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Nickdfresh
01-01-2007, 03:04 AM
Time to Reflect As Iraq Toll Hits 3,000
http://hosted.ap.org/photos/N/NY40012281706-big.jpg
By ALLEN G. BREED
The Associated Press
Sunday, December 31, 2006; 8:43 PM

ARLINGTON, Va. -- Perhaps no place illustrates the toll of the Iraq war more vividly than Section 60 of Arlington National Cemetery. In this "garden of stone," in ruler-straight rows, rest one-tenth of the Iraq war's American dead, whose number has reached 3,000.

Privates lie beside officers. Soldiers beside Marines. Muslim troops beside Christians and those of other faiths.

Many were seasoned veterans, but most _ 60 percent _ never reached age 25. Like Marine Sgt. Adam L. Cann of Davie, Fla., killed when he tried to prevent a suicide bombing three weeks shy of his 24th birthday.

Some died in fierce battles, trading bullets and rockets with a flesh-and-blood foe. But as the insurgency gained momentum in the past year, almost half of the servicemen and women fell to a faceless enemy, victims of remote-detonated IEDs, improvised explosive devices. Like Army National Guard Sgt. Duane Dreasky of Novi, Mich.

Each branch of service is represented here, though the Army has taken two-thirds of the Iraq war losses. Men like Spc. Matthew E. Schneider, a communications wiz who was found dead in his bunk, one of the 20 percent classified as non-hostile casualties.

There are other grim statistics: More than two dozen fell at age 18; 62 were women; nearly one-quarter of those who died came from just three states, California, Texas and New York, according to casualty figures, which also show recent monthly death totals climbing to levels not seen since the war's early days.

The grim milestone was crossed on the final day of 2006 and at the end of the deadliest month for the American military in Iraq in the past 12 months. At least 111 U.S. service members were reported to have died in December.

Each of the fallen resting here on a grassy slope facing the Washington Monument could stand for many others _ traditional heroes decorated for acts "above and beyond the call of duty," and those whose families say their heroism consisted of putting on their country's uniform during a time of war.

Arlington honors each with a glistening 232-pound Vermont marble headstone marked with the most basic of information _ and a number.

Cann occupies grave No. 8310.

Dreasky lies down the row in space No. 8407.

And Schneider has marker No. 8422.

Here are the stories behind those numbers.

___

In his last e-mail home, Adam Cann wrote his dad in Florida about some easy money he'd just won.

The Marine sergeant had made a wager with Cpl. Brendan Poelaert on the New Year's Day 2006 Miami Dolphins-New England Patriots game; even a rare drop kick couldn't stop Miami from pulling off a 28-26 victory.

"brendan is a big pats fan," Cann wrote from Ramadi, Iraq. "and we bet 100$ on the game. haha!!!"

Cann's grandfather was a Navy corpsman in World War II, and the boy spent many hours listening to stories in the family's "war room" _ a den festooned with weapons and flags. Looking for a "real challenge" after graduation from South Plantation (Fla.) High School in 2000, Adam followed his older brother into the Marines.

Tattooed over his heart was the Latin motto from the Cann family coat of arms: "Perimus Licitus" _ which can be translated as "let us die for things legitimate."

Cann went to military police school and later to the service's elite K-9 training center _ where he met his canine teammate, Bruno, at Camp Pendleton, Calif., in December 2002.

The German shepherd's bomb-sniffing abilities were unquestioned, but Bruno was skittish around people. He had none of the attack instincts required of a true military working dog.

"That's a dog that can't be fixed," thought Jason Cannon, a friend.

But by the time they were ready for deployment to Iraq in the spring of 2004, Bruno was as fierce a warrior as his handler.

"He transformed that dog from nothing to a great police K-9...," Cannon says. "They were a really tight team."

Still, beneath Cann's body armor and bravado beat the heart of a clown. Cannon still chuckles when he recalls the time his friend poured sour goat's milk into their interpreter's boots, among other practical jokes.

