War-Hawk Politicians' cowardly past, i.e. War is good- for someone else.

From the Guardian:

and then

and then

Haliburton and this. Nice Dick. and then

Way to go, Sen Hagel!! I have my eye on you now.

Poor Tom, victimized by discrimination like that. :rolleyes: and then

Bit of a surprise on Kemp. and then

Heh heh heh, not a surprise at all. Thank Fark.com for the original link to the Guardian’s story.

Full disclosure: I am a honerably discharged U.S. Navy Vet, with 4 years of service (including time in the Persian Gulf).

:cool:

The job of our leaders is to provide proper leadership. A leader’s belief about what’s best for the country and the world may differ from some action he did or didn’t take in the far past. So, what?

If we were to following the “principle of perfect consistency,” we’d have the following stupidities:

[ul][li]Clarence Thomas can’t oppose affirmative action, because he (allegedly) benefited from it.[]Lyndon Johnson can’t secure passage of the Civil Rights Act, because he’s not black.[]december can’t support a war against Saddam, because december avoided serving in Vietnam through a combination of student, married and parental deferments. elf6c must support war in Iraq because s/he served in the Persian Gulf[/ul]It’s all baloney.[/li]
P.S. elf6c would know better than I, but my impression is that piloting a military jet plane requires a considerable degree of skill and has significant risk, even in the reserves.

I actually think there is something to this. But these days it is significantly mitigated by the fact that we have an all-volunteer army. If there was still a draft it would be a much bigger deal.

Perhaps surprisingly I agree with december that past actions do not necessarily have any bearing on performance as a political leader.

However, there may be an argument that those who have not seen action may approach the use of force differently to those who have. It might be that politicians with past experience as soldiers, sailors or airmen are more reluctant to resort to force (or at least more cautious in the application of force) than those who have only experienced it through the media, because they have first-hand experience of the nature of warfare and the damage it wreaks.

Could any ex-servicemen and -women who have seen action shed any light on their feelings towards this?

Remember that this is from the Guardian, so take it with a grain of salt. However, it does show that those who want war haven’t seen it. Powell and Rumsfeld don’t want war because they have seen the military and what it does. This was being discussed on another messageboard too, and someone posted the quote “I love peace as only a soldier can”. We don’t need a war with Iraq. So they have CBN weapons. So does half the world. Why don’t we go after China or Iran? They seem to be well stocked.

Red, the conscientious objector.

Eh. FDR never served, either. He just led us through the biggest war this century. Neither did Wilson - the guy who led us through the 2nd biggest war this century.

OTOH, Reagan (who didn’t serve, unless you count his Buy Bonds movies) brought us Grenada, and Johnson and Kennedy (Navy LtCdr and CO of a sunken ship, respectively) brought us Vietnam.

Thanks for the link, elf6c, there was a lot of interesting information there.

Clicking around on some of the links, I just found out about Bush’s mysterious failure to show up for drill for over a year. How could I have missed that story in the media? Hope to hear more about it.

Dulce bellum inexpertatis…?

You know, elf, people might take you more seriously if you knew what you were talking about. Try it some time, and see if it works!

Pat Buchanan? What the hell does Pat Buchanan have to do with ANY of this? In case you didn’t know (and you obviously don’t) Pat Buchanan is NOT a hawk. Far from it! He’s an isolationist, and strongly OPPOSES American military intervention around the world. His motto is “A republic, not an empire.”

So, your attempts to paint him as a warmonger don’t wash. Sorry, you lose. No parting gifts for you.

Incidentally, a few names were notably absent from your list of hawkish Americans who never served in the military themselves. Where’s Franklin Roosevelt on that list? That rich aristocratic coward sent millions of American boys overseas to fight and die, but HE never saw combat, now, did he? I await your venomous condemnation of hypocritical, cowardly Franklin Roosevelt.

Ooooh, but that’s DIFFERENT! It’s okay for non-vets to send others to fight in wars, but only in SOME cases. Riiiight… gotcha.

Fuck that shit, astorian and ** chique**. There’s a hell of a difference between the situation preceding our entry into WWII and Bush & Co.'s headlong rush to attack Iraq, against the advice of the Pentegon, many of our Allies in NATO, even many Republican leaders of Congress such as Dick Armey.

