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Bob K
Supporter
Username: Bobk
Post Number: 12513
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 29, 2006 - 4:25 am: | 
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Truly fascinating:
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1154525950456&pagename=JPost%2FJPArti cle%2FShowFull
This with Hezbollah destroying some bunkers on the Israel border leaves no doubt on who is winning the public relations war. |
Hoops
Citizen
Username: Hoops
Post Number: 1983
Registered: 10-2004
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 29, 2006 - 9:03 am: |
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Dave - Great article. The road map to a safer world is contained in those 5 steps.
Humane, economical, intelligent.
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Paul Surovell
Supporter
Username: Paulsurovell
Post Number: 744
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 29, 2006 - 10:04 am: |
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Agreed. For emphasis, here is the 5-point plan in the article Dave posted:
Quote:First, terminate actions that are self-evidently counterproductive, above all by extricating ourselves in an orderly way from Iraq.
Second, revive in modified form the Cold War principles of containment and deterrence, incorporating explicit security guarantees for Israel, much as the United States has long guaranteed the security of Europe, Japan, and South Korea.
Third, initiate a new Manhattan Project to develop alternative sources of energy, thereby increasing US freedom of action and reducing the flow of wealth to the Persian Gulf, wealth that ends up subsidizing the Islamist cause.
Fourth, through police action, in collaboration with our allies, redouble efforts to dismantle the organizations comprising the radical Islamist network.
Fifth, patiently nurture liberalizing tendencies within the Islamic world, not by preaching or threats of regime change, but by demonstrating at home and inviting Muslims abroad to witness, the manifest advantages of freedom and democracy
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Factvsfiction
Citizen
Username: Factvsfiction
Post Number: 1520
Registered: 4-2006
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 29, 2006 - 4:32 pm: |
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What I find incredibly interesting about the posts here is about how the poster's assessment, i.e. Hezbollah won and is building support and followers, dovetails with their views on Iraq, which is drawn from their domestic political views. Hence the articles of people who have real experience in the area must be rejected in favor of " you see, we can't win Bush's way !" as applied, in this case, to the Israelis.
Any key or real understanding of muslim arab society and culture is totally supplanted by reliance upon the reporting of western, and generally liberal, media who view the Bush administration and its' policies as abhorant, and take what is presented to it by people long skilled in saying what they think should be said but not felt or to be followed, simplistically, literally, and without critical evaluation, as there is a domestic political bonus as the end game. When you know who Um Kalthoum is without having to go to" wikipedia" to look it up, by all means prognosticate and preach.
While all this may fall under the rubric of mutual support, feel good rhetoric, and justification/proof of the underlying "wrongness" of Bush, it is both stupidly non-sighted and inherently dangerous for this country.
I have to shake my head in amusement that in this forum I am perceived as a Bush defender, someone who I otherwise view as part of an undeserving nepotistic american elite, merely to try to preach some sanity and common sense to seeming captives of a progressive ideology that is totaly misapplied and out of touch with this danger.
At the risk of being considered patronizing, you are all smart people, can't you ever consider thinking out of the political box on this? |
Hoops
Citizen
Username: Hoops
Post Number: 1999
Registered: 10-2004
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 29, 2006 - 6:29 pm: |
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Well we can see that your vocabulary is up to par and you can spit the names of people unknown and obscure to most Americans, so what?
The 5 steps posted are a road map that has a far greater chance of working than nuking Iran.
Please refute the 5 steps with why we need to invade and kill all the people you deem necessary or better what your fearless leader should have done. |
Factvsfiction
Citizen
Username: Factvsfiction
Post Number: 1527
Registered: 4-2006
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 29, 2006 - 7:51 pm: |
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From " Nasrallah's Blunder"-
"Well, what do you know: What was presented as a "Great Strategic Divine Victory" only a week ago is now beginning to look more like a costly blunder. And the man who is making the revisionist move is the same who made the original victory claim, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, secretary-general of the Lebanese branch of Hezbollah.
... "The party leadership never expected a response on such an unprecedented scale and volume ( by Israel) " he said. " Had we known that what we did would lead to this, we would certainly not have embarked on it".
"For a roundabout way of eating humble pie, this was not bad for a man whom Western media have portrayed as the latest Arab folk hero, or even ( as one U.S. weekly put it) a new Saladin."
