Good response Jeff, however, at work I always get this from my fellow Liberal teachers "well Tucker, why don't you go ahead and send your boys into harms way? " And Im like, well, these guys signed up for it, not drafted. But even still, Im a parent and wouldn't want my boys to go, but what would I do if they did? what about the the children that are being killed just for being in the way of a bomb? should we not care about them? what about the adults that want us there, but also get killed? these are questions I ask myself, and I don't have the answers.
I was all for it in the very beginning since it was sold so well to the public. With 911 fresh in our minds we were hell bent on stamping out terrorism. The threat of WMD was all that was needed to swing most of the Congress, the media and a majority of America behind the invasion. Everyone was glued to the TV each night watching the latest push into Baghdad. I remember the media was expecting a tactical nuke strike by the Republican Guard that never materialized. At that point I started to wonder why we were even there since it had become known that all the 911 terrorists were actually from Saudi Arabia not Iraq. The threat of WMD was still good enough reason to be there but after that turned out to be false Intel then I knew for sure we were locked into something that wasn't going to be easy to get out of. The remembrance of Viet Nam seemed eerily similar. I personally don't think our presence is based on stamping out terrorism, spreading democracy or any of the other excuses. It is all about the oil and strategic positioning. If there wasn’t any oil we wouldn’t have gone in the first place. When we leave it will fall right back where it was. My position is bring our troops home ASAP...they are too valuable to be wasted on a political war.
I'll admit I haven't been around long enough to know anything of war BESIDES these recent events, but I'd still support NOT a mass pull out. Are our troops lives more important to me than that of Middle East citizens? Yep. But they went to war KNOWING their purpose! In the beginning there was the WMDs which turned false, but they STILL liberated a country from a TERRIBLE leader who had the money and power to have WMDs should he choose. We are in it too deep to pull out now IMO. Just leaving with everyone now makes the deaths to date a lost cause in a small way IMO. A slow but steady removal of troops I would support at this point. I support going there in the first place, and NOT pulling out to date...but we can't remain there forever protecting a gov't thats been established for nearly half a decade now. I also agree we have become too soft to criticism from Liberals and other countries alike. Don't like your country? Leave! Don't like our country? Try and come change it!
I certainly do. When we started, there was talk of the draft returning, and was a I bit scared? Sure. However, like Jeff said, freedom doesn't come free.
see jeff that's what I say...I mean Saddam through the UN inspectors out in 98 and never let them back..what was he hiding? I mean does anyone seriously doubt that he wouldn't try to get WMDs?
I could go on and on but to save time I'll be straight to the point... I haven't changed my mind in the least and I have a daughter in the military.
at what point do we say enough? How much $$ do we spend? how many soldiers need to die? How long do we give this new gov't over there to stand on it's own? we still don't have Bin Laden yet...the Taliban is getting stronger in Afgan.. etc...these are questions I get daily from the left.. I do not have answers for them to be honest with you.
I wouldn't worry about answereing the left. If it was up to them we would have just tucked our tails and sat there with our thumbs up our ass. Bush did the right thing... We've been over there for more than 8 years and the current death toll (all of the coalition combined) is 1,912 more people than were killed within a few hours on 9/11/01.
You might want to also think about the 30,000+ Americans who have been wounded in the Iraq war as well...including my cousin who had both his legs blown off.
What did Iraq have to do with 9/11/01? Iran has WMD's. Should we attack them? Korea has WMD's and has even been caught selling them? Perhaps we should attack them? How about Saudi Arabia? They have WMD's and the 9/11/01 killers came from there. Pakistan is harboring al qaeda, perhaps even bin laden. Maybe we should attack them. Ooopps, I forgot, they are our partner in the war on terrorism, at least according to bush. Does anyone remember that during the Reagan years we were selling/giving weapons to IRAQ because they were at war with Iran? No, I haven't changed my mind or my position.
No I haven't changed my mind that we should do all we can to win any war we are involved in. It would be a nice change if our leaders would rather our enemies fear us than like us. Didn't they learn anything in Vietnam???
see Im torn here....I mean believe Bush has made us safer from terrorism than before by disrupting them, but did we need to go to Iraq? Do we need to be there setting up Democracy? Is it our business? where are those WMDs? Are they better now than before? what about after we leave? I believe the Patriot Act has prevented terrorism in this country, but has the Invasion/Liberation of Iraq been helping prevent terrorism? Why are we seeming to struggle in Afgan now? Those who support the war and support the decisions of Bush would you still feel this way if your son was killed in this war and then we pulled out and it all went to crap? or do feel he served his country and died for a rightgeous cause or just cause? I try to see it from both perspectives...Im a parent, and I do not want boys going to war or dying in one...on the other hand, I know that without that sacrafice, we wouldn't have these freedoms we have.....Im just starting to think more about what we are doing there, when will it be time to leave? 3 yrs, 10 yrs, never? Do these people even want us there?
I am not going to get in the rest of your post but I just want to say how I feel about serving our country. If anyone dies serving our country then I believe they died for a righteous and just cause. A soldier can die in training when there is no war but the soldier still died serving our country and, IMO, that is a righteous and just cause. However someone may feel about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan really should have no bearing on on whether our soldiers have died for a righteous and just cause.
I have had 3 friends that have already served tours in Iraq (1 actually goes to Afghanistan in a few months), and another is shipping off in the next few weeks. The ones that have completed their time over there have all said the same thing. The BS the media shows on T.V. here is NOTHING compared to how things go over there. Not one of them have the slightest regret of joining or risking their lives fighting.
Jeff these are just questions that I get from people and now im chewing on them... I mean I can't say that I totally agree with the whole reasons for this war in Iraq, but im a guy that has always supported our military and have believed that we most of the time are doing good around the world. not always, but most of the time..I just want us to be doing something for the better and not just stalling because we don't know what to do now...
Amen to that Jeff! There are few conservatives in teaching..just today I asked a young teacher 25 yrs old what he thought about the Empire State building being lit up in red and yellow to celebrate the anniversary of communist China, he said " that's cool Tucker" "it's all about being open to ideas" then he says, "Im a socialist" , then I said, well your are in a democracy, he said " I would like to be in a socialist democratic place ,this country needs more senstivity and gov't control because capitalism has become very greedy, we need to regulate capitalism!"" YIKES!
Here's my answer: www.glennbeck.com This will tell you everything you need to know. I wish there were a hundred more of him running around, especially in Washington. It makes me sick to my stomach to think that there's people in this country who would love nothing more than to wipe their @$$e$ with The Constitution of The United States and turn the whole thing into a socialist state. Well not on my watch and certainly not on the millions of other Americans who think like I do. So a warning to all the Marxist pukes out there; I am ready to defend DEMOCRACY with all my being and with my life if I have to so go ahead and try. That goes for all the lefties as well.
