Respectfully Submitted by Lawrence Rafferty-(rafflaw)- Guest Blogger
A short time ago, our country and its military reached a sad milestone in the war in Afghanistan. We have now lost 2,000 members of our military during our almost 12 year war in Afghanistan. In light of that sad news, a Republican Congressman, Rep. Bill Young of Florida, received a letter from an Army soldier on his third tour in Afghanistan that caused him to change his mind about our continuing involvement in Afghanistan. That soldier, Staff Sgt. Matthew Sitton wrote the letter to the congressman, shortly before he and a comrade were killed by an IED that journalist Bill Moyers recently discussed.
“BILL MOYERS: Matt Sitton knew the war in Afghanistan was going badly. He knew because he was fighting it. 26 years old, with a wife and child back home, Staff Sergeant Sitton was on his third combat tour there. His third. Time and again, he and his men were sent through what he called “A minefield on a daily basis.” His comrades were being blown apart. At least one amputee a day, he said, “Because we are walking around aimlessly through grape rows and compounds that are littered with explosives.”
Morale was low. The men struggled to remain alert. Sitton said he asked his officers to give them a break but was told to stop complaining. “I am all for getting on the ground and fighting for my country when there is a desired end state and we have clear guidance of what needs to be done,” he wrote. “but when we are told basically to just walk around for a certain amount of time…not sitting well with me.” At home in Florida, Matt Sitton had attended a Christian school run by the Baptist church attended by Congressman Bill Young. He wrote Congressman Young and told him what was happening. “I’m concerned about the well-being of my soldiers,” he said. “… I just want to return my guys home to their families healthy.” He ended, “If anything, please pray for us over here. God bless.” Crooks and Liars
As a father of a Marine Captain that served in Afghanistan from November 2010 to June 2011 and was embedded with Afghan National Army units, I can understand Sgt. Sitton’s concerns. To Rep. Young’s credit, I commend him for breaking with his party’s and many in the Democratic Party’s steadfast policy of maintaining our troops in Afghanistan. The recent surge in killings of our military members and the personnel of Allied nations by Afghan National Army and Afghan Police officers along with the constant IED attacks should be enough to convince anyone that we can no longer do much good for the Afghan people.
Rep. Bill Young has long advocated and voted for increasing our military presence in Afghanistan and he now thinks we should get out of the country as soon as feasible. “On Aug. 2, less than two months after he sent the email, Sitton, 26, was killed by an IED blast. He left behind a wife, a 9-month-old son — and an 81-year-old Congressman with a new perspective on Afghanistan. Young is the longest-serving Republican member of Congress, and he has continuously voted against troop drawbacks from Afghanistan, or even for setting a timetable for troop withdrawal. But after Sitton’s death, Young noted a change of heart. “I think we should remove ourselves from Afghanistan as quickly as we can,” Young told the Tampa Bay Times this week. “I just think we’re killing kids that don’t need to die.” ABC News
It is sad that politicians have to wait until 2,000 of our finest have died, and thousands more maimed and injured, before they decide that enough is enough. However, in light of Rep. Young’s prominent place in his party, I am hopeful that a bipartisan effort can now be made to leave Afghanistan even prior to the deadline initiated by President Obama. How many more have to die or be injured before politics is no longer important?
I am saddened by the 2,000 deaths and the many injuries and I offer my prayers and condolences to the family of Sgt. Sitton and all the other families who have lost loved ones, but I also pray that Rep. Young can be the start of a movement to extricate our men and women from Afghanistan well before the announced timetable. How can we wait when the people who we are trying to help are killing us?
The Republican nominee for President has backed the Obama withdrawal timetable, but his Vice Presidential pick has criticized President Obama’s withdrawal timetable including the decision to withdraw 22,000 more troops in September as endangering the troops that are there and as a political shell game. Paul Ryan
Do you think that a prominent Republican Congressman can help move his party and the hawks in the Democratic Party to get behind an even quicker withdrawal from Afghanistan? Do you agree that we need to leave Afghanistan as soon as possible? Savings the lives of our brave military men and women should be a non-partisan issue, shouldn’t it?
Staff Sgt. Matthew Sitton deserves posthumous thanks for both his service and his sense of civic duty. He certainly gets it from me. Thank you, Staff Sgt. Sitton and condolences to your family in their time of loss.
