Wednesday, April 11, 2007

 

'The real obscenities in America'

Drlobojo sayeth:

Meanwhile the son of my best friend is starting training so that he and 3,500 other Oklahoma National Guard can go back to Iraq.

That's 3,500 Oklahoma families screwed again.

That's 3,500 jobs that will have to be "covered" or filled with temps.

That's roughly 60 Oklahomans that will die there in the near future.

And this doesn't count the 2000+ Oklahoma Reservists that already there.

Do you think these guys/gals really give a shit what Imus said?

Let's refocus on the real obscenities in America.



Let's start with the obscenities occupying the White House.

--ER

Comments:
ER, the problem with this kind of thinking (there's always someone else with a bigger problem, crappier life, etc., so don't complain) leads to apathy. Something we certainly don't need right now.

My brother returned last June from a year in Afghanistan (he's in the National Guard). Did it suck that he was over there? Hell yes! Did it suck that he missed a year out of his children's lives? Hell yes! Did he want us to stop living our lives and striving to make things better here in the good old U S of A? Hell no! He wanted us to continue with our daily hum drum lives.

Those fighting try to believe they're fighting to help protect the freedoms we have. Believe me, my brother's not a pollyanna believing that the U.S. motivations are all pure. However, he made it very clear to me that the people fighting in these situations need to believe they're doing some good.

So, I'll keep bitching about what a shitty and ignorant thing that was for Imus to say because it was a shitty and ignorant thing to say. Should I keep my mouth shut and stop complaining because people are being sent to Iraq, or because every day children are being beaten and sexually abused? No, I'll keep bitching and pushing for accountability because that's how things get changed. You have to force the issues.
 
"Should I keep my mouth shut and stop complaining because people are being sent to Iraq, or because every day children are being beaten and sexually abused?"

No amynta, you should not. But what I was alluding to was this was way out of balance, not unlike the Anna Nichol story of the last 8 weeks. Actually I suspect the White House is damn glad that this is going on right now and that the news is ignoring Paul Wolfowitz, his mistress, and the crap going on at the World Bank.
 
Meanwhile the son of my best friend is starting training so that he and 3,500 other Oklahoma National Guard can go back to Iraq.

That's 3,500 Oklahoma families screwed again.

That's 3,500 jobs that will have to be "covered" or filled with temps.

That's roughly 60 Oklahomans that will die there in the near future.

And this doesn't count the 2000+ Oklahoma Reservists that already there.


I don't know, DrL. I have a brother in law returned from Iraq; another b-i-l goes there next month. But ->

They both voted for - and still support - GWB. Their wives likewise.

I believe the continuing war is a terrible injustice - against the Iraqis, the majority of whom (reportedly) would like the US troops to leave their country immediately. Consent of the governed?

I just can't feel the same way about our volunteer forces, or, for that matter voters who could have repudiated our invasion 2 1/2 years ago. Oklahoma: Bush received 66% of the vote. Do you suppose the 34% is overrepresented among the military units called up? I see in 2006, when the Democrats took back the House and Senate and are at least taking some steps against the war, that 4 out of 5 Oklahoma reps are Republicans. Isn't this a reap/sow situation?


My young nieces, on the other hand...
 
One thing about Oklahoma that compounds the National Guard thing is that its Guard is, unlike most other States, is at 100% capacity. Why? Well for the last 15 years we have given full fees and tuition to any Oklahoma Public, and partial support to any Oklahoma Private College Or University for anyone enlisting in the Oklahoma National Guard.
So that means that the lower and middle income students could go to college for free by attending meetings once a month and training two weeks a year plus being available for natural disasters such a Katrina and wild fires etc.
That means that Oklahoma's National Guard has disproportionately higher numbers of full time college students in it. That means Oklahoma's national Guard is younger than most other states.
Along comes George and Dick and Paul and Donald et. al. and ipsofacto the National Guard metamorphisis into Regular Amry (with less equipment).
Once again the less well heeled take the job of protecting the property of the overpaid CEOs and their minions.

Afghanistan is one war, Iraq is another thing. For us to be in Iraq is akin to the Brittish fighting against both the North and the South in our Civil War.
Afghanistan is a just war started for reasonable cause. Iraq is a Lie from the start to the finish.
It is probable that we will lose both, because we waisted our honor and blood and treasure in Iraq.