In 2005, Cann re-upped, volunteering for a second tour in Iraq. He and Bruno were sent to Ramadi with the 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force, attached to the Army's 109th Infantry Regiment.

Poelaert, of East Kingston, N.H., was on his first tour of duty, with his Belgian Malinois dog, and he looked up to Cann. "He really taught me how ... to be a good Marine, I guess," the 22-year-old says. "He was fearless in everything he did."

On Jan. 5, those two and another handler were at the old Ramadi Glass and Ceramic Works, where close to 1,000 Iraqi police recruits were awaiting screening.

Suddenly, Bruno began barking ferociously at one man in line. Cann rushed over to confront him.

The next thing Poelaert remembers is waking up in the dust, covered in blood. About five yards away, Cann lay dead, the critically injured Bruno resting protectively on his partner's chest.

The man in line had been wearing a vest packed with 40 pounds of explosives and ball bearings. Forcing the suicide bomber to detonate his load prematurely, Cann took the blast's full force.

An Army lieutenant colonel and five dozen others also died. Poelaert's entire right side was pockmarked with shrapnel, but he says Cann's sacrifice saved his life.

"He saved a lot of people that day," Poelaert says. "We always had each other's backs, and that day he paid the ultimate price so I'd survive."

Cann was awarded a posthumous Bronze Star with a combat "V" device for valor. Officials say he is the first K-9 handler killed in action since the Vietnam War.

Back at Camp Pendleton, Bruno has fully recovered and has been assigned to a new handler. Poelaert's injuries will force him to leave the Marines.

On his cross-country drive back to New England, he will make a detour to Arlington to pay his respects _ and to finally make good on that bet.

___

Years of football and jiujitsu had taken a toll on Duane Dreasky's knees. But when the recruiters told him he was ineligible to serve, he bombarded local officials with letters until they finally let him enlist in the Michigan Army National Guard.

Twenty-one percent of those lost in Iraq were in the Guard or Reserve, none more determined than the man known as "Big D."

When the beefy martial-arts instructor was told that his weight didn't present "a good image for an NCO," he went on a crash diet, ran with a 40-pound rucksack and lost about 50 pounds.

Dreasky's wife, Mandeline, was also in the Guard and was severely injured during a 2003 deployment to Kuwait. But her husband had waited more than 10 years for his chance to serve, and she didn't stand in his way.

Dreasky begged his way into a 13-month tour at Guantanamo Bay, then almost immediately badgered his superiors into letting him join Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 125th Infantry Regiment, on its deployment to Iraq. Once there, the 31-year-old sergeant acted more like a new recruit, constantly asking his superiors, "Anything else need to be done, boss?"

And so it was on the morning of Nov. 21, 2005.

A group of eight Humvees was heading out into al-Habbaniyah. Dreasky was supposed to be off duty to give a younger forward observer a chance to learn the ropes, but he managed to pester his weightlifting buddy, Sgt. Matthew Webber, into giving another guy the day off.

As they prepared the vehicles, Dreasky, Webber and Staff Sgt. Michael Haney made plans to meet at the gym after chow for a workout. Before they parted, Dreasky flashed his trademark smile and uttered a favorite line from the movie "Gladiator": "Strength and honor."

The day's mission was to take "atmospherics" in town and to bait insurgents _ who'd been sowing the streets with improvised explosive devices _ into making a move. They already had.

The Humvees were returning to base after about an hour's work when two bombs, buried about a foot beneath the road's surface, exploded. With a muffled WHUMP-WHUMP, Dreasky's vehicle burst into flames.

Spc. John Dearing died instantly. The remaining four were burned almost beyond recognition.

Despite excruciating pain, Dreasky did not cry out. Instead, he was obsessed with finding his rifle, so it wouldn't be left behind for the enemy.

Dreasky was evacuated with the other wounded. That night, Staff Sgt. Mark "Doc" Russak, the unit's chief medic, prayed in the camp's makeshift chapel, then returned to his bunk, where he captured the torment of the moment in his journal.

