Why Haven't You Enlisted?

That's all great, but we found no weapons and are instead left here standing with 1000 dead americans and a large sum of money down the tubes.

Originally posted by Shoktek
Once again reiterating what you have stated time and time again. You are a true american hero. You bravely served our country. Is that what you want to hear each time you recite your little spiel of credentials?

Actually, I am tired of hearing it for two reasons. I am not a hero and I know that it is most often said dishonestly and with sarcasm. I post my credentials because many people question them when I speak on various themes. That's why they are there. I am proud of my service and my accomplishments, but more than that they are a part of who I am and they inform all that I think, do and say.

"Revolutionary Warrior," indeed.

[edit on 04/10/15 by GradyPhilpott]

WMD is a threat:
www.smallpoxbiosecurity.org...

my answer is:

why die for a country???

this is as stupid as dying for religiion...

Well, I do respect that you served in our military because you felt the cause is right (as many people originally did at the beginning of the war before changing their minds in light of newer evidence)...I just disagree with your opinion of vietnam and the war in Iraq. My anger is mainly at the government, and I think most of the servicemen are fighting because they believe they are helping us, even if I don't agree with that stance...they are still good men for standing up for what they believe in, as long as they are doing it for reasons of their own and fully understand the situation.

Don't take my anger as a personal attack against you, I just feel that war is wrong in almost all cases and am very passionate about it. I would also like to add that I am not a coward and not afraid of dying for this country if I believe in the cause I am fighting for. I am not afraid of dying, but I am afraid of dying in the name of something I don't believe in.

Originally posted by they see ALL
my answer is:

why die for a country???

this is as stupid as dying for religiion...

wow that's intelligent

Originally posted by GradyPhilpott
"Revolutionary Warrior," indeed.

Oh yes the big bad marine can't help himself without making more personal attacks...a warrior doesn't mean someone who kills people, but somebody who fights and stands up for what they believe in. This is what I try to do everyday of my life, but not with a gun. Grow up.

Originally posted by Shoktek

wow that's intelligent

yes and thank you...

would YOU serve and WHY???

is it because saddam / bin laden are "bad" people and need to be "punished"???

WHO / WHAT defines GOOD / BAD for YOU???

God, who we have no proof of existance and therefore making His teachings = 0???

OR...

pres. bush who we can't listen to because he is the president of america and america is at war so of course he would be telling us biased sh*t???

Originally posted by they see ALL
yes and thank you...

would YOU serve and WHY???

I've already stated my opinion very clearly on this thread of how I disagree with the war and the Bush administration. But I don't think its foolish to fight and die for a religion or country, as long as you fully support the cause with your heart and believe it is right.

Originally posted by Shoktek

I've already stated my opinion very clearly on this thread of how I disagree with the war and the Bush administration. But I don't think its foolish to fight and die for a religion or country, as long as you fully support the cause with your heart and believe it is right.

sry didn't see it...

anyway VERY good answer and i am hoping that YOU make YOUR own right / wrong...

Okay,

Just like to say I see some of Grady's points and I see some of the points of the people versus his views.....I'd also like to say that to me alot of what you guys are saying on both sides is.......!

I found my life in the Army Reserve to be a bonus....sure stuffed my life up when a civie injury kept me from staying in and joining the Regs....but I'm not for forcing people to join up, especially in wartime, unless you have the Islamic Empire's (being flippant for those who dont know me) D-Day gearing up in the Gulf of Mexico or Northern Australia, and it's a matter of national survival.

To the fellow who said he pays his obligation to the government in taxes or something to that affect, what it actually pays for is your national infrastructures and services, however good or bad you may consider them. I don't begrudge you that (and you would rightly not care IF I did) or your right to say no to military service. But I do have a lot of respect for those who also pay thier taxes like you AND choose to serve.

I wish more of our politicians and so called leaders had kids in the service when they call on the rest to go to war. Maybe they would be more picky about which ones they fight if they did. I don't vote ALP (the opposition party) in Federal Elections here in Australia, but if I was in Western Australia where ALP MP Graham Edwards was I would. He has served as MP for his electorate well for over twenty years now. In Vietnam he was a National Serviceman in the Infantry, and lost both legs to a mine. I would vote for him any day. And he is opposed to the war.

