A question aimed at the anti-war crowd

[TallBill]

If you do not support the war, why not? Is it under your own opinion, or are you just following along?

Last night a few soldiers were watching CNN in disgust of the way that the news handles the war in Iraq. Our conclusion was that politicians are merely "anti-war" because that is what the news says that general public wants. The news repeatedly shows the "anti-war" politicians because it keeps viewers watching, which leads to a growing rate of population that is "anti-war", merely because that is all that they see on tv! It is a vicious cycle of an uninformed populace. No politician elected into office in 2008 will end the war, because it is growing more and more necessary. Don't be decieved about a pull-out.

Now I'm not saying that everyone that is anti-war hasn't formed their own opinion. And I'm not saying that our thoughts on the subject are correct. However, there was a 30 second piece yesterday on a soldier that threw himself on a grenade to save his buddies and will surely will some award. Then the next 3 hours were about Anna Nicole Smith. Some awesome support that we're getting. Not even presidents dying get that much media.

And the daily death tolls are rediculous. Roughly 4000 soldiers have died in OEF and OIF since late 2001, over 5 years. Look at the Civil War, World War I, World War II, Korea, and Vietnam, and realize how incredibly high their death tolls were daily.

Lastly, any media depicting a soldier that doesn't want to be over here is completely biased. Who in their right mind would want to leave their family and home to be put in the 115 degree desert for an entire year, regardless of the mission or reason? Well, I do, but its pretty basic human instinct not to.

Anyways, just a few of our thoughts from over here. Life is decent, and its about to get real hot. 6 months left!

 

[cliftonite]

Originally posted by: TallBill
If you do not support the war, why not? Is it under your own opinion, or are you just following along?

Last night a few soldiers were watching CNN in disgust of the way that the news handles the war in Iraq. Our conclusion was that politicians are merely "anti-war" because that is what the news says that general public wants. The news repeatedly shows the "anti-war" politicians because it keeps viewers watching, which leads to a growing rate of population that is "anti-war", merely because that is all that they see on tv! It is a vicious cycle of an uninformed populace. No politician elected into office in 2008 will end the war, because it is growing more and more necessary. Don't be decieved about a pull-out.

Now I'm not saying that everyone that is anti-war hasn't formed their own opinion. And I'm not saying that our thoughts on the subject are correct. However, there was a 30 second piece yesterday on a soldier that threw himself on a grenade to save his buddies and will surely will some award. Then the next 3 hours were about Anna Nicole Smith. Some awesome support that we're getting. Not even presidents dying get that much media.

And the daily death tolls are rediculous. Roughly 4000 soldiers have died in OEF and OIF since late 2001, over 5 years. Look at the Civil War, World War I, World War II, Korea, and Vietnam, and realize how incredibly high their death tolls were daily.

Lastly, any media depicting a soldier that doesn't want to be over here is completely biased. Who in their right mind would want to leave their family and home to be put in the 115 degree desert for an entire year, regardless of the mission or reason? Well, I do, but its pretty basic human instinct not to.

Anyways, just a few of our thoughts from over here. Life is decent, and its about to get real hot. 6 months left!

Well the problem with the war is what was the purpose of it? It was started based on cherry picked evidence that supposedly showed Sadam as having WMDs. However none were found.

Then it went to Al Qaeda and the haven that Iraq was supposedly providing them with. This has also proven to be false. So what exactly is the reason for the deaths of those soldiers in Iraq? To free the Iraqis from their oppresive leader?

If that is the case, will we be changing oppresive regimes every where? In North Korea? Iran? Some of the countries in Africa? We should have concentrated on Afghanistan and let Sadam to rot.

 

[dphantom]

Thank you for your service.
Maj., USAFR (ret)

 

[Arcex]

I don't support the reasons we went into war, now that we're there we are stuck in it, no doubt about it. I wish I knew of a way to resolve this quickly and easily but we are obviously way past the point of no return.

