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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, Ca.
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Jun 18, 2008 - 01:08pm PT
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By Liutenant Colonel Michael A. Baumann
SUPPORT THE TROOPS-WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?
As I drive to work I see on one side of the street a sign saying “Support the Troops and Their Mission!” Then on the opposite side of the street I spot a sign saying “Support the Troops, Bring Them Home Now!” Most Americans see these as more or less equivalent proposals, but as a veteran, who served 20years in the Army and fought in Iraq, the first sign is a pat on the back and the other is a slap in the face.
First, the pat on the back. When I see a sign saying “Support the Troops and Their Mission” I and other veterans feel thanked and appreciated for what we have done and what we have given to our country. When we see the first sign we feel as though the home front is completely supportive, at peace, and that folks around here are watching our back and standing behind us one hundred percent. This message is one of pure undiluted support for the men and women of the armed forces – sort of like a sign in a high school cafeteria that says “Go Jaguars! Win State!”
A sign that says, “Support the Troops and Their Mission” does not include a subtext request to change the mission but a call of support for those who stand in harm’s way. We soldiers did not choose the mission, but we go out to accomplish it as ordered. And we deeply appreciate it when people on the home front put up signs to show their genuine appreciation of our operations, regardless of how you and we feel about the wisdom of the strategy itself.
Then there are the signs that kick us right in the gut. These include the signs that say, “Support the Troops, Bring Them Home Now!”, and these exhibit a willful ignorance of the meaning of the word “support” together with an arrogant re-definition of what support entails. In effect, the double entendre of the sign – that “support” is redefined to actually mean “undermine” – is very disappointing and demeaning to military people everywhere.
What military people everywhere truly want is for all Americans to support them in their heart and to support their mission in all practical operations. For most military people this includes every part of their service fighting the War on Terror, especially in Iraq and Afghanistan. If you know the military and those who serve, you have an intimate understanding that folks in our modern military those who serve do not hold themselves self-righteously above the mission(s) they seek to accomplish.
The military is not some inanimate object, like a spade or a fork or a wrench. The military is composed of people, flesh and blood Americans who have hearts and minds, who choose to serve, voluntarily. It is their choice to put themselves in harm’s way to defend the America that all of us cherish.
America, your military is you.
Our service members work tirelessly and relentlessly to succeed and accomplish their assigned missions. We don’t quit, tire, or give-up because things get hard or long. It is not in our military constitution to give up once we have been ordered into battle. So that is why we take offense at those who ascribe weakness to us either collectively or individually. We are volunteers. We choose to serve in time of war and peace. In the Great Seal of the United States, on the back of every dollar bill, we are the arrows in the leg-grip of the eagle. We are an asset, a resource, to be used sparingly.
But the “arrows” in the “grip” of the eagle need to be held onto tightly, and used carefully.
That is why I would like fellow Americans to realize that folks who put up signs on their lawn with the slogan, “Support the Troops, Bring them Home Now!” make a political statement and defile honorable, volunteer service in pursuit of their own agenda. Vote in elections, and express your opinion about the strategy, but don’t undermine the troops or troop morale!
Consider this, with all the partisanship of politics in America today, what value is there in disparaging our military service members? We have been down this road before as a nation when we dishonored our Vietnam veterans. Does anyone really want to repeat the hell that we experienced post-Vietnam?
Americans who want political change need to put up lawn signs, bumper stickers, and car magnets that criticize and disparage politicians, not military volunteers. Many might think there is no malice intended with their slogan, but the truth is there is malice, hurt, and ignorance in the slogan, “Support the Troops, Bring Them Home Now!”
Find more appropriate targets than soldiers to express your discontent.
Perhaps you disagree with this assessment…I’d like to hear yours.
