AWOL - they were where the military wanted them, doing the general things that they were sent there to do. They didn't desert their units and sneak into Iraq just to do things against the rules and make the military look bad.
~Joe
 
  • #38
[b said:
Quote[/b] (Finch @ Nov. 20 2006,11:14)]
[b said:
Quote[/b] ]instead of believing what your Jewish controlled Media tells you

Exuse me, but... um... i havent heard that either... could you, um, cite some examples also?
I just phrased that statement poorly and have gone back and edit it.
 
  • #39
[b said:
Quote[/b] ]
First off, the reason we are hated is because of things like our ill concieved invasion of Iraq. Isreal is not reacognized by its neighbors because Palestine was an ally of Syria, Iran, Iraq, Jordan (who actully does recognize Isreal, though they do not like them) when Isreal was set down in the middle of Palestine and the Palestinians were told to leave, but thats a whole different issue which you should really research the truth behind instead of believing what your Jewish controlled Media tells you(many of whom are Isreali or have family in Isreal)

We were hated before we were in Iraq. It's funny how people forget 9/11. Who's country did we invade then? Even before 9/11 why was our embassys bombed? What did we do then?

Israel historically and rightfully belongs to the Jewish people:
http://www.sacredland.org/world_sites_pages/Jerusalem.html
 
  • #40
Outsiders, we had been pulling strings in Afghanistan for decades before 9/11. We turned an innocuous farming country into a hotbed of terrorist activity to use as our pawn against Russia, destroying the peaceful lives of hundreds of thousands of people caught in the middle. We didn't do it for humanitarian reasons; it was a move inspired totally by paranoia and cold-war-era lust for power. When they were no longer of use to us, we dropped them like a bad habit and left them to mend the damage caused by our war. They have every reason to be angry with us, as do many, many other nations. Please do some research.
I agree with you that the Jews have a hereditary claim to Israel, but so do the other religious groups that have called that place home for millenia. What people are upset about is not that the Jews moved back, but that Israel (with the assistance of a US-sponsored hand-of-God) did so by forcibly, violently removing innocent citizens from the lands that they had lived on for generations.
~Joe
 
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