Supporting The War/Troops. How patriotic are you?

Which one are you closest to? (go here first, use definition 2a: http://m-w.com/dictionary/support)

  • I support the current war, and I support the troops that are fighting in it.
  • I support the current war, but in general I do not support the troops that are fighting in it.
  • I do not support the current war, but in general I support the troops that fight.
  • I do not support the current war, nor do I support the people that fight.
0 voters

A common thing these days is a split between “die hard patriots” and everyone else.

If you have never heard anyone say this before, or at least something to this effect, then you need to turn on Fox News sometime. Being in favor of people joining the armed forces does not require a person to be 100% in favor of every decision this country (or this president) makes.

I am in fact NOT in favor of the united states having “declared war on terror” or any other spin off of this garbage. No US citizen should be carrying or operating the weapons of mass deconstruction that so freely roam the streets in the middle east. However, this does not mean that I am automatically opposed to each individual person from our country that are over there. Most of the people (at least i think its most) are over there for some reason other than their own free will. Whether they were drafted, or deployed there, or just plain old signed up, I don’t know; if anyone has any statistics on this please share them.

I support patriotism. I support anything that betters the country for the greater good for its citizens. This war is pointless. Its doing nothing but making our country look stupid.

there is no draft

and it is good to know you are willing to submit to sharia law.

-Imp

So is this a religious war? Are we out to destroy Islam? I think in essence we are. The people of the middle east can’t even settle their own religious differences. Why the heck should we give a rats ass about their system of government when they don’t even seem to want to unify as one country with one people?

Maybe not destroy Islam, but most definitely make it so American Christians see that it has been shaken so badly that their religion wont inexplicably disapear.
(This would be analogous to how people say that gay marriage will destroy the concept of “family”. Like they’re afraid they will turn gay and ruin their own family if John and Bill get married)

you are missing the point.

it isn’t what we want to do to them as much as it is our preventing them from doing as they wish to us…

peace treaties and negoiating don’t work… ask chamberlain…

-Imp

I chose the third option.

Not that my position on the war has any meaning to the eventual outcome.

Not supporting those who defend our freedom though … I reserve my comments on that subject.

As a matter of objective truth, regardless of support, wars will happen, the coercive force of arms will continue to be used, and there will be troops, either voluntarily or by coercive force of law.

A) We pull out of the middle east 100%, then we nuke the shit out of all who wish death to all non-Muslims. (sounds like a religious war)

B) We stay in until the entire nation abandons their immoral religious ways and adopts our way of thinking (eg democracy, which is very non Muslim) (again, it sounds like religious discrimination)

C) We live and let live, and hope they don’t live and make die. (sounds pussy-ish/unamerican)

Any more options?

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a big fan of Islam. Nor am I a fan of religion in general. So I guess you can’t say that I’m discriminatory, because i dislike all religions. I’d rather they all be gone.

But such a claim cant as easily be made by the current administration. Public admition to being Christian by politicians of all kinds has occurred too many times to be able to just rule out religious discrimination by our government.

What the hell are we over there for? Oil? Are we peacefully negotiating for it? If the government sees that Islam in the middle east is such a big threat, then why not fulfill God’s wishes and get rid of them? What would be so bad about another Crusade? The only glimmer of a goal i can see out of democratizing the middle east is so that our country can have some excuse as to why we’re still there and not leaving. Who cares if they democratize? They don’t even like each other!

In the UK, and in much of the West, there is a movement to destroy Western Civilization. Pacifism on our part will lead to our destruction.

I think that the war itself was unwarranted and a huge mistake. While the conquering of Afganistan was well argued and defended making a war on terror and starting in on Iraq has caused more problems then it has solved. Anti-US resentment is at an all-time high: rather than people hating some distant power they can hate the Americans down the street who shot holes through their television and cat.

As for the troops who are fighting in the war, I will admit that is was not their choice to go to war (specifically in Iraq) but they did sign up to become soldiers and the argument of merely ‘following orders’ is no defense. While I would not hold them totally responsable they are far from innocent in the matter. In cases where their actions are justified I fully support the men and women who do risk their lives for noble or necessary objectives: oil is not one of them.

There has and will always be the desire to destroy each other. Whether you cast it to the entitlement of East vs. West, U.S. vs Terrorist, Arab vs. Western Civ. The only thing that changes is who is the enemy for the season.

