Support the war in Iraq? Great! Your country needs you!

Politics International Politics
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Excellent blogging! In response to Fred Kagan’s call for a substantial increase in the number of troops in Iraq as being “critical” for achieving victory, Greenwald makes it very explicit why he thinks those who support this war now need to put their money where their mouthes are!

[quote]It is true that where there is an amply stocked volunteer military, it is natural and inevitable that many citizens will support a war in ways other than by enlisting. No additional troops were needed, for instance, at the time of the invasion of Afghanistan (or during the action in Kosovo), and there was thus no tension between supporting those wars and not fighting.

But the current situation is completely different. Even according to the war’s remaining advocates – particularly those who want to escalate in Iraq – there is a serious and harmful shortage of willing volunteers to fight in Iraq and to enable a more aggressive application of U.S. military force generally. So we do now have a situation where those who are cheering on more war and escalation really are needed not at the computer screen but on the battlefield, in combat. And their refusal to fight is actually impeding the plans of those on whom the President is relying for “Victory.”

As a result, it is now morally indefensible for those who are physically able to do so to advocate a “surge,” or even ongoing war in Iraq, without either volunteering to fight or offering a good reason why they are not doing so. One of the war’s key architects is sending out a desperate plea for volunteers in order to enable the U.S. to achieve “Victory” in Iraq. How can those who believe in the premise and cheer it on – all the while depicting themselves as strong and resolute – possibly justify not taking the necessary action to enable the U.S. to “win”?[/quote]

2

While stateside over the holidays, there was a protest going on by a bunch of grandmas opposed to the war in Iraq over by Rockefeller Center. Peaceful sorts holding candles and the like. Next to them were a couple of young guys in their 20s holding a counter-anti-war sign urging support for the Iraq war. I didn’t pay them much mind, but my dad (recently retired after pretty much a lifetime in uniform) made a beeline for them and told them if they like the war so much they ought to suit up straightaway and offered to take them straight to the recuitment center at Times Square.

The answer, as is to be commonly found throughout College Republicans nationwide was to say that they felt that their “service” in the United States was more valuable. :unamused:

In June of last year, Rep. Mike Pence talked with the College Republicans and posed some interesting questions that the current crop of young GOPpers doesn’t dare answer truthfully as they pursue their careers or political plans.

Life imitates art, perhaps:

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While I also had a father who served, I still cannot understand the need for war. It IMO sign of a weak leadership.

I believe that the USA in its last years of power.

4

Considering the number of older war supporters who have their age as an excuse, I should change the title of this post to:

Support the war in Iraq? Great! Your country needs you - OR YOUR CHILDREN

I half-want to send this blog to my cousins in Iowa. They’ve got hordes of young Republicans they could supply to the war effort they so firmly believe in…

5

Kagan has called on Bush to appeal to the nation’s youth to sign up for the great crusade in his speech tonight calling for escalation.

You’d think that with alll those highly-educated young Republican war-supporter Congressional aides, staffers and lobbyists losing their jobs in November, there would be a surge in applications at recruiting centers.

To quote fred smith “hahahahahaha!”

The Bush twins are too involved in romping through Latin America’s studs to get involved in something so lower-class; somehow Jeb’s kids can’t make it either.

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One of the funny things about the McGovern plan is its continuing reference to the costs of fighting the war versus the costs of fixing some of the things wrong in Iraq. With the costs of fighting the war with guns pegged at about $250,000,000 per day at current rates, it might make sense to have a “surge” in spending on the reconstruction of Iraq instead.

$50/day is a ton of money to the average Iraqi these days – we could employ 5 million Iraqis (about a fifth of the entire Iraqi population) on reconstruction work with that money. With police recruits getting only about $280/month and militias outbidding them in the market for men with guns, a boost in pay might well be enough to get Iraqis working on productive instead of destructive tasks.

Reconstruction is way behind, and it was flatly dumb to figure Halliburton was going to fix all the roads, schools and hospitals. As I’ve been saying since we turned away the entire Iraqi army and police force, we ought to be overpaying these people. The cost of a few extra bucks a month to some guys slinging shovels, weighed against the value of troop lives, munitions, and the loss of our ability to project military power in other sectors of the world because everybody knows we’re quagmired? No question that it’s a bargain.

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[quote=“mofangongren”]One of the funny things about the McGovern plan is its continuing reference to the costs of fighting the war versus the costs of fixing some of the things wrong in Iraq. With the costs of fighting the war with guns pegged at about $250,000,000 per day at current rates, it might make sense to have a “surge” in spending on the reconstruction of Iraq instead.

