"So what is the relevance? you never really answered just posed another question back to me. "

Really? Then, as I suspected, you actually need to READ everything I type, which apparently you don't.

Remember THIS:
"It is disingenuous to make your claims, without knowing how the very people you are talking about, feel about what you are saying. Hence my questions."

A overwhelming majority of those serving are very proud of what they are doing, and what they are accomplishing. What they do not like, and CANNOT stand, is the good they are doing is being IGNORED. By whom? The press, and therefore by proxy, people like you. If, Larry, you would talk to some of these folks you would KNOW that, but your ignorance on this is plain for all to see, I believe.

Nuff said.

Nova, there are not basically BAD people in the world? So, who were the driving force behind the southern states during the American Civil war? As I recall, you said on your own blog, they represent the slave state, "one of the most repugnant concepts in the history of man". Were they not evil? Ku Klux Klan members? Are they not evil people in your mind? Perhaps you care to defend the bastards that decapitated Daniel Pearl? Or Paul Johnson? Or Nick Berg? Were those not bad people? Or are these people somehow exempt because outside influences FORCED them to do what they did? Are they excused from personal responsibility because the EVIL AMERICAN EMPIRE drove their murderous hands to kill? How about Gary Ridgeway, the Green River killer? Or Charles Manson? Or Ted Bundy? Are these people basically good in your mind?

Youngling indeed...if your not naive Nova then you are something far worse, and I hate to think that. If nothing else, your pomposity is getting old.

BK, I really don't mind you calling me a coward or naive; I would have to respond by calling you a Manichaeanistic, over-simplifying, part of the problem. I'm glad I won't have to.
Take your black and white, good and evil world, I'll say that you fail to see the forest for the trees. The world and all its people through all ages have been gray. Was every Nazi soldier evil? Was every American soldier good? (maybe Balk can answer that one)

I will agree with your assertion that people are not necessarily good, just as I'll say that there are not people who are basically bad. Take Hitler.... please. If he had sold more of his mediocre landscape paintings, he might have stayed home and gotten past his anger over WWI. But he didn't; consequently, his stirring oratorical style and shrewd political sense catapulted him into power not because he really was that persuasive and crafty, but rather that his beliefs found resonance in the humiliated, impoverished post-WWI population of Germany. Although there were a few heads that needed knocking to attain power and exercise his agenda, one man cannot create a Holocaust.
So let this bring into focus what my purpose here is; speaking truth to power. People like Hitler cannot come to power, whether by their own machinations or CIA intervention. The populations of the world must see these would-be emperor's without their clothes, and see the ridiculousness of what they stand for and their hideous methods for gaining and maintaining power in their political systems.
Although I know that you and Balk are deeply suspicious of that "main stream media" and "intellectuals" and "thinkers" but an interesting worldwide poll came out asking beliefs of God in several nations of the Western world. Too my surprise, at 96%, we were not the strongest believers in the existence of God. Also to my surprise, at 70%, our belief in the existence of Satan placed us first, ahead of the second place nation by 20%. Whether your belief in evil is based on theistic principles or your studious contemplation of history, your belief seems to jibe well with the rest of our glorious country.
Oh I like it when you call me naive, youngling.

Look maybe this will make it clear to you. The troops do not make policy, they do not decide where we go to war, they do not decide which targets to hit, they are there doing a job. They do what there commanders tell them to do. I support that they are there risking thier lives for a job. It doesnt matter thier motivation (i love my country and want to defend it, or i was just trying to pay for college those sneaky bastards) they are risking thier lives for a paycheck. That sucks, and since it was our government who sent them there I expect our government to do what it can to ensure that the right decisions are made in regard to policy and government back home in order to support the people that we have voluntarily put in harms way.

Contrary to what some of the people on this blog seem to think, making the right decisions involves looking critically at the desicions being made and deciding if that is the right decision for the sittuation. The war has become unpopular, people dont see us making progress, they see more troops dying and nothing really happening. As a result the policy makers are looking critically at our reasons for being there and our plan for what we are doing next. As a result they want to come up with an exit strategy one that puts us on track with some measurable goals to get us out of there. Why, because that is what makes sense at this point. To the policy makers, to the people of the US (as infered by popularity pools of the war).