"I don't think the men of Bravo could take another death right now," he wrote, "and I know it would crush me."

But the deaths would keep coming: Sgt. Spencer Akers in December; Sgt. Joshua Youmans, who never got to hold the daughter born during his deployment, in March; Webber in April.

Dreasky, who was not told of the others' deaths, battled to recover at San Antonio's Brooke Army Medical Center.

When President Bush visited there in January, Dreasky moved to salute. Bush lightly touched Dreasky's bandaged right arm and said: "You don't need to salute. I need to salute you."

Finally, on July 10, the IED of months before claimed its final victim.

The day before he deployed, Easter Sunday, the boy who once got in trouble for wearing camouflage to elementary school, asked his mother to promise him something.

"Mom, this is war. Anything can happen," Cheryl Dreasky recalls him saying. "If something happens to me, you don't rest until I'm buried in Arlington."

After the funeral, when the bugle's echo had faded and the brass shell casings from the rifle salute were collected, Mandy Dreasky gathered her husband's comrades around her.

"You all need to continue to be soldiers," she said. "Because that's what Duane would have wanted. And that's what he would have done."

But some of Dreasky's comrades wonder if Iraqis truly appreciate the sacrifices being made on their behalf.

"These people, you just see the apathy in them and you're like, `Why am I here?' You know?" says Staff Sgt. Jeremy Plaxton, who served with Dreasky. "If they don't want it, I can't make them accept freedom and fight for it.

"Personally," he says, "I wouldn't give up one Dreasky for the entire country of Iraq."

___

With his round, wire-rimmed spectacles and boyish face, Matthew Schneider was more Radar O'Reilly than Sgt. York.

But the modern Army needs brains as well as brawn. And when the confessed "computer geek" arrived in Iraq last January, the team chiefs were all fighting over who would get him.

Teachers at Gorham (N.H.) High School said there wasn't much they could teach Schneider about computers. Though a brilliant student, he was "a bit of a devil," locking up other students' machines and making disc drives open and close, seemingly on their own.

Schneider attended a technical college for a couple of years but lacked direction. Thinking the Army would be a good place to get his focus, he enlisted in February 2004.

In a way, Schneider had already cheated death.

He was born six weeks prematurely, and doctors diagnosed idiopathic hypertrophic subaortic stenosis, or IHSS _ a thickening or enlargement of a portion of the heart that chokes off blood flow and can lead to sudden death. It's the kind of thing that fells seemingly healthy high school athletes without warning. But by age 2, Matthew appeared to have outgrown the condition.

By the time he reached the Army, doctors gave him a clean bill of health, and he was soon bragging to his father, Andrew, that he was running three miles a day and doing 100 sit-ups and push-ups.

Schneider was assigned to Alpha Co., 141st Signal Battalion, part of the 1st Armored Division, based in Wiesbaden, Germany. He complained to his father about a local Internet service provider that charged soldiers $80 a month for access.

When he got to Ramadi, Schneider approached his superiors about setting up a satellite-based Internet system on base. His comrades quickly dubbed the service the "Schneidernet."

For troops stuck in the desert for months at a time, it was a huge morale booster.

In frequent calls and online chats, Schneider assured family members that he was in probably the most secure building on base. But it wasn't an enemy attack that killed Schneider; it was a heart attack.

He was just 23.

On a recent Sunday, Andrew Schneider visited Arlington with his daughter, son-in-law and their three children. As a clock at the Tomb of the Unknowns tolled on the ridge above, 4-year-old Joseph Gray collected pebbles from the freshly turned earth of a neighboring grave and piled them around the temporary tin marker on Uncle Matthew's grave.

"He died with his uniform on," his father says proudly. "What other place should he be buried?"

A white marble stone has since replaced the pile of pebbles. It doesn't say that Schneider joined up to get an education, or that he died in his bunk.

All it says is that he served his country honorably and that, like the others here, he passed too soon.

