Pro-war males age 18-35 (I mean 42)

The BBQ Pit
21

[QUOTE=Gatopescado]
My background is in finance and credit. If I personally wanted to play guns, I would have joined one of the branches of the military (and enjoyed all the nice benefits that go with it) years ago. I didn’t, but why shouldn’t I support the current administration’s decision to wage war?

I also believe in the right to abortion, but I’m not getting one any time soon.
[/QUOTE]

If, in the course of your job you face the possibility of roadside bomb, sniper fire or RPG attack, I would not ask you to perform your finance and credit related duties unless it was direly important.

If I feel the situation warrants risking your life for my security, I would never call on you to face mortal danger without standing beside you, if I was able. If it is important enough to ask you to risk your life and limb, and ask you to kill in my name, I would be obligated to do the same, if I am able.

If the cause is not important enough for me to risk my life, it is not important enough for me to ask you to risk yours.

22

[QUOTE=Polamalu]
Are you joining the police force any time soon? The fire department? I’m assuming you think both of those are necessary.

I imagine that your response will be, “But the Iraq war isn’t necessary.” That’s irrelevant; your argument can be summed up as, “If you think this action is so necessary, why don’t you join it”? It is a completely idiotic argument.
[/QUOTE]

Really? Why?

Asking out citizens to spill their own blood and to kill on my behalf, and spending vast amounts of treasure in war is in its own league, if you ask me. Police and firefighters are necessary, but deserve a completely different level of consideration.

I appreciate you imagining my argument. Its kinda cute when you try to get in my head and figger me out. I like that about you.

In my opinion, if you are of military qualifications and you think the war in Iraq is necessary, then you have an obligation to join those fighting. If you do not feel compelled to do so, I question your commitment to the cause. And that is cool. Just admit it.

23

Well, I thought about the army, but my dad said I was fuckin’ high.

24

At least you thought he might be right for once and you took your old man’s advice.

25

Three sad semesters… well, at least it was only 15 grand.

26

[QUOTE=Airman Doors, USAF]
It’s worth noting that in spite of the (alleged) shortfalls in recruiting, the military still turns people away.
[/QUOTE]

Yep. I’ve tried to sign up multiple times and been turned away, even though the recruiters were salivating over my resume. It always went south at the MEPS station when I had to get the med check.

Apparently colorblindness is a really big deal.

27

[QUOTE=Mellivora capensis]
Sorry, Airman, I disagree. If that were true, you wouldn’t need the draft.
[/QUOTE]

There hasn’t been a draft for 30 years and there is an almost zero chance of it ever being employed again barring a global conflict.

28

[QUOTE=newcrasher]
In my opinion, if you are of military qualifications and you think the war in Iraq is necessary, then you have an obligation to join those fighting.
[/QUOTE]

I am curious if the opinion you summarize here is the application of a more general principle or a disconnected, free-floating thought. If it’s the latter, that’s cool. If it’s the former, though, I think we should get to the heart of the matter. What I’m asking is: does what you said apply to any war or military action?

Let us assume, as some in this thread have, that war is sufficiently different from other kinds of dangerous government service (e.g. police and fire fighters) that it warrants, for whatever reason (lack of manpower, overuse of treasure/blood, and so forth), special ethical consideration. Is it true that if you “think a war is necessary” then you have an obligation to fight in it? I realize you might not have been trying for precision with that language, clearly you mean pro-war people when you say people who think it was necessary, though it seems to me those two ideas are somewhat different.

Yet the state of being “pro-war” is not a binary; it is a spectrum. To what degree must one support a war before ethical obligations arise? What if I support certain aspects of a war very strongly yet revile others with equal strength?

I realize that your original pitting was probably not aimed at people in the kind of gray zone I’m describing, but your argument would carry more force (with me, at least) if it were better defined.

29

[QUOTE=Airman Doors, USAF]
There hasn’t been a draft for 30 years and there is an almost zero chance of it ever being employed again barring a global conflict.
[/QUOTE]

Not meaning to pick a fight with you Airman, but what is your definition of global conflict? How is that different to Vietnam?

30

[QUOTE=Mellivora capensis]
Not meaning to pick a fight with you Airman, but what is your definition of global conflict? How is that different to Vietnam?
[/QUOTE]

Think WWI or WWII. Vietnam was a regional conflict, similar in scope to what is going on now in Iraq. If we had to fight Vietnam now it would probably happen much the same as what has happened in Iraq.

31

[QUOTE=RickJay]
That’s true, but the present reality is that the United States Armed Services is very stretched for folks to wear the uniform, not for those to stitch them.
[/QUOTE]

Which makes the US Navy’s new policy of discharging anyone with a visible tattoo all the more puzzling.

