Are our troops fighting for us and our country...?

[kentuck]

We are told to never criticize the troops because they are fighting for "us". They are dying for "us". They are fighing for our "freedom". This is not to criticize the troops but to put forth an honest question. Are the troops really protecting the American people? Or are they protecting oil and corporate interests? Or do you believe they are protecting us from the terrorists? Is that a fair question?

Is is possible to respond honestly on this issue? Is it too close to many parents and friends of troops for an honest response? Do the troops believe they are defending our right to be a "free" nation? Who do you think the troops are fighting and dying for? Are they fighting for you? Are they fighting for their country? Or are they fighting for soemthing else? Is that a fair question?

[Patty Diana]

1. they fighting and dying for bush's CORPORATE WHORES

[pie]

2. They fight and die for nothing

This is my line on the issue no matter where I am.

[malmapus]

3. They aren't fighting for us or country.

They are fighting for each other, I can tell you for a fact that I never once thought about anything out of country while deployed. All I cared about was getting my ass back home in one piece as well as my buddies.

[Bridget Burke]

6. I watched "Lone Star" again last weekend.

Thanks to IMDB, here's a conversation between a black colonel & a black private busted for drug use:

Delmore Payne: With your attitude, Private, I'm surprised you want to stay in the service.

Athena Johnson: I do, sir.

Delmore Payne: Because it's a job?

Athena Johnson: Outside... it's... it's such a mess. Um... It's...

Delmore Payne: Chaos. Why do you think they let us in on the deal?

Athena Johnson: 'Cause they got people to fight. Arabs. Yellow people, whatever. Might as well use us?

Delmore Payne: It works like this, Private. Every soldier in a war doesn't have to believe in what he's fighting for. Most of them fight just to back up the other soldiers in their squad. They try not to get them killed, they try not to get them extra duty, they try not to embarrass themselves in front of them. Why don't you start with that?

[LynnTheDem]

18. My army hubby says "right on, man...that's affirmative"

(First he said "roger that"...but being as he & I both lived many years in the UK and know what the common meaning for "roger" is, he changed to "affirmative". :D

[malmapus]

23. hahah roger that :)

Yeah, I love the little quirks with the English language abroad.

I started dating a co-worker a few years ago who was from New Zealand.

Funniest coveration ever had she asked if I was doing anything that afternoon, and I was planning on re-soldering some wires on my guitar.

So I said "I have some soddering to do" (being I'm from Georgia)

She got this look on her face like :wtf: did you just say.

I forgot that sod is completely different term to a Kiwi heh

[LynnTheDem]

32. We still tell people to "get stuffed" and "sod off"...oh speaking of...!

We were driving down the road here in our town, Texas, and almost drove up the sidewalk we were shocked & laughing so hard; HUGE billboard for Taco Bell;

Eat at Taco Bell and GET STUFFED!

ROTFL!!!

:rofl: :rofl:

[stanwyck]

24. exactly my son's sentiments

as I posted below. Only the chickenhawks (like Rush, Hannity, O'Reilly, Coulter ) repeat the uber patriotic platitudes about war. Learned from old John Wayne movies.
How disgusting these people must seem to you.

[malmapus]

27. Same way they must seem to you and your son

But when all of this mess in Iraq was first starting, I actually did have a melt down on a few people who must have listened to radio chickenhawks regularly with the BS they were spewing.

Funny when people like that who have no idea what being a Marine, a soldier or even airman or sailor, have this twisted notion in their head about what it must be like.

Those of us who were there were there for each other nothing else, like your son with his buddies.

Lol, if anything, I think I may have cursed the country a couple of times for sending me to the s***holes I went to. But that was just me releasing some steam. :)

[gratuitous]

4. I have no idea whatsoever what is motivating any of the troops

All I can say is that they are not defending me from terror, and killing a bunch of people half a world away in Iraq and Afghanistan (coming soon, Iran and Syria) doesn't enhance my personal security and actually harms our national security.