I just wish we could do something about Bush and Company and how they forced the war upon the U.S., the more I read about it the more convinced I am that they did this just to make money for themselves. I don't have an exact statistic on this but the Bush family has made a fortune since he went into office from oil sales alone, add on the money I'm sure he's getting from other sources...

Back to the original topic, yeah, anti-war is the popular thing now so that's all we're gonna hear about, but there is no feasible way for us to leave Iraq anytime soon. I think we will be looking at a permanent peace keeping force there, it's just a question of how many troops will be required in the long run for that peace keeping force.

 

[1EZduzit]

We never should have invaded Iraq, now people like you have to put there asses on the line, and for what, to do the Iraqi's fighting for them?? By now, the Iraqis should easily have had a large enough force trained to defend themsleves.

 

[Bowfinger]

I didn't support this "war" (really more of a unilateral attack of aggression, IMO) from the very beginning, back when it was an unpopular position and even I assumed Iraq still had some remaining WMD capabilities. Why? Because I saw no evidence that it was (1) necessary for the defense of the United States, and (2) that it was so urgent that we couldn't wait for the U.N. inspections to proceed and either build support with the rest of the world or thoroughly refute the claims of the Bush administration.

I continue to oppose it because it was built on lies, has cost hundreds of thousands of innocent lives, will cost somewhere over one trillion dollars, has made America less safe by feeding Arab hatred of America and by giving groups like al Qaeda enough recruiting material to last two or three generations, and has undermined America's position as leader of the free world. As far as I can tell, everything about our invasion of Iraq has been bad for America. The only positive from it was displacing Saddam Hussein, though that was surely not worth the cost, nor is there any guarantee he won't eventually be replaced by someone just as bad.

That said, I have all the respect in the world for the men and women like you who are willing to lay their lives on the line, doubly so when the mission is so unpopular. Be safe.

 

[TallBill]

I appreciate the thought a civility in the responses so far. I'll check back in later. And no need to thank me, I enjoy this line of work.

 

[1EZduzit]

Originally posted by: TallBill
I appreciate the thought a civility in the responses so far. I'll check back in later. And no need to thank me, I enjoy this line of work.

You may enjoy doing it but I don't enjoy wasting our youth or our tax dollars on what seems to me to have been a lost cause from the get-go.

 

[Harvey]

Originally posted by: TallBill
If you do not support the war, why not? Is it under your own opinion, or are you just following along?

I've been against this war since the beginning. I fully understand that war can be necessary. Al Qaeda attacked us on 9-11, the Taliban gave them shelter in Afghanistan, and we were right to go after them, there. The Bushwhackos pulled a bait and switch by pulling forces out of Afghanistan to invade Iraq. Every reason they've given for doing so was a lie, and they've about blown the job of finishing the right battle to the point where the Taliban has regained a lot of strength and again poses a threat to Afghanistan and to us.

I know I'm repeating myself, but this song of mine is the best answer I have for your questions:

Who's Watching Over Who's Watching Over You?

Words and Music by Harvey Rubens
Copyright 2006

Verse 1:

I see men looking over their shoulder,
Running hard just trying to stay alive,
And they say that it's gonna get colder before it gets better.

At the time of the crime, who believed us?
We all took a fall on the ride,
When the powers that be had deceived us to leave us the debtor.

Chorus:

And who's watching over who's watching over you?
Tell me who's telling you what to do what to do?

Verse 2:

All the forces of war were compelling,
And blacker than Colin, the Knight,
And the lies they were telling, they sell in the name of their savior.

And they silence the voices arising,
From those who would show us the light,
With their guys with their spies in the skies watching you and your neighbor.

Chorus:

Verse 3:

I see men who are trying to squeeze us,
And taking whatever they can,
While they buy those who try to appease us with scraps from their table.

It gets harder each day to break even.
This wasn't a part of my plan.
Time is right to be fighting or leaving this tower of Babel.

Chorus:

 

[ntdz]

It's hard to blame anyone for being anti-war, war is an ugly thing, a very ugly thing. When you start thinking about the brutality of it, it's amazing the west, as civilized as it is, participates in such things.