$50/day is a ton of money to the average Iraqi these days – we could employ 5 million Iraqis (about a fifth of the entire Iraqi population) on reconstruction work with that money. With police recruits getting only about $280/month and militias outbidding them in the market for men with guns, a boost in pay might well be enough to get Iraqis working on productive instead of destructive tasks.

Reconstruction is way behind, and it was flatly dumb to figure Halliburton was going to fix all the roads, schools and hospitals. As I’ve been saying since we turned away the entire Iraqi army and police force, we ought to be overpaying these people. The cost of a few extra bucks a month to some guys slinging shovels, weighed against the value of troop lives, munitions, and the loss of our ability to project military power in other sectors of the world because everybody knows we’re quagmired? No question that it’s a bargain.[/quote]

That’s an interesting idea. I agree we should be paying policeman and soldiers generous salaries…discourages them from working part-time for militias for extra money. Problem is, lots of militia fighters are ideologically motivated. Still, it may win over some of them.

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[quote=“gao_bo_han”]
That’s an interesting idea. I agree we should be paying policeman and soldiers generous salaries…discourages them from working part-time for militias for extra money. Problem is, lots of militia fighters are ideologically motivated. Still, it may win over some of them.[/quote]

Totally agree but the problem is that American businesses looting Iraq (US$8,800,000,000 unaccounted for I read yesterday) for all it is worth simply won’t do it. Their motive is profit, not altruism or an inate desire to help Iraq or the Iraqi people. Labour in many businesses is a significant portion of operational expenditure which of course eats into the bottom line for the corporate vultures. Interesting however, that some are willing to pay more to western workers in Iraq because of the danger and yet reward Iraqis with sod all.

I wonder how Bush’s US$1,000,000,000 job-creation programme for Iraqis will go down with America’s underclass/unemployed/under-priveleged or the still homeless down there in Louisiana?

What a genius ol’ Georgie Boy is. My goldfish shits greater intelligence than that presidential retard.

BroonAccountant

9

Well, there’s a survival instinct involved for the Sunnis… there are plenty of Shiites getting payback for the Saddam years on anybody with the wrong ethnic/sectarian name. There was previously a Sunni-based army and police force, not all of whom were rabid Baathists or murderers – but the Bush administration decided to sweep out everybody down to the guys standing at intersections directing traffic. With the Sunnis out, there hasn’t been a serious attempt to get a police or military force that represents the nation as a whole, which is how we got down to Saddam’s execution being a huge mess.

The sorts of sectarian shouts going on during Saddam’s execution, once televised and put out on the internet, put the nail in the coffin of the current government’s legitimacy. It had the look and smell of a lynching, and it didn’t have to be. The only equivalent I can imagine in the U.S. would be if the Texas governor presided over an execution of an African-American in which the guards were allowed to shout white-power slogans throughout.

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I am glad you see the hilarity. I too am looking forward to all those eager Democrats who are going to work in AIDS wards and live in prison and move to slums to better understand and support their pet causes! Go to town guys! Send me a postcard! Smirk.

Jealous of the Argentines are we? As to kids who cannot make it, I would have imagined that the Kennedy clan would have had first honors no matter how partisan the commentator oh and by the way hahhahahahahaha

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[quote=“fred smith”]
I am glad you see the hilarity. I too am looking forward to all those eager Democrats who are going to work in AIDS wards and live in prison and move to slums to better understand and support their pet causes! Go to town guys! Send me a postcard! Smirk.

Jealous of the Argentines are we? As to kids who cannot make it, I would have imagined that the Kennedy clan would have had first honors no matter how partisan the commentator oh and by the way hahhahahahahaha[/quote]

That is just another feeble attempt to obfuscate and detract from the issue which is why you fascist war-mongering, idealogical dipshits won’t put your money where your ever so big mouths are and go and sign up to share the glory and bask in the glow of your great leader George il-Bush and his cabal of Nazi nincompoops.

This website got you to go and sign up to vote so it is about time forumosa.com got you to go and don your battle-fatigues (they have new models now because involountary skid-marking of the trousers was becoming a problem amonst the Wal-Mart Warriors), head off to I-rack and blow some of these terrorist towel-headed scum bags back to where they come from which is where they already are but you should blow them anyway. That’d be right up your Haifa Street, eh, Frotty boy. JD can use his dinar surplus petty cash to bribe the crooked cops and TainanCowboy can make your Colby Jack cheese sandwiches every morning before he Googles his way through the Stalindad suburbs blasting neo-con blogspots at illiterate camel jockeys.

Amerikuh…fuck yeah!!!