Do you think that a prominent Republican Congressman can help move his party and the hawks in the Democratic Party to get behind an even quicker withdrawal from Afghanistan?
If not our elected representatives, then who?
Do you agree that we need to leave Afghanistan as soon as possible?
Tactically and strategically speaking we should have been out of Afghanistan years ago, preferably within a 1 or 2 years of entry timetable maximum. Our stated goals – destroying terrorist training infrastructure – could well have been managed in that time frame and in such a way as to discourage restarting it upon our departure. The drawn out way the situation has been handled? Will almost guarantee a return to allowing terrorist support infrastructure to thrive upon our departure.
Savings the lives of our brave military men and women should be a non-partisan issue, shouldn’t it?
Yes, without reservation.
Good article, raff. Well done.
The first soldier killed in Afghanistan in 2001 was from our town. His photo hangs in the high school office. An important local bridge across the river has his name on it. His name is on the war memorial Walk of Honor in our downtown. His remains are buried very near some of my family members. His parents live a ten minute drive from my house. They would rather have him back than all the honors in the world.
He was killed by friendly fire. As someone once wrote, “Friendly fire, ain’t.”
We need to bring them home. Now. It is time. It is past time.
I’m too old for this stupidity. I wasn’t in the Army, I was in the Navy. My middle name is Matthew.
I got out of the Navy when I was 22. I think he wanted to walk the walk.
Thanks Gene.
OS,
You are right about friendly fire. I just read that the border guard killed this past week was killed by friendly fire as well.
Unfortunately it’s because people profit off of War……
We shouldn’t have gone there in the first place. No damn pipeline is worth it.
There are enemies here in ‘murka that need killin’ … it is time we started buildin’ our nation for heaven sake …
First off, thanks for this, Rafflaw. Lord knows this needs to be said; indeed shouted from the rooftops and in the halls of Congress untill the denizens of that institution are forced to take notice and to act. What totally amazes me and, indeed, ‘boggles the mind’ is the total lack of public protest about this issue. When I was a kid, I remember the Vietnam era protests; the draft card burnings, the peace marches, Kent State…I remember it all (yes, I AM that old). Where is the moral outrage that the Vietnam War sparked? Have we, as a Nation, degenerated to the extent that we no longer think that such killing is immoral and indecent? Why have we let those responsible for these atrocities (begining with Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, et. al.) escape punishment for the THOUSANDS of deaths that can be layed at their respective doorsteps, and, no, I’m not letting the present administration of the hook either with the re-signing of the NDAA, the so-called ‘Patriot Act’, DHS, drone strikes and the entire culture of paranoia and fear that has been established. To me, it is unthinkable that the generation that, effectivly brought an end to Vietnam (Lord knows it wasn’t the politicians) seemes to have now become the problem. As I have asked before on this blog, when is enough FINALLY enough? We passed the ‘eye for an eye’ (1 to 1 payback for 9/11) a long time ago. We passed the law of decimation (10 to 1) a long time ago. What is it going to finally take for people to wake up and say 9/11 is over and done with. It is history. While we shouldn’t forget it, we cannot allow our lives, or our children and grandchildren’s lives to be permanently destroyed, our fortunes decimated, and our liberties shreded for some benighted idea that doing so is ‘patriotic’ and makes us ‘more secure’. I seem to remember that Moscow during the Soviet Union was the safest place in the world; one could walk the streets at midnight, cross Red Square in perfect safety. But who would have wanted to live in that society? Yet, that’s what we are quickly becoming. Pogo is often quoted here; “We has met the enemy and it it US”. We have become what Staff Sgt. Matthew Sitton was fighting. It’s time that we took the proverbial bull by the horns and said “Thus far and no further”..
Kraaken 1, October 7, 2012 at 4:12 pm
Try to speak with specificity. If you run off about the mouth, nobody is going to listen to you.
thanks, kraaken. well said.
Raff,
The answer to you question your question is we are doing it because two draft dodging war criminals got us into it and had backers who were hungry for the natural resources that the land contains. Bring the troops home now, honor them for their bravery in an insane cause and reward them handsomely for their service.
A 12 year war isn’t being fought to win, seems were trying to nation build in Afganastan. We as a nation no longer go to war to win, not since world war 2. Either get out or bomb’em out of existence.
