"I don't support the war, but I do support the troops&q

[neon tetra]

What do people really mean by that?

(I'm not talking about financial support, of course. Every tax-paying citizen is supporting all of the government's wars whether they like it or not.)


IMO, saying "I don't support the war, but I do support the troops" is as illogical as saying "I don't support vandalism, but I do support the vandals".

It really makes zero sense, yet I hear it all the time, even on here.

[changoloco]

I think that a better analogy would be something like, "I don't support cancer but, I support people with cancer." Just saying.

[neon tetra]

I think that a better analogy would be something like, "I don't support cancer but, I support people with cancer." Just saying.

Or... "I don't support cancer, but I do support the carcinogens".

That would be a more accurate analogy, IMO.

[AntiM]

Hey Neon... valid opinion. Mine is "fuck off".

[neon tetra]

Hey Neon... valid opinion. Mine is "fuck off".

Very intellectual. I applaud your insight.

[AntiM]

Knee jerk reaction from one of the despised "troops". Yer welcome.

[neon tetra]

I never said I despised them. I just don't support them.

[AntiM]

Easier to dehumanize and demonize "them" that way?

[neon tetra]

I do not support people who use my tax $$ to go overseas and murder hundreds of thousands of human beings in 'wars' based solely on lies & bullshit. Is that clearer?

[AntiM]

So you're blaming the individuals service members? Brilliant. The ones in the military are not the ones who make the decisions about spending the money. Trust me, every single one of them would rather be at home with their loved ones. Very few people join the military to kill people. Many join for the pay, for the training, and gee, for protecting ideals such as freedom of speech and the Constitution. The recruiters peddle serving much like Job Corps. You should feel sorry for the young soldiers who believe they are doing the right thing.

The war is bullshit. Doesn't mean the enlisted pukes are mouth-foaming, raving baby killers. They're people.

Drunk drivers kill more people. How about we hate them on alternate Tuesdays?

[neon tetra]

So you're blaming the individuals service members?

Yes. It's very simple. They are the ones doing the killing.

Very few people join the military to kill people. Many join for the pay

So it's OK to murder hundreds of thousands of people... and long as you're gettin' paid?
Mafia guys get paid too. Are they just as 'honorable'? And mafia guys kill far less civilians.

for protecting ideals such as freedom of speech and the Constitution

LOL. Do you really think that any of our troops overseas are "protecting ideals such as freedom of speech and the Constitution"? That's called propaganda and it's simply not true.

The war is bullshit.

Well, at least we agree on something.

Doesn't mean the enlisted pukes are mouth-foaming, raving baby killers. They're people.

Well, they ARE baby killers. In fact the VAST majority of deaths are civilians.

They're people.

These were people too: (Keyword = were)


















[youtube][/youtube]

^ I do not support any of this. But it's apparently not 'politically correct' to say so.

[AntiM]

Actually, yes, I do think plenty of the soldier believe in the ideals. I did. And fuck you if you think I did not. Do I know to what lengths I would have gone? Maybe. Yes, I do personalize this. I feel terrible for the men sent to do that ugly, unnecessary job. What is done to them is truly awful too.

Of course the pictures are horrific. The men posing are young fools, I didn't say they were all honorable. But do you know for a fact that all the dead children pictured were killed by Americans? There's plenty of death in the war zones not provided by American troops. How about a generic "I hate baby killers"? Even if we stopped our participation in that war today, and yes, we should, would there be fewer dead babies? No. Someone else will kill them. I have no doubt about that. Children die of violent acts here in America. Who shall we blame in a broad statement for their deaths?

Those men in that first photo, do you think they may have been the ones who committed suicide later? Is it justified to think that is right?

There is more than one wrong here. Blaming the troops alone is just ludicrous.

[neon tetra]

Even if we stopped our participation in that war today, and yes, we should, would there be fewer dead babies? No. Someone else will kill them. I have no doubt about that.

You're wrong, first of all. There was not nearly as much death & destruction before we invaded.

But to entertain your skewed logic for a second.. why not just nuke the entire countries we're fighting? Heck, they're all gonna die one day, right? Might as well git er done!

[oneeyeddick]

that's the attitude !!

I knew you would come around !!!

(and fuck your attempt at sarcasm, and fuck your attempt at breathing the same air as the rest of us with dignity)

[gyre]

While I am highly critical of censored news, an outgrowth of bush's "hide the war" campaign, mainstream news organizations continue to censor war accounts, especially photos.

How well do you understand war and war propaganda techniques?
Can you verify any of these photos are real?
Can you verify that they are what they are presented as, even if real?
Do you even know the story behind any of these stories or photos?

It takes an especially critical eye to wade through the uncensored sites.
Often photos or videos are posted without background or with a false one by someone with good intentions, but misinformed by another source.
I have found fake video on a site I know to be totally honest.
It is excellent video, which is one of the giveaways to its being fake.
In this case, the background soundtrack exposes it as being from a film.
Another giveaway is exceedingly poor quality used to hide the fake film from exposure.
Most often items are deliberately posted for a false purpose.
They are often of the exact opposite as posted.
And deliberate creation of atrocities for propaganda purposes is not unknown or rare.