After about ten thousand years of it we are all still limping along right? So, what makes our time so significantly different then the pinko scare? Than the civil rights movement? Than the Vietnam War? Or even WWII when the nuclear weapon was to cause WWIII and nuclear winter? Nothing. People revel in fear, grow rich upon it and proclaim the end is near.

I am not advocating absence of action but rather awareness of action. History has proven itself to be a pond w/ endless ripples. Don’t throw rocks in and see how it goes instead of launching Tomahawks Missiles into said pond.

  • Goering

The Zionist shares a voice with the Nazi. Some of you will not be remotely surprised.

I chose one, not out of patriotism. just out of respect for soldiers and well, if we surrender or “withdraw” (same thing) then we are up shit creek without a paddle. Been up that creek many times and I really do try to avoid it. And even though our entire nation would be there with me , I would still rather avoid it.

Up till a few weeks ago, I was a die-hard gung-ho star-spangle-banner troop-backing patriot. I still am.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Va9P-6UtQQ

The oil was to be used to rebuild the country. Sadly, insurgents are destroying the supply.

Yes, Bush is an oil man, but he is probably being manipulated by the oil barons. This administration is very corrupt, but so was Reagan’s, and many others.

:sunglasses:

Just curious, who picked option 2? PM me if you don’t want to be public.

What if you’re on the fence? Like, i’m not so arrogant as to think I know what the best method is? Either way I support the troops and the decision of the president, whether I like it or not, that’s just my personal values of giving someone as a leader, some respect.

It seems there’s always pro’s and con’s to every decision. And someone is always gonna be pissed you didn’t do it their way. That’s life.

I picked option two. I support the war because I think it’s right both for long term economic reasons and because you can’t expect a group of mongrels to ever come around to civilization.
I have problems with the troops because they aren’t acting like soldiers. I don’t care what the rules are that they are suppoed to follow. The fact that Abu Ghraib or however you spell it was the worst humanitarian thing that’s happened is just a joke. These guys are supposed to be killers. Not a PR squad for democracy. Once a group is determined to be the enemy, a proper soldier will do everything he can to kill them, their culture, their ideals, and their collective will. Sometimes this might require the slaughter of the “civilians” that make up the rest of their society. Not all enemies carry guns and bombs. Some write books, or make movies or music, or publish magazines or teach ideals to children that contradict ours.
The only reason that the war in Iraq has gone on for so long is because our military leaders don’t have the balls to do what’s right for America and overstep the boundaries drawn for them by bleeding heart politicians who don’t understand any real concept of how an enemy should be treated. And yes, I’m talking about even Bush and Cheney.
Does anyone think that the Chinese would tiptoe around the political landmines that American politicians and military leaders do? What about the Russians? Didn’t they kick ass and take names when those terrorists killed all those schoolchildren? I don’t remember hearing them apologize for that. I might be wrong.

But how many Iraqi civilians took over a school or destroyed a building? You state that they are the enemy, but they are only so because the powers that be have deemed them so: there is no compelling reason to select them as an enemy. Iraq is an enemy soley for economic reasons, but does that justify conquering them? If the US is deemed an asset is it justified for another power to invade them merely out of greed?

Furthermore, your realization of what soldiers are supposed to do is rather barbaric. You call them mongrels and yet your definition of what is proper soldier’s conduct is rather harsh: should the fact that we are civilized not dictate some higher moral standard in which to conduct ourselves?

And you state that not all enemies carry guns, some protest or merely argue against your values. But isn’t this all the merits of american democracy? The right to personal opinions and recourse to violence against the unjust? The fight for american independance was started because the colonists felt it was unjust to be economically sanctioned without representation, a similar complaint from the middle east about the US. And yet it was justified for the colonists to resist the British and fight them off with every means necessary, but not so much for it to be ok in the middle east? The basis of the US is the right to fight for freedom, hard to agree with when you deny that freedom to so many.

And yes, the Russian response to their school situation was different, but so was the situation itself. If there was a single bunker that help every confirmed ‘enemy’ then it would be more easily justified to bomb it off the map and call it a day, the Russians had the benefit of an identifiable target. How do you treat the situation of a country with both ‘enemies’ and people simply trying to live their lives? Genocide leaves a poor taste in a lot of mouths, slaughtering the innocent is hard to justify by any means.