At the risk of appearing redundant, I'll repeat myself: The military has become the bully arm for whatever incumbent administration fights and claws its way to power, sucking up billions, wasting our resources and producing nothing worth the price.

[Pool Hall Ace]

8. I saw on the news a few months ago

a soldier preparing for his second tour of duty in Iraq. He said he was not afraid to die, and that if he kept just one insurgent from coming over to the U.S. and attacking, it would be worth it.

I'm not trying to imply that they are all this naive, but at least one seems to think that he is protecting the United States from Iraqi invasion.

[gratuitous]

11. Like I said

I have no idea what is motivating any of the people in the military. I know what many of them have said in front of a camera or a microphone, but I have no way of gauging their truthfulness. I only know that for me, they aren't "defending" me or enhancing national security.

I really wish our nation would get over its infatuation with the myth of redemptive violence. I'm not very hopeful of seeing it in my lifetime, but it must happen or the nation will perish.

[JuniperLea]

28. you can't expect them to disobey orders

they are doing what they are told to do and they have no other choice. these are our sons and daughters, husbands and wives. what they are doing is honorable. what their superiors are doing is what is heinous and cruel and stupid.

[gratuitous]

34. I don't expect anyone else to do anything

I only know that for myself, if what I'm doing is wrong according to my own lights, I must change or risk death. Maybe it's total physical death, maybe it's just the little deaths of conscience or stress or compromised health (mental or physical). Clearly, I could never join the military; when Jesus said love your enemies, I'm pretty sure he meant don't kill them. I can't answer for others, and particularly for other Christians, who can justify killing their neighbors, but I know that I can't do it myself.

For some reason, this makes a lot of people uncomfortable. A choice I made some time in the past may have been based on bad or wrong information. Circumstances may have changed, and the choice is no longer a good or honorable one. In those cases, re-examination is necessary for me. Perhaps there are other choices, painful choices, choices that will cause a personal loss. But blindly sticking to a choice gone horribly, heinously, cruelly, and stupidly wrong strikes me as a foolish course.

[JuniperLea]

38. yet you judge others?

is that a christian thing to do?

i agree, thou shalt not kill and thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor are two of the big 10. bush bore false witness in order to kill.

god gave us free will. he also said not to judge your brothers, so maybe you better think about that.

i resent christians who think they can judge... and those who think they can take away the free will god gave us all.

if you are going to tout yourself as a christian, you should walk the walk completely. imho.

i was raised christian and left that cult when it became apparent there are so many bigots and judgers and haters and hypocrites. that isn't the chrisitanity (christ-like behavior) i was taught.

[gratuitous]

39. Hanh?

I'm not sure where you got the idea I was judging anyone. I repeatedly said in my post "for myself," "I must change," "I could never," "I can't answer for others," and "I can't do it myself." I rounded off with what I perceived as a foolish course of action.

Somewhere in there, you apparently jumped to the conclusion that I was judging other people. I don't know how you did that, because you seemed in your post to be more intent on calling other people "bigots and judgers and haters and hypocrites," which appears to me to be pretty judgmental. Maybe those words sound different to you when you type them.

If you're comfortable with folks killing and being killed on behalf of the "heinous" "cruel" and "stupid," then I fail to see what you're so obviously worked up about when I posted my counteropinion. On the other hand, if you're not very comfortable with that, perhaps your agitation is due to something else?

[JuniperLea]

40. you were being condescending

that is judgemental... holier than thou...

i AM NOT confortable with killing and said as much. i'm not comfortable for blaming the soldier for following orders. since you have never been a soldier, you can't know how they are treated or what they are told. you are condescending upon their actions based on your own assumptions. that is where i have a problem.

love the sinner, hate the sin... that familiar? where does it say be holier than thou to the sinner?

