mikey

I don't mind being called a "troop hating scumbag" or a "commie pinko fahg", but it bothers to be called a "Jets fan in drag".

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mikey

I thought your response just corroborates everything I have been trying to say in my post.



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shirtsleeve

And with that, another thread denegrates into flaming, namecalling, insults and backbiting. Talon, there are many here with the same mindset as Mikey. For that I appologize, and thank you for your heroic service to our nation. I am forever awed by and indebted to you.

However, as with my response to Mikey's post when he wrote it, lets look to the future here, not the past.

There is ample opportunity to slam each other back and forth on this forum. But it was my feeble hope to not go down that road here. Lets try to discuss where this nation should go from here.

BlueTalon

There was nothing in my post that qualifies as namecalling or backbiting -- perhaps flaming or insults, depending on how you define those terms. There may be many on this board with similar views and mindsets as Mikey, but none of them were crass enough to write what he wrote.

Obviously I'm new here, so I don't know who's who yet. But if you're going to ask me to look forward, you need to do the same to Mikey. I was responding to his irrational and baseless accusations that reflect on me personally, because I'm a member of the armed forces that he thinks kills babies and commits heinous inhuman atrocities. That's people I know and some of MY FRIENDS! Marines have bent over backward and some have died to protect innocents and avoid harming mosques, and yet Mikey has the gall to write what he wrote. So if he is unwilling to either apologize for his remarks or explain them in detail, that will say a lot about him. (And if Mikey refuses to admit he was wrong or detail why he thinks he was right, I reserve the right to fatten his lip if I ever meet him in person. And I know what that says about me. Yes Mikey, you struck a nerve.)

Shirtsleeve, your hope may be to move forward, but I don't think that's possible. Even if we all could agree on which way to go from here, we can't agree on where we are now (the exchange between me and Mikey being example #1). I actually would prefer that we be able to agree, believe it or not. I just don't see it happening. Which means that the answer will be determined, not by any concensus, but by whoever is in power making the decisions.

For what it's worth, I don't engage in gratuitous insults, especially when the topic is serious. I said nothing in my post that was inherently insulting. Some of my language was a bit coarse, and for that I will apologize if necessary. My tone was stern, but I won't apologize for that. Everything else was purely factual -- if that presents a problem, I don't know what else to say.

Patters

BlueTalon, In order to oppose the war, we oppose the President's policies, but that doesn't mean we oppose the troops. Most liberals know at least one or two people who have been or are in Iraq, so we come to it with anger borne from the feeling that our President is needlessly putting our soldiers in harms way. How can we express that if you'll instantly make the leap that by doing so, we are against the troops? We are against what the troops are doing in many cases, but of course understand the troops have to follow orders.

As in any situation, it doesn't mean everything the troops do is bad. There are many heartwarming stories of soldiers helping kids, helping to rebuild the infrastructure, and even risking their lives to defend someone. But, the general policy has been to overthrow Saddam, and occupy a country without enough people to even control its major cities. The strategy has taken out Iran's biggest enemy, put in a government that's likely to be friendly with Iran, destablized the Middle East and other parts of the world, creating a cause around which groups like Al Qaida can recruit, cost the American taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars, and killed more than 30,000 innocent Iraqis. Is it the fault of the troops? No. It's the fault of the policy. It's the President's fault. Is it a complete failure? No, nothing ever is, but overall I think it's setting the region and the Middle Eat back at least a generation. Certainly, you have to go back a generation to witness the kind of chaos in the Middle East we are witnessing now.

BlueTalon

Patters, it's one thing to have a principled disagreement about the Iraq policy, it's a complete other thing to lob accusations of babykilling and heinous atrocities, especially when those accusations appear in a vacuum (no context and no explanation). In case you didn't see it, Mikey wrote, among other things:
Now, since I belong to the party being unjustly accused, pardon me for going ballistic. I happen to think you are about as wrong as you can possibly be about Iraq policy and its effects on the Middle East, but that's a discussion I can have with civility. I will not tolerate accusations that impugn my character or the character of my fellow servicemen, unless those accusations are accompanied by detailed explanations.

What you need to understand, and what someone needs to make Mikey understand, is that you just can't say "America commits atrocities" or anything like that, because it's not America the country you'd be accusing, it's individuals serving the country. Or in Mikey's case, it's not "this God-fearing nation... butchering children in Baghdad", it's the Marines and soldiers who are there. He feels fine accusing the country, but like I said, it's not the country who would be doing these things if they were happening, it's us. And if he's going to accuse us of something like that, he'd damn well better have some justification.

JLC

Welcome to the board, BlueTalon. I see you've figured Mikey out, and witnessed the response from our beloved slightly-left-leaning moderator, Patters.
Shirtsleeves - welcome to you as well - has made an attempt to take this thread back where it belongs: to consider what each of us would do as "President (fill in your name.")
I've been thinking about this subject for several days. Yesterday I visited with the brother of a US congressman about the options available to us in this situation (Iraq). This is an intelligent man, and the congressman is a bright and capable person. After visiting with him, I'm more convinced there probably isn't one, solid, stand-above-all-the-other solutions. This is a lousy situation - as shirtsleeves said, we're not fighting the same people we were when we went over there.
The only thing that seems to be certain is that we're not going to just dump the Iraqi people and run. Everyone wants the troops home - from the White House on down, but you hope that something good will come of this intervention for the whole area.
What is discouraging is that whatever solution is selected, by this president or the next, it's going to be a difficult road, and the divisions in our country and the chasms between the parties. Your comments are, I believe, right on as far as a decision will have to be made, and we will have to have the will to follow it through - which isn't particularly easy when 1/3 of the country will howl no matter which choice you make. I've taken a shot at running several scenarios, and it's really tough to predict how they'll turn out.

Thank you for your service to this, the best country on the face of the planet.

Turd Furguson

Blue Talon, Mikey is probably our most rabid anti-troop poster here. Also, he does not engage in give and take discussions, he "throws bombs and runs". Thats his style. Much like NEM who throws out accusation after accusation, then offering to come back later with proof only to NEVER follow up as promised hoping we'll forget or if he IS called to the carpet, only starts up the same debate a week or so later as if it were never rebuked in the first place. Much like his "noble cause" question which has been answered time and time again.

The hardcore left in this country is much like the uneducated Muslim, they WANT to believe the worst of the U.S government and in effect, its right arm, the military.

mikey

I don't agree with you. I am not "rabid anti-troop".

On the contrary, I would like to see them come home as soon as possible to be with their family.

I thought you and your right-wing nuts were the ones who sent them there to die in the first place.

And aren't you the one who want to keep them there to suffer more casualties and death?

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Turd Furguson

Okay then, keep supporting the troops while protesting recruiters at high school and college campuses.


Go USA huh Mikey?