BroonAssault

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[quote=“BroonAle”]
BroonAssault[/quote]

I’m guessing there are about 4 too many letters in your sig

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[quote=“BroonAle”]JD can use his dinar surplus petty cash to bribe the crooked cops and TainanCowboy can make your Colby Jack cheese sandwiches every morning before he Googles his way through the Stalindad suburbs blasting neo-con blogspots at illiterate camel jockeys.
Amerikuh…fuck yeah!!!
BroonAssault[/quote]

Big talk from a gender neutral cartoon character.

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[quote=“JMcNeill”][quote=“BroonAle”]
BroonAssault[/quote]

I’m guessing there are about 4 too many letters in your sig[/quote]

:laughing:

BroonAmused

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[quote=“TainanCowboy”][quote=“BroonAle”]JD can use his dinar surplus petty cash to bribe the crooked cops and TainanCowboy can make your Colby Jack cheese sandwiches every morning before he Googles his way through the Stalindad suburbs blasting neo-con blogspots at illiterate camel jockeys.
Amerikuh…fuck yeah!!!
BroonAssault[/quote]

Big talk from a gender neutral cartoon character.[/quote]

Razor-sharp wit once more from the chin-less one. Ee, you crack me up.

BroonAbraham

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[quote=“TainanCowboy”]

Big talk from a gender neutral cartoon character.[/quote]
Psst… it’s Papa Smurf. You’re not even doing your Saturday morning homework now, are you? :unamused:

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[quote=“Jaboney”][quote=“TainanCowboy”]

Big talk from a gender neutral cartoon character.[/quote]
Psst… it’s Papa Smurf. You’re not even doing your Saturday morning homework now, are you? :unamused:[/quote]
That is “Poppa Smurf.” Good heavens look at your pajamas!

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[quote=“Jaboney”][quote=“TainanCowboy”]

Big talk from a gender neutral cartoon character.[/quote]
Psst… it’s Papa Smurf. You’re not even doing your Saturday morning homework now, are you? :unamused:[/quote]

Well, you know, deep in the jungly wungly, all “gooks” wore black outfits and looked the same. One must have understanding of tired old perspective-experts having problems with discerning gender. It’s a common affliction but Bush may have cut funding to the VA for treatment of this disorder as more sufferers turn to the internet.

BroonAsexual

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Yes indeed.

Good. I am glad it was “feeble” because it was not my intention, ergo if I failed badly then so much the better.

Which is something that none of you mindless twats on the left really ever want to discuss.

I realize we are the ones with the ideas but I was unaware that the effect of these ideas was enough to require new spelling for ideological.

and we do have lots of that don’t we…

Why should we? You talk about no end of subjects under the sun. Why don’t you go stand under the sun therefore without a hat and see what happens. Please stand there for a lengthy time at least sufficiently long to require emergency brain surgery. Trust me. You will come out a much better person from the ordeal.

I am always ready to sign up to show my support. Thank God I don’t actually have to enlist!

alliteration doesn’t suit your writing style. I prefer your ignorant outbursts.

Think of it. You got one more person in America to vote for Bush in the last election. You should be oh so proud of yourself.

I usually wear underwear so I think skidmarking will be less of a problem for me and you know I never shop in Walmart. Do let me know what specials of the week are to be had. I do oh so enjoy living the lives of the mindless consumer vicariously. So much better than dealing with the real life nonsense of the mindless consumer by exchanging views with Jaboney.

What is that the name of your new book of tips on pool? By the way, have you read the shah’s new autobiography… in the same vein… on the same note…

It’s called.

I RAN Get it?

Blow them anyway? Been watching porn this afternoon?

Haifa street? Up it? is this some kind of new sexual jargon about which I am unfamiliar?

What no brie?

Is this some sort of vague attempt at humor? reference to Stalingrad? the World War II victories of the glorious American forces that finally gave Europe the peace and stability necessary to actually see Scots such as yourself getting food stuffs other than peat, ship shit and goat testicles?

and camel stomachs?

That’s right buckwheat. The world police are here and you’d better be f***ing scared. hahah

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Actually, Fred, a lot of Democrats do do stuff like that, myself included (my pet cause being animal welfare) - although I’d probably be a Libertarian if I thought the vote would count for anything. And anyway, our causes do not generally involve sending anyone off to kill or be killed - at least not lately.

How many times since 9/11 have we heard that Democrats are cowards, traitors, commies, etc. by A-holes like Hannity and Limbaugh? Well, since they are so ready to throw stones (even at former war heroes, unlike themselves), they ought to set a good example by getting to work for the country they so profess to love!