The article goes on to cite some relevant points :
* Hezbollah lost some 500 fighters, almost a quarter of its elite force and, " what angers the families of the "martyrs" is that Hezbollah fighters had not been told that the sheik was starting a war to please his masters in Teheran and that they should prepare for it. "
* "The "new Saladin" has also lost most of his medium-range missles without inflicting any serious damage on Israel... Worse still the Israelis captured an unknown number of Hezbollah fighters and political officers, including several local leaders in the Bekaa Valley, Khyam, and Tyre. "
* He is coming under growing criticism from every part of the political spectrum (in Lebanon) including Hezbollah itself". Nasrallah cancelled a number of planned victory celebrations, instead shi'a towns and villages are holding traditional mourning ceremonies for the dead.
* Handing out Iranian money to the families of killed Hezbollah fighters has also backfired, " Some Lebanese shi'ites are scandalized that they are being treated by Iranian mullahs as mercenaries and see Nasrallah's cash handouts as diyah (blood money) for their dead. And a dead man whose family receives diyah cannot claim the status of " martyr" and enjoy it's perogatives in paradise. "
The article further notes that " as the scale of destruction in the shi'ite south becomes more clear, the pro-Hezbollah euphoria (much of it created by western media and beamed back to Lebanon through satellite tv) is evaporating. Reality is beginning to reassert its rights. And that could be good news for Lebanon. It is unlikely that Hezbollah will ever regain the position it has lost. "
Amin Taheri, today's NY Post.
And yes, Dave, I expect to hear from him.
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Gordon Agress
Citizen
Username: Odd
Post Number: 534
Registered: 8-2004
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 29, 2006 - 10:13 pm: |
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Hoops, I don't think anyone wants to re-run the Cuban Missile Crisis with Saddam Hussein or Mullah Omar in the role of Kruschev. Both made obvious strategic blunders that got their countries smashed up -- if they wanted their countries' interests in the first place. And groups like the Taliban, Pakistan's jihadists, and Hezbollah all operate without any final State check on their activities. Iran certainly must imagine now that it can work through proxies like Hezbollah without retaliation. I don't think we can count on jihadists to ALWAYS make the right decision. And we can count on them to use a nuclear deterrent to push their agenda harder still.
As for an energy "Manhattan project" -- the Manhattan project was an engineering effort to realize a concept apparent to every nuclear physicist in the world. Unless you're sitting on an equation for cold fusion, no such theoretical opportunity to replace oil exists.
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Hoops
Citizen
Username: Hoops
Post Number: 2001
Registered: 10-2004
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 29, 2006 - 10:47 pm: |
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i guess the world is out of luck when the oil runs out huh?
As oil becomes less of an economic factor, states like Iran will no longer be able to afford to arm groups like Hezbollah. They will be forced to either open their society or live in closed poverty like North Korea.
Interesting you should bring up Saddam. He was bottled up and defenseless due to sanctions and military containment. The parties that are not part of the state apparatus are the ones who are liable to become obsolete as the religion is co-opted and changed into one that is truly benign in all but the most extreme places, just like Christianity is in the good ole USA. |
Gordon Agress
Citizen
Username: Odd
Post Number: 535
Registered: 8-2004
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 30, 2006 - 7:49 am: |
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Quote:[Saddam] was bottled up and defenseless due to sanctions and military containment.
That's arguable, but my point was that 1) he was an idiot whose miscalculations smashed his country, and 2) he probably didn't care as he needed his adventures to stay in power. Deterrence is a game of chicken, which is bad enough, but worse when you are playing with an idiot who has nothing to lose.
Saddam is gone, but are you really ready to bet that Ahmadinejad is sufficiently smarter / more secure? That his successors will ALWAYS get these decisions right?
Quote:The parties that are not part of the state apparatus are the ones who are liable to become obsolete as the religion is co-opted
That took centuries in the West and was fought out with arrows and swords, not uranium. And in the West governments were ultimately checked by the growing economic power of their citizens. That won't happen in the Middle East until their commodity economies run out of oil. Which will take decades and will end in chaos.
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Hoops
Citizen
Username: Hoops
Post Number: 2003
Registered: 10-2004
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 30, 2006 - 8:57 am: |
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I agree with your point #1. I dont necessarily agree with your point #2.