That has NOTHING to do with knowing people who 1. have served in the military 2, are currently serving in the military and 3, have been to Iraq to fight.

So what is the relevance? you never really answered just posed another question back to me.

And when i say getting out of Iraq sooner, what i really mean is getting out period. Making a plan, one with a forseeable end and getting the US occupation done and our troops home.

What benefit does the american public get out of having troops in Japan? Germany? etc. etc. Other then giving us a jumping off point for global assault? We should work on bringing those troops home if there is no good reason to keep them there, but we need to get the troops out of the places where they are being killed and shot at first, and then we can deal with the other installments we have around the globe.

Larry:

NO RELEVANCE?!?!?!? Are you KIDDING?!?

Were you, or were you not, talking about supporting our troops? It is disingenuous to make your claims, without knowing how the very people you are talking about, feel about what you are saying. Hence my questions.

You talk about getting out of Iraq sooner. Sooner than when? Have we ever been given a time table for withdrawl? In addition, why are there all these calls for withdrawl from Iraq so soon? I mean, we've been in Germany and Japan for over 60 years, and in South Korea for 50...should'nt we bring THOSE troops home first?!? ;)

Nova:

If the style of your last response to me wasn't rife with mimicry and mock, the perhaps you and I are not having the same conversation either. I also want it made clear that I have never called anyone here a coward. Yet. ;)

I do want to address your War & God issue as well. You sound to me like the type of person who sees all the horrible death and destruction from the aftermath of war, and asks, "If there is a God, how can he let this happen?" This, to me, plays to your naivete' about evil. There are evil people and forces in the world. I do not believe that all of mankind is 'basically good', I believe there are a lot of nasty people out there. You cannot have good without evil. There cannot be light without shadow. There are evil people out there, and evil forces in the universe. The world and the universe we live in, isn't FAIR. As much as we wish it was.

Not that these questions have any relevance but just to satisfy you.

BK

Do you know anyone who has served?
Yes

Do you know anyone currently in the armed forces?
Not closely personal but people i correspond with on a semi-regular basis are currently in the armed forces.

Do you know anyone of them who has been to Iraq?
Again I know some people, i would not consider them close friends. I do know one person not in the military who is going back to iraq.


Balki:

An interesting take on the sittuation, and of course completely subjective.

I could say the same things with Aniken as the US and Obi-Wan as the rest of the world.

It is a classic story of good vs. evil and depending on which side you see as good, or which as evil you will always be able to make it fit to your sittuation.

I suppose that firstly I should explain to BK that this was not some mimicry, mockery, or parroting, but very serious questions that try, TRY to dig deeper. If my questions give you pause in your cries of patriotism, and your noble, low-grade racism (wonderful defense of Anne Coulter, btw), perhaps you can for once stop accusing people of being unpatriotic or cowardly. To me, the question of God is inseparable from the question of war. How can the existence of a good or benevolent God be reconciled with the existence of evil and widespread suffering? This study had a name long ago, and it was theodicy. You may be able to separate God and war, but I stand in an ancient line of those that can not. From the Trojan Women of Euripedes, to St. Augustinus of Hippo, to Friedrich Nietzche. As it applies to war, I had hoped that WWI had killed God, and WWII had led us to take our stewardship of the world seriously, but the evidence shows that this is not the case. Maybe the Middle East needs to have its WWI to vanquish its desert God. Time will tell. The nobility of dying well, for a cause larger (greater seems to be a distortion) than oneself still seems to hold sway and lend meaning to life for many people. And thus fighting will continue until those who are willing to die for a cause have done so.
I’ve never fooled myself into believing that the pen is mightier than the sword. As time has progressed, it’s proven itself inferior to the musket, the rifle, and finally the atomic bomb. My only hope is that at some point in human history, a great majority will see those two sides facing off, the pen and the atomic bomb, and realize the fundamental ridiculousness of the argument. If that never happens, then there wasn’t much worth saving in the first place. Don’t mischaracterize my low-grade misanthropy for Anti-Americanism.
In conclusion, take your Audie Murphy, and I’ll take my Yosarian.
If my questions don’t in anyway sway you, congratulations, you’re patriotism supercedes your exististential doubts. It’s not an accident that in the modern world, the greatest of leftist historians, Noam Chomsky, is a Professor of Linguistics, and it’s only more fitting/obvious/inevitable that he has such a small audience in America.
Which leads me to Balk…
Perhaps what I’ve written above will lead you to understand that for me, there is no possible separation of personal experience, what I’ve learned in this life, and the ideas I put back into this world. Don’t trick yourself into thinking that by making touchy subjects off limits, you’ve taken the moral highground; from where I stand, it’s mere psychic compartmentalization. BK, is right; you and I don’t speak the same language, and more often than not, we do argue right past one another.
But, as with Chomsky, let me attempt to lend evidence to larger historical arcs with language. Pertaining to Allende, the two sides of the imperial tug-of-war, in which Chile was the rope, do an excellent job of illustrating the issues at hand in the early 70’s.

