|
|
 |
|
|
|
#1
07-28-2007, 09:27 AM
|
|||
|
|||
"Support the troops"
Friend of mine and myself had a discussion earlier about the war. "Support for the troops" slogan came up. I asked, what exactly does that mean? What do you need to do to become a supporter? Do you send money? Do you send food? Do you just need an "I support troops" bumper sticker? Do you need to show up at the airport when troops come home? Do you need to hang an American flag out in front of the house? Do you just need to shout USA USA USA as loud as possible? Exactly what qualifies you as a supporter? He never could answer me. So I'll ask the board.
|
|
#2
07-28-2007, 09:35 AM
|
|||
|
|||
|
Quote:
|
|
#3
07-28-2007, 09:45 AM
|
|||
|
|||
|
I think this has its main roots in Vietnam when the troops were villified for fighting a war that was considered by many to be immoral.
So supporting means not getting on a person's case for doing their job. Understanding that the troops live in a democratic society that has put them in a situation that they personally may not particularly like. Even if you do not support the overall purpose of the conflict, understand their position. Others of course will say it is a Republican ploy to support our current conflicts in other lands. If you support the innocent doing their jobs (read troops in this case) in the conflict, then the conflict becomes more palatable. Support of troops = support of conflict. Not a very well thought out slogan imo if it is taken this way.
|
|
#4
07-28-2007, 02:42 PM
|
||||
|
||||
|
Quote:
So the question becomes is there a point when u know your orders or your mission is wrong and u decide that it's one that u can't complete, for moral reasons? Or do u just automatically do what u are told to do with no questions asked? A lot of the troops are in very difficult positions, ones that I don't envy at all. I'm sure that a lot of them have been put in situations where they've had the conflict in their minds of whether or not they had to follow their moral beliefs or follow the orders they were given? In a way, it can be summed up as do u follow God or follow your commander? Are we as individuals supposed to support those that are doing things that we may think are wrong? Tough choices here.
__________________
The real horses of the year (1986-2020) Manila, Java Gold, Alysheba, Sunday Silence, Go for Wand, In Excess, Paseana, Kotashaan, Holy Bull, Cigar, Alphabet Soup, Formal Gold, Skip Away, Artax, Tiznow, Point Given, Azeri, Candy Ride, Smarty Jones, Ghostzapper, Invasor, Curlin, Zenyatta, Zenyatta, Goldikova, Havre de Grace, Wise Dan, Wise Dan, California Chrome, American Pharoah, Arrogate, Gun Runner, Accelerate, Maximum Security, Gamine
|
|
#5
07-28-2007, 05:32 PM
|
|||
|
|||
|
a soldier can refuse an unlawful order. but he'd better make sure the thing IS unlawful before he refuses it.
__________________
Books serve to show a man that those original thoughts of his aren't very new at all. Abraham Lincoln
|
|
#6
07-28-2007, 06:41 PM
|
|||
|
|||
|
Since King Glorious mentioned a movie, here's one that will be out soon called "War Made Easy".
Both Dems and Repubs are shown to be instigators. It might be interesting to see reactions (and, since it hasn't been relaeased I haven't seen it). Expect anything from an administration that put the FBI and other "domestic surveilance agencies" on to the pacifist Quakers (though I'm not one). "War Made Easy": http://www.thenation.com/blogs/edcut?bid=7&pid=217698 And, hey Danzig, do you think the perps at Abu Graib acted independently, or might there have been other factors involved, like disregarding Article 3 of the Geneva Accords ( thank Gonzo for that interpretation)? Weren't some of those found guilty at Nuhremburg also "only following orders"?
|
|
#7
07-28-2007, 07:44 PM
|
|||
|
|||
|
Quote:
Bait taken. And it is really sad that it was.