[JuniperLea]

41. my aggitation

is due to the fact that i no longer claim to be a christian, so i don't hold myself to that level of behavior. you, on the other hand, make such claims. all i'm saying is if you are going to talk the talk you should walk the walk.

[gratuitous]

42. How kind of you to make up the crime and then convict me of it

I presume that your mind-reading abilities came when you quit Christianity for name-calling?

Maybe you're having difficulty with pronouns: When a person uses terms such as "I" and "me," that is known as using the first person. I didn't say a word about what choices and courses others might choose or walk, simply said what I thought about my choices and course that I might make or find myself on.

You seem mightily troubled by my opinions and my choices. I don't know why that is, though I conjectured one or two possibilities. But it seems you would rather make up baseless "holier than thou" accusations than carry on a substantive conversation, secure that you can name-call with impunity because you can then shout "hypocrite" should I return your treatment to you. That seems to be rather cowardly behavior to me.

You will now persuade yourself that I just called you a coward.

[JuniperLea]

44. i made up nothing

i only quoted the bible.

and still you condescend and hold yourself up above all others. if you call yourself a christian, you should behave that way regardless of how you are treated. returning what you deem as an unfair treatment for the sake of getting back at someone isn't very christ-like, now is it?

i'm just saying...

and where did i call you a name?

i carry substantive conversations all the time; they are really quite natural for me. the trouble is getting like treatment.

[Hubert Flottz]

5. Exxon and Halliburton!

But don't tell them!

[HughBeaumont]

7. They're unwillingly protecting corporate OIL interests!!

DAMN IT, I hate to no END when the jingoist RWankers say that shit. This was never for OUR country or OUR freedoms . . .Iraqis are NOT going to fly over here, take over the government and burn our Constitution. They never were going to. It's the silliest sack of monkey shit I've ever heard of.

You want to talk defense? Defend us from the neo-Taliban Religious Reich Repukes. They're taking away everything we fear losing. They're the ones destroying our freedom, not some phantom bad guy(s) who lives in a desert. They'd nuke the populace if they knew they could profit from it.

[kentuck]

9. Many people are afraid of this subject because...

they are afraid the Repubs will accuse them of being anti-troop and anti-American and "anti-patriotic". Therefore, they go along with the lie. The troops are fighting and dying so we can be "free". And nothing can be challenged...

[LynnTheDem]

20. It's a technique made popular in Hitler's Nazi Germany

"All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger."

-- Herman Goering at the Nuremberg trials

[MichiganVote]

10. war is only a continuation of politics

A Prussian general once said this and he was right. Our troops are fighting only for the advancement of PNAC's (Project for the New American Century) political, military, and diplomatic goals.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

26. In Iraq, it's a continuation of politicians' ambitions.

[ComerPerro]

12. They believe they are. On their end, that's enough

I am just sad they they can't relize that they are risking their lives based on a lie and to protect the political interest of a rich, elitist coward.

[Double T]

13. Our troops are fighting for bush's "truth", bush's "justice" and...

the Halliburton Way.

[H2O Man]

14. Malcolm X used to say

that we should focus more on the puppeteer than the puppet. The administration had earlier identified "a few bad apples" after some photos of dog leashes and black hoods were made public. They have prosecuted soldiers for their behaviors, even though it seems obvious that these people were following directions from others. The administration put the focus on the puppets; when people point out similar concerns, the administration shrieks with a self-righteous indignation that it is un-American -- indeed a form of betrayal -- to question any soldier's actions.

I'm primarily concerned with the puppeteers in the administration. They are pulling the strings. And they are the people betraying America.

[leftofthedial]

15. they are fighting and dying for Halliburton

not us

not America

[G_j]

16. I'm not afraid to say it

they are fighting and dying for Bush and the PNAC neocons.-period-

I am not a Vet but I know many Vets who say the same thing.

edit to add:
as long as we play the game of pretending they are fighting for us the more people will die.
It is the awakening of those in the military and their families that will turn this around IMO. Cindy Sheehan is not afraid to say it, and her son died in Bush's war.

