Tiny Antiwar Demonstrator Found at Lunds
While visiting the Uptown Lunds to buy a caramel apple, I noticed an old-school plastic army dude right by the checkout counter. He’s the kind of guy who would typically be described as a “little green army guy,” except he was more of a grayish-brown. Around his left ankle was a tiny paper band with printed text reading: “Please! Bring me home now.”
Color me impressed. Amid all the pro- and anti- war propaganda floating around, this little thing made an impact. The message: the troops are people, and at least some of them are very interested in coming home (alive) as soon as possible.
I just hope some of these things are making it out to the GOPburbs where they might provoke some controversy. In Uptown, I can’t imagine they’re raising much of a fuss. But, still. Neat.
Yeah, screw the Iraqis, bring home our volunteers!
Yeah Right,
Lets let anarchy, terrorist and violence have a home… Iraq.
Look, the troops are there and they know what needs to be done. Stop undermineing them ya idiots.
Shooter is obviously an Armchair Warrior, or is Chickenhawk more apropos? As someone who did actually serve during the first Gulf War and who has a son serving now, I find it quite humorous to listen to these moral retards spout on about how they know the military mind better than anyone else. Anarchy, terrorism and violence are more prevalent now than before AWOL and the Rapture Ready Administration began their ill-conceived war against reason.
You can argue that the war was poorly lead, but to say that the solution is to ditch Iraq is so “morally retarded” that it almost makes me think the antiwar movement is a front for racist American bigots. “As long as white American troops aren’t getting killed, the world is OK.”
Even if the reasons for war were overplayed, the decision to let al Qaeda and Iran tear Iraq apart through bloodshed and totalitarianism is completely irresponsible. We ought to take responsibility for the mess we made.
I never once even hinted that the solution is to “ditch Iraq”. You can make this about racism if you want, but this is about a war for oil and control of the M.E..
I agree that we should clean up the mess that AWOL and the Rapture Ready Admin have made, but that does not in any way include “Stay the course” as an option. Our civilian misleaders have abused our military boys and girls for far too long in this immoral and illegal war.
Our military should be in theater as advisers and trainers only. To make a blanket statement that no military can leave Iraq until we have fixed what we broke is completely unrealistic because Iraq was broken beyond repair when their military and civilian police were disbanded and their government destroyed.
Iraq as a coherent sovereign government does not exist anymore. Iraq can not just be fixed back to some semblance of the way it was. It will need to rebuild itself into something probably very different than the original and more than likely something that we don’t necessarily like. The US screwed the pooch when we trashed Iraq, and we will pay the price for that for many generations.
The only irresponsible ones here are those who want to “stay the course” or who believe we can just “fix it and make it better” at the point of a gun without any serious attention paid to the politics or the fiscal aspects of the situation.
Right now the war in Iraq is being treated as more of a cash cow to certain well connected companies and individuals. Billions of our tax dollars are going into offshore offices to avoid being taxed. No bid contracts dictated how this war was run. Civilian “contractors/mercenaries” being paid by our tax dollars, are not held to the same high standards as our own military and in a few instances, have actually shot at our soldiers.
Those who would wish a continuance of the status quo are either woefully uninformed or simply not as patriotic as they would have others believe.
to say that the solution is to ditch Iraq is so “morally retarded” that it almost makes me think the antiwar movement is a front for racist American bigots. “As long as white American troops aren’t getting killed, the world is OK.”
Whoa, that’s a stretch. He didn’t say that at all.
The general tone of the article (and thus Steve’s response) led me to believe that the call was to just bring the troops home RIGHT NOW.
You can make this about racism if you want, but this is about a war for oil and control of the M.E..
The fact is we can make this war about whatever we want. You can sit around and complain that it was motivated by sheer greed, but that’s not going to get you anywhere. Before the war, when the “Bush Doctrine” was set out, they made it clear that one of the goals of the war was to bring democracy to Iraq. We can demand that these original objectives be met. But instead, everyone is settling for pulling out or a half-solution. We could be much more effective if we were saying, “Bush, don’t screw up!” rather than “Dammit, when can we leave?!”
