"Support the Troops"

[Gurdari]

What exactly does this mean? Anyone?

 

[dilloduck]

What exactly does this mean? Anyone?

It's similar to "Do you support you local football team." Do you want them to win or quit at halftime and go home. The difference is that they're willingly putting thier live on the line and if the lose, the world loses.

 

[Gurdari]

It's similar to "Do you support you local football team." Do you want them to win or quit at halftime and go home. The difference is that they're willingly putting thier live on the line and if the lose, the world loses.

So if my local football team gang rapes a 14 year old... I have to support that? I guess I would if I 'Support the Team' right?

 

[maineman]

I think that, these days, "support the troops" means that you support whatever Bush decides to do with and/or to the troops and you have a yellow ribbon made in china bumper magnet on your SUV.

 

[Gurdari]

I think that, these days, "support the troops" means that you support whatever Bush decides to do with and/or to the troops and you have a yellow ribbon made in china bumper magnet on your SUV.

so you think it's a vague, evolving definition...?

 

[maineman]

I think its current "definition" is nothing short of Orwellian.

 

[roomy]

We all know exactly what it means, the real question is, 'Do you support our troops?' I know I do.

 

[maineman]

We all know exactly what it means, the real question is, 'Do you support our troops?' I know I do.

so...you DO have a made in china bumper magnet? good for you!

 

[roomy]

so...you DO have a made in china bumper magnet? good for you!

Well that shuts me up.

 

[maineman]

Well that shuts me up.

would that that were true

 

[Gunny]

So if my local football team gang rapes a 14 year old... I have to support that? I guess I would if I 'Support the Team' right?

Can you put this otherwise disjointed comparison into any real context? Are you saying the entire US military raped a 14-years-old, or what?

The way I am reading it, you are purposefully attributing the individual acts of criminals -- acting against the law -- to the whole.

About as dishonest as you can get.

 

[Gurdari]

Can you put this otherwise disjointed comparison into any real context? Are you saying the entire US military raped a 14-years-old, or what?

The way I am reading it, you are purposefully attributing the individual acts of criminals -- acting against the law -- to the whole.

About as dishonest as you can get.

1. Answer the question (if you wish).
2. Answer the second question (if you wish).
3. Pose a new question (if you wish).

Oh, so you did #3... ok, No. I am not saying the US military did that. Or anything in particular. I asked if my LOCAL FOOTBALL TEAM did that act, would it mean I supported the act or the team or both?

 

[Gurdari]

We all know exactly what it means...

so... explain what it means.

 

[Gunny]

1. Answer the question (if you wish).
2. Answer the second question (if you wish).
3. Pose a new question (if you wish).

Oh, so you did #3... ok, No. I am not saying the US military did that. Or anything in particular. I asked if my LOCAL FOOTBALL TEAM did that act, would it mean I supported the act or the team or both?

If the players on your local football team commit crimes, whether individually or collectively, that fall outside the rules/principles/ideals that govern that team, then they are in fact not representing the ideals that create the team. In such an instance, support for the team as an ideal should nto be tarnished for the criminal acts of individuals who comprise that team.

On the other hand, if, within the team guidelines, it is expressly permitted for the team as a collective to rape 14 years old girls, then I would say you already know the answer as to whether or not you should support it.

 

[GeeWhiz]

Support the troops started out as a con job.

The way it happened was their were many people who did not support Bush'es foreign policy. In order to bully these people into supporting Bush'es foreign policy they attacked the critics with bully phrases such as, "if you don't support the President then you don't support the troops" or "If you don't support the war then you don't support the troops".

The phrases "if you don't support the President then you don't support the troops" or "If you don't support the war then you don't support the troops" was later shortened to "they don't support the troops".

It's a similar tactic when children are used for example, "If you don't support this bill then you don't support the children".

Overall it's a cheap tactic and it's should be beneath anyone dignity to whore out children and troops like that just bully others into cowering down and support policies that acutally harms troops and children for evil agendas such as fattening the pockets of war profiteers or corporate shoddy products and services in the case of children.

 

[Gunny]

Support the troops started out as a con job.

The way it happened was their were many people who did not support Bush'es foreign policy. In order to bully these people into supporting Bush'es foreign policy they attacked the critics with bully phrases such as, "if you don't support the President then you don't support the troops" or "If you don't support the war then you don't support the troops".

The phrases "if you don't support the President then you don't support the troops" or "If you don't support the war then you don't support the troops" was later shortened to "they don't support the troops".

It's a similar tactic when children are used for example, "If you don't support this bill then you don't support the children".

Overall it's a cheap tactic and it's should be beneath anyone dignity to whore out children and troops like that just bully others into cowering down and support policies that acutally harms troops and children for evil agendas such as fattening the pockets of war profiteers or corporate shoddy products and services in the case of children.

I agree. It WAS a con job. The anti-war lefties had a monent of clarity in which they realized the biggest villification they got during Vietnam was for troop-bashing, so they decided to sell the "I support the troops" line to the American public, hoping no one could see through the facade.

 

[roomy]

so... explain what it means.

I have neither the time nor the inclination to educate you today, tomorrow maybe.

