Yesterday, a discussion started over in Slate.com about a sister who was having a hard time handling people who criticized the wars in the middle east where her brother was fighting as a marine.
For a long time, I have felt that recruiting children to fight in wars by promising them money to go to school, is immoral. And that, until people stop volunteering to go to war, the wars will continue.
Here's my thoughts:
This war has been incredibly well stage managed. No bodies coming home in flag draped coffins. No 'film at 11" coverage of blood and gore. No draft. Going out of our way not to offend those who have 'sensibilities' other than our own. Truly incredible micromanagement of the press.
And whatever you do, it is immoral to speak anything even slightly uncomplimentary about members of the military.
This war has been fought with no strategy; tactics either developed on the fly or left over from the cold war; with weapons that were designed to keep the Sovs from coming through the Fulda Gap; and absolutely no exit strategy. In other words, we are fighting this war with tools and tactics from the last war. We seem to have been doing this since Vietnam. We just want those suckers to line up in front of us so we can liberate them by shooting them. We are totally unprepared for an asymmetrical war - even though we fought one in Vietnam for 8, or so, years and have been fighting one in Afghanistan for 10 years.
We are engaging in another war in North Africa on the same terms we are using in Iraq and Afghanistan. Not only didn't we learn from Vietnam, we are proving we didn't even learn anything from Iraq or Afghanistan. We still have no f*cking idea what we are doing. The results will be the same in Libya as they are in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Update: The New York Times reported this morning, (01APR2011), that the US may be backing off supplying arms to Libyan rebels. Let's hope so.
Doing the same thing, over and over, expecting a different result is the definition of insanity. And we are clearly insane.
Third, we are doing this with an all volunteer army. We are recruiting children to go kill people and/or be killed for money to go to college.
We could stop this war, tomorrow, if these children joining the military stopped for a moment to consider what they are doing and if it is morally right to agree to kill people for money. Parents could speak up here, too. I doubt very many of them taught their children it was moral to kill people for money. When children decide to join the military, something magical happens to parents. They let their patriotism override their natural tendency to protect their children.
Once the 'all volunteer army' fails, the DoD would have to re-instate the draft. Or, at least, threaten to reinstate the draft. At that point, it would become more of a personal experience for everyone - whole groups of men would be disappearing from neighborhoods and coming home in flag draped coffins. Rich people, like the Bushies, would have to go into high gear finding ways to keep their children from having to go be killed in the desert by some guy hiding behind a rock with a 20 year old RPG.
In other words, if children stopped volunteering to kill people for money, this thing would be over in about a month. Given the improvements in social networking, the anti-draft/anti-war protests would make what happened during Vietnam look like ice cream socials.
As long as people volunteer for the military, we will always find another country where we think it is in their best interest to bomb them back into the stone age. We just need to convince the children that it is wrong to kill people for money.
Stop volunteering. The war will stop shortly after that.
Same sentiment, different countries
Well, come on all of you, big strong men, Uncle Sam needs your help again.
He's got himself in a terrible jam Way down yonder in [Afghanistan/Iraq/Libya]
So put down your books and pick up a gun, We're gonna have a whole lotta fun.
And it's one, two, three, What are we fighting for ?
Don't ask me, I don't give a damn, Next stop is [Afghanistan/Iraq/Libya];
And it's five, six, seven, Open up the pearly gates,
Well there ain't no time to wonder why, Whoopee! we're all gonna die.
With serious and heartfelt apologies to Country Joe & The Fish
For a long time, I have felt that recruiting children to fight in wars by promising them money to go to school, is immoral. And that, until people stop volunteering to go to war, the wars will continue.
Here's my thoughts:
This war has been incredibly well stage managed. No bodies coming home in flag draped coffins. No 'film at 11" coverage of blood and gore. No draft. Going out of our way not to offend those who have 'sensibilities' other than our own. Truly incredible micromanagement of the press.
And whatever you do, it is immoral to speak anything even slightly uncomplimentary about members of the military.
This war has been fought with no strategy; tactics either developed on the fly or left over from the cold war; with weapons that were designed to keep the Sovs from coming through the Fulda Gap; and absolutely no exit strategy. In other words, we are fighting this war with tools and tactics from the last war. We seem to have been doing this since Vietnam. We just want those suckers to line up in front of us so we can liberate them by shooting them. We are totally unprepared for an asymmetrical war - even though we fought one in Vietnam for 8, or so, years and have been fighting one in Afghanistan for 10 years.
We are engaging in another war in North Africa on the same terms we are using in Iraq and Afghanistan. Not only didn't we learn from Vietnam, we are proving we didn't even learn anything from Iraq or Afghanistan. We still have no f*cking idea what we are doing. The results will be the same in Libya as they are in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Update: The New York Times reported this morning, (01APR2011), that the US may be backing off supplying arms to Libyan rebels. Let's hope so.
Doing the same thing, over and over, expecting a different result is the definition of insanity. And we are clearly insane.
Third, we are doing this with an all volunteer army. We are recruiting children to go kill people and/or be killed for money to go to college.
We could stop this war, tomorrow, if these children joining the military stopped for a moment to consider what they are doing and if it is morally right to agree to kill people for money. Parents could speak up here, too. I doubt very many of them taught their children it was moral to kill people for money. When children decide to join the military, something magical happens to parents. They let their patriotism override their natural tendency to protect their children.
Once the 'all volunteer army' fails, the DoD would have to re-instate the draft. Or, at least, threaten to reinstate the draft. At that point, it would become more of a personal experience for everyone - whole groups of men would be disappearing from neighborhoods and coming home in flag draped coffins. Rich people, like the Bushies, would have to go into high gear finding ways to keep their children from having to go be killed in the desert by some guy hiding behind a rock with a 20 year old RPG.
In other words, if children stopped volunteering to kill people for money, this thing would be over in about a month. Given the improvements in social networking, the anti-draft/anti-war protests would make what happened during Vietnam look like ice cream socials.
As long as people volunteer for the military, we will always find another country where we think it is in their best interest to bomb them back into the stone age. We just need to convince the children that it is wrong to kill people for money.
Stop volunteering. The war will stop shortly after that.
Same sentiment, different countries
Well, come on all of you, big strong men, Uncle Sam needs your help again.
He's got himself in a terrible jam Way down yonder in [Afghanistan/Iraq/Libya]
So put down your books and pick up a gun, We're gonna have a whole lotta fun.
And it's one, two, three, What are we fighting for ?
Don't ask me, I don't give a damn, Next stop is [Afghanistan/Iraq/Libya];
And it's five, six, seven, Open up the pearly gates,
Well there ain't no time to wonder why, Whoopee! we're all gonna die.
With serious and heartfelt apologies to Country Joe & The Fish
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