Even in obscure parts of the world, mobile cameras are becoming common and people with skill using a camera are becoming much more common as well.
Some of the most horrific things are now recorded at great length, the type of things that could always be counted on to stay secret in the past.


Perhaps you should support the soldiers because showing up is where heroism lives?
Perhaps because they are doing a job no one else wants?
Maybe because they are the face of our people in combat, and they often decide how well they can do that, and who we are?

All indications are that our current forces are very sophisticated in that understanding, and making great effort to understand the people they are around.
Similar stories come from past war.

How do you feel about the guard on the korean dmz?
Or on a carrier currently cruising and doing nothing else?

Watch enough of the uncut videos and you will get a greater feel for how most of the world still works.

Don't carry a gun?
Watch the one of the woman stabbed on a public street in front of witnesses.
The mobile video appears to start shortly after it first happened.
Watch witnesses attempt to stop the attack, but lacking weapons or numbers fail.
Watch long minute after minute as she is stabbed again and again.
The police eventually arrive, and only then is it stopped.
This is the life without security, the one most of the world lives.

If you want to live without a military, there are places.
Many are on these videos, and in the photos.

[neon tetra]

It's amazing the lengths that some people will go to justify their support of mass murder.

[AntiM]

Amazing how gullible and sheltered and ignorant of history Americans are.

No shit murder is wrong. Dipshit to blame it all on the soldiers.

[neon tetra]

No shit murder is wrong. Dipshit to blame it all on the soldiers.

Why blame mass murder on the people doing the mass murdering, right?

Silly fucking me!

[Eric]

Neon Tetra- my wife just got back from serving a year in Iraq. She's doesn't like this war anymore than you do, but she's got a job to do, and, unlike your completely safe ivory tower idealism, if she doesn't do it even more people can die.

I'm strongly opposed to this war & have actively opposed it (and the first Gulf War), but I will get in the face of any protester who tries to take it out on the troops. They didn't make the choice to start it- bureaucrats did, politicians did, an ass-wipe with a daddy complex & the Presidential Seal in front of him did.

A lot of the troops would love to be out of there with life & limbs & mental health intact- they don't get to make that decision. You seem to think that just because we still recognize that the troops are human beings and want to get out of Iraq & Afghanistan as well we support mass murder. You are as stupid as a Beck-head with an inability to reason beyond your narrow parameters of what you approve of. You are no better than the people who got us into this mess.

Do atrocities happen? Yes. Should they be persecuted? Yes, absolutely. To the fullest extent of the law. I'm still pissed that "the troops" where made to pay for Abu Ghraib, not the generals & above who sanctioned & encouraged it.

Is every soldier there guilty of them, and should they all be treated like they are? No. Not a chance.

Oh, on behalf of myself, my wife, my husband & the troops:
FUCK OFF

You want to live somewhere without a military- I hear Somalia is real nice.

[neon tetra]

I'm strongly opposed to this war & have actively opposed it (and the first Gulf War), but I will get in the face of any protester who tries to take it out on the troops. They didn't make the choice to start it- bureaucrats did, politicians did, an ass-wipe with a daddy complex & the Presidential Seal in front of him did.

So you realize that the people who started it were crooks & liars, and you're against the war... but you still believe in following their orders?
That's logical!

A lot of the troops would love to be out of there with life & limbs & mental health intact- they don't get to make that decision.

Bullshit. Every moment is a choice. They chose to kill for the empire. An honorable soldier would have refused to fight.

You want to live somewhere without a military-

I never said that. Every nation needs a military. It doesn't mean that you have to support anything & everything that the military does.
You don't seem to get that.

[Eric]

No issue can be boiled down to a right/ wrong dichotomy. None. Zero. Zip. No, not even those you're thinking of right now, so put your Hitler & Stalin & Pol Pot and Israel references aside.

What is "right" for one side may be "wrong" for the other- you're placing your values above everybody else in declaring that yours is the only way to see this issue. Declaring that we're decidedly in the wrong because we don't agree with you is straight from the Karl Rove/ Glenn Beck/ Fox News playbook.

Seriously.

When you present a reasoned argument, I'll give it a listen. To unilaterally declare that supporting the troops is supporting "mass-murder"..... you get no respect from me, and you get nowhere in getting your point across, except to people who already think exactly like you. You know, "Ditto-heads"

Done with this pointless thread.

[Elderberry]

You know Neon Tetra, it's very easy to say when you've never lifted a finger in defense of the country. You 'might' be entitled to that opinion if you actually served in the military.

Otherwise, you are just an unpatriotic imbecile. And for the first time in my life--I feel like telling someone that if you feel that way about our troupes, maybe you shouldn't be living in and enjoying the freedoms that they and this country afford you.

I thought that everyone learned their lessons from how the troupes were treated after Viet Nam, I guess some people are just to ignorant to have learned.

I have truly lost all respect for you and will be ignoring all your posts on this forum. Hope to never have the displeasure of meeting you.