The fact that Iraq is going very poorly right now only adds fuel to the fire of the anti-war movement. I can understand why people want to pull out of Iraq, but I think it'd be a huge mistake to pull out now and leave the country to the insurgents. If we can at least try to quell the violence one more time using a strategy we haven't used, I believe we owe it to ourselves and the Iraqis to do it.

 

[blackllotus]

I am against the war because it is virtually unwinnable. We are fighting a stateless enemy that cannot be killed off. Every insurgent we kill justs make more people join their cause, and fighting a war of attrition like we have for the past few years has proven itself ineffective at controlling them. To control the insurgency requires many soldiers than we are willing to commit.

 

[Tom]

my anti-war stance is something like this..

our military hasn't failed in any way, but we are wasting our time as long as we keep doing what we're doing. however, there's little chance anything will change until we have a new administration.

At that point I think we have a couple of options.

1. pull out, hope for the best, but plan for a likely military return once the dust settles. If Al Queda is still standing. Personally, I think the Shiites and Kurds will kick their asses, if we get out of the way.

2. go big. really big. This will only work if we can get some help from the rest of the world, which is impossible as long as GW Bush is President. I mean 500,000 troops, no more than half of them ours. That's the only way to secure Iraq, if the Iraqis can't do it themselves. Personally, I think the Iraqis will do much better than we think if we leave what happens in their country up to them.

 

[Gigantopithecus]

Cliff's:
I don't support the war in Iraq because it is a sham that does nothing more than give money hand over fist to the military industrial complex & well-connected megacorporations while wasting hundreds of billions of American taxpayer dollars & thousands of American lives.

The Whole Story:
We were told this war is part of the larger war on terror. 9/11 was perpetrated by Al Qaeda, which is lead by Osama bin Laden. In 1998, bin Laden issued a fatwa stating that America is guilty of the following grievances against Middle Eastern Muslims:
1. The US exploits the oil resources of the Middle East.
2. The US props up puppet regimes in the Middle East that are apostatic.
3. These puppet regimes & monarchies are brutally repressive of their own people.
4. The US maintains an enormous military presence on the Arabian Peninsula to enforce its will, which is an affront to Muslim Holy Law.
5. The US deliberately maintains disunity among Arab states, which weakens them as a political force.
6. The US supports Israel's occupation of Palestine.

Any person with a functional knowledge of the recent history of the Middle East who is also somewhat objective would have a difficult time arguing against any of these points. I've never seen anyone argue against them convincingly.

So, what does the US do to keep Al Qaeda from continuing to blow us up? Easy - pull out of the Middle East & force Israel to broker a two state solution with the Palestinians. That's easier than it sounds, since our economy (not to mention the world's economy) runs on oil, & the Israelis have offered a two state solution at least once but the Palestinians rejected it 'cause it didn't guarantee their right of return. That's two problems, first things first:

1. Develop alternative energy technologies that decrease our dependance upon Middle Eastern oil. Sounds expensive, right? Well, I'd bet $300,000,000,000 & the effort of the nation would've gone a loooong way towards accomplishing this goal - not to mention giving us an enormous technological edge over the rest of the world - and making this country a lot greener. Once we're no longer dependant upon Middle Eastern oil, we can pull out our troops & let the people of the Middle East do whatever they want. Maybe they'll do terrible things to each other - but we don't need their oil anymore - so who cares? Darfur ring a bell? Pardon my being blunt, but lots of terrible things happen around the world & we don't care because we don't have any interests in those areas of the world. Those who doubt our ability to wean ourselves off of oil would do well to remember the Manhattan Project, and the fact that a number of these technologies are already developed, & are now waiting for refinement & large-scale deployment. Would it be easy? No, but it wouldn't be any harder than the mess we're in now, and we'd be doing something constructive in America, not mucking about halfway around the world.

2. The Israeli/Palestinian issue is stickier. But it is an issue that could be resolved diplomatically - meaning cheaply & with minimal loss of life. Israel knows its only real friend is the US, no matter how much they protest, we could force them to guarantee the Palestinians' right of return.

