Anti-war rallies and their effect on the families of soldiers

I hope that her mother was able to respond that 75% of the US are backing our troops.

Additionally, most media outlets feel compelled to talk about the most radical portion of the remaining 25%. After all, this is what sells media, ie papers, tv ratings, etc. Why else does the UK's Daily Mirror hire Peter Arnett the loser? It sells.

I would also like to find out if there are any pro american troop web sites. After all, the anti-___ protesters are organized and have web sites that have been established for a long time.

Does anyone know of a web site that lets us send messages to our troops that we support them and are behind them and want them to come home safely?

 

Ah, the old "Our troops are psychological pansies" routine.

 

Re: Re: Anti-war rallies and their effect on the families of soldiers

So, when can we expect your condemnation of FOX for not firing Rivera (and Rivera himself), who actually disclosed a unit's position and future movement, rather than simply expressing a less-than-favorable opinion towards senior military planners?

 

That's pretty disturbing, too.

My nephew, incidently, parachuted into Northern Iraq last week. He knows I'm against this war, as is his father. In fact, my nephew doesn't think it's the war is a very good idea from a foreign policy standpoint. But he has a job to do. Furthermore, he's not fighting for the president, or the flag, or anything like that. He's fighting for the guys he's been training with for the past three years. Which is how it should be. That's a paraphrase of something he said when he started training in Italy, in one of our last phone conversations with him.

That said, I agree with Superdave that anti-war protests at this point aren't very effective. More effective would be a series of fundraisers for, say, the Red Cross or Doctors Without Borders... you know, people that might be able to bring some good out of this once the fighting winds down.

 

I suppose you guys have never heard of the Marketplace of Ideas.

 

This Thinking Must Be Discredited...

So I value the life of each and every American combatant in this conflict NOT by being seen and heard on my desire as a citizen of America and the world for them to be back in America with their families, surrounded by those who love and value them and whom they love...but rather by either being silent, or by changing my beliefs and hoping that they can kill enough other people quickly, that they can exhibit their value by dying and/or bringing about death, in an invasion of a nation that has not attacked us, in a war that will remain officially undeclared and authentically undebated...



I'm sorry; I don't live in that reality.

That's a reality that would have had King silent on Vietnam, and told Thoreau "shut up an' pay your goddamn taxes." A reality that "protects" citizens from the truth of war by hiding it, and condemning those who show it, because...why? Because the truth of war is indeed inescapably horrible? Because the truth of what is happening to our young people in a desert land far from home, LIVE, would engender a feeling that maybe Bush had time, had PLENTY of time, to forge a solution of peace, if he didn't have Rove in every meeting pointing to a re-election calendar? A feeling that, in the estimation of some here, is TOO LATE because, in the funniest sense of "realism," we're already engaged...?



Not the America I'm striving for; sorry.

And, again, when you're ready to place your DD-214 next to mine, then we can talk about what GringoTex rightly states: soldiers who know their duty, and who perceive the orders of their chain-of-command, all the way up to Bush, as lawful, will do their duty as they see it.

Take an oath and stand a post once in your "opine from afar" life, and you'd know that.

Those who are calling home with questions HAD questions all along.

The fact that citizens continue to stand up for what they believe, on either "side," IS the only, final hope for the Great Experiment; indeed, it's standing up when its difficult, not standing up when life SEEMS hunky-dory, that differentiates those with a personal, citizen sense of duty not unlike the troops, from those who allow the circumstance and happenstance of life and living to TELL them how to behave, extremists on both "sides" celebrated by the American media for ratings purposes notwithstanding...

 

God what a lame ass soldier this is. Anti-war protesters should entirely ignore this level of incompetence and idiocy. We might also want to rethink our Basic Training if this is the type of soldiers we're letting through.

 

Re: Re: Anti-war rallies and their effect on the families of soldiers

See what happens when you let women in the army?

 

I had the opportunity to talk to a friend who is a tank mechanic near the front lines of the push to Baghdad through three emails over the last week and I asked him what he and the other soldiers thought about the protests. He said most of the guys share a similar mode of thought. [These are not his words verbatim] "Free speach is a great thing and we are here fighting to protect our nation against a 'perceived threat.' When we hear that people are protesting the war we usually blow it off with a 'we're getting shot and you stupid fucks are carrying your placqards and then going home to your cushy homes while we camp out in the desert.' We know that the protestors are a minority, but it is nice to see a 'pro-troop' rally now and again." He added that one of the tank drivers he is friends with does [this is verbatim] "an uncanny Cartman impression and usually goes off on a 'dirty hippies' tryrade when we get news of an antiwar protest."