Kraaken 1, October 7, 2012 at 4:12 pm
First off, thanks for this, Rafflaw. Lord knows this needs to be said; indeed shouted from the rooftops and in the halls of Congress untill the denizens of that institution are forced to take notice and to act. What totally amazes me and, indeed, ‘boggles the mind’ is the total lack of public protest about this issue.
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A little bit of blame the victim?
The public is a victim of the current Wartocracy that does not give a rat’s ass about what the public thinks, nor is it “American” at its core.
Well said Kraaken. I am even older and witnessed some of the protests and took part in some.
Thanks Mike.
Thank you, Kraaken. What BettyKath said.
I used to think we could just up and leave, we had to stay and help them with training and rebuilding but with each new story of the killing of our people and the allies people, as awful as it would be for the majority who are not the terrosits and killers, it is time to leave.
leejcaroll,
I had a similar transformation.
We took our eyes off the prize. The first time my boy was there he was seeing real progress. The average citizen was seeing his life get a lot better and was ratting out the Taliban to him regularly. But that changed when the focus became our illegal invasion of Iraq. Once the buildup started there was no money for rebuilding project, less special forces support, reduced ammo and weapons. The boy saw the tide turn. It didn’t have to be this way.
Sadly all the sacrifice of all these young men and women have been wasted. The President who actually pulls us out & ends the senseless waste of our children will get the blame. The cowardliness of politicians to not want to take the blame for George Bush’s foolishness just compounds the tragedy it caused.
If you want to conquer a country you kill half of them, then the other half decide they’re you’re friends. That’s the basic reality.
Here is the link in my post put into moderation.
Dear Matt, no one in the Middle East is likely to call us friend. Even our hand picked president of Afganistan won’t call us friend. Our “friends”, the Pakistanis don’t call us friend; our $ 16 billion “friend ” Egypt won’t call us friend. No matter what we do they won’t call us friends . We are a money bag with plenty of baggage. While we have never been perfect our involvement in the Middle East has brutalized our culture and destroyed our constitutional freedoms. Whatever the people of the Middle East want and I am sure many of the want peace, we cannot give it to them. We need to bring our service men and women home. We need to put a stop to private armies beholding to no one but a corporation from going around the world supporting dictators, running guns and making billions off the suffering of others . It is time for us to rebuild our country and our values and let others do the same. Bring our troops and our treasure home, now!
Justice Holmes,
If we bring the troops and treasure home, what do we do with the treasure that is saved?
http://www.iranwpd.com/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=4151:iran-currency-market-remains-paralysed&Itemid=64&lang=en
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Couldn’t have said it better myself.
rafflaw 1, October 7, 2012 at 6:20 pm
Justice Holmes,
If we bring the troops and treasure home, what do we do with the treasure that is saved?
============
Leave it where it is.
Most certainly the distraction of the Iraq war led to this drawn out affair in Afghanistan. You can’t fight a war successfully on the cheap. You fight to hard to break the will of the enemy to continue, turn the population against the idea of fighting on, and get the heck out during which you have to take steps to make sure the problem does not return.
General Shinseki warned Don Rumsfeld and Sec’y Wolfowitz of what would happen during the occupation of Iraq, publicly noted as mostly troop levels but it was more widespread. The response the General received was a glaring attack against him personally.
I think that signalled to me at least the turning point at which the administration changed from letting the military and the CIA prosecute the Afghan and subsequently the Iraq theaters to managing it themselves. And it was personal, not rational.
Generals know what they are doing in warfare absolutely more than politicians with little military experience do. This is a lesson of history not just the present topic.
I still support the men and women who are involved in Afghanistan and I mail care packages to them still. These folks are brave but they are burned out many of them from multiple tours.
I would be for bringing them all home tomorrow if only one goal was accomplished, that is by us leaving now it does not embolden any significant terrorist perceived victory that causes us another war in the future.
I think since nearly half a generation has gone by over there for the Afghan military and police forces to step up to the plate, it has been certainly enough time to get it right. But, many of the troops I know tell me many of the Afghan Army soldiers are a sad example of a professional. It reminds me of the old saying of rifles issued to ARVN soldiers “Never fired and only dropped once.” They have had their chance, there is only so much we can do.