Oklahomans voted for Bush, thus Oklahomans can die for him? TS, did you really say that? Why would your nieces be any different? Their Ma's and Pa's voted for the bastards as well, did they not?
In the end will we blame our soiders for what our leaders have done, like we did in Nam?

Just for the record, My friend nor his wife ever voted Republican. Their son just believes he should be doing something for his country.
Believe me as a Vietnam Vet I tried to talk him out of it. But I am ancient history what do I know?
 
Bravo, ER and Dr.L, and I totally agree that Iraq is a far, far bigger obscenity than anything that Imus said, nothwithstanding our disagreements on the Imus issue. Thanks for the reality check.
 
Speaking as an Oklahoma Guardsman:

When all of the Active duty units have done two tours and some starting a third, it seems reasonable to ask us to do a second.

In general, we signed up to serve, and this is it.

For myself, If I go (I'm deployed to Afghanistan now) it'll be my personal third deployment. I keep volunteering.

I'd like to know wehere all these concerns, so solicitous of our welfare were before the war.

We didn't have all our equipment then either (but we do and will when deploying). We kept getting sent to Kosovo and Bosnia and Colombia and the Sinai at an ever incereasing pace, and there was no war, and no one seemed to mind.

Fact is, there's a war on. Y'all just sit tight and we'll do our jobs, thanks.

With any luck at all, you'll still feel guilty for more than a few microseconds after the war is over and maybe this time, just maybe, the VA will get full funding (for the very first time ever), or the Guard will be fully equiped (for the very first time ever) or the Active Component won't get drawn down to a token force (for the very first time ever).

Do me a favor. Quit trying to "support the troops." Instead, support A troop. Send care packages, write letters, visit a VA hospital. Not one of you would trade places with one of us, so it seems like the least you could do.
 
Re, "Afghanistan is a just war started for reasonable cause. Iraq is a Lie from the start to the finish."

Amen. And Amen on the National Guard turned regular army thing, too.

"Oh, but they knew this could happen before the joined."

Yes, to defend this country (actually, the Constitution) -- not to go on George's joy(less) ride and Rumsfeld's reckless romp in Iraq.
 
Good ideas, Trainer.
 
On the Oklahoma National Guard Web page, I can find no information on how to support "a" troop -- or how to lend support at all, for that matter.

As for who to blame for lack of support in the past, both political parties are guilty.

As for what the Oklahoma Guard did in the 1990s -- and that's what we were talking about, the Oklahoma Guard -- I lived the whple decade out of state, and so I don't know where they were sent on what missions. Somebody fill me in.
 
You need a program?

In order to support a troop, you have to know, or get to know, a troop.

And I wasn't speaking of the Oklahoma Guard exclusively when talking about deployments and ever increasing OPTEMPO.
 
I don't know any. You want to take my willingness to look into it and make the fact that my world doesn't revolve around, or even personally enciounter, the military -- you want to make than an issue? Then all you want to do is bitch.

Don't come in here and suggest we look for a way to actually support troops, then bitchslap me because I don't *know* any.

And, no offense, but what *we* were talking about *was* Oklahoma servicemen.
 
Well, I'd have to say that some of us were concerned about being led into an illegal war before it started and voiced our opinions only to be called traitors. I'd also have to say that some of us have been concerned about the lack of equipment and training since the beginning of the war, and have blogged about it frerquently since then. I'd also have to say that some of us bake cookies at Christamastime and visit injured service members at Walter Reed (those of us who happen to live near our nation's capitol, that is). I'd also hsve to mention that some of us writer our Congresscritters frequently to ask them to bring our troops home and soon rather than deploying them again and again. I'd also have to say that some of us worked hard to elect a senator who has now sponsored a bill to provide new educational, vocational and rehabilitational benefits to veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistant wars.

Other than that, I got nuthin'.
 
Hey RTO, thanks for your service.
Seriously, Thanks.

I was Regular Army (complete with an RA number)for four years 1966-70 with tours among others in Vietnam, Ethiopia, and worst of all Warrenton, Virginia (that bad had nothing to do with Warrenton or Virginia).
It wasn't till 2005 that anyone--ANYONE- ever thanked me for my service to my country. That was 39 years too late. So forgive me if I am a little cynical or skeptical that my government or even the general populace gets the difference between Iraq and our true defense needs.

