I know this is *old news* according to the news, you've probably already seen this story used as some kind of anti-war /anti-bush leverage, here's a different take on that number. I suggest you read it, it's not some hyped up bullshit by a politician or know-it-all news anchor or talk-show host speaking in terms of statistics, talking about pull-outs or 'staying the course', it's a letter by someone whose credible, and whose over there.

 

you know how you know these letters are bullshit?...i never met anyone in the military that uses english that well...a politician wrote that

 

He's a 1LT, I don't know of any officers who don't know how to write.

Not everyone in the army is a highschool dropout, street.

 

I spent 11 years on active duty in the Army. Given the chance I can write as eloquently as the need calls, I can also chew your head off with every expletive you know. Officers, especially young ones, are college educated and experienced with writing every type of official document imaginable. You obviously have a very limited experience with military people.

 

The question is not if the letter was written by a service member of not. The question should be how high a price we as americans have paid already!! We have the might to make that place a sheet of glass!! but we let our politicians drag this 5 year war on.... Indefinitely!! So for now we Honor the 4,000 dead and 30,000 wounded and pray the numbers don't continue to rise but deep down we know they will.
Semper Fi

 

I carry multiple friends in the service, as well as a cousin that is more like a brother to me, who is an army ranger. Hes been in the service for 17 years, went in as enlisted, went through officer candidate, and other training.

Since this thing has started I have pushed for him, and been more then happy to jump down someones throat when they would talk bad about our troops.

I have prayed for my friends as well as my cousin. I have now, lost a friend in this war.

When we went to afghanistan, before my cousin shipped off there I remember saying "Make some heads roll, show them why no one crosses us"

When he came home, there was a sigh of relief from the entire family, including his wife, with his newborn, who he had not gotten to see before then.

A short time went by, and then he was called again, this time, to Iraq. With a small sniper division, consisting of somewhere around 25 men. The family again, became worried.

Before he left, my dad who watched him when he was growing up said "You be careful over there." And for the first time in my life, I saw a tear come out of my dad. A man who willingly joined the Army in the 80s went to Germany, whos infantry was setup to be front lines against Russia, for a world war three scenario.

A year and a half went by, and my cousin was flown back to DC. It wasn't to go home, it was due to an injury. They would not say how it happened, or what happened. And then the family feared for more horrible news.

The day he was flown back, his entire sniper division was killed.

It was another 6 months before I could see my cousin, and the instant I did, I knew he was not the same. And for the second time, he was able to meet his newborn, with his daughter now a toddler, he had a son.

The number 4000 means quite a bit to me. The smaller numbers for myself, mean more. This effects anyone who is linked to someone serving. It takes toles on families as well. These ******* politicians running this war and this campaign on terrorism I still believe are in the wrong place, and made a mistake by going over to Iraq. It isn't a campaign to throw out dictators.
Its now been 7 years, and the man who we were origionally after is still running around hiding in caves.

The mission in Iraq was declared accomplised by our "leader" if you want to call him that. Send them back to afghanistan, let them find the peice of trash who leveled two of our buildings, killed our women and children, and if the people in Iraq can't figure out how to become civilized, let them fight.

These people in the middle east have been going at each other for hundreds, if not thousands of years. Over land, over religious beliefs, over anything.
We can't resolve land issues, that was proven when we handed the jews israel and war broke out. And you can kill as many people off as you want, but you cannot kill off someones beliefs, that has been proven time after time.

War and militaries were never designed to stay somewhere to create peace and democracy, unless you are going to conquer the land, and make it your own.

Militaries were designed to go in, destroy anything you can, kill anyone who crosses your path the wrong way, and be on your way.

What are we trying to accomplish? Preventing a civil war? A revolution? The US would not be what it is without a civil war and without a revolution. Most great countries wouldn't be. Let them go about the process. Do NOT involve our troops who have be told they have accomplished their mission.

4000 lives. 4000 people dead who have families and friends back here. Over a million others. Why continue sacrificing their lives for a job well done?