So not being very informed, I would say we either step up and route the Taliban out of existence, or we bring our troops home. Either way our nation will survive.
And with our troops coming home, how about sending our politicians home as well; via the ballot box that is.
Those of us who are informed about WHY bush started the illegal war on Afghanistan, know that it couldn’t have happened without the false flag operation aka 9/11. Sadly, the NPR crowd here is wedded to the absurd
Official Conspiracy theory that posits that OBL and 19 young Arab men, mostly from Saudi Arabia somehow harnessed the power of Muslim physics
and caused the Twin Towers to be pulverized, and, well, you know the rest of the fairy tale.
Oh, you DO have some questions about what bush told you? Then why are you afraid of learning the truth?
So not being very informed, I would say we either step up and route the Taliban out of existence, or we bring our troops home. Either way our nation will survive.
And with our troops coming home, how about sending our politicians home as well; via the ballot box that is.
==========================
Do you really think the ballot box means something? Big fat politicians might eventually find out they’ve been eating too much corn.
The problem with the public is not that they rah rah rah for wars, the problem is that they do not stand up to speak truth to power when the time comes to say this is a BS war to enrich the warmonger class and we are not going.
The Wartocracy has crazed the public into thinking, as Mike S mentioned above, being called “draft dodging war criminals” is worse than being “war criminals”.
If the Wartocracy calls you a warrior hero instead, it does not matter what you did to the invaded nation’s civilians.
A guy named “Smedley” figured all that out too:
(The Universal Smedley, quoting General Smedley Butler). The problem is that he would not say this up front to stop it, he said it afterwards as a “warrior hero”.
Thus the Wartocracy plods on plundering, killing, maiming, and destroying at will as people b**ch and moan in the aftermath.
The argument that a draft would stop war is equally unavailing because it is tantamount to saying “you should make us go because then we won’t go.”
Dredd,
If there was a universal draft with no exceptions, politicians might think twice about sending their own sons and daughters into harms way.
My post that was put in mediation had b**ch in it not in a bad way, but was not allowed anyway.
Crappy software.
Anyway, General Smedley was the first to use the term “the 99%”.
His speech was given in 1933 … but would fit in exactly today.
I’m saddened that we have such inept , war mongering people in Washington.
rafflaw 1, October 7, 2012 at 6:55 pm
Dredd,
If there was a universal draft with no exceptions, politicians might think twice about sending their own sons and daughters into harms way.
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Psychopaths are not capable of caring for their own sons and daughters in the way of “normal people”, that is another myth:
(When You Are Governed By Psychopaths). Like General Smedley said in 1933 the 1% “Tories” are abusing “the 99%” … and there was a draft … but no one stood up to the 1%.
Those who went did the wrong thing, and they will do it again and again.
Another great general said:
(Napoleon Bonaparte).
There will never be a universal draft with no exceptions. Don’t forget to pay your taxes. How about military service, is that a tax? I don’t care if gays and women join the military. Do you know what will happen to them in a real shooting war? Let’s speculate. Under the UCMJ you have the right to one hour of sleep a night, three meals a day, and adequate clothing and shelter, when available. Your Commanding Officer gets to decide what “when available” means. Guess what, you don’t got no stinking rights.
Put that in your sock.
But of there was a draft all our sons and daughters, or nieces, nephews, grandkids or kids of our friends, would potentially be in danger and what happened in the 60′s against Vietnam would be seen no and I daresay we would see the end of this war.,
leejcaroll 1, October 7, 2012 at 7:30 pm
I daresay we would see the end of this war.
==================================
How much prison space is there?
This video is included in the up-thread link I provided about being governed by psychopaths:
leejcaroll 1, October 7, 2012 at 7:30 pm
But of there was a draft all our sons and daughters, or nieces, nephews, grandkids or kids of our friends, would potentially be in danger and what happened in the 60′s against Vietnam …
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What did happen a la The Vietnam War was the longest war up to then, with a draft.
“… would be seen no and I daresay we would see the end of this war.”
That seems to presume that the protestors stopped the war.
I would like to see some data to support that hypothesis.
Until then I will postulate that it is more likely that the 1% became bored of Highway 61 temporarily, and pulled up stakes to go count money they had plundered from the people’s treasury.
Dredd,
Without the country wide protests and sit ins, the politicians would have had little pressure to end the debacle in Vietnam. People are wishy washy because very few of them have family in harms way.