Gordon, going down the road speculating about what Iran will or will not do is not good policy. Diplomacy - to keep a close watch on what Iran is actually doing and to share our values can only help the peace process and intelligence - to infiltrate and find at the secret levels what they are really thinking is what we should be attempting.
To make enemies of everyone we disagree with is not a smart move. We might want to figure out why America is the 'great satan' in the middle east and not say China or Russia or Mexico. There is much more to what is happening then the latest Ahmadinejad sound bite.
I agree that it took centuries for change to be effected in the West and it may take centuries still for change to be effected in the East but I dont think that we should be trying to speed that process up by invading Iran, causing untold death on untold innocent people.
Many, many nations have the bomb. It is known that Russia has loose nuclear weapons that can be used for terrorist causes. That is what we should be concentrating our time, money and effort on finding. Nation states who sponsor terrorists and give them uranium will only cause their own demises, so I do not view the threat of Iran having nuclear materials as imminent danger.
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joel dranove
Citizen
Username: Jdranove
Post Number: 980
Registered: 1-2006
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 30, 2006 - 12:14 pm: |
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Since so much is made of what reports to be "fact," I add this somewhat lengthy expose of the Western Media death wish view of the truth.
from melaniephillips.com
August 30, 2006
The media war against Israel
Early in the recent Lebanon war, the blogosphere revealed the fabrication of images by Reuters, whose reputation is now in shreds among those dwindling numbers in the western mainstream media who still acknowledge there is such a thing as the truth. Since then, the nature and scale of the various frauds perpetrated by the media during that war put those doctored Reuters pictures into the shade. The western media are no longer merely producing questionable professional practices in reporting a war. They are now active participants in it — and on the wrong side of history.
One of the very few politicians to voice concern at this phenomenon is Australia’s foreign minister Alexander Downer, who said:
What concerns me greatly is the evidence of dishonesty in the reporting out of Lebanon. For example, a Reuters photographer was forced to resign after doctoring images to exaggerate the impact of Israeli air attacks. There were the widely-reported claims that Israel had bombed deliberately a Red Cross ambulance.
In subsequent weeks, the world has discovered those allegations do not stand up to even the most rudimentary scrutiny. After closer study of the images of the damage to the ambulance, it is beyond serious dispute that this episode has all the makings of a hoax. Yet some of the world’s most prestigious media outlets, including some of those represented here today, ran that story as fact - unchallenged, unquestioned. Similarly, there has been the tendency to report every casualty on the Lebanese side of the conflict as if a civilian casualty, when it was indisputable that a great many of those injured or killed in Israeli offensives were armed Hezbollah combatants.
My point is this: in a grown-up society such as our own, the media cannot expect to get away with parading falsehoods as truths, or ignoring salient facts because they happen to be inconvenient to the line of argument - or narrative - that particular journalists, or media organisations, might choose to adopt on any given controversy or issue.
Can anyone imagine the British Foreign Secretary, Margaret Beckett, saying this? Of course not. The level of anti-Israel, anti-American madness has reached such a pitch in Britain that any similar expression of alarm at the manifestly blatant mendacity in the reporting of the Middle East has simply become unthinkable. Yet thanks to the efforts of the blogosphere — notably Little Green Footballs, Powerline, Zombietime and EU Referendum, we can see that the behaviour of the western media during the Iranian/Syrian/Hezbollah war against Israel has constituted a major, world-wide scandal, and one which has the capacity to derail the efforts of the west to defend itself.
The major incidents of apparent media fraud are these.
* The claim that Israeli aircraft intentionally fired missiles at and struck two Lebanese Red Cross ambulances performing rescue operations, causing huge explosions that injured everyone inside the vehicles. This claim, which gave such incendiary traction to the lie that Israel deliberately targeted civilians, was repeated by ITV News, Time Magazine, the Guardian, Boston Globe, The Age, NBC News, the New York Times and thousands of outlets around the world.
