- Joined
- Sep 19, 2008
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- 53,409
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I believe you. What I am pointing out is that you are letting that support (or lack thereof) color you impression of the provision of financial vice order-of-battle resources to a combined military campaign.
No, I'm not. I wouldn't support going into Syria even if it was bankrolled by the pope.
:doh This is a bit.... er.... It's sort of like arguing that we shouldn't have fought WWII because it would have been the intellectual inheritors of the Enlightenment who won, either way.
Yeah, it's exactly like having one nation attack our navy and another nation declare war on us while sinking our ships in the Atlantic. :roll:
the success/failure of the campaigns in both places is a matter for a separate thread - our ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of success (or, at least, try to) is impressive.
I'm not even going to comment on that, because your condescension is getting on my nerves, and you're not even trying to address what I've said. We are going to disagree. Deal with it.
and what happens in Syria is definitely going to significantly effect our national interests. Especially given that the value of U.S. credibility is now on the line.
Yes, Obama has screwed us royally with his big talk, which has boxed him into the corner of either bombing Syria or looking like an indecisive, inept, incompetent buffoon. Mission accomplished.
Think about that for a second. What the heck are YOU sick to death of? How many dictators have you belly bumped? How many times have you left your family for months on end to go to awful places where the scenery explodes and takes your friends with it? What, precisely, are you so tired of? Hearing about it on television?
Now you're going to play the "you're not military, you don't know squat, you have no right to complain" card. Well this is the thing. I'm a ****ing American citizen. I have every right to my opinion, whether you like it or not, and I have every ****ing right to be sick of my government's decades-long wars and constant military meddling in the affairs of other nations. Now you've taken condescension and turned it into outrage that I dare have an opinion on what my government does??? Line crossed.
I'll admit I have a military background, but I'm coming to this from a mindset of responsibility to protect - that's Samantha Powers, not George Patton. You know how everyone talked about oh how only if we had known in time about Rwanda? Oh if only we had known about the holocaust surely we would have joined WWII earlier? Well, we know about Syria. What is going on and going to be going on in that land is something that we and our descendants are going to be shamed of if we do not take steps now to stop or answer it. When we argue that the U.S. is a good guy, a force for good in the world, we are going to be asked "Well if that is so, what about Syria, where you didn't care?" and our response will be to hang our head and mumble about how "we didn't know..." well, we know. Claiming that we are rather tired of the whole "being America" thing right now and so can't be bothered is a piss-poor excuse.
I am not going to be lectured by you about how to be an American. I'm done here.