Posted on 11/09/2005 2:26:03 PM PST by sam_paine
Gary Chapman, REGULAR CONTRIBUTOR
'Why aren't you in Iraq?" That's the question I posed recently to a group of undergraduates at the University of Texas, an honors class studying the legal aspects of the war on terrorism.
I tried to ask this without antagonism or implicit criticism, but the question appeared to unsettle the students anyway. None of them had given military service much thought. All of them were against the war in Iraq. They told me they support the troops, but not the war itself. They won't sign up to fight a war they consider illegal and a mistake.
....
Either we're all in this together, or we should get the hell out. We can't have it both ways.
Chapman is director of the 21st Century Project at the LBJ School. He can be reached at gary.chapman@mail.utexas.edu.
(Excerpt) Read more at statesman.com ...
In fact, if you look at who is fighting for us, it is virtually every group in society save one: Hollywood male stars, unlike World War II.
My beef is guys like Balen spewing politics when he should be concentrating on his craft. As you suggested, he lacks much within his craft already.
You don't normally see serious stuff on Sacred Cow Burgers but man that one is powerful. It strikes right at the heart of the libs
Perhaps he should walk into a Marine Corps bar and let his feelings known.
Thanks much. I really wanted to stake 'em on that one after the Iraqi referendum on their Constitution.
This just BURNS me to the core.
My son - and countless numbers of his comrades- either left WELL PAYING careers or college to enlist to SERVE. He stands with high school grads and top-of-the-class college grads- and everything in between..in other words REGULAR AMERICANS.
The young people who made these statements have parents who should be ASHAMED they brought their children up to think this way.
- end of rant
re: Tim Kane
I think the first caller on the show quoted that same study.
I do know, however, that I serve with some damn fine people.
Well, you know what they say: "If you're not a liberal during college, you don't have a heart. If you're not a conservative AFTER college, you don't have a brain."
Exactly. What was their excuse immediately after 9/11 but before Operation Iraqi Freedom????? Especially long before we started our buildup in Kuwait?
They were cowards then, or they would have signed up. Any excuse to keep their skins safe while relying on the courage and self sacrifice of better men to ensure their liberties and freedom to declare the war illegal.
What exactly do you mean by that? Do you think one has to support (or believe in) everything the military engages in, including the current war in Iraq, or just their general mission of protecting America? Could someone support the military, but disagree with the current war?
Don't bother. Waste of time. If you have a Statesman subscription, cancel it. Otherwise, this guy deserves no activity to show to his editorial boss.
I don't even know where to begin.
Only after WWII and then for just a few years was the Military honored for their service by the elites in academe and elsewhere.
HaHa! Good one. After serving 22 years in the military, it always boggled my mind to think that anyone would think the government was competent!
- Hurry up and wait
- Close enough for government work
- SNAFU
- FUBAR
All terms invented by GIs.
You are correct in saying our armed forces in Iraq are superior in many respects to those who fought in World War II. However, the United States military in the Second World War heavily relied on conscription to fill its ranks. The military draft during that war was the most universal and probably the fairest one in American history, certainly when compared with the wide loopholes in the Cold War/Vietnam era draft and the ability of wealthy men to buy their way out of the Union draft in the Civil War. With more effective public education, overall higher moral standards in American society, and a greater level of physical fitness due to a higher prevalence of heavy labor and fewer conveniences, it is likely that the average American male made a better soldier in 1941-45 than his counterpart would in 2005.
Imagine that your spouse/significant other came home one night, gave you a kiss, and said, "Honey, I love you and support you. I think that everything that you're doing right now is wrong and immoral, but I wanted you to know that I support you."
Now, explain to me how you would respond to that statement. Would you really believe what that person said? No, actually, don't bother responding, because I know all the trite little excuses you are going to try and pull out of your rectum...and I know that they are nothing but excrement.
"Support" is not a concept. It is an action. Feelings are meaningless, except for in the liberal world, in which nothing is actually done, and so sentiment is all that matters. If you are too foolish to understand that, then off to DU with you, where you can hang out with all the other hypocritical little wankers.
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