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Five more soldiers died today ...

Discussion in 'Anything goes' started by Tom Petty, Jun 15, 2007.

  1. Trouser_Buddah

    Trouser_Buddah Active Member

    Every day, I am witness to more and more heartache that is a direct result of this war...The stories relating the pain that families and their communities bear because of this war continue to roll in. It truly makes me sick.

    And this heartache...what is it for? No president should even begin to contemplate sacrificing our youth if it isn't absolutely essential to the security of this country...

    Yet, the anguish that is evident in communities all around the country is exponentially magnified due to the utter uselessness of this war...

    These young men and women signed up to fight for our country...instead, they are fighting (and dying) for an idiot president and his big-money cronies...

    My brother is scheduled to go back for a second tour of Iraq in January...I can only begin to fathom the kind of grief and fury that will fill my body should anything happen to him...

    I apologize for the random burst of babbling...
     
  2. Football_Bat

    Football_Bat Well-Known Member

    I wish I had a foolproof answer, but I don't so I guess I'll just have to "trust" one of these candidates. Judging by the way that pro-war McCain is cratering, all the remaining contenders will be "promising" an end to it.
     
  3. HeinekenMan

    HeinekenMan Active Member

    Your original post makes a key point. Promises are just that. We should demand that those who make them also offer concrete ideas for how we get out of Dodge.

    A separate issue is that some are guilty of supporting this war.

    But let's not confuse the subject. Where we are as a country is somewhere between two ends of a road that leads to peace. As I heard Walter Cronkite discussing on a special marking his 90th birthday, the Vietnam War did not end until the mainstream folks joined the so-called hippie movement in opposing it.

    Right now, we have a segment of the country that wants to withdraw and an influential minority that doesn't. As more of those in the Bush camp see the light, we'll march further down the road that ends with withdrawal from Iraq. I think a lot of what Tom Petty and others are trying to do is to push us along down that road in the hope that it saves a few lives. I happen to find that admirable.

    Despite it all, though, I think everyone has to admit that we live in a different world today and that it's a world where there are few certainties and a lot of complexities. We tried one thing, and it is what it is. There are parts of the George W. Bush approach that clearly failed. So we go back to the drawing board and try again.
     
  4. Tom Petty

    Tom Petty Guest

    no, three bags. i simply don't want us, americans to forget the fact our boys are still dying overseas. i care about that fact, and don't ever want to hear another casaulty count blur me on the news like out-of-state lottery numbers.
     
  5. BYH

    BYH Active Member

    So anyone who believes these deaths are in vain is a coward?

    That doesn't sound fair.

    You can support the troops without supporting the people or the "theories" that got us into this.
     
  6. Tom Petty

    Tom Petty Guest

    in my one and only gig in news, i was a city editor in an area that had a freakish amount of war deaths. i had to talk with fathers, mothers, wives and children of many dead soldiers. needless to say, that experience had a huge impact on my life.
     
  7. buckweaver

    buckweaver Active Member

    Trouser, I'll keep your brother in my thoughts. I have been to one military funeral because of this war, and I pray that I don't have to go to another.

    My younger brother is at Parris Island as we speak, 2 weeks into his 13. (Semper Fi, bro.)
     
  8. I love it when people say they support the troops.
    Honestly, who doesn't support the troops? Who says, "Screw those guys over there risking their lives. Bunch of bastards."
    That's such an intellectually dishonest argument.
    I've said it before and I'll say it again -- my support for the troops includes hoping they all come home safely as soon as possible. If that makes me a coward or a commie, then so be it.
     
  9. Trouser_Buddah

    Trouser_Buddah Active Member

    Thanks...I appreciate that, and wish the best to you and your bro as well...
     
  10. JayFarrar

    JayFarrar Well-Known Member

    I'm sorry to be this guy, but nobody cares.
    If people actually cared, we'd been out of Iraq years ago.
    The only people who seem to notice what is going on are those who family in the military.
    And occasionally you'll run into some thoughtful people, but for the most part no one cares.
    The 2006 election was supposed to be a mandate for change and the politically weakest president in recent memory still got everything he wanted and also ignored the advice of his own military.
     
  11. novelist_wannabe

    novelist_wannabe Well-Known Member

    All philosphical rantings aside, TP is right. Every digit in that number is representative of unimaginable heartbreak, and it seems wrong to mimize it to statistics. It's naive to think that every one of those people would go on to great things -- some undoubtedly would have gone the other way -- but the heartbreak to me is the denial of possibility that their deaths impose.
     
  12. three_bags_full

    three_bags_full Well-Known Member

    It was used as an adjective, not a noun.
     
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