On 18 Jun 2005 09:06:11 -0700, wrote:

With all due respect Chuck, the troops are the war. You can't hate
one and love the other - they are one and the same.

**********
And with equal respect, that's not correct.

Surely you remember Viet Nam?

I was there.- '67 through ''69 - 1st Marine Division.

By the end of that mess, something like 80% of the public was sick of
either the flawed motivations for the war or the inept way it was being
prosecuted. When the troops came home, the were often shunned, and
sometimes even abused, by a portion of the people who opposed the war
that the troops had been sent to fight. That was wrong, but the excuse
that the bad actors who gave the troops such grief when they arrived at
home relied on *exactly* the same
logic, (in reverse). "The troops are the war. They cannot be separated.
If you support the troops you must support the war, and if you oppose
the war you cannot respect the draftees that were
hauled off to fight in it."

And they were exactly right.

One of the lessons we should have learned from Viet Nam is that the
troops don't make the policy, they simply go where they are sent and do
the job they are ordered to do. I don't blame the troops for the war
in Iraq. Nobody yearns for peace more than a soldier. I can freely say,
"Mr or Ms Troop, while I disagree with the national foreign policy that
has sent you to fight in Iraq I respect your service to your country
and that you are obeying your orders to do your duty
in a perilous situation. I wish you a safe, and speedy, return."

Wishing somebody a safe and speedy return is entirely different from
honoring and respecting the very people who are paid to kill people
and break stuff. That's most of the problem I see when I talk to
troopers who return - the problem of reconciling the warrior's code
with peace, love and happiness.

You cannot separate the two - war is the army - it's the reason an
army exists - it has no other function in society. It's been that way
since the first protohumans began fighting over the T REX that one
gang found and killed. Sometimes it takes an old grunt like me to put
it into perspective for them.

I've spent a lot of time studying war and have come to believe that it
is the essential state of civilization - without it, we would still be
living in caves. All things are, in fact, conflict of one sort or
another after all.

I suspect that we will not come to a meeting of the minds on this
issue, so we will have to agree to disagree. :)

All the best,

Tom

HarryKrause wrote:
Don White wrote:

wrote:

Go find someone else to antagonize. You are a bitter man Chuck and need
to
smell the roses.


***********

No doubt the roses, and anything else that thrives on BS, grow
abundantly in Avon Lake. Funny, though, all that seems to waft down the
wind is the scent of fertilizer itself.


Hee hee...let's see JimH preach around that!




Chuck is much more polite than I am. I would have said that Boatless
Hertvik *is* B.S., not just that he spews it.


Sometimes you just gotta 'call a spade a spade'. Chuck tries to reason
with JimH, but all he gets is more crap thrown his way. The Bible does
say 'turn the other cheek'.......but not how many times.

HarryKrause wrote:


I just love how Hertvik has created his "Poor Poor Pitiful Me Victim"
persona, which involves me driving doing something awful to Hertvik and
his long-suffering wife, and that I "stalked" him by outing his fake
"Dennis Compton" ID, and by finding a photo of his house on his town's
website.

Wonder what he's so nervous about? If anyone was that interested,
I'd send them a picture of my house........except maybe Tuuk.

HarryKrause wrote:
snip...

Speaking of Tuuu,,,,k, you think he's back in his home country, managing
the family business?


Wouldn't suprise me at all. His family would not be impressed by his
antics over here.

JimH wrote:
Despite your feelings about the war please keep all our men and women
serving in our Armed Forces in your prayers


Chuck Gould responded:
The war, along with the people who deliberately lied us into it and are
now profiting from it is crap



Ergo, Chuck Gould is a piece of ****.

"HarryKrause" wrote in message
...

D'oh. The evidence is mounting that Bush had the "intel" evidence "cooked"
to support his positions before he had it passed along to members of
Congress.

Evidence? You mean the Downing Street Memos?

"The eight memos - all labeled "secret" or "confidential" - were first
obtained by British reporter Michael Smith, who has written about them in
The Daily Telegraph and The Sunday Times.
Smith told AP he protected the identity of the source he had obtained the
documents from by typing copies of them on plain paper and destroying the
originals."



He burned the originals to protect the source? LOL! You would think a
"reporter" in the UK would follow the news from around the globe and see
what happened to a very famous (now notoriuous) news anchor from CBS who
tried to run the same scam.

"HarryKrause" wrote in message
...
John H wrote:
On Sat, 18 Jun 2005 08:31:03 -0400, HarryKrause
wrote:


John H wrote:

On 17 Jun 2005 21:32:26 -0700, wrote:



Despite your feelings about the war please keep all our men and women
serving in our Armed Forces in your prayers

*********

The war, along with the people who deliberately lied us into it and are
now profiting from it is crap.

The young men and women who do their duty there
are heroic. Each one killed, wounded, or separated
on multiple extended tours from home and family is a national tragedy.

Screw the war, but honor the troops. It is possible to do both at once.
People who feel that we must despise the troops because they are forced
to serve in a bogus war as well as people who feel that we cannot
respect and value the troops without cheering for the
war itself are all wrong.


Deliberately lied? You're turning into a regular krausite!

You seem to forget:



"We begin with the common belief that Saddam Hussein is a tyrant and a
threat to the peace and stability of the region. He has ignored the
mandated of the United Nations and is building weapons of mass
destruction
and the means of delivering them."
- Sen. Carl Levin (D, MI), Sept. 19, 2002


D'oh. The evidence is mounting that Bush had the "intel" evidence
"cooked" to support his positions before he had it passed along to
members of Congress.

In other words, he had the "intel" changed to support his predisposition
to invade Iraq.

There is good coming out of Bush's dirty war. He's a half year into his
term and he's becoming a lame duck. Taht's good for America and good for
the world.


Duh...bull****.


You don't believe Bush is becoming a lame duck?

I don't. According to the most accurate pollster in the last 2 Presidential
elections (Rasmussen), Bush's approval rating is still at 49%. Given the
margin of error of the poll, that means that he continues to have the
support of almost the exact same number of people who voted for him last
November. Nothing has changed. He was a strong political ally to
politicians in elections all over the country in November...and will
continue to be an important ally for those who are up for reelection in
2006.

wrote in message
oups.com...
Now, go have a great day!

********

I will.

Tell me, John, which of the people on that carefully selected list of
Democrats was Commander in Chief and had the *power* to commit the
troops to battle?

This one:
"One way or the other, we are determined to deny Iraq the capacity to
develop weapons of mass destruction and the missiles to deliver them. That
is our bottom line."
- President Clinton, Feb. 4, 1998
"If Saddam rejects peace and we have to use force, our purpose is clear. We
want to seriously diminish the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass
destruction program."
- President Clinton, Feb. 17, 1998

wrote in message
ups.com...
With all due respect Chuck, the troops are the war. You can't hate
one and love the other - they are one and the same.

**********
And with equal respect, that's not correct.

Surely you remember Viet Nam?

As unpopular as you *claim* that this war in Iraq is, the soldiers continue
to come home to a hero's welcome all over the country. You will stand in a
very small minority if you continue to denigrate the job that they're doing
over there.