|
|
#8
07-28-2007, 07:49 PM
|
|||
|
|||
|
Quote:
"When the Patriot Act was rammed through, conservatives gave us a very bizarre defense of it: It was absolutely necessary, and yet it didn’t give Bush any powers he didn’t already have. We got the same runaround on Bush’s extrajudicial wiretaps. Bush had claimed in April 2004 that all his wiretaps were all being judicially approved, but this was a lie. He had the NSA wiretapping Americans even without FISA warrants, which have been notoriously easy for the administration to get, even retroactively. When he was caught in this fib in December of 2005, Bush remarkably said that “the fact that we’re discussing this program is helping the enemy.” Alberto Gonzales defended this program in February of last year with some odd reasoning. Bush, he claimed, had this power inherently, since he was the commander in chief. The Constitution and Congress’s post-9/11 Authorization of the Use of Force granted Bush all the power he sought. Indeed, even George Washington conducted such electronic surveillance, Gonzales hysterically claimed. But this simply defies reason. Why are they so quick to defend all these laws that empower the president if the president already has such powers? If the Patriot Act changed nothing, why was it so necessary? In January of this year, Gonzales said the NSA spying is now being done with the approval of FISA. So either the warrantless spying wasn’t as necessary as they claimed, or perhaps the FISA oversight is even more of a rubberstamp than before. But is their attempt to work with FISA an admission they were before acting outside the law? What they’re really doing is warming us up for totalitarianism. Thus do they refuse to outlaw torture completely, even though they claim they never practice it. Thus do they say the president has had these powers since the Washington administration, but they never relent in asking for more powers. Thus do they cross their fingers and tell us they’re doing things the old fashioned way, then say that everything changed on 9/11, we can’t do things the old-fashioned way anymore, and even discussing these matters is pro-terrorist. This is Orwellian nonsense to make us used to living in a world run by an absurdist total state. And if this surveillance state isn’t absurd, what is? The FBI has issued over 140,000 national security letters, forcing people to reveal information to the feds and forbidding them from talking about it to anyone. The FBI admitted in August 2005 to secretly collecting thousands of files from such groups as the ACLU and the Catholic Worker Movement. They have no-fly lists and databases to keep track of such dangerous groups as antiwar Quakers in Florida." Yeah right!!! Those Quakers are dangerous!!! Go get em Gonzo!
|
|
#9
07-28-2007, 09:43 PM
|
|||
|
|||
|
i said a soldier has a right to refuse unlawful orders--which is absolutely true. why i said it must BE unlawful, is a soldier can't refuse to deploy and say it's an illegal war for instance. however, if a soldier is given an older by someone higher up, that is unlawful, he can refuse--the movie was mentioned above, obviously it's an illegal order to kill a fellow soldier.
__________________
Books serve to show a man that those original thoughts of his aren't very new at all. Abraham Lincoln
|
|
#10
07-30-2007, 08:55 PM
|
||||
|
||||
|
Quote:
I think we are beyond the point of WHY we went over there the enemy is there and that is where we are fighting them ps... I think Bush is too liberal.
__________________
ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ
|
|
#11
07-30-2007, 09:31 PM
|
|||
|
|||
|
Quote:
|
|
#12
07-31-2007, 10:07 PM
|
|||
|
|||
|
[quote=Pillow Pants]Couldn't agree more.
PP...you and I scoffed at each other's comments weeks ago about similar topics, but this is too hard to pass up again. Bush is now too liberal? Bush is the classic neo-con..you guys always can't fall back on Reagan you know. Bush is still pro guns, pro oil, pro war, pro religion, anti choice, anti gay rights, anti education, anti arts....etc.... I'm sure you abhor all that I support ( well..except beer and horseracing), but don't ever call Bush too "Liberal" because of immigration and a 3 TRillion dollar budget excess...that is an insult to all Liberals
__________________
"but there's just no point in trying to predict when the narcissits finally figure out they aren't living in the most important time ever." hi im god quote
|
|
#13
08-01-2007, 01:15 AM
|
|||
|
|||
|
Quote:
|
|
#14
08-01-2007, 05:53 AM
|
||||
|
||||
|
I read the Washington Post article, which I think does a pretty decent job putting the quote in context- as usual, the full story is more complicated than a sound-bite (like Danzig, I didn't want to listen to the full speech- I get bored, too.
