Pack up and leave Iraq?

[1stdeadeye]

Originally posted by davidb


I'm willing to bet that aaron_mag and Collegeboy, each of whom is much more intelligent, reasonable, and likeable than you have turned out to be,

I don't know if I would go that far! More Intelligent as in less stupid!

[aaron_mag]

Originally posted by 1stdeadeye
As for the Dixie Chicks, they were playing up to the crowd, not protesting. It evolved into that, but they started by pandering to a foreign crowd. Otherwise their big "political" statement might have been more then," Just to let you know we are embarrassed that the President is from Texas".

Yes I know that now. Their tearfilled apology (typical to resort to tears to pander to our protective male sensibilities) on national TV was pointed out to me by one of the secretaries at the office. Darn and here I thought I actually found some celebrity heros!!!

[1stdeadeye]

Originally posted by aaron_mag


Yes I know that now. Their tearfilled apology (typical to resort to tears to pander to our protective male sensibilities) on national TV was pointed out to me by one of the secretaries at the office. Darn and here I thought I actually found some celebrity heros!!!

I could have respected them more for an honest protest. It seems this was all just a publicity stunt for them.

P.S. Their music still blows!

[davidb]

LOL the Dixie Chicks making the statement they made, where they made it, took about as much moral courage as going into a Christian church group and saying "Jesus saves!".

As for the funding thing.. Like most damaging decisions made by intelligent men, military funding is spread the way it is for very good reasons. The better the equipment the soldiers have to fight with, the better their chances of a bloodless victory, or even of preventing a conflict in the first place. Some projects, like the Predator drone, save many lives by preventing a soldier from having to do a dangerous job.

To the earlier comment about preparing for a conventional war that is unlikely to occur was, of course, entirely correct. Except.. The reason that that war is so unlikely to occur is the fact that we are so prepared for it! :) If the military was composed of nothing but special forces, precision weapons, and the support for them, the enemy would simply have to do the opposite of what they are doing now, steering away from unconventional war, which they could not win, and focusing on that with which they could. So, as long as we have what we would need to win a conventional war, that need will likely never arise, while if we were unprepared, it probably would. Paradoxical, eh?

[davidb]

Originally posted by 1stdeadeye


I don't know if I would go that far! More Intelligent as in less stupid!

Say what you will. I'm of the more optimistic sort who is pretty sure that he could get along well with anybody here if he got to talk to them in person. Even the ones he argues with. :) Some of my best friends are liberals. I would say that both a_m and CB are a far cry from being unintelligent. Misguided is an acceptable word.

[shartley]

Originally posted by davidb
LOL the Dixie Chicks making the statement they made, where they made it, took about as much moral courage as going into a Christian church group and saying "Jesus saves!".

As for the funding thing.. Like most damaging decisions made by intelligent men, military funding is spread the way it is for very good reasons. The better the equipment the soldiers have to fight with, the better their chances of a bloodless victory, or even of preventing a conflict in the first place. Some projects, like the Predator drone, save many lives by preventing a soldier from having to do a dangerous job.

To the earlier comment about preparing for a conventional war that is unlikely to occur was, of course, entirely correct. Except.. The reason that that war is so unlikely to occur is the fact that we are so prepared for it! :) If the military was composed of nothing but special forces, precision weapons, and the support for them, the enemy would simply have to do the opposite of what they are doing now, steering away from unconventional war, which they could not win, and focusing on that with which they could. So, as long as we have what we would need to win a conventional war, that need will likely never arise, while if we were unprepared, it probably would. Paradoxical, eh?

[1stdeadeye]

Originally posted by davidb


Say what you will. I'm of the more optimistic sort who is pretty sure that he could get along well with anybody here if he got to talk to them in person. Even the ones he argues with. :) Some of my best friends are liberals. I would say that both a_m and CB are a far cry from being unintelligent. Misguided is an acceptable word.

I was kidding. I get along with aaron_mag quite well! We just goof around alot. He could be misguided.

CB on the other hand, let's just call him less stupid okay?