Where did I mention toppling Saddam Hussein? That's why I don't support the war in Iraq. I'm not convinced a unilateral pullout of Iraq right now and its resultant ensuing chaos is that much worse than 'staying the course'. Right now our troops are keeping the lid on a religiously-motivated civil war that would boil over without our presence. I'm not sure how they're helping win the war on terror.

 

[jjones]

I supported the war but not the subsequent management of it. Saddam was an issue but not a pressing one. The US should have finished up in Afghanistan and then moved on to settle up with Saddam. I knew America would eventually go at it in Iraq because Saddam was intentionally exacerbating the existing situation. There were a lot of foolish mistakes in handling the operation; from not enough forces, to disbanding the Iraqi army, to underestimating the threats posed by factions and insurgents. The whole thing couldn't have been handled any worse if it were in the hands of the Three Stooges. Fortunately, the professional men and women in the services have done their jobs extraordinarily well throughout this mess.

I hold Bush responsible for the precipitous involvement and Rumsfeld responsible for screwing the pooch on the ground, and whoever else was involved in managing this affair into its current state of near civil war.

 

[Estrella]

I have never been one for war, any war.

"We shall perhaps at least learn the noblest lesson of all, that man must not fight man, but must make war only on the obstacles that nature offers to the triumph of man."-Will Durant on Baconian Philosophy

 

[Gigantopithecus]

Originally posted by: Tom
2. go big. really big. This will only work if we can get some help from the rest of the world, which is impossible as long as GW Bush is President. I mean 500,000 troops, no more than half of them ours. That's the only way to secure Iraq, if the Iraqis can't do it themselves. Personally, I think the Iraqis will do much better than we think if we leave what happens in their country up to them.

I agree this is the only other alternative to a unilateral, immediate pullout. This 20,000 troop 'surge' is nothing more than an inadequate escalation of the same tactics that aren't working. We put a quarter million - or a half million - troops in Iraq, we'll clean it up in a hurry.

But given the choice between rationing & a draft & running away like we did in Vietnam, what do you think the American people would choose?

 

[DaveSimmons]

I supported the invasion of Afghanistan and removal of the Taliban. There was a clear reason, good intelligence, and a clear goal.

I opposed the invasion of Iraq before it happened, because even the slanted intelligence cherry-picked by the Bush administration was unconvincing to me and I didn't think it was going to work to free a populace that didn't want democracy enough to take it themselves.

If search worked I could find you an old pre-invasion post where I contrasted the Iraqis with the Russians who kept Boris Yeltsin as a democratic leader even after a near-coup.

I'm not happy to be proven right, and I'm not happy that our commander in chief has bungled so badly as to leave Iraq in a civil war even after spending so many American and Iraqi lives (plus hundreds of billions of deficit dollars).

I oppose continuing our occupation on its present terms, and the surge is not a real change, because I don't think it will accomplish much beyond wasting more lives and billions.

 

[Gaard]

I remember way back in '02 I was telling Etech and others that Bush had a hard-on for going to war with Iraq and that we were going to do it no matter what. To this day, I don't know why he (Bush) was so eager to attack, but it was very obvious that he WANTED this war. I don't know how some people didn't see that. I don't know how people couldn't comprehend that he was using 9/11 as a tool to get the support he needed. Hell, to this day, people say crap like "We are in Iraq for what they did to us on 9/11".

To answer your question: it's not that people are anti-war, it's that people are anti-Iraqwar. Don't get me wrong, I know there are those who are against war period, but I think I speak for the vast majority of the anti-Iraqwar people when I say that this particular war was BS from the very beginning. Our men and women are being killed and injured for this 'unnecessary' war that the American public was conned (and scared) into supporting.

It ticks me off when I hear people say that our soldiers are dying for this country. That's not true, they're dying for W.