This isn't representative of the armed forces as a whole, just some tank mechanics and drivers pushing the frontline heading towards Baghdad.

 

Protesting is fine if the protestors would actually look at ALL the issues surrounding the conflict. Most of them just reflexively seem anti-Bush & anti-Blair. No protesting France or Russia's role in Iraq. No pictures of Saddam's torture chambers or gassed Kurds. If they say the Bush admin. has an agenda it's also true that war protestors are pushing their own agenda and little of it has anything to do with what's going on inside Iraq. Many of them are just not well-informed (aka Hollywood types) or even more disturbing - they reject what's going on over there because it doesn't fit neatly into their political views. ANSWER sponsors many of these marches and we all know what they're pushing for.

 

Speech is no less appropriate because it is unpopular. Some quotes for your enlightenment:

"The right to speak freely and to promote diversity of ideas and programs is therefore one of the chief distinctions that sets us apart from totalitarian regimes." Terminello v. Chicago, 337 U.S. 1 (1949).

"Those who begin coercive elimination of dissent soon find themselves exterminating dissenters. Compulsory unification of opinion achieves only the unanimity of the graveyard." West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624 (1943).

"Any word spoken...that deviates from the views of another person may start an argument or cause a disturbance. But our Constitution says we must take this risk...and our history says that it is this sort of hazardous freedom -- this kind of openness -- that is the basis of our national strength and of the independence and vigor of Americans who grow up and live in this relatively permissive, often disputatious, society." Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, 393 U.S. 503 (1969).

And finally --

"If there is a bedrock principle underlying the First Amendment, it is that the Government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable." Texas v. Johnson, 491 U.S. 397 (1989).

I realize this thread isn't about the right to protest per se, but about the propriety of exercising that right at a time like this. 200 years of Constitutional law instructs us that protesting against the war is every bit as partriotic and American as fighting in it.

 

Yeah yeah and all hawks are misinformed ignorant mental pygmies, guys who never grew out of their "War is so kewl! Lookit those awesome tanks with their big guns! I wish I had a big gun!!" stage at age 13 and neo-Nazi warmongers who love it when Dubya lies to them and want to kill all Iraqis just because they're towelheads. No acknowledgement of the USA's past support for Saddam including selling him his WMDs and helping him use them against Iran, no acknowledgment that more serious threats exist to us, no acknowledgement of the various conflicts of interest within the Bush administration, etc. etc. etc. And where is the protesting of the assault on our civil liberties by Ashcroft? The hawks reject any bit of news of the obvious blunders and lies from the Bush administration because it doesn't fit neatly into their political views. Obviously, the hawks have their own agenda and it has nothing to with WMDs, helping the people of Iraq, or making this country more secure.

See, Pizzeria, since you wanna play with wacky overgeneralizations, I can bust out my own.

 

I agree that many Americans have a myopic view of this war, and that a certain percentage of the protesters are just...straight...wacked. I saw two protests in San Francisco this fall. There were an alarming number of "Free Mumia" and "Fight Corporate Greed" placards. Definitely makes you wonder...

However, myopia is a two-way street. I think many in the pro-Bush, pro-war crowd have a very limited understanding of the history of this "crisis," how it fits into Bush's overall agenda, and of its massive, massive costs (defined broadly).

 

Actually, those stupid f|_|cks would like it much better if soldiers weren't getting shot at and camping in the desert.

 

Another feature of the marketplace of ideas is, I'm not responsible when soldiers and their families can't distinguish between anti-war and anti-American.

For example, if I were to be in favor of sending troops into the desert with inadequate manpower and supplies, with a plan destined to make their lives as miserable as possible, promising them an easy victory and preparing them in no way for the possibility of an extended, bloody, dirty war, all the while obliterating the goodwill this country has abroad, and openly encouraging our enemies to attack us while alienating our oldest and closest allies, in favor of a series of war aims that are transparent rationalizations for enriching the Cabinet and Republican campaign contributors?

THAT would be anti-American.

Lady, I didn't tell your kid to go kill a bus full of civilians. In fact, I suggested the opposite. What's next, blaming PETA for mad cow disease?

 

The quotes are germane to the discussion. Haven't you ever used a quote in a term paper or a report because, say, the person you quoted summed up your argument succinctly and hey, why waste your time and mine by trying to craft some witty response when John Doe or the Supreme Court or whoever said it just right?

It's called backing up your argument.

 

I did "say it." And then I said it again with quotes from the highest court in the land, whose charge it is to interpret the Constitution. And then I said it again.

Drawing on 200 years on Consitutional interpretation is a "copout"? You value unsupported rhetoric and opinion over reason and analysis? Suit yourself.

 

Wow. This is insightful beyond measure.