Link (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/31/AR2006123100817.html)
© 2006 The Associated Press

Nickdfresh
01-01-2007, 03:15 AM
"These people, you just see the apathy in them and you're like, `Why am I here?' You know?" says Staff Sgt. Jeremy Plaxton, who served with Dreasky. "If they don't want it, I can't make them accept freedom and fight for it.

"Personally," he says, "I wouldn't give up one Dreasky for the entire country of Iraq."


Amen...

FORD
01-01-2007, 05:17 AM
To paraphrase John Kerry, How do you ask 3,000 young men and women to die for a lie??

We KNOW that Iraq was totally based on lies. We KNOW that nothing we do or say will make that country a "democracy" (some of us knew that before any of this shit started)

Bring them home. End the lies,

NOW

Nickdfresh
01-01-2007, 10:05 PM
With Iraq War Come Layers of Loss
As Troops' Lives Are Forever Changed, Most of U.S. Is Largely Unaffected

By Ann Scott Tyson and Josh White
Washington Post (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/01/AR2007010100759.html) Staff Writers
Tuesday, January 2, 2007; A01

"Grenade!"

Manning a .50-caliber machine gun in the turret of a Humvee, Pfc. Ross McGinnis could see the insurgent on a rooftop fling a hand grenade at his vehicle. He shouted and tried to deflect it, but it fell inside. Four of his buddies were down there.

What followed was a stunning act of self-sacrifice. McGinnis, a 19-year-old from rural Pennsylvania and the youngest soldier in his unit, threw himself backward onto the grenade, absorbing the blast with his body. He was killed instantly. The others escaped serious injury.

With the death toll for U.S. service members in Iraq past the 3,000 mark, McGinnis's heroism, on Dec. 4, stands as one extreme in the vast spectrum of how Americans are experiencing the Iraq war.

Like an emotional manifestation of the laws of physics, the casualties have rippled across the American psyche -- those close to the events have been profoundly moved, while those at some distance, the majority of Americans, have been largely unaffected. Concentric circles of loss spread outward, starting with grieving parents, spouses and children -- many so young they will not remember the father or mother who was killed in war. Families of the severely wounded face a future they never planned for and financial hardships they never imagined. In small towns, which supply much of the nation's fighting force, one death can send an entire community into mourning. Tens of thousands of U.S. troops continue to brave the war zone, while their friends, families and sweethearts worry at home.

At a Pentagon service to mark the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, Marine Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that more than 1.3 million troops had been deployed to support the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. That is almost one in every 230 Americans.

In a USA Today-Gallup poll in October, 11 percent of respondents said they had a close friend, family member or co-worker who was wounded or killed in the Iraq war; an additional 43 percent had a friend, relative or colleague who had served in it.

For much of the rest of the country, the reverberations of the conflict are limited to headlines and television images of explosions or discussions about Iraq policy. The nation's war dead are returned to the United States privately, their flag-draped coffins shielded from cameras.

"The fatal flaw was when right after September 11 the president asked everyone to go on with their lives. That set the stage for no one sacrificing," said a Special Forces team sergeant who recently served in Iraq. "That's why they aren't behind it, because they don't have a stake in this war. They aren't losing or gaining anything. If you don't see it, smell it, feel it, how are you connected?"
'We Will Meet Again'

In the Humvee in Baghdad's Adhamiyah district that afternoon, Sgt. 1st Class Cedric Thomas, the platoon sergeant, heard Ross McGinnis's warning and shouted back: "Where?"

"The grenade is in the truck," McGinnis yelled. Then he ducked down and backward, pinning the device between his body and the radio mount just before it went off.

"He had time to jump out of the truck. He chose not to," Thomas said, according to official military accounts of the incident. McGinnis's action saved Thomas and three other soldiers from "certain serious injury or death."

That evening, two Army officers in dress uniforms rang the doorbell at the McGinnis home in Knox, Pa.