If you’d like to reply, see his blog here
http://www.vetsforfreedom.org/troopblog/blogitem.aspx?id=447
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Matt
Trad climber
primordial soup
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Jun 18, 2008 - 01:27pm PT
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he is entitled to HIS opinion.
there are an equal # of blogs or veteran's organizations whose opinion is different.
it's certainly NOT a decisive argument on your part.
the simple fact is the the logical extension of his argument would be that a horrible and flawed mission could face no public opposition, and therefore face no political pressure to change or be changed- and that is NOT a definition of democracy.
perhaps what he's feeling is in fact a "slap in the face" that came a while ago, and his sense of duty to his country, along with his expectation that his commander in chief was being honest, prevented him from feeling it at the time...
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TGT
Social climber
So Cal
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Jun 18, 2008 - 01:33pm PT
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Your failure to see the applicable parallels between Korea and Iraq only illustrates your ignorance of history.
As do many other elements of your agennda.
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paganmonkeyboy
climber
mars...it's near nevada...
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Jun 18, 2008 - 01:35pm PT
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Ignorance Of History ???!!!!
Point me towards One Empire that is still standing,
Or Shut The F*#k Up.
Just One...That's all you need...
Kisses,
-tom
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Matt
Trad climber
primordial soup
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Jun 18, 2008 - 01:46pm PT
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jeff-
5 years later, we can't hold on to "more troops"
what we needed, if we were going to oust SH, was true international cooperation.
you blind RW chickenhawks are so anti UN that you figured we could just do it alone-
trouble is, the whole "free market will fix everything" theory was a very western concept and it ignored the opinions of every single person on the planet who in fact does understand the history of the region.
hell, it's as if these guys learned about global affairs by watching movies of the week with you..
=)
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Matt
Trad climber
primordial soup
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Jun 18, 2008 - 01:47pm PT
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go ahead TGT, 'splain to your captive audience how similar SK and iraq are.
i'd LOVE to hear your arguments...
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, Ca.
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Jun 18, 2008 - 01:59pm PT
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PMB, what do mean?
China, Britain, France, Spain, Japan. They are smaller (except China) now but are still thriving nation-states.
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Matt
Trad climber
primordial soup
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Jun 18, 2008 - 02:09pm PT
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i think it's pretty clear that he was talking about the absence of true expansive empires and/or the unsustainable nature of colonialism, do you see very many countries whose global empires still flourish?
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John Moosie
climber
Beautiful California
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Jun 18, 2008 - 02:31pm PT
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Good post Matt. I'm just sorry that the people who need to understand it, won't.
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, Ca.
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Jun 18, 2008 - 02:36pm PT
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Are you guys trying to say that we're trying to expand our borders and create an empire? That's ludicrous.
Every time we go to war, we liberate, help them set up a stabile country, and leave it their own sovereignty.
Except, of course, for the war to gain our own independance from a tyrannical empire.
In fact, I guess you could call us an 'empire-busting machine'.
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Matt
Trad climber
primordial soup
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Jun 18, 2008 - 05:08pm PT
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"Every time we go to war, we liberate, help them set up a stabile country, and leave it their own sovereignty"
is that what we do?
would you say we were liberating the vietnamese?
i was born in '69 so i was a bit young to have been paying attention at the time, but i am not even sure if the people who wanted to fight (or continue to fight) that war would have made the argument that we were there to liberate the people- that was more of an effort to "take a stand against the advancement of communism", was it not?
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Matt
Trad climber
primordial soup
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Jun 18, 2008 - 05:22pm PT
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when a black man is the leader of the free world, the crisis in darfur may finally have an end in sight.
i confess that i am inadequately informed to discuss the history of morocco, but there may be a legitimate geographical objection to your inclusion of morocco in a discussion of the middle east.
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Mighty Hiker
Social climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Jun 18, 2008 - 05:29pm PT
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"Are you guys trying to say that we're trying to expand our borders and create an empire? That's ludicrous."
Hmm, most historians, economists and political scientists would agree that the U.S. has had an empire since 1898, and indeed perhaps since the Monroe (Adams) Doctrine of 1823. It's perhaps not quite as overt as some 19th century and earlier empires, and more economic and political than military or territorial in nature, but no less an empire for all that.