[LynnTheDem]

17. No they are not.

And my US Army soldier hubby agrees.

[kentuck]

19. These are the type of questions people asked during Vietnam War...

and the kind of questions that stop cruel and illegal wars. This is where you have to start, if you want a legitimate anti-war movement, in my opinion. Put it right out front without accusing the troops. Once you blame the troops, you lose the broad support you need to counter the war mongerers...

[stanwyck]

21. My son told me

(and I imagine this was true in Viet Nam, also) that he wasn't opposed to going back for his second tour in Iraq because he "wanted to protect his fellow Marines." He said they all gave up on "spreading freedom" the first week they got over there the first time. They weren't greeted with flowers. They were greeted with the Iraqi equivalent of the one finger salute. Including the children. So...they got over Bush's fairytale really quickly.
They don't really think about the politics. They think about each other. And according to their latrine poll before the elections (very scientific, of course) Kerry was leading over-whelmingly.
Now, when the cameras are on them, they know what to say. They're media savvy young men and women. They grew up, literally, with video cameras on them. They've had every moment of their lives documented. But I believe that most soldiers are like my son -- from WWI, WWII, Korea, Viet Nam, to Iraq. They're there to protect each other. The cause gets ground into dust as soon as they see people - from both "sides" - getting blown to pieces.

[jonnyblitz]

30. that is exactly it.

I have heard other military guys say exactly this on tv. I also know that when i was in the navy during Desert Storm we were always briefed on what to say/not say to the press. we were always told to say something generic and very positive and if the questions became too detailed we were told to refer them to a public affairs officer.

[Qanisqineq]

35. BINGO!

That is everything I've heard, too, from soldiers.

[barb162]

22. They are fighting for the incredibly messed up shrub agenda

You know, it's a good thing Saddam is out of power, WMD may still be there, etc

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

25. They are killing and being killed for politicians.

We can blame Halliburton, Exxon, etc, all day, but it's the politicians that arm & equip them and send them as enforcers of their policies.

The "troops" are merely the tools of the politicians and those that buy them to keep the "American Dream" going.

And, of course, the voters who keep voting for the oligarchy that calls itself a "democracy".

[TWiley]

29. Hell no, this is a Bush Family War.

They fight for their interests and nothing more.

[kwolf68]

31. No

We are being told they are "fighting for our freedom" to keep the populace from taking pitch forks to the White House steps. You don’t have to convince EVERYONE this war is a sham, illegal, and a giant boondoggle, you merely need to convince enough people, politicize the issue (only Democrats are against the war) to keep the “non-partisans” from taking to the streets.

This war is the most disgusting thing I’ve ever seen, but those $700,000 houses going up in Fairfax, Prince William County, Fauquier County, Loudoun County in Virginia sure aren’t being bought by the soldiers…many are being bought by the profiteers who rely on the spilled blood of the soldiers.

[madeline_con]

33. Here's how it works.

first of all, you know if you're not with us, you're against us.

We have to fight them overseas so we don't have to fight them here at home.

:sarcasm:


As if there's a line of suicide bombers at the Baghdad airport, just waiting for the gates to open.

Anything said against the war is aiding and abetting the enemy.

These are rallying cries for the ignorant and misinformed.

I guess the present administration isn't as dumb as some people wish they were. They counted on, and got the vote because of a huge number of Americans' ignorance.

[B Calm]

36. Actually they are fighting and dying in VAIN for Bush's buddies that

bought him the White House.

[Karenina]

37. No.

[friesianrider]

43. They are fighting and dying for reasons not worth...

fighting or dying for.

I'm sick of right-wingers acting like itisn't okay to ask these kinds of questions. No no, just blindly support whatever the Republicans say. If you don't, then you're not supporting the troops!

They are fighting and dying for American corporate interests - not for freedom.