I take damn objection to the supposed literati out there who neatly box the majority of serving personnel as the dumb, ignorant, blind and unquestioning. I mixed with a lot of regular and reserve personnel who were no better or no worse than those of you who would not or could not wear the uniform. I take people as they come, but I would bet money I would damn well prefer to have a drink with more of the servicepeople I have met than most of the people I have met in school, the workplace or in the street, and not to tell warries, but because they are good intelligent people, despite perhaps a more colourful turn of phrase.

My thanks to those who oppose the war who have been gracious enough to make the distinction, in the same way I do not label most of you all left wing nuts.

I thought Bush was a richardcranium.Still do. I am not a "my country/ally right or wrong" kinda guy.

The war on terror, and in Iraq and Afghanistan has come about because of f***ed history. We could debate the policies forever and not agree on the what ifs. What if.......we could still be fighting a War on Terror with Jews instead of Muslims, or dealing with Germania or the Eurocomintern instead of the EU.

9/11 and Bali happened. Unless someone wants to personally go around and tell the families of the three thousand odd who died in the US and the 88 Australians in Bali they didn't and present the proof of it as fact, then thats what I believe, and beleive me nothing I have read here or elsewhere convinces me otherwise. I should say it was insufficent for me to hope that sitting on my hands and dithering would prove my concerns unfounded. You protect your own. There are no magic good or bad bullets in war, you just do the best you can

Bush was in power and took advantage of the situation with his cronies. Thats a given. I dont think it would have been much different with Clinton or Kerry and I dont think the blessing of the UN would change the #fight that the coalition is in now.

I did not beleive in WMDs and the only terrorists welcomed in Iraq before the invasion were probably kept on a tight leash by Saddam...like the CIA is supposed to be. I still supported the invasion to remove Saddam and I hoped, make the long term futures of Iraqis better. That our politicians had thier own agendas was a given, but I gave up on politicians doing the right things for the right reasons years ago. I just hope when they act more often or not the benefits coincide. I admit it was a mistake simply because it is now clear it would have probably been far better to leave a bastard like Saddam in to maintain the relative security the country had. Now we have opened it up to the very people we were afraid of, made a still relatively small but numerous portion of the population into willing recruits, and wage a poor security campaign compared to anything Saddam wouldve been prepared to use (it is our strength and weakness).

Our governments by and large do not fight this campaign for the Iraqis, but never the less the majority of them would benefit more by it's success than it's failure, and also with the successful and unhindered completion of reconstruction. It might be about oil, but remember, whatever good they get out of thier future is going to be funded by revenue from that oil, and it is the extremists that are preventing its flow.

We went to war on faulty intelligence, and the prejudices of leaders who used the elements of it that agreed with thier perceptions to make the choice for war. That these seem to have been wrong ( I conceed the slim possibility some influential Iraqis could have paid thier way out of the country with the materials and research in the many months in the lead up to the war) gave the anti war faction ammo against Bush and Co.

I wonder if we had used the elements of the intelligence that said we had baseless grounds for war and heeded them what might had happened if the reverse has been proven true.....and the WMDs had been there and were used?.....Would the war faction have been too busy responding too late to demand thier political opponents heads?

In 1938 at Munich I'm sure Neville Chamberlain thought Hitler could be trusted when he came home and said "Peace in Our Time" and that he had advice that was the case. Or that the senior Japanese who spoke of the un-necessariness of the A-Bomb could speak for the thoughts and plans of Tojo and his pro war faction in August 1945. How many times did allied operations fail or not eventuate because of stuffed intelligence in WW2? How many times did we ask for the leaders who made the decisions to step down? If we had would we have won the war, or would new leaders just have made worse choices? How many of the intelligence successes did we have to wait 10..20...50 years about to hear of?

We poured petrol on things with the invasion of Iraq. We had some justification to pursue AQ in Afghanistan and probably should have poured a fraction of the resources that we have used in Iraq in dealing with and cleaning up the situation there instead of creating a worse one.

Yes we have F***ed up.

But do you really thnk the Iraqi majority are going to get any benefit out of the Coalition, the US especially, just upping stakes and leaving?

Do you think the Madhists, AQ , the Saddamists are about making life better, by default or otherwise, for all Iraqis? Do you think they are gonna leave any government that isn't the one they set up (regardless of whether its genuinely wanted by common Iraqis or not) alone?

Do you think AQ and the like minded are just gonna settle for that and call it quits when it wouldve just proven to the massive dis-satified element in Iraq and the Arab-Muslim world that you can cow the west by kidnapping and executing civilians on the world wide web and setting off bombs?

