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R. S. Refugee
Joined: 29 Sep 2004
Location: Shangra La, ROK
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 Posted: Tue Mar 06, 2007 3:15 am Post subject: There REALLY, REALLY are terrorists in Iraq |
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I knew that a lot of you guys who think it would be immoral for Bush's legions to desert the poor Iraqis now in their hour of need would get a big kick out of reading this real life story of an American soldier -- a good, ole boy from Oklahoma -- and how he personally located thousands of what he calls "terrorists" in Iraq.
Kinda makes ya teary-eyed to be an American, don't it?
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Joshua Key, 28, was a poor, uneducated Oklahoma country boy who saw the U.S. army and its promised benefits -- from free health care to career training -- as the ticket to a better life. In 2002, not yet 24 but already married and the father of two , Key enlisted. He says his recruiting officer promised he'd never be deployed abroad, but a year later he was in Iraq. Only 24 hours after arriving, as Key recounts in The Deserter's Tale (Anansi), he experienced his first doubts about what he and his fellow soldiers were doing there:
I was scared out of my wits that first day in Ramadi. Our own air force had just finished bombing these people, but as soon as we got out of our vehicles we began patrolling their streets, on foot. With nearly 100 lb. of weaponry, equipment and clothing on my back, I was about as mobile as a cow. It was just my platoon, 20 guys, walking single file through streets full of Iraqis. I could not stop thinking that anywhere, at any time, some half-starved sniper on a roof could have taken me out in no time flat. Iraqi kids surrounded me in swarms, hands out, asking for water and food. I kept hearing the last words [my wife] Brandi said to me before I flew out: "Don't you let those terrorists near you, Josh. Even if they are kids. Get them before they get you."
[And now for the really exciting part . . .]
http://www.macleans.ca/world/global/article.jsp?content=20070205_140356_140356 |
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ddeubel
Joined: 20 Jul 2005
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| Posted: Tue Mar 06, 2007 4:04 am Post subject: |
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Thanks for posting this. We need to hear more and as much as possible, of how the innocent on either side are driven to violence, by violence, in violence's unspoken name.....
Been too busy to post much lately. But will remark later. This though, reminds me of two things. One, Commander Charles Swift, of JAG who has saw before so many, the ethnocentrism and blinders of U.S. justice and action and fled ship. Many should read his story. Also how Bush is presently canning most of the upper eschelon of the legal system and putting in safe men.
Secondly, reminds me of watching 60 min this week. A guy on there who is fighting those who have Islamic Jihad websites. But when speaking to the interviewer he remarked so correctly, that basically they are "a recruitment agency promising guns, excitement and world travel". This sounded so true and exactly like the U.S. military's tune. So sad - they are in bed together.... like the Irish ditty, O'Reilly's in bed and O'Really don't know it / O'Really's in bed but O'Reilly don't know it / They're both lying dead in the very same bed / But neither one knows the other is dead. Or something such...
DD
DD |
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stevemcgarrett
Joined: 24 Mar 2006
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| Posted: Tue Mar 06, 2007 5:36 am Post subject: |
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Refugee:
Nice little leftwing-serving tale spun there. Do I believe he really felt this way? Probably. Do his feelings typify those of the average American Joe? I doubt it. Has he been made a tool of the anti-war movement? Methinks so.
Did those women get raped? He isn't sure. But the innuendo is enough proof when you're a suspicious person who doesn't give the military the benefit of the doubt.
Should we ignore this claim? No. Should we use it to wave the white flag? I think not.
And calling it Bush's war as if he alone was involved in this decision is just so much effigy making for convenient burning later.
And, yes, I've served. And, no, I'm not an apologist for Bush or a neo-con, nor do I want to see our troops remain much longer. Frankly, I don't think the Iraqis deserve our assistance. After all, the insurgency is premeditated and more brutal than anything the leftwing press can scrounge up. |
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R. S. Refugee
Joined: 29 Sep 2004
Location: Shangra La, ROK
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| Posted: Tue Mar 06, 2007 6:51 am Post subject: |
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| stevemcgarrett wrote: |
Refugee:
... Frankly, I don't think the Iraqis deserve our assistance. . . |
I knew that someday we'd find something that we both agreed upon. I too don't believe the Iraqis deserve the kind of "assistance" they've received from the US elites and the unfortunate underclass they employ to do the actual dirty work. "Assisting" them into early graves, I'd say.
Obviously, it isn't my intention to paint all members of the military with one broad brush. Many are decent people in an indecent situation like the writer of this first hand account. |
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R. S. Refugee
Joined: 29 Sep 2004
Location: Shangra La, ROK
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| Posted: Tue Mar 06, 2007 7:04 am Post subject: |
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| stevemcgarrett wrote: |
.... After all, the insurgency is premeditated and more brutal than anything the leftwing press [emphasis added] can scrounge up. |
Huh? "Leftwing press?"