 ). Here's the link to the print article:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...001380_pf.html From what I can tell, the "problem" Clayburn was referring to was that progress will make it more difficult for Democratic leaders to pass legislation setting a timetable for bringing the troops home, because there would be more moderate-to-conservative Dems in Congress who would then favor keeping the soldiers there longer. I don't think he was referring to the elections; I think he was referring to the direction of the US strategy in Iraq and passing legislation on it- as few Americans seem to grasp, you really need 60 votes to get anything done in Congress. It was unfortunately worded, in that the right-wing media is always tickled pink by the opportunity to take something utterly out of context and now all sorts of conservative sites are yelling that Clayburn hates America but yes, positive progress in the war will continue to complicate legislative progress in bringing the troops home. And yes, taking quotes out of context goes both ways; the right-wingers are just better at it- remember "I was for the troops before I was against them?" or whatever the Kerry flap was- also taken utterly out of context as the original quote addressed paying for the war by repealing Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy.
__________________
Gentlemen! We're burning daylight! Riders up! -Bill Murray
|
|
#15
08-01-2007, 06:16 AM
|
|||
|
|||
|
Quote:
I think there is irony when Bush fails fiscally by running over budget by funding ( over funding) a war that they chose, that that is a liberal act. I don't think the right can have it both ways....If you believe the war is justified, then fund it, but don't call Bush a Liberal when your cause causes the huge defecit.
__________________
"but there's just no point in trying to predict when the narcissits finally figure out they aren't living in the most important time ever." hi im god quote
|
|
#16
08-01-2007, 05:51 AM
|
||||
|
||||
|
[quote=GBBob]
Quote:
|
|
#17
07-30-2007, 09:55 PM
|
|||
|
|||
|
Quote:
Enemy?? Who is the enemy?? Serioulsy, we invaded a country and are now fighting insurgents, and to make it worse terrorists are now occupying the country. Weren't most of our "enemies" in SA and Afghanistan.?? This is quite a cluster we got on our hands now and it was not done by a liberal president. A liberal, progressive president would not have invaded a country with the mental capacity of a wild west, 1800's cowboy who wanted nothing but a war. Please, I'm a liberal who thinks totally opposite of this president who got us in this cluster ****. This so called "liberal" president had the backing of almost every American right after 9/11. Myself included. We wanted to get those responsible and bring some kind of relief for those families and all Americans. What did he do with that backing? Invaded a country that was no threat to the US, while basically allowing OB to run free. And during this time play the American people with fear tactics which somehow has worked with some. WHAT A JOKE
|
|
#18
07-31-2007, 12:11 AM
|
||||
|
||||
|
if i remember, the battle for afghanistan (don't hear much about it now) was to find these terrorists and bring them to justice.
the iraqi invasion was based on misleading info (poor colin powell) and has become the quagmire that was expected. iraq is an underdeveloped country sitting on massive oil reserves and is also a very strategic place for permanent u.s. bases that the saudis really want no part of. why? because those in the middle east already fear u.s. imperialistic motives, hence the attacks on u.s. soil. big catch 22 if you ask me. but the current administration would rather press the 'fear' issue onto the american public, of which we eat with both hands. i have friends in the military that were happy to go to iraq (that's what they train for), but they have recently begun to question the alterior motives of their employers.
|
|
#19
07-31-2007, 05:27 PM
|
||||
|
||||
|
Quote:
I think there are parallels between Bush and x-42. Both have done everything they could to insure that the minority party became the party with the majority. Regardless what you consider a liberal, Bush should never be considered a conservative.
|
|
#20
07-31-2007, 05:52 PM
|
|||
|
|||
|
i heard a disturbing story this morning, and went to washington post dot com to listen for myself....
clyburn, dem from south carolina, # 3 in the house, stated that a favorable report from petraus in september would be a 'problem for democrats'. i wonder if that is his way of supporting the troops? soooo.....success in iraq is bad for dems. wonderful. wouldn't success be good for all americans? aren't dems americans? don't they want us to succeed? apparently not, as party is apparently above country, and an election win is more important than success in a war that was approved by our congress. not by the prez, altho dems in office at the time would like us to believe it was the case. i am disgusted by his comments.
__________________
Books serve to show a man that those original thoughts of his aren't very new at all. Abraham Lincoln
|
Hybrid Mode