"I don't see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its own people. The issues are much too important for the Chilean voters to be left to decide for themselves." — Henry Kissinger, Nixon tapes.

KGB defector Vasili Mitrokhin says that "In the KGB's view, Allende's fundamental error was his unwillingness to use force against his opponents. Without establishing complete control over all the machinery of the State, his hold on power could not be secure."

The economic collapse of Chile was due to the collapse of the world-wide price of copper, which comprised ~40% of GDP; an undiversified economy facing catastrophe. The preemptive economic sanctions of the US didn’t help the situation any, thus a self-fulfilling prophecy came to pass. More capitalism wouldn’t have helped this situation, because it was the free market that did more to precipitate the economic collapse than socialism.

As for Mossadeq, it was just another stand against the imperialist rape of a country, a movement doomed to failure. The Iranian Parliament was under great foreign pressure. My problem with imperialism is not that it is led by multi-national corporations, bent on profit. The utilization of a nation’s natural resources is a first step in the modern world to civil, educated society, and the US is an ideal test case. But imperialism in the post-Rennaissance world so rarely leads to the improvements of living conditions of native peoples. This is because there are no strings attached in the form of reinvestment and nation-building. Profits are brought back in totality to the initial investment’s nation of origin. Peasants stay peasants, the rich get richer. Where are the schools and roads? There is no moral oversight, only shareholders wanting the board to show them the money, thus the fundamental disconnect that leads to deep injustice. We wear the shoes, but don’t ask the follow-up question “why aren’t those teenage girls in school?”
And as for your near clever dodge, describing the world in post-9/11 terms rather than post-Cold War or post-WWII terms, I’ll leave you a quote from our Beloved Leader, and again, check the time stamp.
“When I was coming up, it was a dangerous world, and you knew exactly who they were. It was us vs. them, and it was clear who them was was. Today, we are not so sure who the they are, but we know they’re there.” George W. Bush, Iowa Western Community College; January 21, 2000

You know, you try to have a discussion with someone, and all they can do is mimic and mock you.

Nova, did you really want answers to those questions, or were you just being a simpleton? Despite my renewed attempt at serious dialogue, I get this in response.

As I stated in a post yesterday, it appears we aren't even discussing the same issue.

However, since you asked, here are your answers:

Yes, and it was a life-altering experience.
Of course, but that has nothing to do with this discussion...you just seem to like to bring it up.
I have, but I do not think that is the proper way to look at it.
In a manner of speaking, yes. I have yet to find a better answer.
I have, actually, what's your point?
No, because it is irrelevant.
Yes I have, but do not even bother trying to equate terrorist bombings to US military action. Never in history has a military bent over farther backwards to avoid civillian casualties and destruction of local holy sites.
...and your last question. No, I haven't. Because I KNOW people who have been there. I KNOW people who have interacted with the Iraqis on a daily basis. I also KNOW that what we hear in the media is NOTHING like what is really going on over there. Which is typical, HENCE my questions to Larry.

I'm not really sure why I have to explain this.