Sadly it took the country many years before the people realized it was necessary to go to the streets. Was it coincidental that the protests started and Nixon then ended the draft (not immediately “Anti-war protests continued to build as the conflict wore on. In 1968 and 1969, there were hundreds of anti-war marches and gatherings throughout the country. On November 15, 1969, the largest anti-war protest in American history took place in Washington, D.C., as over 250,000 Americans gathered peacefully, calling for withdrawal of American troops from Vietnam…Nixon ended draft calls in 1972, and instituted an all-volunteer army the following year. (and he had prior to this started to withdraw troops)
http://www.history.com/topics/vietnam-war
There is no scientific data that can prove the protests ended the war (that I can find quickly at least) but I would certainly theorize that a large proportion of the country, protesting now as they did then, would let the politicians know we are watching and we want action. I would also postulate that a lot of what has been goiing on, with the warrantless searches, indefinite detention etc, would not be if elected officials felt that the country actually cared. An apathetic, and quiet, populace gets what it deserves. That to me is the greatest tragedy of what started out as Occupy but got so diluted that seems to be all but dead. Hopefully we will see its resurrection.
rafflaw 1, October 7, 2012 at 8:25 pm
Dredd,
Without the country wide protests and sit ins, the politicians would have had little pressure to end the debacle in Vietnam. People are wishy washy because very few of them have family in harms way.
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Of course I respect your opinion, and know that it is a valid concept that applies to some percentage of our fellow Americans.
Even conceding arguendo that it is valid for all people involved in the 99% it could apply to, that does not ipso facto concede protests as the factor that stopped Vietnam.
The protests went on concurrently with the war for a decade. My recollection is that only about one hundred people actually were convicted and went to prison for years for refusing induction.
And even if I conceded arguendo that “dirty hippy” protests did stop the Vietnam war, that is not axiomatically a concession that protests today would stop these wars.
One piece of evidence is that protests of the wars over the past decade did not stop these wars.
Occupy protests did not stop Wall Street either.
I would be interested to read any scientific literature published in peer reviewed journals that advance such a hypothesis though.
“No distant Trojan ever injured me.” — Homer
Ditto for the Chinese, Koreans, Vietnamese, Cambodians, Laotians, Russians, Cubans, Nicaraguans, Iraqis, Afghans, Pakistanis, Lebanese, and Iranians.
Or, as an ungrateful victim of America’s Humanitarian Death Machine might put it in verse: Thanks for Nothing
Matt Johnson 1, October 7, 2012 at 7:40 pm
leejcaroll 1, October 7, 2012 at 7:30 pm
I daresay we would see the end of this war.
——————————————————–
How much prison space is there?
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And there it is.
Our good fellow bloggers leejcaroll and rafflaw argue that street protests a la Occupy arising because of a military draft will do the deed.
But I think it is more likely that we would have to fill the prisons with inductees who refuse and are therefore sent to jail til there is no more space, AND as they say protest in the streets, online, and anywhere else.
But without the citizenry “refusing to go to war” until they get the point, the street protests and the other are not enough.
IMO anyway.
Viet Nam also had many soldiers openly disobeying orders. Fragging of officers was fairly common. With the ever larger demonstrations there was also concern that there was no sufficient military continent left to deal with them if they turned violent, as some of the protesters were doing.
————
Bill McW
The troops were poised to go into Afghanistan before Bush took office. The war was about the Caspian Sea oil pipeline that the oilmen had been trying to get for over a decade. You’re right, it needed a false flag to make it happen.
bettykath 1, October 7, 2012 at 8:53 pm
Viet Nam also had many soldiers openly disobeying orders. Fragging of officers was fairly common. With the ever larger demonstrations there was also concern that there was no sufficient military continent left to deal with them if they turned violent, as some of the protesters were doing.
====================================================
Do you want to be an Officer? Be careful what you ask for.
What happens if they decide they don’t want to show you the movies anymore? I didn’t have a problem with it because it wasn’t any big deal. I’m not sure I was in the majority.
Electrical resistance is measured in ohms. Do you know how to test the resistance of the wiring in a motor or generator?
rafflaw
October 7, 2012 at 8:25 pm
Dredd,
Without the country wide protests and sit ins, the politicians would have had little pressure to end the debacle in Vietnam. People are wishy washy because very few of them have family in harms way.