"At that moment, I felt as if I had slipped off the edge of a cliff and there was nothing to grab onto," wrote McGinnis's father, Tom, in a statement provided to The Washington Post. "If only my life could have ended just a moment before this."

The following morning, news of the death of the lanky 6-foot-tall amateur mechanic rippled through the small community of 1,200, where his high school graduating class had 86 students. McGinnis, who was promoted posthumously to specialist and recommended for the Medal of Honor, was the first soldier from the town to die in Iraq.

"It was such a shock," said Vicky Walters, the high school assistant principal, who had known McGinnis since he was a baby. "We're grief-stricken. We were some of the ones who were insulated." About 7 percent of high school graduates in Knox, in western Pennsylvania, join the military.

McGinnis joined the Army at 17, before graduating in spring 2005. That fall, he came back to school in his uniform. It was the last time Walters would see him. "He just beamed," she said, choking up.

McGinnis's father, reflecting on his family's loss, wrote that his son went to war not to die but "to fight and win and come home to us and marry and grow old and have children and grandchildren."

"But die he did, and his mother, dad and sisters must face that fact and go on without him, believing that someday we will meet again." (Tom McGinnis's full statement can be read at http://www.washingtonpost.com.)
'Home to a Different Life'

Christopher and Brandon Adams can't grasp what has happened. "They don't understand why Daddy talks that way, why Daddy can't play, why Daddy can't throw a football for them," Summer Adams said from her living room in Miramar, Fla.

Her husband, John, a Florida National Guardsman, was severely disabled in August 2003 by a roadside bomb in Ramadi, the capital of Iraq's Sunni insurgent stronghold of Anbar province. He is one of more than 22,000 service members who have been wounded in Iraq.

After the phone call telling her he had been injured, she waited three frantic days to find out where he was, she said, a complaint heard from families of others wounded early in the war. When she arrived at the intensive-care unit at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, she still had no idea about the extent of his injuries. "I guess we are supposed to receive the shock when we reach the hospital," she said.

John, who experienced severe trauma from a quarter-size piece of shrapnel lodged in his brain, lay heavily bandaged "with tubes everywhere," she said. After briefly acknowledging his wife, he fell into a long coma.

Months later, the couple were able to return to Florida, but their challenges had only begun. "We came home to a different life. Nothing was the same anymore," said Summer. John's speech was barely understandable, and though he eventually was able to walk again, he would pass out from vertigo if he looked up.

On Christmas Eve a year ago, the couple arrived at Summer's mother's house for dinner as some neighbors were setting off firecrackers. John wouldn't get out of the van. "He couldn't take the noise," Summer said.

With children who are 5 and 7, she has been unable to return to work as a claim supervisor for an insurance company and had to ask for help from the Red Cross to pay the mortgage and water bill. Army administrative problems left the family without pay and health insurance for the children for months at a time.

"I looked for whoever could help me, or I got on the phone and started yelling," Summer said. "As hard as it gets and frustrating -- and I scream -- you just have to keep going."

John, 40, said he feels frustrated, too, but recognizes that many other wounded troops are even worse off. "There are so many people like me," he said, his words slurred. "People need to know."
'Working Our Way Out of It'

With a long scar on his face, metal holding his jaw together and more reconstructive surgery ahead, 23-year-old Sgt. Doug Szczepanski Jr. often finds people staring at him on the street. "Sometimes I'll make up stories and tell them it was a shark attack, or a skateboarding incident," he said. "Then when I tell them the truth, they'll look at me all weird and say, 'What? You got blown up in Iraq?' They don't know what to say."

Szczepanski was wounded in September 2005 when a suicide bomber exploded an Opel sedan packed with artillery rounds next to his convoy north of Baghdad.

"I was scanning to the left and it came up to us really quick," Szczepanski said. The blast blew his face open down to the collarbone, blinding him in the left eye and nearly severing his right ear. Shrapnel pierced his head and his upper body was covered with second- and third-degree burns.