It'll make all the real or imagined fears of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards spreading the word seem like a cakewalk.

Do we really want to isolate and abandon a nuclear Israel and expect them to go into the dark quietly? I think thier both as bad as each other but hey, the Palestinians don't have nukes.

Does the UN want to tell recently independent East Timor it being handed back to Indonesia because islamic terrorists there demand it?

Or does Spain want to cede its Southern half back to Morrocco to avoid future attacks because AQ claims they unjustly forced the occuppying Moors out in the Middle Ages?

If you don't give a rats arse about anybody else but yourself and your own people, do you really think you can negotiate with that mindset and expect that they will not settle back in and focussing on the next 9/11? You know...a packed World Series stadium 2006. Tanker in San Francisco, or truck bomb into three mile island? WTC was fiction too, but it happened. New bench mark of "how bad can it get". The IRA in 1984 After the bombing of the Tory Convention at Brighton missed then PM Thatcher, sent the UK Chief of Security the message " your problem is that you have to be lucky EVERY TIME. We just have to get lucky ONCE".....the fact they killed dozens wasn't even commented on.

Thats why I'm still "a stupid mug" who supports our part in the war despite a whole lot of good reasons to get out. You just can't sidestep the threat because youre opposed to the war. AQ or whoever arent going to give you a personal warning to avoid a set place at a set time the next time they "get lucky" and if you happen to get caught caught by them while backpacking in Egypt then they're not necessarily going to let you keep your head just because you marched at an anti war rally.

It seems to be the thing that both sides of the war argument seems to have missed. Its being argued that its a political and moral issue as to whether we get out or not. The one undeniable fact is....we are not going to be allowed to by the people we are fighting.....and I'm talking about the terrorists and insurgents....not muslims in general.

While no one wins wars, the choice must be made to either militarily crush the most concentrated pockets of active fighters, or we must politically and morally accept to give up control to these groups who do not represent the mass of people in the region who, irrespective of thier feelings for the coalition, just want to get on with peaceful lives. Somehow I don't think that is the goal of those "Right of Saladin"

And that would mean everyone (including NGOs and Humanitarian agencies) cutting off that part of the world that calls itself Arab and Muslim and barring ourselves inside our boarders. Worse Case Scenario of course.
I don't much like least case scenario personally. That we all go back to our nice safe lives and hope the UN works it out while the factions keep killing each other and blaming us.......in 50 or 60 years

Can anybody give me another solution, barring "If we hadn't done this, and hadn't done that, we couldv'e......" I'd love to hear it along with the UN I suppose. Maybe someone can start another thread.

Sorry for the length. This is not often a subject for pithy one liners or all knowing paragraphs. And I am not as gifted as that.

ps. I actually support the UN you know. It's not perfect, and I don't always agree with it, but its better than nothing.

[edit on 16-10-2004 by craigandrew]

[edit on 16-10-2004 by craigandrew]

Originally posted by cargo
A self-important social worker with no children who was in Vietnam but criticises today's young people for not enlisting themselves to die in a dubious war.

I don't even knowwhere [sic] to begin there.

The longest journey begins with only one step.

Grady I believe you are sort've asking about patrotism in the U.S. with your post? Patriotism has changed. We have been deluded by the government so many times that alot of people in society are suspicious of anything the government wants to do or has done. Add to this the advent of the internet where so much information can be obtained like it never was during WW2 by the general public. It's harder for politicians to hide their pasts. Ideas are changeing, everything is different now. I believe that people during the WW2 era were more innocent and trusting of our government. In a way I envy that because everything back then must've been either "black or white, good or bad". More simple. Easier to "know" how to feel. Now everything is more like "gray". And more complicated.
Our society is in a state of flux at this point. We are evolveing into something totally different than the society of the bygone eras. If this is for the better I really don't know. I only have my personal opinions, my beliefs on what's good or evil, and my own ideas to believe in. I think alot of people feel like I do.

Let me go ahead and get you started, cargo.

GradyPhilpott, my right wing polar opposite.

You're an older person, with plenty of education under your belt;
I'm a young person, just beginning my higher education career.

You're a mouthpiece for the right wing;
I'm a mouthpiece for the left.

You're a Vietnam veteran;
I am a pacifist violently opposed to war.

You're a rabid supporter of McCarthyism, a practice that was thought to have died out ( I guess not... );
I'm a Marxist...yeah, that's right. A Marxist.