 

[mattskramer]

It's similar to "Do you support you local football team." Do you want them to win or quit at halftime and go home. The difference is that they're willingly putting thier live on the line and if the lose, the world loses.

I have three key points to make with respect to this thread.

(1.) I think that supporting the troops means that you care for the troops. Just as one can care for a friend while disagreeing with what the friend does. One can support the troops (individual soldiers in particular) while opposing the war. People can even send care packages to the soldiers while asking government to bring the soldiers home.

(2.) Some soldiers have gone to war because they believe that it is right to go to war. A soldier might think that, if he joins the military, then it is right for him to blindly do whatever his commander-in-chief tells him to do. Some soldiers have probably gone to war because they do not want to face personal consequences of not going to war (A.W.O.L., Desertion, possible court marshal, etc.). There may be multiple reasons why a particular person does what he does.

(3A.) What does it objectively and numerically mean to win the Iraq war? Do we win when there has not been a car bomb in 4 months? Do we win when there has not been a killing in 2 months? Please give a clear definition.

(3B.) If we lose, it does not necessarily follow that the world loses. To say so calls for quite a bit of fortune-telling.

 

[maineman]

I agree. It WAS a con job. The anti-war lefties had a monent of clarity in which they realized the biggest villification they got during Vietnam was for troop-bashing, so they decided to sell the "I support the troops" line to the American public, hoping no one could see through the facade.

gunny...I think that we both know that folks in uniform get sent all over the globe on missions that the civilians in DC think are wise....sometimes, those of us in uniform agreed with the validity of our "mission"...sometimes not...but that never meant we didn't attack that mission with all the professionalism it required.

I support and empathize with those guys in uniform who go and do what they are ordered to do and do so with zeal and professionalism..... that doesn't mean that I have to agree with the mission the suits have sent them on.

 

[red states rule]

U.S. Action in Iraq Matters
By Rich Lowry

When President Bush announced a surge of troops into Baghdad in January, Democrats pounded him for the folly of putting U.S. troops in the “middle of a civil war.” Two months later, the question is, What happens to a civil war if only one side shows up to fight it?

The Shia militias that had become the main driver of violence in Baghdad are ducking and covering. Mlitia leader Moqtada al-Sadr is in hiding, perhaps in Iran. His fighters aren’t resisting U.S. troops who have begun conducting patrols in his stronghold of Sadr City. According to Gen. Dave Petraeus, 700 members of Sadr’s Mahdi Army have been detained in recent months.

This hardly means that peace and harmony reign in Baghdad, but it has reduced the killing significantly. If at the beginning of the year anyone had predicted such progress from the addition of just two U.S. combat brigades in Bagdad (six brigades eventually will be part of the surge), he would have been derided as a delusional optimist.

This progress might be transitory, but it illustrates the falsity of a key assumption of Democrats. They prefer to talk of Iraq in terms of a civil war because it suggests that nothing can be done about the violence, that it is running its own hermetic course. Well, it clearly isn’t. What the U.S. does matters. If we hadn’t surged, Baghdad already might have descended into the genocidal fury toward which it was headed earlier in the year.

The other side of the Iraqi civil war — the car-bombing Sunni terrorists — hasn’t stood down, of course. But these are the people that Democrats express a notional interest in fighting. In a January letter to President Bush, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said “counterterror” should be one of the “principal” missions of U.S. troops. Sen. Carl Levin wants to restrict U.S. troops to “an anti-terrorist mission to go after al-Qaida in Iraq.”

According to a U.S. intelligence report quoted by the New York Times, captured materials from al Qaeda in Iraq say that the group sees “the sectarian war for Baghdad as the necessary main focus of its operations.” So the Democrats profess to want to fight terrorists in Iraq, and al Qaeda in Iraq is making Baghdad its focus. It would stand to reason, then, that the Democrats wouldn’t want to undermine our effort to control Baghdad. Our counterinsurgency mission there is a counterterrorism mission. It aims to squeeze out terrorists, neighborhood by neighborhood.

Nonetheless, Democrats in the House and Senate are attempting to force our troops from Baghdad, exactly as al Qaeda in Iraq wants. There is an essential symmetry to the goals of Sunni militants and Democrats here at home with regard to the disposition of our forces — the fewer, the farther away from Baghdad, the better (needless to say, for vastly different reasons). In reporting on al Qaeda in Iraq’s strategy, the New York Times notes, “American forces, instead of withdrawing from the capital as the Sunni insurgents had hoped, prepared plans to reinforce their troops there.” Over the strenuous objections of Democrats.

Each side of the domestic debate concerning the Iraq War tends to get stuck in its own self-reinforcing narratives. For Bush and supporters of the war, it was a narrative of success. Negative developments were chalked up as the inevitable difficulties of any war, amplified by the liberal media. Bush broke out of that narrative to order the change of strategy that is the surge.

For Democrats, it is the narrative of defeat. Even as the civil war has deescalated somewhat in Iraq —weakening the force of the Democrats’ favorite “middle of a civil war” sound bite — and even as the surge has elevated the fight against al Qaeda in Iraq — the enemy that Democrats say they want to defeat — Democratic opposition to the surge has only intensified. Will they oppose it even more if it continues to work?

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2007/03/us_action_in_iraq_matters.html