His parents saw him six days later, when he was transferred to the hospital at Fort Sam Houston. "He was unrecognizable, he was so swelled up and burned," his father, Doug Sr., said in a phone interview from their home in Bay City, Mich. "You first see your child like that and you're so confused. You don't know if you should cry, sit down, throw up. We just wanted to get on the airplane and go back home and pretend none of this happened."

But relying heavily on their faith, the family persevered.

Szczepanski's mother, Amy, closed her business as a home child-care provider to care for her son, losing about $1,300 a month in income. "We probably would have lost our home without help," she said. "We're still working our way out of it." A survey this year by the nonprofit Coalition to Salute America's Heroes, which has helped the Szczepanskis and the Adamses, showed that more than half of families of the seriously wounded experience a drop in their standard of living.

Szczepanski has given up his goal of becoming a police officer like his father, but because he was spared brain injury -- "a miracle," his mother says -- he plans to obtain a degree in criminal justice and pursue a job in that field.
'I'm Willing to Give My Life'

Sgt. Matthew Boone, 26, of Anderson, Ind., is serving his second tour in Iraq now; he thinks he will probably be back for a third. He also has served in Afghanistan and the Horn of Africa since 2001, when he joined one of the most deployed units in the Army, the 2nd Brigade, 10th Mountain Division.

"It has put into perspective what is really important, and that's my family," Boone said in October at a base outside Baghdad. "But I'm willing to give my life for this."

Still, "it's rough," he said. "You miss your kids' first this, first that." His youngest son, Marcus, is 3. More than half of U.S. troops deployed overseas are married, according to Pentagon statistics.

The members of the 2-10 Mountain take pride in their many deployments. 1st Sgt. David Schumacher, 37, of Watertown, N.Y., has been to Iraq three times and has deployed a total of eight times, going back to his tour in Somalia.

"I love what I do," Schumacher said in a recent interview in Yusufiyah, Iraq. "This is what I signed up for. But I'd like to let my family enjoy me for more than a few months at a time."

Maj. Mitchell Watkins, 40, of Vonore, Tenn., has seen seven operational deployments in his career and is on his third tour in Iraq, now as the executive officer of the 3rd Squadron, 4th Cavalry Regiment, based in Tall Afar. Watkins said that each combat death is intensely tragic -- he lost one of his closest friends during his last tour -- but that what the troops have given for their country should never be forgotten.

"I willfully continue to serve here because I believe that our sacrifice is still appreciated by many Iraqis who desire to truly be free, and by the people at home who are supporting us," Watkins said in November. "Having lost two close personal friends here in this war and almost 3,000 comrades, I understand the sacrifice this presents to my family, but I have no regrets."
Hitting Home

After paying tribute to President Gerald R. Ford as he lay in state over the weekend, Katy Dotson, a high school teacher from West Milford, N.J., said she struggles with the number of American lives that have been lost in the Iraq war. Dotson, 24, said she recently sat in on a colleague's current-events class and was struck to see how little the students knew about the conflict and its victims.

"Most Americans don't understand that people are numbers and numbers are people," she said. They grasp the gravity of the situation only when tragedy strikes close to home. "We had one young man die from our town," she said. "It was a very big deal. The post office was renamed after him."

Staff writer Ernesto Londoño contributed to this report.

So, where's the WWII-War on Terra' parallel so many Neo Cons like to draw when the War actually only affects a small segment of the population? Where's the commitment? Why are you bitches always cuntplaining about "taxes" as the nation's finest are dying in some desert shit hole?

Sgt Schultz
01-02-2007, 12:09 PM
I think the time has come to really "democratize" our wars. Since we are all apparently of the opinion that our system is not democratic enough and the system of our officials, whom we elected, deciding to authorize the commander in cheif to wage war after debating and voting on it is now not democratic enough we need a change.