And the final, most important one.

You exemplify a type of person that is on the way out the door. They are simply dying out, because there are not enough young to take their places. I like to refer to this type of person as the 'Educated Republican'. Republicans do not generally tend to educate themselves anymore, they let their parents, teachers, friends, neighbors, coworkers, and bosses do their thinking for them. I'll give you this, Grady. I respect you, because you have education, and have learned politics for yourself, and support the Republican party.

But you yourself must notice that your breed is a dying one. These are the days when children are taught not to question, and accept the preconceptions of their parents, and grandparents.

These are also the days when children go out to libraries, and read books. They spend $.50 of their lunch money to buy the newspaper.

Maybe this isn't done all over the place. I know that I did it. I also know that if I hadn't gone out, and taught myself about politics, that I would end up as a fierce conservative. I was raised in that type of household. I think that it is safe to say ( PERSONAL OPINION ALERT! ) that the more uneducated ( And no, I don't mean educated in a public school...I mean that the child has worked to educate him/herself ) the populace becomes, the more right-leaning it becomes. We must work to correct this problem, so that children can come to their own solution based on the facts and their opinions, and not by what they see on TV, or hear from their parents.

But, let me meander right up to my point. I'm feeling a little windbaggy today.

YOU Grady, are beginning to lose your perspective on the world today. It's no longer a world of 'US' and 'Them'. We are a global community, and need to start acting that way. I have resigned to the fact that the war in Iraq must be finished. However, manhandling and forcefully persuading our allies to join us in this war is not the way we can do this anymore. By the same token, we cannot hope to bear the burden of 100% of the cost of the war.

We need men who will reason with our allies, and make them see what needs to be done. Alot of Republicans can agree that Kerry could argue the birds out of a tree. Maybe this is the way we need to go. I think Kerry has a much better chance at bringing the world together than does Bush. Frankly, he would have a hard time of convincing me that the sun will come up in the east tomorrow.

The world is changing, Grady. Mass accumulation of arms and military power won't solve anything in the future. It will only cause more of the same. If we are to do anything progressive, we must downscale global arms, and end senseless conflict.

9/11 and Bali happened. Unless someone wants to personally go around and tell the families of the three thousand odd who died in the US and the 88 Australians in Bali they didn't and present the proof of it as fact, then thats what I believe, and beleive me nothing I have read here or elsewhere convinces me otherwise.

nobody denies there were victims. what is lacking is any kind of convincing evidence that the 'terrorists' were muslim.
in fact, there are mountains of evidence pointing to a hidden cabal within the CIA/congress/senate which is making these problems inorder that they(the cabalists in the political/legal arena) may institute draconian, totalitarian laws on previously free societies.
how anybody can ignore this massive elephant in the room, is beyond me.

there was a fundamental shift away from 'innocent until proven guilty' on sept eleven. it is now, 'guilty until proven innocent', and most americans are still just mindlessly waving their flags.

Loki

You're a young idealist with rebellious streak. The encouraging thing about you is that you do seem to seek out knowledge for yourself. When you are young and are still struggling with the egocentric and differentiation urges, everything not familiar seems inviting and promising, even if it is the cruel, murderous and failed ideology of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Ho, Kim-Jung-Il, and Castro.

If you continue study hard and learn from your experieces you will become more conservative with time. It happens to those who continue to grow and learn. The saddest of all people are the old liberals, clinging to their castles in the sky. Sooner or later, you have to start living in the real world.

I do not support the Republican Party. I am a registered Independent. I have been around long enough to see the Democratic Party commandeered by marxists and fellow traveller and that has left me with few alternatives.

George Bush is a good honorable, ethical, and moral man who has earned my respect by his resolute action. John Kerry has been stabbing people in the back for his political aspirations for nearly forty years. My experience tells me to support the former and oppose the latter.

There is hope for you, Loki, but until you learn to discriminate between the good and the evil, if you truly desire to do good, you will be at the mercy of the professional liars and propagandists.

Your way is not new and it is not the best.

I know. I have heard the reports and conspiracy theories. My wife is half convinced that every terrorist attack is inspired by the CIA!

I myself don't although I was very disturbed by the influence of the neo cons as shown in a French/British documentary (by a team which has aired some very anti terrorist stuff too) called "The World according to Bush"

The fellow, a close white house insider, but not elected and not a civil service appointee, was quite chilling...it made me consider that an independent neo-con effort outside of but linked to an unknowing White House in theory could have been responsible for 9/11.