Zombietime, however, convincingly exposed this claim as a fraud. It is worth reading its analysis in full in order properly to grasp both the enormity of the libel and the way it was not only uncritically accepted but gleefully embellished by respected media outlets, whose journalists either didn’t know or care that they were transmitting an outright fabrication. Anyone with even the most cursory knowledge of the kind of missiles used by the Israeli air force would grasp immediately that the hole in the roof of the ambulance whose picture went round the world could not have been caused by such a missile. If a missile had indeed hit it there would have been no roof remaining to inspect; nor would there have remained an ambulance. Yet the rest of the ambulance in the pictures, although damaged, was pretty well intact — and the allegedly seriously injured ambulance driver not only was pictured with minor injuries, but even these had miraculously disappeared without trace in pictures taken a few days later.
In short, the whole claim was patently risible. As Zombietime revealed, the hole was almost certainly made by an air vent in the roof. It was part of the ambulance. There was no attack on the ambulance. The whole claim was a lie, a hoax, a fraud. Yet this lie has gone round the world, been ‘shown’ on TV, been embellished by familiar trusted commentators and thus has attained the status of unchallengeable truth. But it is a lie.
Now the Red Cross has rebuked Australian Foreign Minister Downer for relying on an ‘unverified’ blog for his claim. As Little Green Footballs observes, this was the same Red Cross which — as LGF previously reported — once the ‘unverified’ blog started using those vanishing journalistic attributes such as eyesight and brain activity to state the overwhelmingly obvious, quietly removed from its website the high-resolution image of the ambulance that had allegedly been struck. For if these pictures were indeed a lie, then the Red Cross itself is squarely in the frame for disseminating it.
* The claim that Israel fired a missile which hit a Reuters vehicle and wounded two cameramen. One was a Reuters employee, Fadel Shana; the other, Sabbah Hmaida, was described by Reuters as working for a ‘local news website’; although as Little Green Footballs noted, he was also reported variously as working for
1) a local news web site, 2) an Arabic network, 3) Palestinian Media Group, and 4) Dubai TV
— and now Caroline Glick has revealed in the Jerusalem Post that he was actually working for none other than Iran.
But as Powerline has reported here, here, and here, pictures of this Reuters vehicle suggest that it was not hit by anything remotely resembling a missile. There was a modest and rusty gash in the roof and a windscreen that was shattered (although even that is in doubt in another picture). That was it. As with the Red Cross claim, the notion that such damage was consistent with a missile strike is simply ludicrous.
* The claim that the Israelis deliberately perpetrated a massacre of civilians at Kana. Apart from the fact that the initial claimed casualty rate here was subsequently all but halved by the Red Cross (to 28), there is significant evidence that many of the most harrowing pictures of the victims, which did so much to turn public opinion against Israel in this war, were staged. EU Referendum has now assembled a compendium of its considerable investigative efforts over three weeks entitled The Corruption of the Media, which it has submitted to the Press Complaints Commission. Again, the whole thing repays study. In summary, it says:
…many of the incidents recorded in visual form by the media were indeed staged. In fact, we feel we can go further. In our view, the bulk of the relief effort at Khuraybah on 30 July was turned into a perverted propaganda exercise. The site, in effect, became one vast, grotesque film-set on which a macabre drama was played out to a willing and complicit media, which actively co-operated in the production and exploited the results.
EU referendum concludes:
…what we do see from Qana is the sheer scale of the staging - not the occasional picture of the many. The majority seems to have been either posed or staged, or both. Given the large AP team present, this suggests that we are looking at more than just a rogue photographer - the malpractice seems institutionalised as normal practice.
And even more devastatingly:
In defence of the media, if it can be considered thus, one can only postulate that staging scenes such as these is so common a practice, and so deeply embedded in the whole fabric of photo-journalism (and not just locally in the Middle East), that no one at the incident saw anything wrong with what transpired. Either that or, so familiar were they with the techniques used that they simply did not register what was happening. As for the others, in their air-conditioned offices, hundreds and thousands of miles away from the action, did they care one way or the other? After all, Shane Richmond of The Daily Telegraph implied, the greater truth was being served. ‘Is the child dead?’, he asked. ‘Was the child killed by Israeli bombs?’ Thus, did he say: ‘If so, the picture illustrates the story. If the picture does not alter the truth of the story, we’re not being disingenuous. And the truth of the story is this: Israeli bombs killed several civilians in Qana, many of whom were children.’ That is the nearest to an admission we have that it is acceptable to stage photographs.