I'm sure the Left can all agree that any and all future wars cannot be debated and acted upon by our elected officials, wars are too important. The decision for war must be put forth directly to the people and the people must vote upon it. Once a majority has voted to authorize military action we surely cannot let our perception of what is happening in Iraq to happen in future wars. Therefore, referenda must continue throughout the conflict. The People must also be allowed to debate and vote on the following;
1. The acceptable number of killed in action allowed within a set timeline. If the number exceeds that which has been voted for the war must cease. As an adjunct, a set number of casualties must not exceed a set number for any given battle also.
2. The acceptable number of civilians killed within a set timeline (or at all).
3. A definate and iron-clad "timeline" for victory. If U.S. forces have not achieved "victory (and we now know that even the term "victory" is subjective, so the definition of the word must also be agreed upon) by the date voted on then the U.S. must surrender unconditionally and compensate the warring party.
4. All battles must end in "victory".
5. No mistakes are allowed in strategy, planning etc. "Mistake" would also need to be defined.
6. A vote must be taken as to how to proceed with indivuduals who made mistakes or who caused defeat in any battle. A suggestion, which seems to be in play now, would be to have guilty parties first admit their mistake. Then they must apologize and resign. The gulity must then be jailed.

I'm sure there are many other aspects that should be voted on.

We must also repect the rights of the minority votes - those who may have voted against a certain conflict but were in the minority. If the majority votes in favor of the war the minority has the right, nay, the obligation, to hamper victory and to loudly voice their own set of arbitrary numbers and benchmarks thus giving encouragement to the foes of U.S. forces. No matter what, it's always important to remember that speaking out against a war is much more courageous and Patriotic than accepting the debates, votes, and actions of your elected officials and then supporting troops in the field who are implementing those actions to help speed an end to a successful conflict.

bueno bob
01-02-2007, 12:46 PM
Whether or not Bush was legitimately elected, either time, is still a subject open to debate. But, other than that, you're pretty much right in regards to holding the currently sitting staff accountable for their actions. Otherwise you suddenly find yourself sitting inside of a VERY tiny little box.

Voting should not necessarily be up to the general public. However, I don't think it's unjust or absurd or ridiculous to go into a war with SOME actual reason for doing so, and that those reasons be somewhat well qualified by actual evidence and not speculation, random hearsay or outright idiocy.

Wouldn't you agree?

If nothing else, "Vietnam II"-like stagnation should be, at all costs, avoided. Or there should at least be some sort of particular goal in mind other than random "liberation from tyranny". Above all else, the sitting President should probably avoid declaring "Mission Accomplished" with a huge shit eating grin on his face 20 minutes into said military action, knowing damn well that the war in question will continue for YEARS more.

The alternative is for everybody to shut up and get in line, drop your name, and grab a number I suppose. Dissent is, by your estimation, unpatriotic and damaging to the country as a whole?

Of course, I hear that's a very popular idea amongst the Republican party. Tell me, will I be getting Soylent Yellow or Soylent Green?

Or will the vehicles simply come and scoop me off Orwellian style?


No matter what, it's always important to remember that speaking out against a war is much more courageous and Patriotic than accepting the debates, votes, and actions of your elected officials

That is absolutely right. The second an American citizen forgets that he has a right to speak out and make his perspective known without fear of aggravation, imprisonment or censorship is the second that America becomes just like every third world country it's current leaders are purporting to "liberate".

And then what?

Speaking out against an unjust war and supporting the troops currently engaged in the conflict are NOT mutually exclusive to each other.

This country's entire foundation is in freedom. Of speech, expression, religion, and opinion. Sacrificing those rights for the "greater good" of spreading it (to people who may or may not be prepared to accept it when force-fed to them) is foolishness and a golden road to ruin.

That's MY opinion, and I'll be God damned if I give the right up to express it for anybody.

Sgt Schultz
01-02-2007, 03:22 PM
Originally posted by bueno bob
The second an American citizen forgets that he has a right to speak out and make his perspective known without fear of aggravation, imprisonment or censorship is the second that America becomes just like every third world country it's current leaders are purporting to "liberate".