Latin Americans would be flabbergasted to hear that the U.S. WASN'T an empire, as they've been at the short end of the stick in that regard for a century and more. Chile in 1973 being a prime example, and the interference in Venezuela a few years ago a more recent one. I have little sympathy for Hugo Chavez and his foolishness, but the fact is that he was elected in a more or less free election, and that the U.S. supported an attempt to overthrow him.
"Every time we go to war, we liberate, help them set up a stable country, and leave it their own sovereignty."
Which will surprise most Latin American countries - a U.S. invasion to them is usually followed by dictatorship and represssion. "He may be a son of a bitch, but he's our son of a bitch." Other countries that may be surprised by this are Afghanistan and Iraq - it is doubtful so far whether U.S. actions in their countries has been to the good.
"Except, of course, for the war to gain our own independence from a tyrannical empire."
Very few would agree that the British "empire" (which didn't truly exist until the mid-19th century) was tyrannical. Clumsy and short sighted, yes, in terms of their uppity American colonists. But not bad, as empires go.
"In fact, I guess you could call us an 'empire-busting machine'."
No question that the U.S. had a major role, especially during and after World War II, in liberating certain countries and seeing that they eventually found their way to being stable democracies. And that in the general sense it promotes the idea if not the practice of democracy. But overall its record generally is of supporting anti-democratic (excuse me, anti-communist) thugs. The U.S. also did a lot that led to creation of the Soviet empire, and the Chinese empires.
The real issue is probably that the U.S. as an empire has started to decline in relative terms. The one about the emperor wearing no clothes applies - empires are slow to recognize that they are no longer on top, and that other rivals have appeared. The U.S.' share of the global economy has been declining since 1946. Its share of global population has also been declining. It has squandered a lot of its good will capital on its recent imperial adventures - the rhetoric is far different from the actions.
The rising Chinese, European Union, Indians, and even Russians are watching closely. The U.S. still is militarily predominant - usually the last imperial trait to diminish.
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GDavis
Trad climber
SoCal
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Jun 18, 2008 - 05:45pm PT
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These posts are great because it lets you know how crazed supertopo posters are.
God Bless the Internet.
Regular guy + Anonymity + Audience = Asshole.
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Doug Buchanan
Mountain climber
Fairbanks Alaska
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Jun 18, 2008 - 06:11pm PT
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War is the second most popular hobby of humans, still mired deep in the intellectual dark ages, much to the grand laughter of the observers.
Fat Trad my colleague... "Tactical mistakes" are the mantra of those, like myself in the past, who have not asked enough questions to understand the controlling strategic mistake of attacking another country that did not attack your country, in criminal violation of the Law of Nations recognized in the US Constitution.
After the controlling contradiction of attacking another country, all tactics are the quest of fools, and are doomed by design of the human mind, illuminated by history.
The suggestion that the US bombing of North Vietnam brought them to the peace table is better described as bringing the US to its defeat table, as proven. Wars are fought by (idiot) minds, not by the gullible cannon fodder we are told to support by encouraging them to think less and be more proud to be dumb cannon fodder. The leaders ALWAYS betray the soldiers, ALWAYS.
If the current US military soldiers have not figured it out yet, by countless examples, they will when they show up at a VA hospital on the occasion they are given only endless paperwork to create budget excuses for a vast government bureaucracy designed only to pay itself and shift more money to more wars needing more cannon fodder to betray. Figure it out Blue Ring.
Blue Ring... Read the previous paragraphs again. Every gullible (unquestioning) citizenry is told that their military is liberating the other guys. Fools parrot that government propaganda. The word, "liberating", does not match the actions or results.
But perhaps YOU are a Muslim, and sincerely believe that to be killed by Americans is to be liberated to Heaven. That might explain your displayed worship of the American war regime.
My fighting in Vietnam, like any soldiers fighting any war in any country, was not serving my country. "Serving one's country" is garbage rhetoric with no identifiable meaning, like waving the flag, fooling fools who do not ask real questions of the garbage rhetoric they are fed by GOVERNMENT LEADERS SERVING ONLY THEMSELVES.
My fighting in Vietnam, like the soldiers fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan and every war, was being STUPID, believing those old mental midget military generals who never asked or answered a single intelligent question of their actions, their entire wasted lives.