In short, much of the most incendiary media coverage of this war seems to have been either staged or fabricated. The big question is why the western media would perpetrate such institutionalised mendacity. Many ancillary reasons come to mind. There is the reliance upon corrupted news and picture agencies which employ Arab propagandists as stringers and cameramen. There is the herd mentality of the media which decides collectively what the story is. There is the journalists’ fear for their personal safety if they report the truth about terrorist outfits. There is the difficulty of discovering the truth from undemocratic regimes and terrorist organisations. There is the language barrier; there is professional laziness; there is the naïve inability to acknowledge the depths of human evil and depravity; there is the moral inversion of the left which believes that western truth-tellers automatically tell lies, while third world liars automatically tell the truth.
But the big answer is that the western media transmit the lies of Hezbollah because they want to believe them. And that’s because the Big Lie these media tell — and have themselves been told — about Israel and its place in history and in the world today has achieved the status of unchallengeable truth. The plain fact is that western journalists were sent to cover the war being waged against Israel from Lebanon as a war being waged by Israel against Lebanon. And that’s because that’s how editors think of the Middle East: that the whole ghastly mess is driven by Israel’s actions, and that therefore it is only Israel’s aggression which is the story to be covered. Thus history is inverted, half a century of Jewish victimisation is erased from public consciousness, victims are turned into aggressors and genocidal mass murderers turned into victims, and ignorance and prejudice stalk England’s once staunch and stalwart land.
That’s why the fact that hundreds of thousands of refugees from the north of Israel fled to the shelter of strangers in the south; that within one third of Israel, those too poor or old or handicapped or disadvantaged to seek refuge elsewhere were forced to live in shelters for a month in great hardship; that the entire economy of northern Israel was effectively shut down for a month; that thousands of rockets were fired at northern Israel, hundreds every day, many times more than were daily fired at Britain during the Blitz — that’s why none of this was reported in Britain (where as a result such facts, when now related, are received with open-mouthed astonishment) because journalists were told to ignore it all since that wasn’t the story their editors wanted. Israel’s victimisation simply was not, could not, be the story. The only story was Israel’s aggression. But that story is a Big Lie. So a host of lies were transmitted to support it.
Certain conclusions are now inescapable. First, hatred of Israel and the irrationality associated with that hatred have now reached unprecedented proportions within Britain and the west. Second, with a few honourable exceptions the mainstream media are no longer to be believed in anything they transmit, either in words or pictures, about the Middle East. It is only the blogosphere which is now performing the most elementary disciplines of journalism: to aspire to objectivity, to separate facts from prejudices, to apply basic checks to claims being made by partisans to a conflict, and to be particularly wary of those with a proven track record of lying. Third, the mainstream media must now be regarded as active accessories to the war being waged against the free world and therefore as a fifth column in that world – an enemy within. Fourth, the impact of the lies and distortions transmitted by the mainstream media in inflaming the already pathological hatred of the west within the Arab and Muslim world is incalculable. Fifth, the mainstream media’s vilification, demonisation and delegitimisation of Israel, based on outright fabrications and malevolent distortions, is imperilling the very existence of the country that is the front line of defence of the free world. Sixth, that vilification is also imperilling the safety and well-being of Jewish communities around the world, subject now to the double victimisation of attack by Islamists and attack by non-Muslims for belonging to a Jewish people that refuses to submit passively to a second attempt at genocidal slaughter and instead fights to defend itself.
To date, as far as I can determine, not one mainstream editor or proprietor has acknowledged this corruption of the western media. The scale of this corruption now threatens to have a lethal impact on the course of human history. Hatred now drives not just the jihadists but their western dupes, too. Truth and freedom are indivisible. The deconstruction of the former inevitably presages the destruction of the latter. This is the way a civilisation dies.
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Gordon Agress
Citizen
Username: Odd
Post Number: 536
Registered: 8-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, August 31, 2006 - 8:05 am: |
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Hoops,
Iran is an ambitious country with an aggressive ideology and a bad record on terror. As the threat they pose grows, a policy of responding to events starts look riskier -- and as it approaches nuclear catastrophe, the future uncertainties start to look worse than the near term uncertainties of a really aggressive policy.