You mean this mainstream Canadian newsweekly?
About Macleans
Maclean�s is Canada�s only national weekly current affairs magazine. Maclean�s enlightens, engages and entertains 2.8 million readers with strong investigative reporting and exclusive stories from leading journalists in the fields of international affairs, social issues, national politics, business and culture. Read about our History
Maclean's owes its origins to Toronto journalist/entrepreneur Lt.-Col. John Bayne Maclean. In 1905, the 43-year-old trade magazine publisher purchased an advertising agency's in-house business journal -- along with its 5,000-strong subscription base. The Business Magazine, launched in October of that year, was a pocket-sized digest of articles gathered from Canadian, U.S. and British periodicals. It sold 6,000 copies. Inside its bright blue cover, the fledgling monthly anointed itself, "the Cream of the World's magazines reproduced for Busy People." Its aim, Maclean wrote a year later, was not "merely to entertain but also to inspire its readers."
The magazine went through many incarnations over the next century. Within a few years, Maclean changed the name to Busy Man's Magazine and began commissioning articles before settling on Maclean's in 1911. The magazine started to include coverage of politics and arts, and opened its pages to works of fiction. Following the First World War, as the economy recovered, Maclean's was published bi-monthly and kept up hard-hitting articles inspired by wartime reporting. The future was bright until the Depression hit and revenues dipped; the magazine devoted its pages to first-hand accounts of people's struggles to survive.
The 1957 federal election led to one of the magazine's most embarrassing moments: an editorial proclaiming a Liberal win printed before the results were tabulated. It hit newsstands the day after voters handed John Diefenbaker's Conservative party a resounding mandate. The next issue of Maclean's featured the retraction "We were Dead Wrong on Your Vote," calling the gaffe an "unexampled case of editorial fatheadedness."
The '60s were a time of turmoil both in the nation and the magazine masthead. There were numerous changes in editorship during the decade, slowing in 1971 with the appointment of Peter C. Newman to the top post. Maclean's began losing money by the mid-60s -- the first time since the Depression -- and reverted to a monthly schedule. But that was soon to change. In 1975, Newman increased the frequence to bi-weekly and then again in 1978, issuing Canada's first newsweekly.
In 2001, Anthony Wilson-Smith was named 15th editor of Maclean's. In an age of instantaneous news delivery, his vision involves a shift away from simply reporting hard news toward including more analytical features and fresh voices. |
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stevemcgarrett
Joined: 24 Mar 2006
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| Posted: Tue Mar 06, 2007 7:33 am Post subject: |
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Refugee:
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| Obviously, it isn't my intention to paint all members of the military with one broad brush. Many are decent people in an indecent situation like the writer of this first hand account. |
Many? Gee, how about most or, the overwhelming majority?
MacLeans: I know from whence it hails. Canada, further left than the USA. Toronto, the furthest left city in Canada. That's left enough for me.
Seems like the Kurds are MUCH better off and most Shiites who aren't being stirred up by al-Sadr and the Iranians. Easy for you to say "assistance" since you didn't have to live under Saddam. |
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Hollywoodaction
Joined: 02 Jul 2004
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| Posted: Tue Mar 06, 2007 1:50 pm Post subject: |
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| stevemcgarrett wrote: |
Refugee:
| Quote: |
| Obviously, it isn't my intention to paint all members of the military with one broad brush. Many are decent people in an indecent situation like the writer of this first hand account. |
Many? Gee, how about most or, the overwhelming majority?
MacLeans: I know from whence it hails. Canada, further left than the USA. Toronto, the furthest left city in Canada. That's left enough for me.
Seems like the Kurds are MUCH better off and most Shiites who aren't being stirred up by al-Sadr and the Iranians. Easy for you to say "assistance" since you didn't have to live under Saddam. |
You obviously don't know much about Canada. Ever been to Calgary or Montreal? |
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R. S. Refugee
Joined: 29 Sep 2004
Location: Shangra La, ROK
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| Posted: Tue Mar 06, 2007 2:25 pm Post subject: |
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| stevemcgarrett wrote: |
Refugee:
| Quote: |
| Obviously, it isn't my intention to paint all members of the military with one broad brush. Many are decent people in an indecent situation like the writer of this first hand account. |
Many? Gee, how about most or, the overwhelming majority?
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I think that's probably true. It probably is the overwhelming majority. I certainly hope so. But unlike what seems like the overwhelming majority of the rabid right, I don't pretend to have certain knowledge of things that I don't have certain knowledge of. Hence, I use words like probably to denote my less than omnicient status. Hey, I'm no Cheney, er, I mean God.
| stevemcgarrett wrote: |
MacLeans: I know from whence it hails. Canada, further left than the USA. Toronto, the furthest left city in Canada. That's left enough for me.
