Letters to the Editor
Retired Military Patriot
Published Letters: 2236 Editor's Choice: 11
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Why we are railing
[Read the article: A new low of mindlessness for our media]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]cross1242
”And real troops die every day because of such craziness.”
Below is a post from WIds blogging on Daily Kos that reminds us as cross1242 has why Glenn and all the wonderful commenters here care so much about stopping the war. One very effective way to reach those, like myself, who did not realize the extent of the corruption and venality of most of the MSM, is to humanize the suffering wars produce. That is the primary reason why 60-70% of Americans want this insanity to stop. Bloggers like you guys are the same people that took to the streets during Vietnam. When I had blood poured on my military office files by protestors twice, once at Little Rock AFB and once at Pacific Air Force headquarters in Hawaii, I felt honor in those protestors and how much they cared about our great nation and that was the reason I proudly served my country. My anger boils because the people we are justifiably railing against are dishonoring our nation and many are too stupid to even realize it just like my military buddies who hated the protestors.
Turning to evil
When you engage your soldiers in a war of aggression: whether it's Germany invading Belgium in 1914, Japan invading the Philippines in 1941, or the United States invading Iraq in 2003, you do more than just lose the moral high ground in the eyes of the world:
You also cut out any plausible justification that your soldiers have for doing their job.
Every soldier in Iraq has to have asked himself "What are we doing here?". There is no mission here, no grand plan, no "liberation" (except in the Soviet sense), no beneficial activity. This is not about overthrowing democracy or creating tyrants.
So what's it about?
For a soldier in the field, there are only two possible answers.
The first is: Stay alive, protect yourself, protect your buddies. Come home in one piece at the end of your tour. That's a completely negative mission; it doesn't guide you in what you should do.
The second is: Kill Iraqis. Take revenge on "them" for... whatever. Somebody died somewhere... from September Eleventh to your buddy that got blown up by roadside bomb yesterday. Who did it? You dunno, but there are a lot of brown people around. You can't find the terrorists, but you can beat these people around you, shame them, kill them. Then you're actually doing something.
When you give soldiers this kind of choice of answers, a lot of them are going to go for the second. These are, after all, young men who are trained to go for the most direct route toward solving problems -- the route of force. Make them a superior caste in a sea of strange faces, faces they've been taught to hate and fear, and do you think they will not abuse their status? Hell no.
Wars of aggression aren't just bad because of some nebulous international law. They're bad because they put your soldiers out there on the line as aggressors and conquerors: roles that are in themselves conducive to evil. The soldiers can either resist those roles, and do as little as possible; or they can inhabit those roles, and become war criminals. The latter is so easy that you cannot believe that the few people who have been arrested for engaging in atrocities are anything but the tip of the iceberg.
by WIds on Sun Jul 15, 2007 at 08:47:19 AM PDT
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/7/15/102059/977
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Shooter242, stop shooting, open your mind and heart
[Read the article: A new low of mindlessness for our media]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]“Maybe you folks should think about the idea, that requires failure of the country to make you happy. Whatever you choose to believe about how we got here is not terribly relevant anymore. Bush isn't running again. What you choose to believe about how to make this better IS relevant, as is the choice to root for surrender.”
If you truly believe that it takes failure to make us happy, then those you support who have failed this nation and the world so grandly, must make you ecstatic. Sorry, I couldn’t resist using your kind of argument for a moment. War and surge supporters put us into such a horrible human and strategic mess and then have the audacity to try and blame us and say, well if we are wrong, then you solve the problem. When your mind is closed and heart so hardened, just keep quiet for a while, truly examine the costs and then decide if you would like to help us work together to heal not harm. Is that asking too much?