Zebo gave you the straight answer, I gave you a joke answer. Sorry if you don't like either of them, but I'm not responsible for your entertainment.
Nor am I responsible for your or Zebo's ability to comprehend a simple premise. I'll elaborate below.
The frequent suggestion that one must have military service to [ insert today's topic ] is both specious and offensive. As a citizen and a taxpayer, I have every right to have and express my opinions about any matters of public interest.
The question of military service does have significant bearing on whether or not someone is capable of comprehending what is being done in the arena of national security. If you understand the way the military works, if you understand to a degree military tactics and strategy, if you understand what's it like to serve in uniform, you have a much greater understanding of how AND WHY the decisions being made. If not, you're simply spouting a baseless opinion. Subsequently, when you (specifically, by implication, or generally) critisize certain policymakers or even completely irrelevent radio talk show hosts for their lack of military service while claiming their decisions (or opinions in the case of the talk show host) on national security are flawed, you only turn the mirror on yourself, which I find highly amusing.
Now, I can certainly accept that some people may be knowledgeable about military and national security affairs by virtue of their background without military service, say if someone had worked in DIA or CIA for awhile or even for a defense contractor of some sort. I doubt that's the case here either.
If you can't accept that, I question whether you are well-suited to be defending our Constitution.
I took an oath to defend the Constitution and the citizens of the United States, ignorant, stupid and otherwise.
In spite of what you or others might try to imply, I have tremendous respect for our military, and for the men and women who serve. This does not require that I agree with every decision and every action. It isn't an all-or-nothing proposition.
Who said it was? You seem to be awfully touchy on the subject.
I support law enforcement ... but not unconditionally. I support our military ... but not unconditionally. I do not confuse my overall support with my right, my obligation, to have my own informed opinions about specific actions, decisions, and policies. In my opinion, the Bush administration's urge to send young Americans to their death is suspect when they, themselves, so carefully avoided military service. If you disagree with this, I'll be happy to debate the issue on its merits. I will not entertain some holier-than-thou notion that I have no right to an opinion just because I didn't serve in the military either.
But, do see it? You mention it right there. "Informed opinion". The question of military service does have bearing on how "informed" an opinion is. Further, you blithely overlook the military service records of other advisors within the administration and by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who I would assume you would not recognize as having avoided military service. Even moreso, the Bush administration does not have an "urge" to send Americans to their deaths, or shall I remind you of the various attacks this country in the last decade or so?
Regardless, the notion that people who have no military service background can turn around and critisize others for not having one on the basis that the critics' uninformed opinions are somehow superior in areas of national security could only have been cooked up in the jumbled minds of the Bush hating crowd.
Just for clarification, the book that I mentioned above was written by a Vietnam war vet and was critical of the war
coming from his perspective of the war after participating in it, not based on his political views of the administration.