And then what?

Speaking out against an unjust war and supporting the troops currently engaged in the conflict are NOT mutually exclusive to each other.

This country's entire foundation is in freedom. Of speech, expression, religion, and opinion. Sacrificing those rights for the "greater good" of spreading it (to people who may or may not be prepared to accept it when force-fed to them) is foolishness and a golden road to ruin.

That's MY opinion, and I'll be God damned if I give the right up to express it for anybody.

You are under the impression that I think that you should not have the right of free speech or that the Government should curtail it in some way. I am not of that opinion.


Originally posted by bueno bob
That's MY opinion, and I'll be God damned if I give the right up to express it for anybody.

The issue is not of "giving it up" and never has been. The question is, would you, or any other anti-war anti-Bush person ever consider the negative consequences of your speech to those troops you claim to support? Has there ever, EVER been a moment's thought given to how one's actions (speech) can actually prolong a war, and thereby grow the casualty list?

FORD
01-02-2007, 08:54 PM
Originally posted by Sgt Schultz
Has there ever, EVER been a moment's thought given to how one's actions (speech) can actually prolong a war, and thereby grow the casualty list?

Well, it's true that Chimpy daring the Iraqi nationalists to "bring it on" certainly didn't help matters.

Sgt Schultz
01-03-2007, 12:38 PM
Originally posted by FORD
Well, it's true that Chimpy daring the Iraqi nationalists to "bring it on" certainly didn't help matters.

Nice try. He was talking about foreign and Iraqi terrorists.

I know that leftists think it's a big "no-no" (except when it comes to Americans) but the body count ratio of terrorists, Ba'athists and Sadrites vs Americans killed is vast.

Nickdfresh
01-07-2007, 01:21 PM
Originally posted by Sgt Schultz
I think the time has come to really "democratize" our wars. Since we are all apparently of the opinion that our system is not democratic enough and the system of our officials, whom we elected, deciding to authorize the commander in cheif to wage war after debating and voting on it is now not democratic enough we need a change.

I'm sure the Left can all agree that any and all future wars cannot be debated and acted upon by our elected officials, wars are too important. The decision for war must be put forth directly to the people and the people must vote upon it. Once a majority has voted to authorize military action we surely cannot let our perception of what is happening in Iraq to happen in future wars. Therefore, referenda must continue throughout the conflict. The People must also be allowed to debate and vote on the following;
1. The acceptable number of killed in action allowed within a set timeline. If the number exceeds that which has been voted for the war must cease. As an adjunct, a set number of casualties must not exceed a set number for any given battle also.
2. The acceptable number of civilians killed within a set timeline (or at all).
3. A definate and iron-clad "timeline" for victory. If U.S. forces have not achieved "victory (and we now know that even the term "victory" is subjective, so the definition of the word must also be agreed upon) by the date voted on then the U.S. must surrender unconditionally and compensate the warring party.
4. All battles must end in "victory".
5. No mistakes are allowed in strategy, planning etc. "Mistake" would also need to be defined.
6. A vote must be taken as to how to proceed with indivuduals who made mistakes or who caused defeat in any battle. A suggestion, which seems to be in play now, would be to have guilty parties first admit their mistake. Then they must apologize and resign. The gulity must then be jailed.

I'm sure there are many other aspects that should be voted on.

We must also repect the rights of the minority votes - those who may have voted against a certain conflict but were in the minority. If the majority votes in favor of the war the minority has the right, nay, the obligation, to hamper victory and to loudly voice their own set of arbitrary numbers and benchmarks thus giving encouragement to the foes of U.S. forces. No matter what, it's always important to remember that speaking out against a war is much more courageous and Patriotic than accepting the debates, votes, and actions of your elected officials and then supporting troops in the field who are implementing those actions to help speed an end to a successful conflict.

What about macho pussies that have never served in the military? Should they have a vote? It is the ignorant douche bags such as thou that have lost this War.