first of all, that's not even remotely what i said. secondly, why would it be (apparently) ironic if i did?
First of all it is what you said, here
then my I suggest that the cultures that demand blood for insults (like say, Iraq, Pakistan, etc.) may better suit you.
Is this not you saying that all violent people should group together out in Iraq, Pakistan and hence leave wherever they are? Sounds like it.
quite the opposite. i was drawing a metaphorical parallel between the great personal offense midnight expressed to the op's posts, and cultures that demand violent revenge in return for personal insults and offended honor. the underlying message was, "chill out dude, it's just an internet forum".
Also the fact you know the army is used for "strategic interests", thats basically the bit the american government uses to excuse itself while raping other countries. The get out of jail free card that always tags along with the more patriotical "protect american freedoms". How can you not see yourself regurgitating this subliminally fed crap?
you need to re-read what i wrote...actually it's too late, you should have read it better the first time. whether i wrote my thoughts clearly or not (probably could have taken more time which i will do now), is no excuse for that kind of talk. ...but don't worry, my honor is not offended.
look, let's get one thing crystal clear: i did not invade iraq. so set down your holier-than-though little flamestick. nor did i decide to invade iraq. i have made not a single excuse for the invasion of iraq - the reasons, the execution, the presentation, the cost, the outcome, the consequences, nothing. what i did was provide you with a brief civics lesson. it didn't sink in, so i'll say it another way, with a bit of repetition:
the armed forces of the united states of america are, as architected in the us constitution, led from the top by civilians - and ultimately by an elected one.
these civilians create foreign policy, however noble, evil, brilliant, or stupid it may prove to be. the us armed forces
implement, by directive, that policy when called upon to do so.
this approach has pros and cons. some of the drawbacks are that people inexperienced in modern warfare can wind up deciding the fate of thousands if not millions of lives, both in the near and distant futures. these people may have no idea what it means to serve in combat, or what it is like to make on-the-spot life or death decisions having potentially profound and immediate downstream consequences. but most scholars agree that the advantages of this imperfect system outweigh those drawbacks. to see the perils of a general running a country, one need look no further than, say, musharraf, khadaffi, (nominally) hussein, and virtually every corrupt dictator in history, such as several in africa today. our founding fathers understood this cornundrum well.
so i really don't see what your problem is. i have my own armchair quarterback views on how things have been handled, just like you - but i've had much better intel than the bullshit you get on your tv screen while stuffing your face with ho-hos. and my views may or may not coincide with yours at various levels of subtlety. but you're not going to hear mine, at least not explicitly. if you think you know my political views, then re-read because you are probably mistaken. i highly value my internet anonymity, which for starters allows me to engage on this forum at all in the first place. but i don't at all take it for granted, and a little paranoia can be small insurance for careers. so, with the exception of surely a few little slip-ups that i don't fret too much over, you're not going to hear me either defend or condemn recent or current us foreign policy. so back the fuck off because you have no idea what you are talking about, and it seems pretty evident that you have absolutely not the slightest goddamn clue of what it's like to serve in hostile territory where losing useful chunks of flesh is routine.
and just so you know, while risking thier asses, those in harm's way aren't doing it for our leaders. the old cliche is true, it's to keep each other alive, while executing a specific mission that we may not even have the privilege of understand the reason why, or the bigger picture, even the officers.
so you know what? if you want to "support our troops" (whatever the hell a "troop" is), then do just one thing: try real fucking hard to get what i've said through your skull. and know this: most of the "troops" don't give a rats ass what you think - they just want to do their jobs and get back home to their families.
And how the fuck can you get away with saying...
if lives are lost in pursuing an objective, then the blood is on your hands--not mine, for voting...
...what. So when someone dies out on the battlefield or in "pursuing an objective" its the general public's fault for ticking the wrong box on election day?
Thats just light hearted philosophy designed for the pussy who cannot take full responcibility for what he/she does. Instead they are just appart of the "cowboy culture and it's propensity violence" o0o how horrible! "Im just appart of a bigger monster, what can I do"
I would rather be doing jack shit rather than taking part in being the monster and then do jack shit.
you grossly misunderstood me or just read carelessly. what i meant was, when our
civilian leadership insisted on war as the first option, with much flag-waving and 9/11 chest-thumping,
what did you do? what did you think? were you thinking ahead to the inevitable casualties, and iraqi civilian casualties (which historically outnumber combatant casualties in guerrilla warfare by 4:1), that would certainly result? or did you listen all starry-eyed with a heart full of revenge, to the civilians that said it would be quick with few casualties? did you bother to do any research at all about guerrilla warfare of the past to get a ballpark image, independent of what your elected civilians were telling you?
you think about that real hard. real, fucking hard. (don't tell me about it because i don't care.) because
that was your chance to stop what you are whining now about. now is just a bit fucking late. i suspect that if you are like some 93-odd percent of the populace, you were screaming for blood like everyone else. and don't even tell me you were against it from the start, the odds are overwhelmingly against that as a likelihood. so fuck you. you have no goddamn moral authority to so casually judge me with on what you think you know, especially when you haven't the foggiest idea of what my convictions, actions, and sacrifices are and have been.
but hey. i'm not mad at you. i'm not even mad. just wise up.
the united states army is an all-volunteer force made of us citizens, and is no more or less intrinsically violent than any other cross-section of america.
I would like to see something to back this up.
which part? if you mean the last part i can save you time: i worded that to come off as opinion, which it is, and clearly isn't something that could be easily proven or disproven anyway ("intrinsically" is the magic opinion word).