But it is kinda racist to think that Muslims could only have succeeded with insiders running interference.

Of all the options I think the White House and Neo-cons were just as surprised about 9/11 as the rest of us (not that people hated enough to do it, but they were technically capable of pulling it off so successfully)

But they have taken full advantage of it, while also doing some things that were necessary.

Based on the greatest likelyhood, I beleive groups like AQ, without any help from shadowy cabals were responsible for 9/11 and terrorism before and since.

To my mind all the countertheories just go to serve that if the Administration had been paralyised by similar conflicting arguments it would have been exactly what AQ would have wanted and signalled further attacks while we all sat on our hands and dithered.

A response was required. Unfortunately George W Bush was the one thier to decide it. He started off well but really threw us all in it with his approach to Iraq.

We might still have ended up thier, but at least we could have been a more unified and prepared front.

Not once did I utter the names of Stalin, Mao or any other of these modern "Communists" you speak of.

With the exception of Castro, you have presented me with a list of men who destroyed and tainted the intent of the Manifesto.

Idealist, yes.
Young, yes.
Rebellious, yes.
Educated, getting there.

You'll be seeing more and more of people like me in the future, so don't think you'll see the end of this upsurgence in your lifetime.

I don't know why you say I cannot tell the difference between good and evil. I don't think I could operate as a person without the very basic ability to distinguish between good and evil.

I'm not evil, Marxism isn't evil, and eveyone could stand to learn something from the spirit of brotherhood.

I'm not going away.

Thats the beauty of democracy and freedom Grady, to suggest that people are not doing their duty by joining up is to ignore the very freedoms that western society has come to hold up so highly. It is not fair to suggest that people should sign up and put their own life on the line for a war that they do not feel is justified.

From an Aus perspective, the war in Iraq is a deviance from regular practise in Australia in the last few years. As the last few deployments of the ADF have been for more publically accepted reasons. The independance of East Timor, other peacekeeping operations in the Pacific, most notably the Solomons, as well as the special forces deployments in Afghanistan. Were all seen as 'good' deployments. As I recall there was a need for additional troops for the East Timor deployment, and the call was answered with a boost in enrolments.

The problem with the war we have in Iraq is that public opinion was never strongly in favour of the invasion and our involvement. Public distrust of political figures is getting lower and lower, and people are less inclined to put their lives on the line when they would be joining an Army in the midst of a war that they do not think we should be involved in.

Of course any overt and undeniable threat or attack on the country I think would result in massive rate of enrolment. Craig hits the nail on the head when he mentions the invasion of Australia, if this was the case then there would be no shortage of volunteers. National pride still runs very strongly in this country.

For the same reason I'd also suggest that if the Aus armed forces were deployed against Jemaah Islamiyah (who carried out the Bali bombings as well as other bombings around Indonesia, most recently the Aus embassy in Jakarta), and there was a need for more troops. The populace would rapidly respond with a higher enrolment rate as needed. Or if a nation was harbouring JI as the Taliban was harbouring AQ, you get the picture.

People simply don't want to die for something they don't believe in. That is one of the freedoms we have. One of the freedoms that a hell of a lot of good young men have paid for with their lives. Not believing in a war your country is involved in is not the same as not believing in your country.

Actually I am reenlisting once I finish school next year, ARMY Infantry if you were curious. Why I am enlisting is because I do see terrorism as a serious threat that is and has been growing world wide, especially with the new technologies developed. Now as far as Iraq goes, I think our government lied to the public about the real reason for the invasion. Part of it had to do with securing their oil, however the more important reason was in order to gain a foothold in the middle east in order to hunt down and destroy the organizations over there (since obviously the UN isn't willing to do anything, and the governments over there support the terrorists for reasons of maintaining political power.)

The reason I believe we have been having so many casualties is because our government has historically funded the air force and navy with new technology believing that the infantry is a dying breed. However they are finally starting to see that the infantry and grunts are the ones who will win this urban war, hence the new xm8 rifle being developed and armor. I hope their training is improving as well because that was a major problem.

So to sum it all up yes I hate politicians, about every soldier Ive talked to hates politicians as well, and while they have screwed many things up over the years as always but terrorism is real and it will always be around. But at least maybe we can stop them before the innocent get hurt.