Everyone hopes that more peaceful means like embargoes will turn the trick. It looks like the Administration is using what time we do have to move the UN as far down the sanctions path as possible. But sanctions don't have a good track record, and it's not like the Russians, the Chinese, or the "international community" are doing a lot to make it more credible. I'm worried.
I would like to agree that this is all a big misunderstanding and that by acting nicely we'll stop being the great Satan. But "acting nicely" probably means accepting a lot of geopolitical instability in the oil markets, which we might be able to manage over the long term, and leaving Israel on its own, which isn't acceptable, and tolerating a lot of political terrorism by jihadists trying to influence various domestic politics (Indonesia, India, Holland, England, France, Chechnya . . .) which also isn't acceptable. Whatever our sins might be, we are confronting people who want to win arguments with bombs. If I had any reason to believe that their demands had an upper limit, I might consider dealing with them, but so far I just see a growing list of demands.
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Factvsfiction
Citizen
Username: Factvsfiction
Post Number: 1544
Registered: 4-2006
| | Posted on Thursday, August 31, 2006 - 5:43 pm: |
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Iran views the rest of the world as weak in resolve and unlikely to take any strong action against it, especially given Russian and Chinese business opportunities in Iran, which would support their being against any truly effective U.N. resolutions. Ahmadinejad and the mullahs are far to dangerous to be allowed to have nuclear weapons.
Bush or Israel will attack the Iranian nuclear sites within the next year. It can set back Iranian nuclear development for many years and is called for. This may affect, along with other efforts, regime change in Iran. What most of you miss is how magnificent young Iranians are and have been in standing up to this regime, at a cost young Americans would not pay, if they changed places. |
Hoops
Citizen
Username: Hoops
Post Number: 2035
Registered: 10-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, August 31, 2006 - 6:28 pm: |
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Quote:What most of you miss is how magnificent young Iranians are and have been in standing up to this regime, at a cost young Americans would not pay, if they changed places
Horsefeathers.
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Maprules
Citizen
Username: Maplefan
Post Number: 60
Registered: 6-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, August 31, 2006 - 7:11 pm: |
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Considering the fact that it's young Americans dying everyday in Iraq, I find your comment reprehensible- fictionvsfiction. |
Factvsfiction
Citizen
Username: Factvsfiction
Post Number: 1550
Registered: 4-2006
| | Posted on Thursday, August 31, 2006 - 8:59 pm: |
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Hoops-
Into horseracing?
Maprules-
Thanks for giving me the opportunity to clarify my post.
Iranian student opposition actually encompasses children of the elite well-to-do, in perhaps some contrast to the U.S. and the great kids that choose to serve in our millitary and are fighting in Iraq. It seems our wealthy don't have their kids fighing in Iraq by and large, or the equivalent of being tortured and/or confined to jail cells in Iran.
I doubt that you have a monopoly on the right to an opinion in that only you or your family members have ever served in the millitary, and views do differ among people having either or both.
Does it make your opinion more relevant and important than others? I would say so, as it does for those with the same background that support the war in Iraq. However I think that runs into some difficulty with some posters here on MOL who believe all opinions are equal and specific knowledge, experience, or sacrafice are irrelevant to having a valid point of view.
And BTW, thank your nephew for his service. He is a true hero, and his politics, yours, or mine, just doesn't matter one bit. |
Hoops
Citizen
Username: Hoops
Post Number: 2036
Registered: 10-2004
| | Posted on Friday, September 1, 2006 - 8:33 am: |
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fiction your post is still pathetic. What you fail to understand is that if there were a REAL threat to the USA there would be a massive voluteering of young people into the Armed Forces from all walks of life.
Your comments and your further explanation are still beyond pale. I somehow doubt that you are a patriotic American in the true sense of the word. It is your own one issue politics that has blinded you to the great country we live in.
Pathetic. |
Gordon Agress
Citizen
Username: Odd
Post Number: 538
Registered: 8-2004
| | Posted on Friday, September 1, 2006 - 8:38 am: |
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Quote:. . . if there were a REAL threat to the USA there would be a massive voluteering of young people into the Armed Forces from all walks of life.
Sure. Just look at the example set by English college students in 1934.
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Bob K
Supporter
Username: Bobk
Post Number: 12550
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Friday, September 1, 2006 - 8:42 am: |
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There is an educated elite in Tehran who isn't happy about the theocracy. They want their Levis and MTV!!!
