So you didn’t realize you might be called to shoot up some foreigners that never did nothing to you, whenever the President gets a bee in his bonnet?
And if a soldier wakes up and realizes that the war is bullshit, and they’re not gonna fight anymore, what should they do? Run away to Canada like a scared little boy? Get your mommy to hide you? Or grow a pair, walk into your CO’s office and tell him the war is bullshit and you’re not gonna fight anymore, and you quit, do whatever you gotta do but you’re done.
If you’re too chickenshit to quit, the worst consequence of which is having to pay back some student loans and get a dishonorable discharge and face the disdain of your buddies, then fuck you. If you’re too scared to quit like a man, then get the fuck over to Iraq and do your job. You don’t wanna fight those innocent Iraqis, but not if you have to face some personal consequences?
Slovik was executed for desertion under fire. That means he ran away during combat.
You think they’re gonna put you in front of a firing squad for refusing to go over to Iraq and demanding to be discharged?
The worst consequence is a dishonorable discharge. If you can convince them you’re now a conscientious objector (as opposed to someone who just doesn’t want to fight this particular war, or someone who just doesn’t want to get shot at), not even that.
You know, I say Cindy Sheehan on Bill Maher’s Politically Incorrect, and she struck me as a genuinely concerned, good natured, down-to-earth and nice lady with a sense of humour to boot. I strained every ounce of my SDMB sophistry training to defend her against conservative attacks on other boards, but it looks like she has fallen beyond help. What a pity.
Her basic point, that the war sucks, is sound enough, but I don’t think she knows what to do or say beyond that. Camp Casey was a cheap stunt, but perhaps an effective one, and that’s all she’s got. She seems to think that she needs to be doing or saying something more (or less flatteringly, that she has nothing left to say but won’t leave the spotlight), but she hasn’t a clue what it is. So she pulls stupid shit liek this and her trip to Venezuela.
FTR, I was referring to a recent post by a different user in which that nickname was not in quotes. This seemed like a shortcut that made a useful point.
Actually, he told them all the way from the draft board to Europe that he wouldn’t fight. He just walked away; I don’t think he was being shot at, although it may very well meet the definition of “desertion under fire”
I don’t wish to intrude on the hissy fit you have going with Hamlet, but did you even actually read what John Mace wrote?
To break it down, John said “IF”, as in, something that hasen’t happened yet, “THEN” progress would be made towards reasoned political discussions. I would think this would be something you could agree with, why are you deriding it? Do you not want reasoned political discussion?
The first time he deserted his unit was under fire.
“Sent to the front lines in France after the June 1944 invasion, Slovik first deserted the night of Aug. 25 when his rifle company came under heavy shelling.”
Sorry I missed all the fun. FTR, I don’t equate CS and AC in terms of influence. CS was always a 15 minutes of fame type person while AC tends to hang around like the proverbial fart in a phone booth. However, CS was indeed the toast of the anti-war left (to be more specific than I was earlier) for much of last fall/winter. She was a headliner at the anti-war rallies, and made the rounds of the talk shows. She did have the good sense to realize that a Senate campaign against Feinstein would be ludicrous, so I’ll give her that. I think **Menocchio **got it right, though-- she was largely a creation of the media last summer. Bored to tears in Crawford, she was the only game in town for them.