Its time to move on.

 

nothing I have to say matters

 

That's an unnecessary and completely bullshit way of trying to show some moral equivalence while disparaging the intelligence and education of our military officers and enlisted men.

It doesn't matter a tinkers damn if you fight behind a desk or a rifle you still stood the same chance of being a bullet sponge on your first day in boots. I think you owe someone an apology.

If you're still naive enough to believe anything any politician says for any reason including war then you're an idiot... sorry. If you think yours or my opinion or all of ours matters 1 damned bit about foreign policy, you're unbelievably out of touch with reality.

You clearly never lived in Iraq. I know a good 50 people that used to live in Iraq when Saddam was running things. They all say that it doesn't matter what he was or wasn't doing or what weapons he had... they were living a Stalins-purges nightmare every single day and that was enough for me to justify 4000 brothers and sisters lost. I suppose you forgot about Saddam GASSING 10's of thousands of Kurds? Men, women, children ... murdered in cold blood while they were going about their day because Saddam thought there were too uppity.

Imagine what would happen if we gassed New Orleans cuz of all them (forgive me for the following statement...it's meant to establish a point) uppity coloreds making it hard to establish the rule of law.

First they gassed the kurds and I was not kurdish so I did not object. Then they came for the Shiia and I did not object becuase I was not a Shiia. Then they came for me and noone was there to object for me.

Sound familiar...

 

nothing I have to say is worth two squirts of cold ****.

 

in typical streetracer fashion captain can't-read has completely lost the concept.

Street...does it hurt not being able to link two concepts together with any sort of logic or reason?

Now your new sig...that's another story. You're doing that out of SPITE in order to damage me (you'll fail cuz I'm not ashamed of my life). BUT, I'm a mod and you're disrespectful to me too often so, I'm going ahead and editing that new sig for you to disparage your character. I'm going to edit it every day with something new and slanderous.

 

I've given this alot of thought to prevent a knee-jerk reaction and I feel the need to voice this. I was reading this thread as I was chatting with my husband who is in Afghanistan, so you can see I am emotionally attached. The numbers are tragic no doubt and I have personally lost 5 friends that I know of, friends just don't get notification, so I check the DOD site regularly to see if anyone I know is there. Our nation has given 4000 lives in support of a cause that is at best debated, the key word is "given". These men and women chose freely and knowingly to put themselves in harms way to support their country and honor their obiliations, and that should be respected accordingly. The numbers we don't hear about are the thousands of lives that have been saved and the thousands more that are substantially improved because of our presence. Talk to any soldier who has been out in the real world of Iraq or Afghanistan and their stories of the people and their lives will forever change your perspective on our mission and the media. Those stories are convienently left out of media reports. We absolutely need to be getting our troops out, but to think that can be accomplished quickly or smoothly is a fantasy. We have embedded ourselves deeply in the lives and government of these people and have begun a process that needs to come full circle to ensure no return trips.

As far as politicians lying...can you honestly say you are surprised. That is how politics runs, say whatever it takes to get in office and then do whatever you can to get rich and powerful. I must say though Hilary didn't learn much from Bill, cause she can't lie for ****!!! When you have thousands of witnesses it's not advisable to lie about the event. DUH!! The wmd's were a farce and we all know it, but I doubt if Bush knew it at the time. I believe he was being fed more crap than any one. He can't lie for squat either, he gets flustered too easily on camera. I do believe we had valid mission when we invaded Iraq, just not the one we were told. To this day we are criticized for our late entry into WWII, how long were we going to allow another Hitler to run loose. That is what Sadam was, the modern day equivilent to Hitler. The lie of wmd was just easier to get the public behind at the time than atrocities against humanity.

 

Sad part about it all was we allowed Saddam to stay in power, but we had reasoning for doing it. He was able to keep everything under control (avoiding a civil war)

Don't get me wrong, I hope hes burning in hell, but I feel we picked the wrong time to go for Iraq.