*****
You’re right. We had the draft during the Vietnam War. Many more familiies suffered the loss of their sons, brothers, uncles, husbands, nephews… I lost some good friends. If we still had the draft today–we’d have had/have a lot more anti-war protests.
It’s Long Past Time to Admit: The Military Solution in Afghanistan Has Failed
By Robert Greenwald & John Amick
Posted: 10/05/2012
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-greenwald/its-long-past-time-to-adm_b_1943009.html
Excerpt:
Sunday, October 7, marks the 11th anniversary of the Afghanistan war, now the longest war in U.S. history. This date provides an opportunity to take stock of what a tragic calamity this war is over a decade after its start, and to examine, once again, why military solutions are not effective in solving deep, systemic complexities of a country like Afghanistan.
Most immediately, the conditions look more dire than ever. The failed troop surge that started in 2009 is over. America officials are giving up hope for reconciliation with the Taliban. More Americans and NATO soldiers are dying from rising insider attacks at the hands of Afghan soldiers, leading to talk of a possible early NATO withdrawal. The arbitrary exit date from Afghanistan is still set for the end of 2014, though no one in Washington can explain the plan for a gradual drawdown or really any strategy for ending the war at this point.
Long term, the numbers of dead, wounded and dollars allocated as a result of this war are staggering:
- An estimated 20,000-plus dead Afghan civilians
- 2,000 dead American troops, and over 1,000 more coalition troop fatalities
- 18,000 wounded NATO troops
- 1,600 American amputees (from Afghanistan and Iraq wars)
- Hundreds of thousands of vets dealing post-traumatic stress disorder
- $1.2 trillion — $2 billion per week – spent
- At least $55 billion in estimated veteran health care costs ahead, as thousands of vets continue to wait for benefits to materialize
President Obama, members of Congress and Pentagon officials can posture about the sacrifices of troops in this war and how we all must support them now more than ever. Such declarations are an insult to anyone who was sent to this quagmire and now must deal with what is too often the shattered wreckage that is post-war life. What do veterans get when they come back from war? The backend of a 800,000-plus backlog of other veterans waiting for disability benefits; the average wait for a response to a disability claim is about 260 days. In addition, the rates of military suicides, homelessness and unemployment are all at or near record highs. It’s tragic what many veterans face upon return. If government officials put as much effort into caring for troops’ well-being after returning from wars as they do for exploiting them before and during combat, these problems may not be so monumental.
As Americans, now is the time to drive home the point with our elected and military officials that throwing troops and cash at historically complicated, troubled areas of the world, like Afghanistan, is not the answer. It has failed time and again.
Well, one thing is for sure, it is a difficult task to put an end to war, and in some aspects it is mystical.
I do know one thing, I would be proud to protest the endless wars that are bankrupting us with any JT bloggers, whether it means prison for refusing to participate again, or marching the streets against it again.
Elaine,
I agree. The impact of the Vietnam War was magnified by the Draft.
Good song Dredd!
We should have LEFT years ago; however, the Military Industrial Complex is making too much money over there and will continue to lobby to stay indefinitely.
It’s time to get out, bring the troops back and put them on the borders and in the ports to protect us aganist terrorist attacks. Stop the foreign aid to the ingrates and let them shift for themselves.
“Why Are We Killing Kids That Don’t Need to Die?”
Because that is what empires do.
that’s Pete Seeger’s Bring ‘Em Home
bettykath,
Thanks for the link!
How about some Harry Belefonte from the Smothers’ Brothers Comedy show. First song is nice. Second is the one that CBS censored.
bettykath,
The Seeger song was very appropriate.
Dear Matt, if we bring our treasure home, we could repair our infrastructure rather than the infrastructure of other countries for starters. Just to make myself clear as I am only referring to tax dollars that are spent on these wars. Wouldn’t we be better off as a country if we did not waste our money on the destruction and rebuilding of countries and focused on the needs of our own people instead?
What is really sad is that congressman voted to send strangers to their deaths for years before a face he recognized caused his change of heart.
Make the old people who start the wars fight the wars.