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Er, what country among the industrialized first world nations isn't further left than the USA? For example, which of them doesn't have universal health care for its citizens?
The poor Okie in this article listed health care coverage as one of his motivations for joining up. |
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ddeubel
Joined: 20 Jul 2005
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| Posted: Tue Mar 06, 2007 3:16 pm Post subject: |
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| Nice little leftwing-serving tale spun there. Do I believe he really felt this way? Probably. Do his feelings typify those of the average American Joe? I doubt it. Has he been made a tool of the anti-war movement? Methinks so. |
McGarette,
I think you, like a few others, should wipe the L and R off your hands -- it provides you with too much predisposition. You'd be better off using your brain than just tired old accusations and branding. You'd also probably learn which hand to raise freely, of your own volition and without thought to those letters and the wrestling holds of --- patriotism, allegiance, privledge and "schooling".
Just gets tiring that you see anything against the war "on terror" as just "tools" of some higher conspiracy and not just honest people out for truth and a better America or world. You are a conspiracist when you kneel to these kinds of arguements.
Me, I prefer standing and dying on my feet. If you get the "allusion".
I also suggest McGarette that before you defend the military, you take a good look at the rot at her core. The problem is not in Iraq but in Washington and in the Pentagon in particular. We can't turn our eyes from the fact that America is a military state. In size of budget, in economic reliance and in power over her own people and others in the world. It is this rot that America herself must address and change and exorcize.
I would also add that globally, historically, we could almost say that we can judge a nation, a culture by how small it is able to keep its military and at the same time grow in influence. The fact that the military grows in a nation, should be seen as an abomination, a weakness and not a strength. Great nations and empires were not so through their military but through their ideas, commerce and self prosperity in education, human rights and values.
I'd also ask you McGarette to look at the case of Charles Swift. Is he a patriot or is he a bastard?
DD |
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JeJuJitsu
Joined: 11 Sep 2005
Location: McDonald's
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| Posted: Tue Mar 06, 2007 6:04 pm Post subject: Re: There REALLY, REALLY are terrorists in Iraq |
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| R. S. Refugee wrote: |
Joshua Key, 28, was a poor, uneducated Oklahoma country boy who saw the U.S. army and its promised benefits -- from free health care to career training -- as the ticket to a better life. In 2002, not yet 24 but already married and the father of two , Key enlisted. He says his recruiting officer promised he'd never be deployed abroad, but a year later he was in Iraq. Only 24 hours after arriving, as Key recounts in The Deserter's Tale (Anansi), he experienced his first doubts about what he and his fellow soldiers were doing there: |
From this quote, he had "doubts" before he even signed up for the military. Only a complete moron would sign up for the military---in 2002!!!! (NOTE the year, after 911), and not know you'd be going to Iraq. Having 2 kids by 23 with no education either--obviously not this moron's first moronic move. |
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caniff
Joined: 03 Feb 2004
Location: All over the map
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| Posted: Tue Mar 06, 2007 7:08 pm Post subject: |
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| Ghost-writer? |
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stevemcgarrett
Joined: 24 Mar 2006
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| Posted: Wed Mar 07, 2007 5:30 am Post subject: |
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ddumbbell:
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| We can't turn our eyes from the fact that America is a military state. |
Your sense of perspective is almost breathtaking in its ignorance. Do you even know what connotes a "military state?" The DPRK is a military state, as was the former East Germany. With a 20% increase in its military budget (likely much higher), China is fast approaching one (it has long had the world's largest standing army). Myanmar and the Saddam-era Iraq certainly were as well.
As Eisenhower forewarned, we do have a military-industrial complex but then having the most advanced technology makes that pretty hard to avoid. Still, we maintain civilian control of the nation. You can at least discern that much through your myopic sunglasses, I hope.
By the way, what's a
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| Quote: |
| Great nations and empires were not so through their military but through their ideas, commerce and self prosperity in education, human rights and values. |
Such a DDurant scholar you are! Name me one nation which has become great in the historical tradition without a strong military. Just one. |
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ddeubel
Joined: 20 Jul 2005
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| Posted: Wed Mar 07, 2007 6:55 am Post subject: |
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Military spending / capita
Israel $1,487
Singapore $1,003
United States $986
But the / capita stuff really skews the reality. For many reasons but also since the world leader is spending America's money.
Here is a statement from a U.N. agency.
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| The USA, responsible for about 80 per cent of the increase in 2005, is the principal determinant of the current world trend, and its military expenditure now accounts for almost half of the world total; |
I'm not worried about China persay.
But that is only part of what makes a military state. Mostly it is the ties between govt and the military. I don't give a rats ass if it is called "military complex" but you'll never see it because it is complex.
Civilian control is not the only indicator of "no military" state. Easily, civilian governments can be proxies and I have an arm length of examples on that count. Including the former Soviet Union, Pakistan, Israel, formerly most of S. and central America just off the top of my head. