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US flexes muscles as it sends aircraft carriers to Persian Gulf

Well, just two examples I can offer: Joe Biden's son volunteered and served in Iraq. Not one of Mitt Romney's sons could be bothered with enlisting.

He didn't enlist. He was a JAG officer (that's a lawyer in uniform) in a reserve unit.
 
Since when is that a problem for conservatives?

This particular brand of hackery always cracks me up as it relies entirely on a complete lack of knowledge of US history.
 
He didn't enlist. He was a JAG officer (that's a lawyer in uniform) in a reserve unit.

If you sign up for the the military that is called enlisting. At the time Beau Biden went to Iraq he was the Attorney General of Delaware and probably could have received a bye if he had requested one. Also he was in the National Guard, not the Army Reserve.
 
If you sign up for the the military that is called enlisting. At the time Beau Biden went to Iraq he was the Attorney General of Delaware and probably could have received a bye if he had requested one. Also he was in the National Guard, not the Army Reserve.

No.

Enlisted men and women signing up are enlisting. Officers are Commissioned. If you are going to speak from a position of authority on military matters you should A) know what you are talking about and B) try it on someone that hasn't served in the military.

He "could have received a bye"? You mean like his father that got 7 "byes"? The National Guard is reserves.
 
I think President Obama is being very foolish in escalating his conflict with Iran. The Iranians have offered to resume negotiations. The President is going to get Americans killed. Check this out:


US flexes muscles as it sends aircraft carriers to Persian Gulf

"The US navy announced the arrival of the USS Abraham Lincoln in the north Arabian Sea and the USS Enterprise, the world's longest naval vessel, in the Gulf of Aden.A senior official in President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's government threatened in January unspecified action if American aircraft carriers returned to the Persian Gulf, saying: "We are not in the habit of warning more than once".

Although neither ship has entered the Gulf itself, the deployment will be seen as an unmistakable challenge in Tehran ahead of the beginning of negotiations on Saturday, which President Barack Obama has described as Iran's "last chance" to resolve the nuclear impasse through diplomacy.

In recent weeks Iran has been forced to temper its bellicose rhetoric after American and European Union sanctions against the country's central bank and energy sector began to have serious consequences for its already faltering economy..."


Read More:
US flexes muscles as it sends aircraft carriers to Persian Gulf - Telegraph


This is nonsense. Our military should not be over there. We shouldn't be messing around with Iran. Let the UN handle it.
 
For me personally it became a problem after the failure to discover WMD in Iraq. That changed my perspective on the use of force in American foreign policy.

This was reinforced when it became clear that domestic political forces were prepared to use foreign military intervention for achieving domestic political advantage. That means that American forces will always be sand bagged by one side or the other. Imo that is so profoundly immoral that the best policy is for America never to fight unless the American homeland is actually attacked, and America has a clear cut objective in responding. Even then I am only prepared to see America fight using the Mongol way of war. Since that won't be acceptable to most Americans the only course of action that is reasonable is never to fight except on American soil.

The Mongol way of war? What was that but a campaign of terror that gained a frightful reputation that preceded it and kingdoms would surrendor before the Mongols even arrived at their borders? Well, the US now has a frightful reputation that precedes it and Obama is hoping for a surrender or at least a compromise before he gets to Iran's borders. So there you have it, the Mongol way of war.
 
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This is nonsense. Our military should not be over there. We shouldn't be messing around with Iran. Let the UN handle it.

The UN would never do anything scarier than wag their finger menacingly. If you want to keep gas in your car so you can get to work to insure food in your belly, then you better hope there are carriers in the area. Without them, Iran would already have closed off the Strait of Hormuz, and gas would cost FAR MORE than $4/gallon.
 
more sabre rattling
china and russia have both warned us to keep our hands off of iran
the only reason we would need to secure the strait of hormuz would be in the event of an unprovoked attack upon iran
why would we do the one thing which would cause oil prices to again spike, further slowing the western world's economic recovery
 
more sabre rattling
china and russia have both warned us to keep our hands off of iran
the only reason we would need to secure the strait of hormuz would be in the event of an unprovoked attack upon iran
why would we do the one thing which would cause oil prices to again spike, further slowing the western world's economic recovery

We haven't attacked have we? All we ever said was "all options are on the table," a suggestion that BOTH diplomatic and military options are being considered. Apparently, this amounts to fiery war drum beating only. While Iran's response is to threaten to close the Strait of Hormuz, attack Israel with missiles, attack and destroy US bases, attack Turkey, and attack Germany. Apparently, this is "diplomatic rhetoric only." I'm still not clear on the logic of these perceptions, but apparently I'm wrong to see it otherwise.
 
more sabre rattling
china and russia have both warned us to keep our hands off of iran
the only reason we would need to secure the strait of hormuz would be in the event of an unprovoked attack upon iran
why would we do the one thing which would cause oil prices to again spike, further slowing the western world's economic recovery
Because The One said it would necessary for gas prices to rise. A huge brew-ha-ha would be right up The One'a alley. That way, he could push hia green jobs agenda.
 
more sabre rattling
china and russia have both warned us to keep our hands off of iran
the only reason we would need to secure the strait of hormuz would be in the event of an unprovoked attack upon iran
why would we do the one thing which would cause oil prices to again spike, further slowing the western world's economic recovery

Because The One said it would necessary for gas prices to rise. A huge brew-ha-ha would be right up The One'a alley. That way, he could push hia green jobs agenda.
 
Try to keep in mind that not all officers come from West Point, in fact only a small percent come from there. It's also an elite school so the background and personalities of those who attend are not representative of most officers. The study you linked focuses on West Point and ignores the rest of the officer corps. That's like only studying Harvard grads and making assessments about ALL college grads based on Harvard. Without doubt these hypothetical assessments would be generally wrong.

About one-fourth of the the Army's new officers each year come from West Point. That's more than "a small percent," and many of them have influence beyond their numbers by virtue of the fact that they're "Pointers." And what does "elite" have to do with the contention that three-fourths of cadets are either Republican or identity with the Republican Party? I mean, Harvard's an elite school, but no one's ever accused Harvard or any other school in the Ivy League of having a shortage of liberals. One would think that wherever the government's giving away free **** (like educations) liberals would be trampling over each other to get there. I guess not.
 
Sending the carriers to the Gulf is an important measure to reassure our critical Gulf allies that we are not cowed by Iranian threats, and furthermore that we are willing to show a tangible stake in their regional security. It also reminds Iran that for all of its posturing it does not really have the capability to do half of the things it claims, let alone wrest even temporary surface control of the Gulf.
 
About one-fourth of the the Army's new officers each year come from West Point. That's more than "a small percent," and many of them have influence beyond their numbers by virtue of the fact that they're "Pointers." And what does "elite" have to do with the contention that three-fourths of cadets are either Republican or identity with the Republican Party? I mean, Harvard's an elite school, but no one's ever accused Harvard or any other school in the Ivy League of having a shortage of liberals. One would think that wherever the government's giving away free **** (like educations) liberals would be trampling over each other to get there. I guess not.

I'm not sure that your percentages would hold up under closer examination. In 2009, Lt Col Jason K. Dempsey, West Point grad with a PhD from Columbia wrote a book, Our Army: Soldiers, Politics, and American Civil-Military Relations

One quick means of reviewing a book is known as the 99 Test, - read closely pg 99 and it often will give you a good idea of the writer's intentions
Page 99 of Our Army is a fortuitous choice for discussion as it presents one of the key findings to come from my analysis: Members of the army are much less likely than civilians to consider themselves a member of either the Republican or Democratic Party. Only 43% of those serving in the army identify themselves with a party, compared to 65% of the broader American population. While this may be surprising to many, it makes sense when one remembers that the bulk of the military is made up of 18 to 24 year-old males—a demographic not prone to political participation. Indeed, the data reveal that there are two distinct populations in the army. There are senior officers, whose attitudes and opinions are the most likely to be studied and discussed, and the rest of the army, who are rarely studied but often assumed to mirror those in the senior ranks. This study reveals that this is not the case, and that the majority of the military looks very much like the population from which members of the military are drawn.