Oh, and an interesting note. Since the invasion of Iraq the amount of protest against the US has never been higher in the country. In fact, the invasion created more enemies than it removed: and the ‘enemies’ that were in Iraq weren’t exactly a major threat on an international scale… only when defending their homes from being piled over.

"you can’t expect a group of mongrels to ever come around to civilization. " You really can’t, but the issue is that if the US military is the definition of civilization is it really worth coming around to?

I don’t understand this sentence. Do you think I was calling the troops mongrels? Or the Iraqis. For the record it was the Iraqis. I’m calling the troops cowardly for not being as viscious as necessary to expedite the killing of all the Iraqis who want to vote in a cleric as a political leader. Because that’s how you win the war. Maybe it’s trickle down cowardice that comes from the cowards at the pentagon. Who knows?[/b]

(posts this long try to preview before you submit)

Because they were the ones who didn’t blow it up? That seems rediculous.

“They are defending their home from an anwarranted invader, it is their fault their children and parents were killed.”

‘Robbing’? It is their oil, they can choose to do with it as they please. Isn’t the concept of trade equitable for you? They have the supply, so they set the costs. It is no different than a dozen gross octopolies in the US where demand grossly outclasses supply and thus cost soars.

And yes, economics have been a contributing factor to many wars. The only difference being that there has traditionally either been econimic reasons that force someone to go to war (our economy cannot take any more punishment, we need to fight to live) and/or there has been other factors (such as actual aggression from the other country).

No, I am arguing that one of your first complaints is that we cannot ‘bring the mongrels to civilization’ and yet your only reasoning for so is that the ‘barbaric’ soldiers are il-equipped to do so. The goal of ‘peacekeeping’ is a noble one, force peace upon a people because they are unable to attain it themselves: hope for a better future. This seems to have evaded the US again, soldiers are not just meant to kill; wars have a reason, not just for slaughter.

I would? I think if Bush had ultimate power like Hussein did it would be a VERY close debate between who would lead the more desireable country. To be fair I think they were both poor leaders, it isn’t an issue to pick one or the other when I have a third option.

And yes, wars are won by beating the enemy. But you just called the enemy anyone who disagrees with the views popular of the time. So are you arguing that the constitutional guarantees of freedom of religion, opinion, government are all bogus… or only when non-Americans attempt them?

And teleological suspention of the ethical was a concept Kierkegaard developed (maybe not invented) around the case of God specifically commanding Abraham to kill his son, Isaac. He was justified in doing so because God specifically told him to do so, and (is argued) the command of God can transcend ethical duties to other people. I don’t think God sent an angel to tell the Bush administration to invade Iraq.

a) Who says? Anyone who believes that morality is a human concept. Especially since all of the other historical attempts at genocide have been fairly poorly justified it leads one to believe that it should be. (And governments ALWAYS have to justify their actions to their people in a democratic system. We give them the power, we have the right to know how and why they are using it.)

b) So every Iraqi citizen is firmly opposed to the life of every American? Any proof? I would be willing to bet there are a few who think everyone should be able to live, and quite a few who would be happy with US involvement in every part of their lives.

c) I am a Canadian. They don’t hate me nearly as much. And even they know the difference :stuck_out_tongue:. Never seen a maple leaf flag burning.

d) There are those that vehemantly oppose that all of the killings of Americans are wrong. Unfortunatly their voices are drowned out by the bombings of their country.

I know. And I am calling that viewpoint so far removed from civilzation that it shouldn’t be considered so.

You want to ‘win’ the war. How do you determine when you have ‘won’? When an american investor is made leader of Iraq and is in no way capable of running the country, only his own investments? Or when an american sympathizer is sworn in, when he only looks out for american investments? The reason the Iraqi people want to vote in a cleric is because that is who will best serve their interests.

And call the troops cowardly to their faces, see the response that illicits. However justified they may be they do their job with heroism, telling them that they aren’t killing enough defenseless children is not the best approach. Many soldiers are even opposed to how many civilian deaths there have been, when you go to war you fight combatants… not infants.

We obviously have conflicting views about what it means to fight a war. Or how an enemy should be determined and treated.