I agree that we should clean up the mess that AWOL and the Rapture Ready Admin have made, but that does not in any way include “Stay the course” as an option.
People love to throw the term “stay the course” around, but how exactly are we “staying the course?” Obviously we need to stay and finish the job, and not ditch Iraq. Now if you want to argue that we ought to change strategy as events change, then that is a very valid point. The administration has handled some situations poorly, but you can’t accuse them of refusing to change strategies. Compare Fallujah to the campaign in Anbar and the current campaign in Baghdad.
Our civilian misleaders have abused our military boys and girls for far too long in this immoral and illegal war.
Illegal? We were still technically at war with Iraq when we invaded. How is that illegal?
Immoral? How is trying to free Iraqis from tyranny immoral?
Our military should be in theater as advisers and trainers only.
Yeah, let’s train each militia to kill each other more effectively.
To make a blanket statement that no military can leave Iraq until we have fixed what we broke is completely unrealistic because Iraq was broken beyond repair when their military and civilian police were disbanded and their government destroyed.
If it’s broken beyond repair, how is simply training and advising going to help? The primary problem is that Iraqis want security and jobs. You need security to get jobs. Letting the militias and al Qaeda fight it out may provide security in the long run, when another iron-fisted dictator comes to power, or the country is partitioned, but that approach guarantees a heavy price in casualties and freedom.
There have been successful attempts to restore order to broken governments. Why can’t it work in Iraq?
The only irresponsible ones here are those who want to “stay the course” or who believe we can just “fix it and make it better” at the point of a gun without any serious attention paid to the politics or the fiscal aspects of the situation.
So it’s irresponsible to arm policemen in the US and enforce law “at the point of a gun?” The political ramifications for succeeding in Iraq are huge. As far as fiscal consequences, we haven’t even reached the level of spending (as a percent of GDP) we had in the 80’s when Reagan escalated the Cold War.
Right now the war in Iraq is being treated as more of a cash cow to certain well connected companies and individuals. Billions of our tax dollars are going into offshore offices to avoid being taxed. No bid contracts dictated how this war was run. Civilian “contractors/mercenaries” being paid by our tax dollars, are not held to the same high standards as our own military and in a few instances, have actually shot at our soldiers.
It is wrong that there has been such a hight level of corruption, however, it does not mean we need to give up. We need to pressure the government to be more accountable.
I don’t agree completely with how the war was managed. However, the solution is not to pull back or pull out ASAP.
I’m not calling anyone a racist, but it just irritates me how readily people want to abandon Iraq because it’s convenient.
As much as statistics are usually mathematical lies, the BBC seems to use them more neutrally than most. “Support for the coalition forces based in Iraq is low – with 82% expressing a lack of confidence in them and 69% thinking they had made the security situation worse.” So that is more than a supermajority in Iraq who see our forces as worsening the situation. 51% found attacks against coalition forces acceptable. This is not the insurgents or Al Qaeda in Iraq saying this, but the person in the street trying to stay alive.
We should not shirk our responsibility to help Iraq in any way possible, we broke it and now we need to fix it. And this will be a project that our great grandchildren will be paying for, in more ways than one. Like I said before, the Iraq of the future will probably not be the Iraq that we wanted it to be. But in many ways staying on in the same capacity that we are now is doing more damage than good. In the Iraqis eyes we are the bad guys.
Let’s say the situation were reversed and an occupying force was in the US doing the same things we are doing. It is not a stretch to see that we would want them to leave us the hell alone and stop trying to rebuild us in their image.
They are going to make mistakes, the regional politics are such that they will be feeling pressure from many fronts. Iraq will not become a “Mini-USA” no matter how much certain pseudo-leaders want it so.