Every deployment you mentioned except Iraq is a legitimate use of our military. Whether "National Gaurd" units, which are technically State Militias, should be deployed overseas is a debatable public policy issue, and one I think should be discussed in due course. Deploying the Reserves and Regulars is a no-brainer.

If you are military you go where you are told to go and you do your mission. It is up to us old farts back here to try to make sure we are sending you to the right place for the right reasons.

As for the VA, well.....
 
Uh, I think you want to be offended. Getting to know onw was an option that I listed. Seems much more productive than paying lip service to the abstraction of "support the troops." When you don't have a concrete to pint that on, what does it mean? How do you do it?

At any rate, I didn't make any value judgments (here) about the quality of people who don't know any servicemen.

Red State Blues: We'd much rather finish the job you sent us here to do than come home and let all that's been done fall apart.

As for illegal, you'll have to support that. What laws or laws have been broken?

For the rest, thanks for your efforts.

Dr. L: I'll thank you for your service anyway. I inderstand about bad domestic deployments, I went to New Orleans.

Guard/Militia as deployable assets is a questiont at can be raisednadn can be altered with legislation, but the debate itself was conducted a century ago that got us the system we have (Dick Act 1903 and National Guard Act 1914) predicated on the Militias not be ing availabel for the Spanish American War and later to ensure that they would be avalable for WWI.

I beleive that we are in the right places and for the right reasons. I also beleive that the general public has developed a set of unreasonable expectations as to the time that this endeavor will take to complete and an unsupportable but viscral feeling that because thoes expectations aren't being met that we can somehow lose. There is only one way to lose and that's to quit.

So why not win?
 
Actually, DrL, I think you underestimate my radicalness on this issue. Yes. a "troop" is an adult, presumably rational; as is - for the sake of argument and not reaching anything close to my personal definition of rational - supporters of the war. I don't believe a democracy creates some sort of corporate limnited liability that shields people from their actions as citizens. The people who voted for it can die for it, either as an object lesson so their people won't do that anywhere, or as a solution so they themselves won't do that anymore. in a similar fashion I'd like to believe that compassionate middle class folks like our host tithe - at least tithe - their pretax income to human before they start bleating about our collective responsibility to do so through taxes.

ELAshley is quite right that some people feel this way; he's just wrong that it's the liberals who do. Nowhere near as many of us as there are liberals.
 
Trainer, I am glad that you believe in the righteousness of the cause for which you are fighting. It would be awful for you (and others in your position) if you did not. As for your statement "We'd much rather finish the job you sent us here to do than come home and let all that's been done fall apart", I just want to be clear that "I" did not send you there. It may have been done in my name as an Amercian citizen, but it certainly was not done with my complicity.

I do not believe I "support the troops" by slapping some silly made-in-China yellow ribbon on the back of my car. Even though we may disagree about whether our troops are in the right places for the right reasons, I send you all good wishes to come home soon and in one piece, physically and mentally. And if by some awful chance you do not, I promise to be out there agitating to ensure that you get the medical and social services you earned as a member of the military.
 
TS said: "I don't believe a democracy creates some sort of corporate limnited liability that shields people from their actions as citizens. The people who voted for it can die for it, either as an object lesson so their people won't do that anywhere, or as a solution so they themselves won't do that anymore."

Unfortunately it doesn't actually work that way does it. It does not account for collateral damage, unintended consquences, good intentions gone bad, ethinic erasures, unintentional genocide, and all that other crap that teaches us that our collective actions echo down the centuries. Five percent can do in the 95% without much effort. I can not take solace in the Calvanistic concept that we pay for out own sins. Nope, 99% of the sins we pay for are from others.

Remember the John Spruce Creed:

Deny Everything.
Trust No One.
To Live Well, We Must Live Unseen.
Live Long and Prosper.
----John Spruce

OK John watched a lot of TV before he died.
 
DrL -

No lie, that inspiration will take me clean through this weekend. Thanks!
 
RSB, I appreciate it, but you need not do it for me. There are guys who do more than I do and who have less. For myself, I have a great job in the civilian world with excellent benefits (I work for Ross Perot) and I'll never have to rely on the VA, and my wife will never have to rely on the government.

Do it for the guys who need it, and I'll help.

BTW, no way I'll ever go quietly either, guaranteed.
 
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