However, this is a relatively small group and if we invaded or bombed their country they would probably flock to support the country, as many anti-war, American First, Republican young people did in the United States after Pearl Harbor.
I am really surprised by the very few neo-con college student elite who are joining ROTC or enlisting in the Marines. Most of them seem to have, as Cheney put it, "other priorites".
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Hoops
Citizen
Username: Hoops
Post Number: 2041
Registered: 10-2004
| | Posted on Friday, September 1, 2006 - 8:57 am: |
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I will remind you Gordon of the great increase in recruiting following 9/11. A great many American kids signed up to defend our country. But to show you cant fool Americans for long that recruiting has become so difficult that they had to lower the standards to let non hs grads and racist groups in. |
Twokitties
Citizen
Username: Twokitties
Post Number: 508
Registered: 8-2004
| | Posted on Friday, September 1, 2006 - 9:21 am: |
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BobK: Are you really surprised that the NeoCons have "other priorites"? They (as opposed to true "Paleo-Cons" like, say, Dole) and have their battles fought by lawyers and other people's children. Cowards. |
Maprules
Citizen
Username: Maplefan
Post Number: 62
Registered: 6-2004
| | Posted on Friday, September 1, 2006 - 10:37 am: |
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Thank you for your clear and concise post, Factvsfiction. I agree with your analogy that many in our society have acted shamelessly while so many have sacrficed for the good of our country.
But of course, it was none other than Congressman Charles Rangel who called for the return of the draft at the beginning of the Iraq debacle and was marginalized almost immediately.
And thank you for your kind words about my nephew. He's one of those young people (and they come from both sides of the political isle) who make me proud.
However, I don't agree that our politics are irrelevant. Of course, they are pointless when on the battlefield. But when in comes to voting and steering our country in the direction that adds to our great legacy, they are essential. |
Bob K
Supporter
Username: Bobk
Post Number: 12554
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Saturday, September 2, 2006 - 5:46 am: |
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If we are going to invade and occupy Iran and do the same with North Korea, which seems to be on the Bush agenda, we are going to need a much larger military, probably around 1,000,000 active duty soliders, sailors, airmen and Marines. The only way to have this type of force is to reinstate the draft.
Charlie Rangel's bill was meant as a warning of what could happen with our new neo-con foreign policy. He may yet proof to be a prophet. |
cjc
Citizen
Username: Cjc
Post Number: 5847
Registered: 8-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, September 2, 2006 - 10:08 am: |
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Let's not start to get carried away with the Rangel harangue that the military is disproportionately made up of (black) uneducated poor kids dying for the elites. The primary reason we shouldn't is because it isn't true.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2005-11-27-soldier-edit_x.htm
Maybe you'd get more recruits from Harvard crowd if they didn't banish ROTC from the campus for 32 years combined with an atmosphere that looks at military service to the country negatively. I forgot -- "We all support the troops." |
Maprules
Citizen
Username: Maplefan
Post Number: 63
Registered: 6-2004
| | Posted on Saturday, September 2, 2006 - 1:26 pm: |
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While I don't disagree w/ you (CJC) about the need to not make a racial issue out of recruits, let's be clear that the Heritage Foundation's conclusions are skewed. For instance, they say that proportionately Maine, Alaska, Wyoming and Montana rank among the highest in recruits. While that may be true, California provides more recruits than all those states combined. That does not diminish their call to honor, it just provides a different perspective.
And by the way, this liberal agrees that the ROTC should be on all college campuses. And the fact that many of our most liberal institutions have barred ROTC recruiters is unfortunate.
I also believe that every young citizen should provide some level of service to our nation. And that includes military service. |
cjc
Citizen
Username: Cjc
Post Number: 5850
Registered: 8-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, September 2, 2006 - 4:49 pm: |
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Heritage was responding to a skewed study and the accompanying premise echoed by Rangel and others on this board. And in terms of state by state percentages, yes -- bigger states usually do put up greater quantities if not percentages from their populations.
What I'm tired of hearing is the military is comprised of poor uneducated louts compared to the general population who have no future and come from slums with no opportunity and are dying for the elites. It's not true.