The VERIFIABLY dumbest people of every nation are its military generals (and maybe National Park rangers). Bring any forward, and I will ask the questions that any common person can logically answer, while the military generals will sit there recognizably confused by words that actually hold their dictionary meanings.
Support the American Troops back in America where they can defend America from an attack, not over where they are wasting their lives on yet another presidential ego gratification war.
Send the Pentagon full of mental midget generals over there.
There being no mechanism in the human brain, for one mind to force another mind, with the only mechanism to sustainably resolve contradictions between humans being that of reasoning (asking and answering questions), all uses of force instead of reasoning are doomed BY DESIGN OF THE HUMAN MIND.
The Iraq war can be won within one week, by either side, by using the process of reasoning (asking and answering questions) to the extent that one resolves all the involved contradictions, their own and the other guy's, leaving the other side's leaders promptly defeated by the contradictions they failed to resolve with their own knowledge, by design.
Read those words as often as you wish. Their described effect can be verified against all questions any humans can ask. The knowledge has been offered to the US military on many occasions. But as long as ignorant military and political leaders have gullible, public supported, unquestioning US military cannon fodder available, they will not have incentive to ask even the first question, much to the howling laugher of the observers.
In the future, children will laugh at the entire military concept, sustaining lavishly praised and worshiped leaders who were so abjectly stupid they never even asked or answered the most obvious questions of their contradictions, for thousands of years.
Blue Ring... your knowledge of the military process is interesting. In what units have you "served", or what process of questioning (studying/learning) the military have you exercised?
If you are not laughing at the humans, you are absent.
Doug
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, Ca.
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Jun 18, 2008 - 06:52pm PT
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Matt, yes we werre try to liberate South Vietnam from communist control. We were damn close to ending too until Congress denied them the aid that was promised to them at the Paris Peace Accords. Their president (of the South) at the time even said...
"At the time of the peace agreement the United States agreed to replace equipment on a one-by-one basis. But the United States did not keep its word. Is an American's word reliable these days? The United States did not keep its promise to help us fight for freedom and it was in the same fight that the United States lost 50,000 of its young men."
Mighty Hiker, are you trying to redefine the term 'empire'?
Doug, I've never served in the military. Does that mean that I'm not entitled to an opinion, that I cannot study the history of militaries and form opinions?
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paganmonkeyboy
climber
mars...it's near nevada...
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Jun 18, 2008 - 06:55pm PT
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yes, bluering - that is exactly what I meant - our actions reek of colonialism and resource grabbing, positioning for the new american century...just look at all the permanent bases we are putting in Iraq...that's Occupation, not tyranny busting in my opinion.
It is most interesting to witness the hubris with which we ran into this whole mess and utterly bankrupted the country. Last I saw, it's been 500 Billion and rising for this war. We're done. The entire GDP of this nation won't pay off our debt, and Never Will.
Done.
Nice work, boys. You did what no foreign invader ever could.
(on the bright side - my strategy of going long on the student loan forebearances might actually pay off, as once the government collapses I won't owe a dime...)
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Mighty Hiker
Social climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Jun 18, 2008 - 06:59pm PT
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The Oxford English Dictionary gives three definitions of imperialism:
"1. An Imperial system of government; the rule of an emperor, esp. when despotic or arbitrary.
2. The principle or spirit of empire; advocacy of what are held to be imperial interests.
3. Used disparagingly. In Communist writings: the imperial system or policy of the Western powers. Used conversely in some Western writings: the Imperial system or policy of the Communist powers."
There's a very active and politically-charged debate as to whether the U.S. had and has an empire.
I am, as a rule, big on self-determination and democracy, and all the values and rights that go with them. But I don't believe that all empires are all bad, and am not necessarily opposed to them, even the U.S. empire - Canada is in many respects part of that empire.
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, Ca.
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Jun 18, 2008 - 07:01pm PT
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PMB, so are we occupying Japan, Germany, and Itay too?
It isn't occupying if they (the gov't) want us there.
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