I don't have the answers. I wish I did. I wish SOMEBODY did so our guys could come home. But I refuse to keep quiet and stop bitching about W and Iraq and the way that r@tb@stard handled this(his) fiasco simply because I don't have 'a better plan'. Hell, any plan is better than "stay the course".

I'm not 'antiwar'. I'm 'antiIraqwar'. I'm against this war 100%. Yet I hope our guys and girls over there get home safe and sound. I hope they fulfill their duties without bloodshed and without any harm coming to them. I hope no more bodybags have to be used in this f-up of all f-ups.

I'm against this war and I support our troops.

 

[Aimster]

There is no reason for us to be inside Iraq.

Saddam was not a brutal man (the way the media portrayed him). The U.S made him brutal. They signed off on him to become brutal. If Saddam needed to be removed from power because of his brutality then the entire Regan administration should be hanged as well.
Unfortunately , Regan is honored in this country and he is highly respected.

Also Saddam never armed anyone to begin with so the first claim of WMD was total bogus B.S. Every Middle Eastern nation has a chemical weapons program. Might as well invade the entire M.E, including Israel as well. Call up the draft.

Sure, Saddam was a bad man in 1991 by invading Kuwait. The world bitch slapped him for it and his army was turned into dust. He learned he was an idiot and he felt ashamed. His generals felt like idiots. However, I guess it is OK for Saddam to invade Iran but not OK for Saddam to invade Kuwait.

U.S should have never got involved in the M.E, but for some reason the U.S feels a need to be the M.E govt. police. As a result the entire region is poop.

 

[ntdz]

Originally posted by: Aimster
There is no reason for us to be inside Iraq.

Saddam was not a brutal man (the way the media portrayed him). The U.S made him brutal. They signed off on him to become brutal. If Saddam needed to be removed from power because of his brutality then the entire Regan administration should be hanged as well.
Unfortunately , Regan is honored in this country and he is highly respected.

Also Saddam never armed anyone to begin with so the first claim of WMD was total bogus B.S. Every Middle Eastern nation has a chemical weapons program. Might as well invade the entire M.E, including Israel as well. Call up the draft.

Sure, Saddam was a bad man in 1991 by invading Kuwait. The world bitch slapped him for it and his army was turned into dust. He learned he was an idiot and he felt ashamed. His generals felt like idiots. However, I guess it is OK for Saddam to invade Iran but not OK for Saddam to invade Kuwait.

U.S should have never got involved in the M.E, but for some reason the U.S feels a need to be the M.E govt. police. As a result the entire region is poop.

You're living in a fantasy world. Anyone who uses chemical weapons on his own people is brutal. Oh, and there is no other region in the world more important for the US to be more involved in. Our entire country relies on oil, and if we were to lose our oil supplies our country would be crippled.

 

[Aimster]

Originally posted by: ntdz

Originally posted by: Aimster
There is no reason for us to be inside Iraq.

Saddam was not a brutal man (the way the media portrayed him). The U.S made him brutal. They signed off on him to become brutal. If Saddam needed to be removed from power because of his brutality then the entire Regan administration should be hanged as well.
Unfortunately , Regan is honored in this country and he is highly respected.

Also Saddam never armed anyone to begin with so the first claim of WMD was total bogus B.S. Every Middle Eastern nation has a chemical weapons program. Might as well invade the entire M.E, including Israel as well. Call up the draft.

Sure, Saddam was a bad man in 1991 by invading Kuwait. The world bitch slapped him for it and his army was turned into dust. He learned he was an idiot and he felt ashamed. His generals felt like idiots. However, I guess it is OK for Saddam to invade Iran but not OK for Saddam to invade Kuwait.

U.S should have never got involved in the M.E, but for some reason the U.S feels a need to be the M.E govt. police. As a result the entire region is poop.

You're living in a fantasy world. Anyone who uses chemical weapons on his own people is brutal. Oh, and there is no other region in the world more important for the US to be more involved in. Our entire country relies on oil, and if we were to lose our oil supplies our country would be crippled.

If he is brutal then the U.S is brutal for supplying him with the chemical weapons.

