<p>Max Blumenthal has done it again. It’s just about what you’d expect I guess.</p>
<p><a href=“http://maxblumenthal.com/archives/171[/url]”>http://maxblumenthal.com/archives/171</a></p>
<p>It is an intellectually sound arguement - you shouldn’t get to vote for a war if you aren’t going to fight. And while we are at it you shouldn’t get to vote on how to spend taxes if you don’t pay any.</p>
<p>I’ll buy into the first arguement if you buy into the second.</p>
<p>Oh yeah, it’s definitely a cheap shot. Or maybe not in the over all scheme of things.</p>
<p>Who pays no taxes?</p>
<p>Wow, talk about the stereotypical obnoxious liberal… Maybe instead of sneaking around the republican college convention, he can actually do something productive to help the troops, not ridicule the situation.</p>
<p>Maybe he’s a military recruiter in disguise.</p>
<p>This was productive. </p>
<p>It sheds a lot of light on why the troops are over there. Is it to defend the homeland and prevent the terrorists from coming here? Obviously not, or the pro-occupation crowd would be taking the fight more seriously. </p>
<p>Once you get past that meme–and realise that it’s just a political statement that the people spouting it don’t believe themselves–you can start to make real policies and strategies that protect and support our troops. American soldiers, airmen, and sailors should not be asked to give their lives to help a party.</p>
<p>Those boys would be dropping out of college and enlisting in droves if they really believed what they said.</p>
<p>“Maybe instead of sneaking around the republican college convention, he can actually do something productive to help the troops, not ridicule the situation.”</p>
<p>By doing what he did, I think Blementhal did something VERY productive to help our Dick Morris’ “suicide death squads” in Iraq, by making the case even more strongly that they shouldn’t be there, and should be home now.</p>
<p>GWB remains the best recruiting post Al-Qaeda ever had (they don’t have any need for Bin Laden with Bush & Co. around. As Bush himself said, Bin Laden is marginalized. GWB is center stage (and he gives so much credit to indigenous Iraqis following him to St. Louis.)</p>
<p>" Those boys would be dropping out of college and enlisting in droves if they really believed what they said."</p>
<p>Yes indeed. I remember a War on Poverty declared by the LBJ. He died rich The Kennedy family urged him in . Oddly we still have poverty and all the Kennedy’s still have their trust funds. Does that make them hypcrits or the War on Poverty a bad idea? Not really. </p>
<p>It is a truly specious and dangerous arguement to say that only those who do the fighting should have a vote on when or where we fight. Should Hillary or Barrack or Edwards be banned from deploying US troops should one of them be elected? Doesn’t sound like a good idea to me. How about if the folks doing the fighting don’t want to come home. Should they be able to metaphorically flip the bird to Congress or the President?</p>
<p>kluge - lots of people who vote pay no net taxes. Many of our own 18 and 19 year old kids for starters kids not to mention our retired parents and the recently enfranchised (thank you democrats) felons. Don’t make me explain net, transfer payments, and earned income tax credits to you.</p>
<p>mini - you don’t get a say here because you don’t believe in any wars. You no play the game you no make the rules right?</p>
<p>I believe that those who don’t fight (Republicans and me) as well as the millionaires who don’t pay taxes should all have a say. Even Christians, who, in the First Council of Nicene (that gave us the creed) declared that Christian soldiers are “like dogs who eat their own vomit” - even they should have a say. Neither fighting nor paying taxes is a requirement of citizenship. </p>
<p>As to the personal financial status of rich politicians, I don’t think it makes them hypocrites, except as they universally reject taxes on assets, which I think would be a great idea.</p>
<p>Its a deal, higherlead - as long as I don’t have to explain “Income taxes aren’t the only taxes Americans pay” to you. ;)</p>
<p>Gas taxes, sales taxes, usage fees for licenses yes I am aware of all those kluge but if the net (minus social security, food stamps, earned income, subsidized loans, crop supports, FEMA grants and on and on) is greater than the taxes paid then you haven’t really paid any taxes have you?</p>
<p>I’m partial to the notion that you should get one vote for every dollar in taxes you pay. </p>
<p>I don’t really want to disenfranchise you mini. My point was the intellectual speciousness of the chickenhawk arguement. It is like saying that noone who isn’t willing to do a stint in law enforcement ought to have a say on when where and how the police functions of the state are carried out.</p>
<p>“declared that Christian soldiers are “like dogs who eat their own vomit” - even they should have a say”</p>
<p>That must have gone over big with Emperor Constantine who both convened and attended the Council and was something of a soldier and a Christian himself. And here I hought that Ecumanical Council was all about an arcane dispute over the nature of Christ. Maybe Constantine missed the debates that day. Could explain his later backsliding on the Arianism.</p>
<p>Yup. He missed the debate at the First Council of Nicene. Except he didn’t. So he convened succeeding Councils til he found one that did his bidding, despite 300 years of universal agreement on the part of Christians - those closest to Jesus(without a single dissenter) on soldiering, and even the use of violence in defense of women and children (self-defense was off the table from day one.)</p>
<p>Even Christian soldiers should be allowed to vote.</p>
<p>(It’s Canon XII, by the way, in case you care. Actually, the term was used for soldiers who converted to Christianity - as Constantine wanted - and then remained at their posts. It was assumed from the previous 300 years of Church teaching that no Christian could ever actually choose to become a soldier.)</p>
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<p>And no one seems to be making that argument but you, higherlead. No one has said that the Yellow Elephants can’t bang the drums for a war that they hope will benefit them politically but that they personally wouldn’t sacrifice a used toenail clipping for.</p>