32

[QUOTE=Procyon]
I am curious if the opinion you summarize here is the application of a more general principle or a disconnected, free-floating thought. If it’s the latter, that’s cool. If it’s the former, though, I think we should get to the heart of the matter. What I’m asking is: does what you said apply to any war or military action?

Let us assume, as some in this thread have, that war is sufficiently different from other kinds of dangerous government service (e.g. police and fire fighters) that it warrants, for whatever reason (lack of manpower, overuse of treasure/blood, and so forth), special ethical consideration. Is it true that if you “think a war is necessary” then you have an obligation to fight in it? I realize you might not have been trying for precision with that language, clearly you mean pro-war people when you say people who think it was necessary, though it seems to me those two ideas are somewhat different.

Yet the state of being “pro-war” is not a binary; it is a spectrum. To what degree must one support a war before ethical obligations arise? What if I support certain aspects of a war very strongly yet revile others with equal strength?

I realize that your original pitting was probably not aimed at people in the kind of gray zone I’m describing, but your argument would carry more force (with me, at least) if it were better defined.
[/QUOTE]

First of all, lets call war what it is. A political tool in which two or more sides attempt to inflict death, misery and suffering on its enemy until that enemy is either destroyed or forced to accept the political reality of the victor. It is ugly stuff in which people, our soldiers as well as fighters from other nations, and civilians die horribly. Left behind are wrecked families, destroyed lives, scrambled psyches, and unspeakable suffering. And that is for the victor. Oddly enough the resolution of one war frequently sews the seeds for the next.

It is very easy to get caught up in the fervor of jets flying overhead in formation and patriotic songs and political conventions where the adoration of the military reached almost a religious level. It is easy to say that we are fighting the good fight and that we need to stay the course. It was easy for a large part of our country to say invading Iraq was necesary and for them to support candidates who would continue to support the use of force.

But here is the standard I would apply to wars in the future, at least on a personal level. Is this war, this unleashing of forces whose goal is to rip the bodies of our enemies until they are dead, be it by a single bullet to the head or a bayonette through the chest or a mortar round that lays their skulls open and their brains on the ground or machine gun fire that rips their legs off; this campaign that will require our young men and women to be agents of death, that will inflict terrible psychological scars on them that they will bear for the rest of their lives, that will have some of them return in coffins, and some in wheelchairs, is this war needed to preserve and advance the best of what humanity has to offer? I believe that sometimes the answer to this terrible question could be yes.

However if the answer is yes, then the gravity of the situation is great. Free peoples must rely on the outcome of this war to right an egregious wrong. If this war is important enough to unleash the hounds, it also requires my service. i will not send others in my place to kill and die in my name. If the cause does not muster in me the courage and call to rise up and meet whatever incredible challenge the day has brought, then the cause is not of sufficient merit to allow me to ask others to do it for me.

33

[QUOTE=Procyon]
<snip>
Is it true that if you “think a war is necessary” then you have an obligation to fight in it? <snip>

Yet the state of being “pro-war” is not a binary; it is a spectrum. To what degree must one support a war before ethical obligations arise? What if I support certain aspects of a war very strongly yet revile others with equal strength?

I realize that your original pitting was probably not aimed at people in the kind of gray zone I’m describing, but your argument would carry more force (with me, at least) if it were better defined.
[/QUOTE]

Procyon, if I may comment.

You have used the words “fight” and “spectrum”, which I’d like to expand upon. In my view, fighting a war is indeed a spectrum. Not everyone can shoot straight, not everyone can drive a tank, not everyone can fly. Furthermore, the war effort depends upon a viable economy, so you need the bankers, the financiers, the farmers, in other words, the “civilian types”.

However, from a soldier’s perspective, this does not give the civilian types a free pass. I am not a pacifist. Sometimes war is necessary. But when war is declared, all those in favour should participate. Not necessarily fight, but fully participate, to whatever varying degrees.

Bear with me here. If you want a war, I am willing to fight your war, which becomes our war. On one condition. You participate. And you participate actively. If you are greasing the wheels of the economy as a civilian, you, just like me, first report to base and sign on as a participant. You the civvie, me the shooter. You and I both get up at 4am every fucking day, get fucked up by the PTI every fucking day, and you piss blood and puke, every fucking day. At 7am, every fucking day, I head for the parade ground and shooting range, you exit base and head for your office. At 5pm, every fucking day, you return, not to your family and comfy TV chair, but to the messhall and inspection thereafter. You clean your calculator, I clean my rifle. You and I both go to bed, tired, haggard, and fucked up, every fucking day.

You don’t have to kill anyone, but you also don’t get the luxuries of civilian life.

Soldiers resent civilians, even well meaning civilians, not because they don’t support the war, but because they do not share in the suffering and hardships brought on by war. A soldier might end up never firing his rifle in anger, but he still endures immense psychological and physical suffering during training. And no amount of vocal support is going to lessen his resentment of those who do not actually share his suffering.

