<p>Sounds like this really struck a nerve with you.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, the combat-avoidance in pro-occupation isn’t limited to a “few morons”. Last year of the 14 national officers of the College Republican party, only 1 enlisted or had any plans to. And if you look at the people who have been the architects of this war, none of them have served in combat.</p>
<p>Bush? On his National Guard application, he checked the box that he “did not volunteer” to go overseas in the National Guard. That’s right, he refused to make himself available for Vietnam. Rove, Kristol, Kagan, Wolfowitz, none of them served in combat, and some spoke with great disdain of the “windbags of war” (experienced combat commanders) were offering competing war planning advice to the president and Congress.</p>
<p>Which brings me back to whether Republicans really believe that our national security is at grave risk. If they did, they certainly wouldn’t be letting someone like Kristol, who has been wrong about EVERYTHING, still be making their plans for them. They’d want someone who at least understood the likely outcomes of suggested actions.</p>
<p>if you renamed this thread and left out the last 20 seconds of the clip, this would be a very positive picture for the Colllege Republicans. These people need a strong national social leader and direction.</p>
<p>I would be really surprised if very many college students enlisted. It would be more likely, if they chose to serve, that they would graduate first and seek a commission. No idea if any of the “14 national officers of the College Republican party” plan to go into the service after graduation, just commenting that it would be pretty unusual for any college student to enlist.</p>
<p>It wouldn’t be unusual if they really believed what they said about the grave threat to national security and weren’t just saying it for political reasons. They’d be enlisting in droves, as college-aged men were during WWII.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>They don’t, any more than Karl Rove did. Operation YellowElephant’s been keeping a pretty close eye on the situation. The College Republicans won’t even link to Army recruiting pages on their website and has refused to accept offers to pay for advertisements for Army recruitment in the ad space for its convention program.</p>
<p>(If you go to the OYE site, be aware that it’s not for the easily offended).</p>
<p>As you did to mine. It takes a real stretch to go from watching CR after CR pronounce himself medically unfit or too much of a Cheny Republican to go fight to deciding that maybe CRs are going to join after graduation.</p>
<p>If it is possible to “win” a war that isn’t in our best interests, it will not be by magical thinking.</p>
<p>Article goes on to detail the lack of military aspirations of the YAF and the College Republicans. (It was 14 YAF leaders, not CRs, who have no plans to serve. The prominent CR officers are lesser in number but apparently just as unwilling to serve).</p>
<p>“If it is possible to “win” a war that isn’t in our best interests”</p>
<p>So just out of curiosity what do you percieve our national interests to be and how does pulling out of Iraq advance that national interest? And while we are on the subject what will the outcome of a pullout be? I’m interested in hearing from someone in the know like conyat who was never fooled for a minute by the lies of the Bush administration.</p>
<p>BTW conyat how many College Democrats signed up to bomb Serbian Hospitals during Clinton’s War.</p>
<p>And the Iraq parliment goes on vacation in August with a September assessment looming and the Administration stating as an alibi, “It’s hot in August”. </p>
<p>Well it is not hot in an air conditioned Parliment building but it is damned hot for our troops on the ground who are doing the dying for the vacationers.</p>
<p>The truth is I do not want the CR’s to die in this folly of a war any more than I want another single enlistee to die in it either. </p>
<p>“Who will be the last soldier to die for a mistake” is well worth remembering.</p>
This clown should be drug out into the street and shot.</p>
<p>Politics is separate from military command for a reason. It’s easy to say now that we should “let the generals decide strategy,” but had we followed this strategy earlier in our history, Gen. Lemay would have greatly reduced our nuclear arsenal. Maybe good, maybe bad, but certain.</p>
<p>Our national interest is clear: keep our democracy alive, make America stronger, our enemies weaker, and secure the blessings of liberty for ourselves and our posterity. The war in Iraq is doing the opposite. </p>
<p>Pulling out will stop the strengthening of our enemies at our expense. Imagine having an opportunity to make Al Queda weaker instead of stronger! Pulling out also may well lead to the restoration of cherished American values like habeas corpus and due process. And it could stop the US from going bankrupt before our grandchildren are in college.</p>
<p>If we stay in, in 9 months, we will find that wasn’t a very effective solution either. </p>
<p>Not much has changed in the last nine months (OK, things are actually worse), or in the nine before that. We have just lost lots more of our military personnel and spent a boatload more money.</p>
<p>Right before we’re done? The insurgency’s been in its “last throes” for what…two years now? And the Pentagon is bracing us for at least two more.</p>
<p>The “surge” was supposed to have accomplished all of its objectives by now, and the extra men would be on the way home. Instead we’re told it will be months before we can even evaluate if the surge has done anything other than weaken the readiness of the Iraqi army and increase the violence.</p>
<p>Pulling out will not end the war it will only change the battlefield. I like fighting in Iraq better than fighting in Manhattan or Arlington. You want to see an erossion in civil liberties watch and see what happens if we have more terrorist attacks here at home.</p>
<p>So what’s stopping them from attacking us now?</p>
<p>Again, if Republicans really believed that the homeland was under that kind of threat, they wouldn’t be acting the way they do. It defies common sense. </p>
<p>If you thought that the town bank was going to be robbed, would you want an experienced professional chief of police or Barney Fife? </p>
<p>The Department of Justice is absolutely critical to fight on terrorism. It prosecutes suspects, writes policies, gives grants, etc. If the Republican administration believed that we were under that kind of threat, they would want absolutely the best and brightest working for the DOJ in career positions. </p>
<p>Instead, they broke civil service law to ensure that the best and brightest WOULDN’T be hired. No Harvard grads or experienced prosecutors need apply…instead let’s stock it with people fresh out of a fourth-tier law school.</p>
<p>I do agree that the administration has bumbled so badly that there are more terrorists now then ever, and more terrorists angry at the US, and better armed and trained terrorists than ever. So yes, the world is a much more dangerous place for Americans than it was prior to Bush’s presidency and the ascendency of the PNAC and AEI as policy-makers.</p>
<p>But there is no logical way to reconcile the consequences you’re calling for if we leave Iraq with the administration’s deliberate weakening of the DOJ.</p>
<p>Uh-oh. Blog-borg alert!! 1984 (whoever he/she/they/it is) will simply repeat right wing sound bites, over and over and over. How do they do that to people, anyway?</p>
<p>Them Republicans are always screwing up. Lincoln sent Sherman to burn Atlanta and make Georgia howl when he should have been hiring more lawyers in Washington:-)</p>
<p>Yeah more lawyers will make us safer. There is a reason why terrorists attack the World Trade Center and not federal courthouses or ACLU offices.</p>