And barring the ROTC on college campuses is unfortunate. It's not unpatriotic at all. They really, really do fervently support the troops at colleges. Really. It's not surprising when you think of it as a continuation of what they're taught in high school. |
Bob K
Supporter
Username: Bobk
Post Number: 12556
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Saturday, September 2, 2006 - 5:38 pm: |
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There is no one profile of people who enlist in the military. However, I don't think very many children of the elite either enlist or go the ROTC route in college, even if they believe every single word that falls from GWB's mouth.
Traditionally, military service offered young people an opportunity to learn a useful skill and, since the elimination of the draft, a chance to put some money aside for higher education. Unfortunately, now a days, the only training that an 18 year old is going to get is as an infantryman, a skill that doesn't transfer well to civilian life. 
Up until the Army started having trouble meeting quotas the standards were pretty high. The kids certainly weren't dumb, many were patriotic and wanted to revenge 911 and were motivated.
How many of us who post here, middle and upper middleclass for the most part, almost universally college educated are encouraging our kids to enlist when they graduate from high school.
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cjc
Citizen
Username: Cjc
Post Number: 5854
Registered: 8-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, September 2, 2006 - 8:05 pm: |
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BobK -- The only training an 18 year old can get is as an infantryman? How does that jive with this news about Harvard ROTC grads?
http://www.hno.harvard.edu/gazette/2004/06.10/14-rotc.html
"Harvard's ROTC graduates include six new Army officers, and two each for the Air Force and the Navy.
After graduation on Thursday, they will head to a variety of different assignments, including the infantry, military intelligence, military police, the National Guard, medical school leading to assignment in the Army Medical Corps, flight training at the Naval Air Station Pensacola in Florida, and as a surface warfare officer on a Navy-guided missile frigate."
As for my children, I will not encourage them towards any walk of life or profession, only that they pursue happiness as they best define it. Along with that I will teach them that love of country is OK, that the military isn't evil, and the US is the greatest nation on the planet and worth fighting for as my parents taught me. |
Bob K
Supporter
Username: Bobk
Post Number: 12558
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Sunday, September 3, 2006 - 4:08 am: |
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cjc, I kinda doubt that very many Harvard grads are 18
Before Iraq kids who enlisted out of high school had a chance to learn a skill. Now they inevitably go to a combat specialty. |
tulip
Citizen
Username: Braveheart
Post Number: 3904
Registered: 3-2004
| | Posted on Sunday, September 3, 2006 - 9:02 am: |
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Maybe you'd get more recruits from Harvard crowd if they didn't banish ROTC from the campus for 32 years combined with an atmosphere that looks at military service to the country negatively. I forgot -- "We all support the troops."
cjc: Are Harvard men so gullible and unintelligent that they can't find the ROTC enlistment office in Boston? How does this statement of yours (above) agree with the article you posted? Are you saying that suddenly there's a ROTC office on campus, but because there was none for 32 years, there were no enlistements?
BTW: It's interesting that the men who have signed up are all starting as officers.
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Bob K
Supporter
Username: Bobk
Post Number: 12560
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Sunday, September 3, 2006 - 9:48 am: |
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My daughter is a graduate of the University of Chicago which doesn't have ROTC. Several students attended ROTC at the U of Illinois Chicago Campus. My guess is that at least one of the many colleges in Boston had an ROTC program.
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tulip
Citizen
Username: Braveheart
Post Number: 3905
Registered: 3-2004
| | Posted on Sunday, September 3, 2006 - 10:02 am: |
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Right, BobK.
Somehow this sympathy call for the lost ROTC programs eludes common sense. Especially as parents who aren't informed that they have an option, get calls for their sons at home from the Marines, the Army, and everyone else, on a list donated by their high schools. Who needs ROTC when you have recruitment drives of all kinds, for years, that are quite aggressive off campus? |
joel dranove
Citizen
Username: Jdranove
Post Number: 1008
Registered: 1-2006
| | Posted on Sunday, September 3, 2006 - 12:32 pm: |
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good advice, cjc.
from tulip, flower power.
jd |
sbenois
Supporter
Username: Sbenois
Post Number: 15695
Registered: 10-2001
| | Posted on Thursday, September 7, 2006 - 9:35 pm: |
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It's going to be interesting if the prisoner exchange is "proportionate": will 1000 to 1 be fair enough? |
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