Col Dempsey's findings do show that most officers consider themselves conservative in their political views but not that they identify themselves as Republicans.
 
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I'm not sure that your percentages would hold up under closer examination. In 2009, Lt Col Jason K. Dempsey, West Point grad with a PhD from Columbia wrote a book, Our Army: Soldiers, Politics, and American Civil-Military Relations

They're not "my" percentages. They actually came from the study I linked, which, coincidentally, used data researched and principally analyzed by Dempsey:

Col Dempsey's findings do show that most officers consider themselves conservative in their political views but not that they identify themselves as Republicans.

That doesn't square with his own study:

The West Point study offers clues as to what may be causing this overwhelming Republican identification among army officers, but raises more questions in the process. In our study, we (Shapiro and Dempsey) found that 61% of the cadets surveyed identified with the Republican Party and another 14% said they did not affiliate with a party but leaned Republican.

ISERP - Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy
 
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I have a personal interest in keeping our carriers in that area. My husband is going for a year to Bahrain in about 3 months.

But besides that, who does anyone think the UN would ask to take care of this situation if Iran did close the strait and we weren't there to take care of it then? I'm betting us. So, then we would have to spend more time getting our ships back out there just because some people don't like our Navy doing our job. We have had this job of maintaining the seaways for quite some time now. Because no one else wants to do it and unfortunately, there are bad people in high positions of power in this world.
 
I think President Obama is being very foolish in escalating his conflict with Iran. The Iranians have offered to resume negotiations. The President is going to get Americans killed. Check this out:


US flexes muscles as it sends aircraft carriers to Persian Gulf

"The US navy announced the arrival of the USS Abraham Lincoln in the north Arabian Sea and the USS Enterprise, the world's longest naval vessel, in the Gulf of Aden.A senior official in President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's government threatened in January unspecified action if American aircraft carriers returned to the Persian Gulf, saying: "We are not in the habit of warning more than once".

Although neither ship has entered the Gulf itself, the deployment will be seen as an unmistakable challenge in Tehran ahead of the beginning of negotiations on Saturday, which President Barack Obama has described as Iran's "last chance" to resolve the nuclear impasse through diplomacy.

In recent weeks Iran has been forced to temper its bellicose rhetoric after American and European Union sanctions against the country's central bank and energy sector began to have serious consequences for its already faltering economy..."


Read More:
US flexes muscles as it sends aircraft carriers to Persian Gulf - Telegraph



Oh goody, more conflict we can't even afford. God dammit.
 
They're not "my" percentages. They actually came from the study I linked, which, coincidentally, used data researched and principally analyzed by Dempsey:

Originally Posted by Somerville View Post
Col Dempsey's findings do show that most officers consider themselves conservative in their political views but not that they identify themselves as Republicans.

That doesn't square with his own study:

The book I linked to also used a later survey/study conducted by Col Dempsey which found that 43% of officers were calling themselves Republicans. Things do change you know. I wonder how much Iraq?Afghanistan has changed attitudes in the officer corps over the past 10 years.
 
I hear you. It's like watching a traffic accident happen in slow motion.

I just want one decade. One decade of zero international conflict so we can focus on domestic problems. Apparently that's asking too much. Where the hell is the UN on this? We aren't the only nation in the UN with a strong Naval force.
 
I just want one decade. One decade of zero international conflict so we can focus on domestic problems. Apparently that's asking too much. Where the hell is the UN on this? We aren't the only nation in the UN with a strong Naval force.

Most of the time we don't get what we want. I don't think America should look for trouble.
 
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