For starters, the Congress actually declared War in that case. There’s also the fact that FDR was wheel-chaired bound.

As opposed to that paragon of all miiltary virtues, Bill Clinton and his amazing “You can’t impeach me - I have to bomb Iraq” timing.

Regards,
Shodan

You see Shodan, here is the funny thing… this thread isn’t about Clinton. Nice try though.

Regards

So, astorian, you don’t think that “I have polio and and primarily confined to a wheelchair” is a somewhat better excuse than, “I have other things I would rather do?”

Hey, Shodan—Clinton wasn’t bombing Iraq at the time. He was firing missiles at Afghanistan, in an attempt to take out Osama bin Laden.

But that couldn’t have possibly been in our national interests…

Ah personal attacks, the last hope of dimwit. astorianpeople might take *you * more seriously if you learn the difference between me and the Guardian. Reading comprehension not your strong point huh? I take that back, astorian, I doubt people will ever take you seriously.

december, now you I expected to check in. Given the retortic regarding personal morals and responsibility to one’s country espoused by the subjects in question, would you like to address the OP, or engage in further reductio ad aburbum (pardon the latin spelling, please) agruments regarding “stupidities”.

Probably not. If your conservative undies are in a bunch, feel free to reflect on John McCain, war hero, straight shooter and yes, a Republican. Or as the story points out, Colin Powell. (now there would be one hell of a GOP ticket, but who would be the VP?). For me, Colin Powell’s position, and his integrity in setting it forth rather then “toe the line” are admirable. Even if I do not always agree with him, I think he would make a hell of a president. BTW: any agrument based on Charence Thomas tends not to advance your cause much.

Shodan, point taken, but not on the boring “wag the dog” rhetoric, but on Slick Willies’ academic deferral (of which at least he was a Rhode Scholar, not hiding in the National Guard politcially controlled by his dad). Still, point taken over all that hawks on both sides of the fence are often hypocritical.

My personal views on the current Iraq sitauation are mixed, if anyone actually cares. It is the article which I found interesting, and the premise as set forth by Crusoe.

red_dragon60 is there something wrong with the Guardian? Just curious?

Thanks for your responses all- very interesting so far.

:slight_smile:

Say, is it possible that anal cyst took over Rush Limbaugh’s entire body and brain? That would explain a lot. Maybe it happened while he was on public assistance and couldn’t afford good medical care.

There’s a great chapter about this in Al Franken’s first book.

What pisses me off about stuff like this is people who use “draft dodger” as an insult and think military service automatically validates a person. Whether you fought in the war or not, it takes guts to do what you believe. I have just as much respect for someone (such as Muhammed Ali) who told the government where they could stick their war as someone who fought (and perhaps died) because they felt it was their duty.

If serving in the military automatically makes you a better person than someone who didn’t (or actively avoided it), explain Tim McVeigh to me, please.

sigh

Now, see? This is why I tend to avoid political threads like the plague: Someone always gets cranked off.

elf6c posted a link to a newspaper article discussing the lack of military background of much of the current administration.

Crusoe said "there may be an argument that those who have not seen action may approach the use of force differently to those who have. "

And you, Homebrew are telling me off because I posted the military backgrounds of significant 20th century presidents. I would like to know to what, exactly, you took offense.

**Like we did in Vietnam?

Which was, of course, why he never served in the military - which, by the way, was the whole freakin’ point of my post!

I don’t think the argument is that serving in the military automatically makes you a better person or more qualified to be a leader (or at least, it shouldn’t be the argument). However, if you’re going to be gung-ho about sending kids off to one land or another to fight wars of dubious value, you should at least try to understand what the hell it is you’re asking them to do.

Actually, no.

The whole freakin’ point of my post is that a lack of prior military background does not mean a president will be a poor leader in war time and, conversely, a prior military background does not mean a president will be an effective leader in war time.

What does piss me off (besides people who jump my ass for apparently no reason) are those in the current and previous administrations who avoided - legally or not - their service to their country in time of need.