JK

[lucky420]

to bad we can't just ask the average afghanistan citizen or iraqi if they want us there or if they were better off before we invaded. How long has Afghanistan been war torn? 30 years? I am not being snarky or sarcastic. I have feelings both ways. We need to get out but what happens then? The atrocities that those in power allowed or sanctioned to happen to their own people are horrendous....

and fuck you halliburton....

[Eric]

to bad we can't just ask the average afghanistan citizen or iraqi if they want us there or if they were better off before we invaded.

Which "average" one would that be?

In Iraq would it be a majority Shia (who've been held down by the Sunni) or a minority Sunni (who've held the power, but feel threatened by Shiite Iran & are supported by Sunni Saudi Arabia). Maybe an Iraqi Kurd who were gassed & hunted under Hussein or a Marsh Arab who had their land (one of the largest wetlands in the middle east) destroyed by Hussein? Lets not forget the Iraqi Christians or the other groups there.

In Afghanistan would you ask a Pashtun a Tajik or a Hazzara? Urban or rural? Which one(s) would you count as "average"?

American's like to think in monolithic groups- in "average" people. There is no such animal outside of statistics- people have motives, shades of desire & differing goals. Ask yourself what the "average" American thinks about the wars then try to figure out who that Average American is. Someone from San Francisco, CA is probably going to think about the question very differently than someone from Montgomery, AL.

The "if we hadn't" question is pointless- we are there. The only question that matters is what do we do from here.

[knowmad]

Neon
I had a life changing experience, and in two min. time I watched as a boy, not old enough to buy a beer in our great free land ditch his cover and come to me and pull me out of the whizzing lead storm. his reward; a piece of lead into his skull. I owe him my life for doing what he was sent there to do, and every veterans day I call his parents and thank them, Then I break down and cry, the guilt of being a survivor you see, makes me see myself as not worthy of life, not while that happy-go-lucky kid is in the ground.

Neon, I'm With Fuck You Crowd. That's your fair warning, Don't come to the MnG, better yet Go Burn somewhere else.

[Eric]

That's your fair warning, Don't come to the MnG, better yet Go Burn somewhere else.

Knowmad- thank you for your service, and your sacrifice, and your story.

We have to remember that part of that sacrifice is defending ideas we disagree with- threatening Neon for an unpopular opinion (with this crowd, at least) doesn't do honor to what your friend died defending.

I couldn't disagree more strongly with Neon, and I'm more than happy to tell him to Fuck Off. I will also defend his right to his ideas with that same conviction. It isn't easy, but nothing that makes us stronger is.

[knowmad]

That's your fair warning, Don't come to the MnG, better yet Go Burn somewhere else.

Knowmad- thank you for your service, and your sacrifice, and your story.

We have to remember that part of that sacrifice is defending ideas we disagree with- threatening Neon for an unpopular opinion (with this crowd, at least) doesn't do honor to what your friend died defending.

I couldn't disagree more strongly with Neon, and I'm more than happy to tell him to Fuck Off. I will also defend his right to his ideas with that same conviction. It isn't easy, but nothing that makes us stronger is.

So Eric, let me see if I'm hearing you correct; You are Graciously appealing to my sense of duty to stand down while a citizen with no understanding of honor, or sacrifice degrades both; while at the same time offering me a lesson straight out of Plato's Republic? Do you honestly think I Need a reminder on what Sacrifice means? He didn't give his life for Ideas that he may have disagreed with, he was never given that luxury or honor.

[Eric]

Let me put this in less polite terms: I'm saying threatening someone for being a stupid fuck degrades your service, and that part of the reason our military exists is to defend his, and my, right say stupid, degrading, dishonorable things, and to get called out for it.

If you think you need to threaten him to keep your honor there's nothing I can say to dissuade you- we're coming from different planets.

edit: punctuation

[Elderberry]

That's your fair warning, Don't come to the MnG, better yet Go Burn somewhere else.

Knowmad- thank you for your service, and your sacrifice, and your story.

We have to remember that part of that sacrifice is defending ideas we disagree with- threatening Neon for an unpopular opinion (with this crowd, at least) doesn't do honor to what your friend died defending.

I couldn't disagree more strongly with Neon, and I'm more than happy to tell him to Fuck Off. I will also defend his right to his ideas with that same conviction. It isn't easy, but nothing that makes us stronger is.

Did we fight for a person's right to yell FIRE in a crowded theater?
He sounds like he might be a member of Westboro Baptist church.

JK

[JStep]

I have to weigh in with Eric on this one. "Did we fight to support his right to yell fire in a crowded theater?" Well, actually YES. If by yelling fire in a crowded theater you mean expressing childish and ill-conceived political opinions, yes that's actually one thing you fought for. This sounds a lot like the divide you hear in military circles between the "flag desecration should be illegal" and "If we ban flag desecration we cheapen the very ideas the flag stands for."... I am firmly in the latter camp. When we start shutting people up because we don't agree with them, we start becoming exactly like those regimes we've fought against and currently fight against, rendering that fight pretty meaningless.