You cannot possibly believe that.
He does. He’s saying the U.S. is not at war with any governments; just insurgents in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Yemen. Der Trihs’ original claim was that if U.S. soldiers are heroes than so are soldiers of the governments who are fighting U.S. soldiers. Technically there aren’t any.
Page after page of cites all have the same numbers. Most seem to have received from a study done by the VFW which compiled many statistics about the Viet Nam War. During the course of the entire war 648,500 draftees served in the war zone. 2.6 million were stationed in Viet Nam during the conflict. 15,458 draftees died due to hostile action which is 32.% of the total. Now this is for the entire conflict, there were fluctuations year by year. If you can find different statistics feel free.
A draftee is someone who was drafted. A volunteer is someone who volunteered. I don’t think it needs to be or can be broken down more than that.
I would probably tend more in the direction of sorry rather than thanks, but I do appreciate what they do for us.
Consider the following analogy, your a boss and you suddenly find that you have lost a very important report. Assuming your office assistant misfiled it you have her come in on a Saturday and search all of your files, after spending several hours doing this you notice it was on your desk under some papers the whole time.
In spite of the fact that the assistant’s work was largely useless I would certainly hope that you would thank her for coming in on her day off.
I didn’t say anything about governments; just citizens fighting for their nation. A resistance fighter is just as patriotic and fighting just as hard for his homeland as any soldier who has a uniform.
Actually as I recall garbage collection is fairly hazardous work. All sorts of nasty things get thrown into the garbage without any thought of safety. Plus you are around heavy objects, rotting material and heavy machinery; lots of things can go wrong.
Or passively letting the lunatics have their way. Or they just didn’t care.
Of course not; they were trying quite hard not to. The last thing anyone in power wants is an accurate count of the costs of a disaster they caused.
:rolleyes: Oh please, the pro-war people pushed that line for years. “Bush has secret information you don’t have! It’ll turn out to be justified in the end!” No, he didn’t; and no, it wasn’t. The conquest of Iraq never had anything at all with defending America, and did nothing but harm to America. Even now, all you can do to try to defend the war is handwave about some totally baseless, totally undefined “what if”. You could defend attacking anyone with an argument that vague; perhaps we should conquer Canada next? Who knows what will happen if we don’t conquer them before…*it’s too late!! *
Ah, the old “foreign fighters” line. No, most were Iraqis.
We attacked the citizens and infrastructure of Iraq. And much of the continuing attacks on Iraq’s infrastructure was by people trying to hamper us from stealing their oil by destroying pipelines and the like.
And we were an occupying army, not their allies. We conquered them, and then we gave up because they refused to just lie down and take it like we’d convinced ourselves they would. We were and are their enemies.
Again; “I was just following orders” is no excuse. And as Peter Morris said; you can’t simultaneously argue that “why” doesn’t matter and that soldiers are fighting for a noble cause.
I wonder if the people of those countries, seeing our drones killing their fellow countrymen, see such a distinction.
I should think not.
Pfft that’s not the problem with bear_nenno’s argument. When you invade a country and install a new regime but are still fighting ‘insurgents’ it is indeed a game of semantics.
I for one would like to thank the drones for their service.
That makes me sad.
I think many of them are there because the economy sucks and finanical aid for education beyond high school is hard to get (or at least that has been what I have seen with all of my the friends of my nephews who have enlisted.) The fact that they are willing to do hard and dangerous work for a chance at a better future is a decision worthy of respect.
I’ve already explained why this is not the case. A soldier’s service cannot and should not be measured on an individual level based on the missions or operations he/she served in. If that were the case, then soldiers serving in peace time are not serving their country. That is obviously not the case. Unless you want to argue that the existance of a military serves no purpose at all.
Do you not realize that the very existance of a powerful standing Army gives the United States a certain amount of geo-political leverage? The interests of the United States are being served by its military. The military does not exist without Soldiers. Soldiers are collectively securing the prosperity and strength of the nation, regardless of their measured, specific individual contribution.
Of course not. But we haven’t established that there is any need for an excuse or apology. I certainly don’t feel any need for either.
You’re just never going to get it, I guess.
Even when the insurgents come from other countries and not actually the country you’re in? Why are we putting insurgents in quotes? Many of the insurgents have come from other countries. Are we just going to conveniently dismiss that so we can pretend it’s all citizens of that nation trying to defend their country against America? They are fighting for a cause, but secular nationalism or patriotism isn’t one of them.
Where did all that oil go? I mean, we obviously stole all the oil, right? Where the hell is it?
So it simply isn’t possible to become allies with a nation that was occupied? So we are still enemies with Japan and Germany, then. Right?
But his own personal sense of ethics can and should be. It comes down to whether that soldier kills people because it really is necessary to protect his country from harm, or if killing people is a job that he does, without caring about the morality of it.
My argument was not that the specific operation was noble, just that the Soldiers’ service was noble. They are doing what the country decided was in its best interest. The “just following orders” thing is a strawman. Soldiers weren’t ordered to commit genocide, they were sent to war. But of course, you’re just going to see any war as some evil illegal action, so you will never agree that a soldier does anything praise worthy.
It’s not that I don’t care about the morality. It’s just that I don’t see it as immoral. I don’t think someone needs to be presently aiming at the President’s head for them to be a morally acceptable target.
I put it in quotes because you know as well as I that not all insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan are foreigners. And just because you put nation above tribe or religion doesn’t make patriotism objectively more valid.
Hey Bear - thank you for your service.
Oh I think his claim goes a bit deeper then that.