It looks like you're using an Ad Blocker.
Please white-list or disable AboveTopSecret.com in your ad-blocking tool.
Thank you.
Some features of ATS will be disabled while you continue to use an ad-blocker.
Originally posted by Voxel
Originally posted by DarthAmerica
You idealist are so amazing in how naive you are.
The funny thing is that you are both an idealist and naive yourself. Globalization is an ideal. Democracy is an ideal. Puppet governments are ideals.
Originally posted by DarthAmerica
Killing other humans is a part of our nature and very necessary at times. It's common throughout most species to kill each other when interest are threatened. This is just the way life is.
Wow. I guess you just have to find a way justify the murder of people who presented no threat to us in order to get some sleep at night.
Why are the corporate interests of the America Government a more valid reason to murder someone who did not provoke any attack than religious interests of a group of people far larger in number than the US population?
I am not proud of my government nor my military commanders when they in engage in actions that destroy that crucial link between the military and the citizenry.
Soldiers, simply by virtue of their job, do not have any superior understanding of:
National Politics
Foreign Relations
Morality
Corporations
National Interests
ect.
In fact, I would wager that the average soldier is well below average in their ability to understand the complexities of the warfare and welfare state.
Jon
Originally posted by Double Eights
What are you fighting for, DarthAmerica? What is your mission, what is the benefit of this war to America and the Constitution? How is this war "defending our freedoms."
I would like you to know that those Iraqi's your killing (the majority at least), would be Americans in the scenario of a Chinese or Russian invasion of the States. A large group of civilians defending their homeland from an invading force that wishes to occupy their soverign state.
Iraq posed no threat to America pre-invasion, they pose no threat post-invasion. They had no WMDs, no al-qaeda link, and we certainly did not liberate them. This war is absolutely unwarraned, and yet you have the audacity to come in here and expect us to praise you as a hero. How can we praise you as a hero when you've done nothing but destroy an foreign nation for the sole greed of the elite of our country?
Originally posted by DarthAmerica
What do you mean by that?
Originally posted by DarthAmerica
The people I fought were very much a threat.
Originally posted by DarthAmerica
Also, wars don't require a person to be a threat. Assuming that is naive. I can order a war simply to take by force something I don't have, kill for racial motivations or whatever.
Originally posted by DarthAmerica
What corporate interest? Name a specific instance otherwise this is just you repeating what you hear others say.
Originally posted by DarthAmerica
What broken link? My unit received tens of thousands of support letters from all over America and care packages by the ton from Americans all over. What broken link?
Originally posted by DarthAmerica
Wrong. Notice how I am communicating with you FROM A WARZONE. Soldiers have access to the same information you do and more. (...) I have an engineering degree and many of my fellow soldiers have degrees too. (...) A fair number might even actually agree with some of your points of view so by what measure are you saying we are "below average?"
Originally posted by DarthAmerica
If anybody is below average in their understanding it is the American Public who are too busy in their daily lives to learn about what we are doing on their behalf.
Originally posted by DarthAmerica
How many of you knew that Iraq just requested ASV and Abrams tanks for its Army? How many understand the implications of that?
Originally posted by Alxandro
Sure mistakes were made going into Iraq, everyone admits this, but even if the war had been carried out flawlessly the same pessimists, crtitics, terrorist sympathyzers and appeasers would be saying "the US has now got the art of war down to a science".
You just can't win with these people and their off topic comments because all they know how to do is gripe.
"Baghdad, Five Years On: Desperate Life And Failed Surge" is the title of this thread which means the issue is the surge itself, and YES it has been a success.
Originally posted by Alxandro"Baghdad, Five Years On: Desperate Life And Failed Surge" is the title of this thread which means the issue is the surge itself, and YES it has been a success.
Originally posted by Alxandro
You will never win at anything with such a pessimistic attitude.
BTW, do you spell it Kumbaya or Cumbaya?
Notice how I am communicating with you FROM A WARZONE. I have an engineering degree and many of my fellow soldiers have degrees too. Soldiers today are well aware of what is going on. A fair number might agree with some of your points of view . . How many of you knew that Iraq just requested ASV and Abrams tanks for its Army? How many understand the implications of that? Wrong.
