Originally Posted by Ethereal
I am a vet. I was in Iraq for seven months. Welcome to the DP. And this misses the point entirely. Kali has no right to make generalized statements as to whose life was wasted and whose wasn't. The only person who can make that determination is the one making the sacrifice. If I had died in Iraq the last thing I'd want is for some fringe leftist whackos to use it as an excuse to berate the President.
No doubt a definitive collection of data. Saracasm aside, these families, although entitled to their opinion, do not get to make that determination as it concerns the troops. Only the ones with boots on the ground get to decide whether or not they are wasting their lives. You do not get to decide for me, nor does Kali, nor does my family. It's my life, my decision.
I sincerely thank you for your courage and your service, Ethereal.
Ethereal, I too would like to thank you for your service. It is truly because of people like you that we are as free a people as we are. :applaud
With that said, I do disagree with your premise that "Only the ones with boots on the ground get to decide whether or not they are wasting their lives." Once someone joins the military their free choice is gone, out the window, kaput. They in effect trust that their leaders, including the president, will hold their lives as valuable as their families do. That their president will only put their lives in danger if it is absolutely necessary.
This president abused his power and abdicated his responsibility to his military personnel by inserting them into a groundless war based on his own lies. This president put our servicemen and women in further mortal danger because he allowed that imbecile Rumsfeld to go against all common sense and accepted military tactics, by putting all those brave souls in too few number to accomplish their mission with "overwhelming force" to ensure minimal casualties. They also took no steps to protect your fellow servicemen with the proper, and available, equipment to also minimize injuries. Not to mention thinking through the initial invasion and having a well thought out plan for the occupation and withdrawal from said innocent country. Talk about irresponsible!
Our servicemen and women are not over in Iraq defending their country. They are not now, nor have they ever been, saving their country from any imminent danger of invasion or attack. They all have been sacrificed to serve this president's ego and selfish, financial reasons. Period.
The trust of these brave souls, including you, has been betrayed. Our service men and women certainly have earned the right to be proud of the job they are doing. However, their families and friends and countrymen also have the right to believe that their lives are being wasted. Many families are absolutely out of their minds po'd at Bush for the senseless killing of their loved one.
Just because they are in the military does not mean their lives are only the military's to do with what they wish, with no regard to the lunacy of the orders they are obliged to follow. The military can, and does, punish service men and women if they get too bad a sunburn because they are "damaging military property". That's the same assinine attitude some leaders, BUSH!, use when deciding what situations they will send our brave defenders to be in.
No sir. Believing a loved one's life was wasted in that war of lies is a right all of us own.
You were not over there alone. You would not have died alone. You would have been remembered by many, and your honor defended by many. Your life mattered to more than just you. All of ours do.
Should it come out, via a legal investigation and conviction at trial, that Bush and company led us into a war based on lies (which they did!) it will be written in history (and probably will be anyway) that all those who died in Iraq would have died in vain. A false war is not a war of honor. Fighting, and dying, over a lie is a waste of a brave patriot.
It is these reasons, at a minimum, that Bush and Cheney should be tried and convicted of treason. Just today Cheney admitted, in an interview, that had all their claims of Iraq having WMDs been known to be false "before they invaded", they still would have been justified invading Iraq. This man belongs behind bars.
We value men and women like you too much to allow your lives to be wasted in selfish wars of the elite.