[Collegeboy]

That is alright all geniuses were thought to be stupid when they were young. Just wait and see, I tell you, just wait to I rule the world .

Shartley, I find it funny you say I do not look at the entire situation and am close minded, yet you agree with what I said when posted by someone else. Quite interesting.

[davidb]

Originally posted by Collegeboy


I was joking dude. A 1470 is a good score, and unless you want to get a full ride into Columbia, or MIT, a 1470 is good enough to get you accepted and a scholarship into any school in the nation, well unless you grow up in the south, where even a 1560 is not good enough.

But I would stick with it for you might make lower and a 1470 is good enough.

But this is getting way off topic.

I got higher than that and nobody wanted to offer me a ride anywhere.. Maybe I should have done my homework once in a while.

[FactsOfLife]

Originally posted by davidb
I'm willing to bet that aaron_mag and Collegeboy, each of whom is much more intelligent, reasonable, and likeable than you have turned out to be

I just about spit my coffee when I read this...

AM has some valid points, the Boy just has points.

On his head....

[aaron_mag]

Hey I'm not one of those fools that say that life after Saddam is going to be worse for the Iraqis. Where would you rather live? North Korea or South Korea? The point is there are two sides to the story and pointing out the other side is not being a traitor. Few decisions we make in life don't have other consequences. That Heath Bar I at in the car for example is currently making my butt even fatter than it needs to be!!! When you guys spew one side I'm going to can't just sit there and listen to all of it.

As for Shartley's point about airforce personell getting a subsidy for living in substandard housing...that is so darn weird it is funny. Probably not so funny when you are the one living through it all.

[FactsOfLife]

AM, true but when it comes to taking sides, I'm going take MY country first every time REGARDLESS.

Unlike some others around here...

[Collegeboy]

Originally posted by FactsOfLife
AM, true but when it comes to taking sides, I'm going take MY country first every time REGARDLESS.

Unlike some others around here...

And what is the US's side. That that the government tells us, that which the people believe, that which the TV tells us to believe, or what?

[FactsOfLife]

Originally posted by Collegeboy


And what is the US's side. That that the government tells us, that which the people believe, that which the TV tells us to believe, or what?

And the clueless are heard from yet again...

[Konigballer]

I dont know, I think college boy has a point. When I think of backing my country's side I dont see that as the same thing as backing the current administration's side. The United States is my country, its my home. The president is just a politician to me, and my country existed before his presidency and it will exist after it so thats why I see the two as seperate entities.

FactsOfLife, if you think blind loyalty to any current administration is the same as loyalty to your country then I think you should ask some Vietnam vets what they thought of the Johnson administration and its extensive and ongoing efforts to lie openly to the country about the progress of that war. Or you could ask how those vets, or even those who did'nt go to nam, felt about the 58,000 servicemen and women of their generation who died in that war for no justifiable reason.
Or for a more recent event you could ask some marines or rangers, as patriotic a group as any, what they thought about the Clinton administration and its bungling and eventual withdrawl of the situation in Somalia at the expense of the lives of some grunts.

For me, I dont like the situation the administration has got us in Iraq but now that we are in I think its the US's duty to stay the course and see this thing through. As terrible a person as Sadam was/is, I dont think anyone can argue that North Korea poses far more of an "imminent threat" to the security of the United States than Iraq did before we waltzed in there. Even many republicans are angry at the failure to find evidence of WMD, or any other possible "imminent threat" to the US, in Iraq. Now many people on both sides justify everything by saying things like "If Sadam developed nukes and biological weapons he would have been a threat to the entire middle east and the US."
That makes no sense to me. That just sounds like a way of saying "while they did'nt have the weapons or means to threaten us like we said they did, we just went ahead and made sure that they never would, thereby preventing them from doing the things they surely would have done in the future." All the time North Korea's sitting over there making nukes, while being equally "evil" to its own citizens, and trying to blackmail us into helping them. I think we chose to go after the much smaller fish, Iraq, than after the much larger one, North Korea, that could actually threaten us in the first place.