Originally posted by Alxandro
reply to post by Voxel
You will never win at anything with such a pessimistic attitude.
BTW, do you spell it Kumbaya or Cumbaya?
Originally posted by donwhite
reply to post by DarthAmerica
Worse, State’s Farsi speaking employees sympathetic with the Persian traditions were shunted aside and put into other career paths. The author asserts we still are shamefully understaffed with few knowledgeable people which is compounding our problems with Iran. He mentioned a incident in W-DC that caused him to write that our current president did not know the difference between a Sunni and a Shia Muslim. A story which I believe.
Wrong. We have plenty of people who understand Persia. Particularly the President of The United States who ordered the surge when the "conventional wisdom" in 2006 was withdrawal was imminent. COMPLETELY disrupted the regional calculus and set the stage for the current US/Iranian progress.
We have backed the 10% in Vietnam, in Pakistan and now we have that much support in Iraq. Ten percent. The Iraq R&Fs. Rich and famous. Not a group for which I have any admiration here or there.
Wrong again. We back, fight and die for all Iraqis and they know it. I can't even count how many poor Iraqis my unit has helped ON PURPOSE and also individual soldiers who on their own did things for Iraqis. One time I'll never forget is when we were going on patrol. We had a bunch of toys we ordered and gave out the to local kids who usually come to get water or food from us when we pass by. The smiles and joy was priceless. Also, there is a particular stretch of road we opened up for the locals that was filled with IED's and insurgents the local population badly needed to live their lives and we gave it back to them completely safe to use. Following that the locals worked with us to keep it that way and even removed IED's at great risk to themselves so that we could pass safely. I can't get into too much detail about it other than that but I know our benefit to Iraq is by no means limited to the rich nd famous. The mere suggestion of it by someone who has never been here is so arrogant to defy belief!
I am personally pleased to see Iraq PM Nuri Al-Maliki got a big shot of testosterone after Bush43 was rebuked in the 2006 election. There is hope for Iraq. He (and Obama) are now asking for a time certain when the US Armed Forces will be out of Iraq. The hang-up right now is the Status of Forces agreement which no self- respecting sovereign county would sign-on to. Bush43 (and Blair) wanted sweetheart oil concessions for ExxonMobil and BP but the Iraqi are not going to do it. It seems pretty clear from over here that Baghdad has more friends in Tehran than it has in W-DC and they no longer give a dam what W-DC think! Years after we are long gone, they will still be neighbors. Iraq and Iran.
As an unreconstructed ANTI colonialist I am pleased. I do hope all Americans are able to get out of Iraq safely. Unfortunately for the Armed Forces, that is more up to politicians in W-DC than to anyone on the ground in Iraq. It may be we can finally repeal the Monroe Doctrine?
Originally posted by DarthAmerica
It's almost pointless to debate with people like this.
Originally posted by DarthAmerica
They are so convinced of themselves that any disagreement means "you are locked" in a box. Yet, most of these people rarely travel more than 50 miles from home except to commute and then only to work for 8 hours a day in a cubicle.
Originally posted by DarthAmerica
I would thing they should want to take up arms and liberate the government. Oh, but wait, people like this usually dont support the 2nd Amendment either...lol
Originally posted by DarthAmerica
All I want on the net is for one rational person to explain without any rhetoric and with some facts why they feel the way they do.
Originally posted by Voxel
Originally posted by DarthAmerica
It's almost pointless to debate with people like this.
I accept your admission of defeat.
When we disagree about the war, you tend to see the civilian as arrogant, lazy, or scared. Yet, I see the system as faulty and the soldier as nobly following orders. That is the very core of the disconnect.
The onus is on you to explain why waging a war with a country that did us no harm is right and not on us to explain why it is wrong.
I will give you one example of a rational fact so that we can help build a bridge between our (mis)understandings.
The half of the CIA that partakes in covert actions against governments around world without a declaration of war, is a threat to our very way of life and an affront to the sacrifice that the soldiers and patriots who died in the Revolutionary war made. That is a fact. There can be no debate if you choose to rationally look at what the CIA does around the world and the very strict limitations imposed on government power by the Constitution. The CIA and the governments actions in this regard are mostly unlawful.
Jon