How very Vietnam....
There's something about this quote that, to me, echoes Vietnam.
Perhaps it's the casualness with which he's "parsing" deaths. After all, we're talking about "metrics" here, not thousands upon thousands of dead bodies.
This month it's a little bit higher, maybe about 20 or 30 higher than it was at this time last month," Pace said, but he did not give a current total.
Pace offered no explanation for the rise in May and said he could not break them down into sectarian killings and deaths due to other reasons.
"It's difficult to parse out some of the deaths from other deaths," he said.
Perhaps it's the casualness with which he's "parsing" deaths. After all, we're talking about "metrics" here, not thousands upon thousands of dead bodies.
posted by mikevotes at
3:58 PM
8 Comments:
As someone who voluntarily enlisted and served his time in the military honorably, I can say for a fact that when people sign up for the military, we know full well we will put our lives on the line for the cause of freedom. We don't like it when people who should support us stand on the sidelines and cheer for our defeat.
Those allied in seeking our defeat (I won't use the word enemy, since you seem to think that by using the term I will create more terrorists) take heart when they hear our countrymen saying the cause is hopeless, when they hear pacifists pleading for us to give up and go home. With this encouragement, they find it easier to recruit others into their cause and strike blows against our troops, knowing this will lead to greater whining for appeasement. And, of course, they are correct.
Congratulations! You get what you want: more casualties.
However, you also might want to check the mortality rates for young men in the same age demographic not in a war zone, since anyone interested in facts does thorough investigations. If I told you, you wouldn't believe it anyway. So find out for yourself. Like a scientific experiment, take the same period since we have been involved in the war (I would say to go all the way back to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, but I know you would prefer to start with our invasion of Afghanistan) and then compare the mortality rates of you men in, for example, New York City or Camp Pendleton, which would be your "control group" to know how many additional casualites have come as a result of them being in a war zone.
Now tens of thousands of insurgents, foreign nationals who came to Iraq to fight the U.S. and others who form the fractured, non-affiliated group of people (but who will not be branded by any politically insensitive nomenclature which may offend you) have died during that same period, which indicates our military is winning big time. The fact that THEY (the unnamed affiliation seeking to defeat the U.S....I won't say us, because I know you are really more on their side) are people who enjoy killing innocent somehow becomes, in the rhetoric of those unaffiliated people who seek defeat for the U.S., the fault of the U.S., when in fact it is random acts of terror taken against soft targets, and these acts will be carried out somewhere for the next several generations, not because the west is evil but because the west is free, and they can't stand it.
By
Wes, at 8:19 AM
In the last exchange we had, I think the thing that bothered me most in your vast assumptions about me was that because I thought your analysis was overly simplistic (Did you really just write that they hate us for our freedoms?), you claimed that I had not even read your comment.
This is to let you know I read your comment.
By
mikevotes, at 8:41 AM
Wes, I can't imagine a soldier going off to war for anything other than noble reasons - fighting for our freedom, liberating the opressed, etc. You go right on believing those things.
But there are other people who see the reasons for wars like Iraq and Vietnam differently. And believe it or not, we want nothing more than to stop sending young people to fight and die in those wars.
One of the casualties of this war is the deep divisions it causes between Americans, just like Vietnam did 40 years ago. Forty years from now, you will still be resenting people like me.
And no doubt, you will be a staunch supporter of the next Iraq and Vietnam. And the next.
By
Anonymous, at 9:23 AM
Thanks Abi.
I've decided I'm not going to respond to this guy anymore.
He started off making arguments but has dropped into looneyville personal attacks charging that I'm rooting for Al Qaeda and US casualties.
Really, we shouldn't talk to him as much as talk around him like a crazy uncle at a family gathering.
But thanks for the defense.
By
mikevotes, at 1:10 PM
Wes, you seem to forget that while you may be able to speak for some of those who voluntarily served in the armed forces, apparently you cannot speak for those who are pacifists and those who are against this particular conflict. You do not understand our viewpoints whatsoever. In addition, if you truly fought for freedom, then you fought for my right to oppose your viewpoint. You are free to have your point of view and I am free to have mine. Your comments sound like those of someone opposed to this most basic of American freedoms!
By
Anonymous, at 4:36 PM
Mike,
I'll take your advice and not acknowledge his presence. But there are a lot of us who will come to your defense.
By
Anonymous, at 8:15 PM
Jeff, Anon, Thanks.
I started off trying to have a conversation, and when I disagreed with his premise that there are hundreds of millions of terrorists all unified under a single banner, the personal attacks started.
The guy doesn't understand the differences between Hezbullah, Hamas, the Islamic Brotherhood, and Al Qaeda.
There's just no talking with that.
By
mikevotes, at 9:16 PM
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