From an email about the recent anti-war protests:
Representative government is a messy process. We make our best decisions when we (civilian Americans), are covered in mud and blood. When public buses are blowing up on American streets, these anti-war protesters may have something else to wank about.
Only psychopaths like war, but only the intellectually infantile could think war is never the answer to any problem. While we use measured force liberally in Iraq, our current involvement could hardly be described as “war.” The comparatively lengthy duration of our Iraq adventure is a function of our sensitivity to collateral damage and our mission to support a young, indigenous government still wobbly on its feet. If it were truly war, we could have reduced Iraq to a pile of broken cinder blocks, decimated the civilian population, set up an occupation government and enforced martial law on the survivors in two months. Does anyone remember Dresden, Tokyo, Hiroshima? Our current form of “kinder, gentler war” reduces blood shed but stretches the time to resolution. To the point we removed the Ba’athist, Hussein government, our casualties were less than two hundred. The subsequent casualties are the price paid in American blood to avoid shedding every drop of Iraqi, Syrian and Iranian blood. We are in uncharted territory which, by definition, obviates perfect navigation. Our purpose, replacing a tyrannical government (that terrorized a civilian population, attacked neighbors with WMD, conducted racial genocide and filled mass graves with the bodies of children), with government by the people, is a noble one. We may not succeed, but no American should be ashamed of our attempt to do so.
The protester population is a minuscule percentage of America. Like the bacteria that live around any anal sphincter, they are omnipresent, stinky and largely unseen (given proper hygiene). Sadly, mainstream media prefers to put its nose in there and keep it there. Don’t let it get you down. All Americans are not the bacteria the media highlights. I am surrounded by uniformed ass kickers who make me proud and grateful to be an American. Hold your head high and thank God daily that you live in this great country where freedom to spout off extends even to bacteria.
-Peter Ross
UPDATE: See also this.
This post might perhaps be more compelling were the writer to leave out the obnoxious name calling. Addtionally, it is not a small bunch of Americans who oppose the war. The recent elections, if fnot the polls, should convince the poster of this. Further, those opposed to what is taking place in Iraq have for some time said it was not a war but a civil war between various sects within the country. The man y deaths are NOT the result of our care to avoid civilian deaths. Those deaths take place daily because the Sunnnis and the Shia, with some Al Qaeda now there, are killing each other. No one said it was a “real war” after Bush declared mission accomplished.
Why is it that so man y of the proponents of the war have almost to a person never served in the military at any time while those opposed to it often have? I won’t botyher to give a list of names. Just ask about radio hosts and congressmen.
Oh, Nathan, your nose is so high in the air you don’t smell anything.
How is it possible for Nathan to write so much and yet say absolutely nothing.
The war protestors are hooligans. Not because they oppose the war but because they think that freedom is free and because they’re vandals.
Milton Friedman reminded us more than once that the freedom we take for granted exists almost nowhere else in the world. The natural state of humanity is tyranny and oppression. Those who don’t wish to fight for our freedom will have us return to tyranny and oppression. How can these people be called noble?
speaking of the rhetoric and the war, I just fount this. It just makes you wonder who’s behind all the nonesense.
Why is it that so man y of the proponents of the war have almost to a person never served in the military at any time while those opposed to it often have?
Since you raised this issue, I should mention that the author of the email that I posted has served in the military, and I believe is still in the reserves, and I am certain would be blasting jihadis in the Middle East today if it were up to him. (Not that any of this changes the quality of his arguments.)
You might also note the heavy presence of veterans in Saturday’s pro-war demonstration in DC.
“…I believe is still in the reserves…”
He was reactivated, had to give up his law practice, his home repair business and much else, take a huge pay cut, relocate his wife and three kids by thousands of miles. He has paid a huge personal price for the war and has never uttered a word of complaint.
Thanks for clarifying.
I was going to say, very modestly, as a non-American, that the Gathering of Eagles demo had an awful lot of ex-servicemen and their families among them. And many of the peaceniks looked far too young to have served anywhere, but Jonathan got there ahead of me.
Furthermore, it seems that most Iraqis do not think they are in a civil war despite the heavy casualties they have taken. Given the growing support for the Prime Minister, it would seem that for them it is a question of a very painful building up of a decent society. The kind we all take for granted.
It’s always somewhat amazing how many people want to speak for the millions of veterans in this country. It’s also amazing how ignorant they are. Perhaps they can help by backing up their broad statements about the sentiments of veterans? I know many vets who are proponents of the war, and I know many who oppose it. I’m surprised Nathan’s experience shows a very different distribution.
So, Nathan, why do you say, “so many of the proponents of the war have almost to a person never served in the military at any time?” Do you limit your consideration to some particular subset of veterans? Do you see congressmen and radio talkers as a representative sample of America’s veterans? Why pick congressmen and radio talkers rather than plumbers and electrical enginers?