Nova, don’t bring her into this. Just because you lost faith in that tragedy doesn’t mean that the rest of us have to follow suit.

The goal of nearly every human being is to fulfill the dream of self determination without having to ask permission from a higher power if they don't want to. Democracy and Republicanism is always the preferable government model for this, even when weighed against the most benign or magnanimous of dictator or monarch.

Reading authors like Mossadeq, who helped the country of Iran steal from the U.K. by nationalizing oil production, and then take dictatorial power by dissolving the Iranian parliament (some democrat he became), or Allende, who’s economic policies ruined Chile’s and caused his backers in the parliament to disavow him, does not sound like a scintillating read into pro-democracy regimes in the world. No thanks, not interested.

You are thinking in the wrong era. This is not post WWII. This is post 9/11, where the effective armies of the day do not number in the thousands, but in the scores. Their object is not to take over a government or resources; it is to take over religion and ideology. The successful policies of Ronald Reagan, Pope John Pall II, and Lech Wałęsa to destroy a regime of evil do not apply now, as the enemy has changed.

And as far as learning how Iraq is going. I’m not going to trust some news agency that has picked through all the news of good that is going on in Iraq just so that they can get some good sound bite for the evening news. I will trust the soldiers who have actually interacted with the Iraqi man or woman-on-the-street. Overwhelmingly they want to see democracy take its course. I am not going to let a mere 5 % of the population of Iraq dictate how we defeat an enemy hell-bent on killing or converting us against our will, or cut-and-run.

BK,

Have you ever looked at someone who has died badly? Have you ever questioned the existence of God? Have you ever wondered why he puts us through this? Have you ever questioned the premise of spreading democracy? Have you ever read about Mossadeq, Allende, and the propensity of the US to actively subvert democracy when it doesn't serve our financial interests? Have you ever wondered whether the Iraq War II is a continuation or a departure from this American post-WWII pattern? Have you ever read stories of families in Iraq who have lost members from bombings (terrorist or American; there's plenty of both)? Have you ever read opinion polls of how many Iraqis still want us there?

Just curious.

Larry,

Do you know anyone who has served? Do you know anyone currently in the armed forces? Do you know anyone of them who has been to Iraq?

Just curious.

This brings to mind the a scene in Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith: Although your camp has continuously incorrectly characterized George Bush, Dick Cheney, or Donald Rumsfeld as the Emperor, I feel this is a better characterization:

The highly pitied role of Anakin will be played by Moonbats everywhere. The coveted role of the just Obi-Wan will be played by the Bush administration.

Obi-Wan: I failed you, Anakin. I have failed you. (translated: We didn’t articulate our reasons to go to war reasons clearly enough early on, we understand)

Anakin: “I knew the Jedi were planning to take over! (translated: Some insane view that the “conquering of Iraq” is just the first step in a larger US global tyranny)

Obi-Wan: Anakin! Chancellor Palpatine is evil! (translated: Sadham Hussein butchered many in political enemies in prisons. Killed mercilessly with WMD’s, Invaded and bullied benign regimes surrounding him)

Anakin: From my point of view, the Jedi are evil! (The 2000 election was stolen from us! Enron has to be tied with Bush!)

ObiWan: Well then you are lost! (The evidence is overwhelming. Are you so blind with hatred? So many countries stated that he still had the potential to make WMD’s, and all the ones that he had were still unaccounted for. Plus he had nuclear ambitions he was acting on. Plus Joe Wilson is a proven liar.)

If you would like a more complete debunking of the case against the Iraq War, turn to this great article in the Opinion Journal:

http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110007540&mod=RSS_Opinion_Journal&ojrss=frontpage

This opposition that is so baseless is hardly split along party lines. Many people from both sides of the fence are now 1. questionining the motivation for our invasion, 2. wondering if we should continue our endeavors in iraq or move to a resolution that gets us out of the country sooner.

I suppose we should just put our blindfolds on and earplugs in and continue to follow what Bush has said many times "Just trust me". Well I would rather have policy makers who looked at a sittuation and speak out when they have issue rather then being yes men to Bush.

How is that supporting our troops?