So are you saying the U.S is brutal??

Is that what you are doing since I live in a fantasy world?

 

[Rainsford]

My problem with the pro-war stance is that it often seems like that hyphenated word encapsulates the entirety of the pro-war position. There is no plan for victory, and for that matter, no real definition of victory. I'm "anti-war" by default because the debate is so superficial and stupid. In other words, the entire debate is about being "pro-war" or "anti-war", not about WHY you would take that particular position. So far the pro-war crowd hasn't given me any reason to support their side of the debate.

TallBill's post, while I'm sure it wasn't intended to be offensive, is exactly what I'm talking about. He and his military buddies are upset with the anti-war crowd. Fair enough, but they aren't upset because they know we're winning and don't understand why the anti-war folks don't think so. No, they are upset because the anti-war folks are anti-war, and that's bad because you should be pro-war. It isn't a matter of someone with more information convincing someone who is simply misguided, it's way more like religion than rational debate. The pro-war folks have taken up their position because they think it's the patriotic thing to do, then demand the rest of us fall into line. When we ask perfectly reasonable questions about just how we're going to WIN the war, we're branded as defeatists or worse.

Now I hate to be the guy who tries to read the mind of his ideological opponents, mostly because those guys tend to get it wrong. But in this case I have pretty good supporting evidence. I follow this debate pretty closely, and I have yet to observe ANY pro-war person tell me why I would want to support this war beyond attacks on my patriotism. Sure, there is plenty of doom and gloom about the terrible things that could happen unless we "free" Iraq, and I don't disagree with some of them, but not a one of them has demonstrated just how this war is going to achieve that goal. I'm "anti-war" for the same reason I'm against funding an expedition to search for Morlocks at the center of the earth, I don't think it's going to work, and not a single person in favor of the idea has managed to convince me otherwise.

By the way, if there is any common ground I can find with the OP, it's certainly the priorities of what the media covers. I don't think they are liberally biased, I think they're stupid. Anna Nicole Smith deserved MAYBE 5 minutes right after she died, but there seems to be enough going on in the word that we shouldn't have to fill day after day with "coverage" of the death of some B-list celebrity. And even the war coverage is pretty terrible even when it IS on. Again, not because of liberal bias, but because the media is way more focused on turning it into entertainment with theme music and a flashy logo. Isolated incidents (both good and bad) receive coverage when there is a "hook", but virtually no attempt is made to paint an accurate picture of what's going on. Which might explain why some folks are convinced Iraq is basically no worse off than any big city in the US, while others are convinced that it's like the bad old days in Lebanon.

 

[irwincur]

It is the media stupid...

Ever since the dawn of the modern media they have been the ones pushing the buttons, leading opinion, and swaying politicians. A daily poll is enough to change the entire character of DC overnight.

The media are the first to beat the drums of war. The run up to Iraq was less about what Bush was saying and more about what the media was playing. They were essentially fully behind the war and used their soap box to push the Bush viewpoint on the nation. Heading into war, there was significant political and public support. Actually, the run up to this war mirrored the media operations that successfully lead to the Spanish American war, a war that most historians after the fact attribute almost entirely to a terror attack (or now a known accident) and combat between two relatively uninvolved nations.

Then as the war dragged on, the media saw an opportunity to relive the glory days of Vietnam. After all, nothing gets more public attention than anti-war rallies and terrible war news - except for the war itself.

So, this is the cycle. Wait long enough and it will all happen again, and again. The media cannot live without war, and in many ways forces it upon us. So when those that are willing to push blame on Bush - just look at the role that your local media giants played. I can guarantee that if anyone was blatantly lying to the nation about anything it was them.

 

[DealMonkey]

Ah yes the media. A wingnut's most favorite target. Wah! Cry me a river. Build a bridge. Get over it.

 

[clipperfixer]

TallBill,
Thanks for your service. I am not antiwar. I have many friends in the service and that have been there. What they tell me is greatly different than what I hear from the media. All I am gonna say.