As for the WMDs..he had advisors go in..when one would sya "we didn't find anything" they'd be fired, it continued that way until he found one that gave the go ahead.

Hes a crooked politician like the rest of them no doubt, but there are only a handful that have allowed our soldiers blood to spill for the wrong reason.

 

Ok I feel strongly about this Iraq thing myself and feel the need to post.

First the 9-11 commision report clearly stated that Iraq had no connection to the attack on the US. So yeah go to Afganistan find the SoB and get him

Ok WMDs..... why the hell does it take thousands of US soldiers to go investigate for them. Why is it OUR resposibility to take Suddam out of power. Ok Ok.... he killed thousands of his people and committed ungodly acts...... All against his own people. Why is that OUR business. Why is it that we in the west have to force or democratic BS in THEIR government. Who says that WE are so HIGH AND MIGHTY. Hell how would you like it if Russia said they dont like our government, they tax their citizens, the rich stay rich the poor stay poor. The US government JUST ISNT FAIR to its people. Just cause they dont like the way we run things they want to come in with force... take over and set up THEIR form of government just cause they like THEIR way best. To me there is no difference. The US govenrment puts its own sons and daughters lives at risk for some BS political reasons (oil mainly).

I for one firmly beleive the US hand a hand in the 9-11 attacks. There are STILL to this day to many unaswered questions and some answeres only raise more questions. I do not and prolly never will beleive that the US government acts in best intrest of its people. I do not trust them from the mayor of your home town (and mine too) to the president. All of em are crooked in some form or another. Hence the reason I got such hatred for cops.


I apoligize if I offended anyone... thats not my intentions here. And before anyone lables me as a regular bush hater or democrat or what ever. I support no political "sides" I would feel the same way if John Kerry was in office.

 

consider the following:

We put saddam in power to start with. We needed to remove him to balance out that sin.

WMD's found or no, Saddam murdered 30,000 civilians with mustard, Sarin, VX, and Tabun, some of the most deadly and horrible chemicals ever created. 30K people died from him USING WMD's as late as the late 80's and threatened our troops directly with them in 91. Whole towns in northern Iraq were attacked with WMDs, so there's the propensity for use by Saddam and his honchos, in really super recent history, and then the records for where those weapons went go blank. Says to me there's an uncertainty about either a delivery system or a weaponized chemical. If you think it's hard to make a delivery system and an agent, come over to my house for 20 minutes. I'm a decent hand with t3h chemistry and t3h drillings.

Ask the jews whose job it is to save the oppressed. Ask the murdered Kurds (I know a few Kurds that escaped... you can't imagine the horrors they ran from) who should have saved them. The whole pushing democracy thing is bullshit and we should stop that. It works with western culture but not always with the eastern cultures.

If you think oil is a BS political reason, ask yourself what would happen to the whole goddamned world if there was a supply disruption. How do you make breakfast or drdive to work or have a damned job in the first place without oil making the energy that moves the world.

Thinking that the dumbest ******* people in the world all put in a group (Bush and his "advisors") could pull off the most elaborate scheme ever is just plain silly. Seriously, coordinating 22 people's actions in 3 states involving 4 non-military planes, near pinpoint timing, a perfect demolition quality appearing building felling, a perfect cover up with NO evidence of any government involvement, not to mention 3300 dead civilians, 343 firefighteres, and dozens of police and military and expecting the government to not leave 1 bit of corroborating evidence. Wow... if you believe that's even possible I've got a bridge to sell you.

Your 2nd to last paragraph, except for the first sentence which I addressed above, is totally sensible and I agree. I think you may take it too far though. You just need to always consider who gets the $, then you can predict your government with reasonable accuracy and you'll really understand the motivations. If you're responsible for keeping 300 million people employed in a global economy, you'll make some questionable decisions and you'll make yourself richer in the process...that's just how it works. If you don't like the view at the back of the dog pack, become the lead dog.