Well said Justice Holmes.
jim2, you are correct, but it is not just old people who tart these wars or keep them going.
pro-abortion + anti-war is inconsistent.(see Obama/D’s
pro-life + pro-war is inconsistent. (see R’s/Romney, when he feels like it)
It is only right to end a life in self-defense.
End abortion and the wars of aggression.
See this: http://www.180movie.com/
There is an allegation that seven to ten guys boarded commercial airplanes armed only with boxcutters, hijacked the planes, forced them to crash into the World Trade Towers, the Pentagon and some other place. That there could be a home conspiracy to archestrate these events so that the country could duplicate the defecation of our laws like the Krauts did with the Reichstag Fire Decrees requires all Americans to delve into. We passed the Patriot Act and all sorts of acts taking away our civil rights and allowing our government to kill anyone anywhere in the world. We are at war in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, and across the Middle East and Asia.
If the purpose is to stop terrorists from boarding planes with box cutters then we have gone too far. If we think that we can destroy organizations and change the thought processes of turbin heads around the world we are crazy.
One would think that we learned some things about the world and our limits back in the Vietnam War. We might have learned but we sure aint go no memory.
For all you chump parents out there who think that you will “make a man” out of sonny boy by getting him into a Marine uniform I ask that you reconsider your thought process. Yeah, you wont have to spend money on college, or put up with more youth pranks after he is out of high school. The Marines will make a man out of him!
When it comes to war there are no political parties to vote for or against, because political parties are a box of muppets whose strings are pulled by the larger realm.
So when you hear: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=dpWEv9Q0XQ4
Take cover!
Romney spoke on these things today at Virginia Military Institute (VMI), where Stonewall Jackson once taught as a faculty member. Romney entered the stage to a military march. According to radio reports, the audience was almost all white faces. The guy who dodged the Vietnam draft spoke about military matters.
Short version: The US should do more saber rattling and make more threats. What he neglected to mention that it is easy to get into wars. It is a lot harder to stay out of them. And it is even harder to end a war than to start one. He did not talk about this, because it is a subject about which he knows nothing.
The Corries:
Former Senator Larry Pressler (R-ND) endorsed President Obama for reelection. Here is part of what he said:
Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/larry-pressler/larry-pressler-obama_b_1948415.html
Great song OS. Former Gov. Romney will rattle all kinds of sabers, but don’t expect his kids to fight any of the wars he starts.
OS,
That is a great endorsement from a Vietnam era Republican who understands that supporting the military isn’t something you do on national holidays or by wearing a flag pin. It is how you support them before going into harms way and how you back them after they return.
raff,
It has a lot to do with the fact former Senator Pressler has been there and done that. He knows what it is like to be shot at and wonder if each day is going to be his last. Romney ducked the draft and hid out in Paris as a “missionary” and says his own sons have supported national security by helping his campaign.
We both know what it is like to put our sons on an airplane and watch it take off, not knowing if they will come home walking, in a wheelchair or in a box.
rMoney has not a clue.
OS,
Amen
http://www.salon.com/2012/10/08/mitts_magical_thinking_on_foreign_policy/singleton/ Romney is very hawkish in his speech…. more war in Afghanistan and Iraq
rafflaw:
it is years past the time we should have left those festering s-holes.
Agreed Bron.
Here is a powerful new ad put together by the Truman National Security Project. The people seen in the video are all veterans. It is currently playing on Ohio television, and may soon be seen nationwide.
Arab spring – big fiasco
Syria – big fiasco
Libya – big cluster fox trot
And who knows how many other foreign policy blunders.
Are those troopers kidding?
Obama is the one who is in over his head and he just keeps digging.
Wow.
Justice Holmes 1, October 8, 2012 at 1:15 am
Dear Matt, if we bring our treasure home, we could repair our infrastructure rather than the infrastructure of other countries for starters. Just to make myself clear as I am only referring to tax dollars that are spent on these wars. Wouldn’t we be better off as a country if we did not waste our money on the destruction and rebuilding of countries and focused on the needs of our own people instead?
====================
Wise Justice. The United states is the richest country in the world. We’re wasting it.
You’re not going to get their oil without a certain price. I said earlier that Joe Kennedy Sr. was a bootlegger. Somebody checked me on that. It depends on how you approach the question.
The Europeans and certain other countries need Middle Eastern oil a lot more than we do. Let them deal with it.