<p>But we can point out their basic dishonesty in doing so. Journalists may even have a duty to do so. </p>
<p>Operation Yellow Elephant also makes a good case that pressuring these healthy young men to enlist at a time when the Army is having trouble meeting its recruiting goals actually supports the war effort. </p>
<p><a href=“http://operationyellowelephant.blogspot.com/[/url]”>http://operationyellowelephant.blogspot.com/</a></p>
<p>Help the troops? Really? Do you think political rhetoric used to cloak the crash-landing trajectory of this military engagement is “helping” the troops? By claiming that we’re fighting them there, rather than here? Do you really think al-Qaeda is some conventional army, a vertical organization if you will, designed to engage in one-on-one battlefield combat, and that engaging them militarily in Iraq will suppress any chance of them planning their next strike elsewhere in the world? </p>
<p>I don’t doubt that the vast majority of our troops (aside from the incidents at Abu Ghraib and other cases where humanity was second string to more instinctual qualities), serve with honor and nobility while in Iraq. But for what cause? Please, don’t say freedom. Please don’t give me the rhetoric about how “freedom isn’t free” and how our own revolutionary forefathers fought to attain the rights we did in the Revolution and onward. I would assume that the Framers would turn over in their graves having learned the constitutional injustices of our commander-in-chief, and the way in which this occupation was justified. How over three thousand have died in a wildfire that we have no possible chance of containing. How we somehow missed that fundamental lesson in history where we acknowledge that freedom and basic liberties, are not the same as democracy. Instead, we have a commander-in-chief that infuses freedom and democracy together, obfuscating the truth as to what is actually happening in Iraq, and putting up as many procedural delays as he possibly can in order to leave his presidency with some semblance of success.</p>
<p>I won’t bother going into the points of how we’ve terribly mismanaged the situation in Iraq. I won’t bother describing how Iraq’s current form of government, a close cousin of democracy, is not the liberal democracy that we are familiar with, but rather an [illiberal</a> democracy.](<a href=“http://www.fareedzakaria.com/ARTICLES/other/democracy.html]illiberal”>http://www.fareedzakaria.com/ARTICLES/other/democracy.html)</p>
<p>Just to make sure that we’re aware of the reality we live in: Iraq is number 2 on the Failed States Index. 96% of Iraqis disapprove of the way PM Maliki is handling his job. TEN employees at the US Embassy in Baghdad have a working knowledge of Arabic. Meanwhile, 34,452 Iraqis were killed in 2006 alone. 2 million Iraqis have been internally displaced. 1.4 million have fled to Syria; another 750,000 to Jordan. According to the UN, 1/3 of the Iraqi population lives in poverty. The percentage of Iraqi children attending elementary school went from 75% last year to 30% this year. 70% of Iraqis lack a source of clean water. The list goes on and on.</p>
<p>Three years ago, I had dinner with a Major General who recently retired (then). I was still unsure as to what my feelings were, whether I’d supported it or opposed it. He said to me, “Soldiers on active duty, soldiers on the front, they don’t play with politics. Instead, they serve the commander-in-chief.” Well, it certainly seems as if politics is playing with them. What I do know, from my friends who are currently serving in Iraq to the voices of others stationed there, is that personal opinion on the war is mixed. Unlike some war critics, I do believe that there is a condition for victory in Iraq: the establishment of a stable, liberal democracy. Some soldiers continue to believe that this victory is achievable. I don’t daresay that it’s impossible, but with this Administration in power, it is growingly evident that such a victory is becoming more difficult to accomplish. Others recognize the political theatre behind this, but keep silent for the sake of serving their country. In either case, I find their efforts truly noble, and I am not one to criticize their actions, only the Administration who attempts to politicize their efforts.</p>
<p>On a final note, [I</a> remember a speech from a notoriously liberal television show by David E. Kelley, in which defense counsel gives the traditional speech criticizing the war in Iraq. (The case revolved around civil disobedience).](<a href=“http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=osl2sIerAbk]I”>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=osl2sIerAbk) In it (you can hear the full version for yourself), I remember two remarkable quotes, both by Adlai Stevenson (allegedly, though I haven’t had opportunity to verify the original quotes, but that does not make them any less cogent of an argument):</p>
<p>“The tragedy of our day is the climate of fear in which we live, and fear breeds repression. Too often, sinister threats to the Bill of Rights, to freedom of the mind, are concealed under the patriotic cloak of anti-Communism.” Shore continues, “Today, it’s the cloak of anti-Terrorism.”</p>
<p>The other half: “It is far easier to fight for principles than to live up to them.”</p>
<p>
The long way we’ve already gone down the road to plutocracy is responsible for a lot of the mess we’re in today. Found you’re in a hole, Higherlead? I guess your answer to that would be “Keep diggin!!”</p>
<p>The chickenhawk argument may be specious but those Young Republicans were squirming quite a bit when asked why they were not serving in a war they were wholeheartedly supporting.</p>
<p>A film clip with such an overtly intentional bias as this should hardly be the basis for any sort of rational opinion.</p>
<p>Sample the population correctly and you will find morons wherever you go.</p>
<p>636</p>
<p>He said to them, “But now if you have a purse, take it, and also a bag; and if you don’t have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one.” Luke 22:36</p>
<p>mini - don’t worry if you get mugged in my front yard me and my friends Smith and Wesson will save you whether you want saving or not. The last thing this world needs right now is another self-righteous martyr :-)</p>
<p>“For he is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil.” Romans 13:4</p>