When soldiers look over the walls at the civilians driving to the mall, they think, “fucking civvie freeloaders.” They begin to hate the very people who are supposed to be on their side. When they come home dragging colostomy bags, and see Johnny Stay Home get the girl, they get slightly pissed.

34

[QUOTE=Mellivora capensis]
When soldiers look over the walls at the civilians driving to the mall, they think, “fucking civvie freeloaders.” They begin to hate the very people who are supposed to be on their side. When they come home dragging colostomy bags, and see Johnny Stay Home get the girl, they get slightly pissed.
[/QUOTE]

I work with a lot of serving and ex-military people and not one of them has expressed any sentiment remotely similar to that.

35

Do you believe that is is a good and necessary thing to have people man soup kitches for the homeless? They do need people. Why aren’t you there?

36

[QUOTE=Quartz]
I work with a lot of serving and ex-military people and not one of them has expressed any sentiment remotely similar to that.
[/QUOTE]
Well, I am former military and I have experienced such sentiments. Not all the time, mind you, but they do come up now and then. It makes me sad that such a tiny percentage of the country is being required to make the sacrifices while the rest of the country ignores them and goes on spending. I joined the Army long before anybody would have believed we’d ever have a president who would talk about “evildoers” with a straight face, much less send the military off to fight a war of aggression, and I always (naively) believed that when the shit hit the fan and large quantities of troops were mobilized, the country would make the slightest effort to back them up.

But I don’t belong in this thread anyway, I’m a woman. So don’t mind me.

37

[QUOTE=Mellivora capensis]
Necessary forces? Yes, the police and the fire AND the military are clearly necessary forces. The difference is, I see value in the police and the fire departments protecting me and my property from criminals and fire. I see value in the military when enemy tanks are in my vegetable garden fucking up my tomatoes. But I see no value in the military going to war on another continent, or fighting an enemy just because the current government has decided that all blacks are my enemies.

This is not about obligation. This is about taking an extremely controversial decision involving me, and demonstrating your commitment to the fundamentals of that decision. You want to kick ass? Convince me why. Failing that, do it yourself.
[/QUOTE]
This is blatantly illogical. You’re claiming that the only thing dividing dangerous governmental services that must be directly supported by their proponents from those that need not be is your personal determination of their worth.

Imagine you’re talking with someone who doesn’t believe that the government should provide a Fire Department. Maybe he says that the Fire Department should be a private enterprise. Maybe he doesn’t own any property and considers the Fire Department an unreasonable governmental subsidy of those who do. Or maybe he has some really crazy and off-the-wall idea about how we should just let cities burn down every year as a part of urban renewal and going back to nature.

Of course, there are lots of reasonable arguments you can make to try to convince him. But now he says: “Hey, if you think the Fire Department is so important, why aren’t you out there on the hook and ladder every day? The fact that you’re not willing to put yourself on the line weakens your position.”

How would you respond to that claim, and why doesn’t the same response work for people who make the same argument against a particular war?

38

[QUOTE=athelas]
Do you believe that is is a good and necessary thing to have people man soup kitches for the homeless? They do need people. Why aren’t you there?
[/QUOTE]

I don’t see the connection you are trying to make, but for the record, I am there.

39

[QUOTE=newcrasher]
I know a number of males in their 20s who are fervently pro-Iraq-war. They say we must fight them now rather than later, we are fighting them there so we do not have to fight them here, we must stay the course so as not to dishonor those already lost…you know the drill.

So if this cause is so dear, so precious and necessary, JOIN THE FUCKING MARINES AND DO YOUR DUTY! Frickin’ chicken hawks make me ill. It is one thing for the old grey hairs to send our youth into battle, but for someone of military age to continue to be pro-war, but not willing to enlist is unconscienable! (sp?)
[/QUOTE]

Are you arguing that only those who will be actively put in harm’s way by a military engagement can advocate one? That’s dangerously close to “military government.” There’s a lot of good reasons civilians should be able to have and vote for people who have opinions about different military endeavors regardless of whether or not they themselves are going to join the military.

The military has height/weight tables. Most out of shape 40-somethings probably would not make it into the military in any case.

40

[QUOTE=RickJay]
Polamlau has a point in that it makes no sense to insist that anyone who supports agovernment action must volunteer to perform the action themselves. However, police forces and fire departments, generally speaking, are not short of manpower; they usually have a supply of eager and quaified recruits larger than their budget to hire them. The Armed Services have had some difficulty in this regard in recent times.
[/QUOTE]

Actually many police forces suffer chronic personnel shortages.

And many more police forces have the people willing to do the job but not the money to pay them, so they are short due to being unable to keep enough officers on the payroll.