“These contracts were the crucial third leg of an enterprise that was also balanced on medicinal liquor permits—legal throughout Prohibition —that Kennedy had obtained in Washington,”
So Joe Kennedy just sold “medicinal” liquor during prohibition. Some things never change.
Bron 1, October 9, 2012 at 8:33 pm
He did more than that. How do you think the Kennedy family got their money? Use a pen point instead of a gun point. How about a combination? Don’t forget about the lobotomy.
Bron,
“Arab spring – big fiasco”
Bound to happen in the information age.
“Syria – big fiasco”
Military dictatorship taken over by a second generation incompetent. Bound to happen.
“Libya – big cluster fox trot”
Nature abhors a vacuum and Gadhafi was going to be killed by his own eventually.
“And who knows how many other foreign policy blunders.
Are those troopers kidding?
Obama is the one who is in over his head and he just keeps digging.
Wow.”
I’m hardly a defender of O, but the above were hardly his fault and fall under the category of shit happens. Now if you want to talk legitimate foreign policy blunders, let’s start with pressuring Spain over wanting to prosecute Bush, Cheney, et al. with war crimes, move to letting Hillary bungle Russia and the almost complete capitulation to the machinations of the Chinese. Again, you’ve sensed a problem but you’ve failed to diagnose the actual causes that can be connected to State Dept. failures under the Obama Administration. Syria, Libya and the Arab Spring all have their roots firmly in their domestic soil.
The troopers have a point.
You? You’ve almost got a point.
Also, Bron, if you dislike Obama’s foreign policy, Romney is a train wreck waiting to happen that’ll make you pray for a bumbler like Obama.
Gene H. 1, October 9, 2012 at 9:29 pm
Obama is the one who is in over his head and he just keeps digging.
Wow.”
I’m hardly a defender of O, but the above were hardly his fault and fall under the category of shit happens. Now if you want to talk legitimate foreign policy blunders, let’s start with pressuring Spain over wanting to prosecute Bush, Cheney, et al. with war crimes, move to letting Hillary bungle Russia and the almost complete capitulation to the machinations of the Chinese. Again, you’ve sensed a problem but you’ve failed to diagnose the actual causes that can be connected to State Dept. failures under the Obama Administration. Syria, Libya and the Arab Spring all have their roots firmly in their domestic soil.
The troopers have a point.
You? You’ve almost got a point.
============================
Obama doesn’t know what he’s doing. Go back to Hawaii and eat some pineapples. Saw Obama on the 39th floor at 230 South Dearborn in Chicago. Walked into his office once.
Do you know what. He can do it, and he can probably do it better than I can. Can you do it?
Why, yes, Matt. Yes I could were I so inclined. And I could do it a damn sight better than most in Washington because my ability to think doesn’t end at my pocketbook or the borders of my district. Thanks for asking.
Gene H. 1, October 9, 2012 at 10:18 pm
I don’t know what you mean by your pocketbook. I know his wife’s an attorney.
What Bron and a lot of critics are not taking into account, it is a lot easier to get into a war than out of one. After all, the chimpanzee who walks like a man got us into this mess, but it is going to take political, tactical and strategic thinking at a genius level to get us out. Traits which I doubt seriously that Romney has.
OS,
I agree.
Gene, I think you old do it too..but after I try first!
That should say “could” do li!
I am still under anesthesia! You could do it Gene!
I like to play, but you’re off the mark. I saw both of them. And their girls. 39th floor, 230 South Dearborn. The senior senator was on a different floor.
The cost has names and faces. Lest we forget, the latest are memorialized here. A father writes on his Facebook page today, “I just got word I lost my son today…I now know what a broken heart feels like.”
Until the year of his death, General Curtis LeMay got a letter from a grieving mother, reminding LeMay that he had sent her son to his death on the anniversary of the son’s death. She never got a reply.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/10/09/1141487/-IGTNT-I-now-know-what-a-broken-heart-feels-like
Otteray Scribe 1, October 10, 2012 at 12:25 am
I wasn’t in the Army, I was in the Navy.
The Navy guys will do the same thing.
“The United States has sent troops to Jordan to help improve its military capabilities in case the fighting in Syria spills onto its soil, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told reporters Wednesday in Brussels.”
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/world_now/2012/10/us-has-sent-troops-to-jordan-syria-border-panetta-says.html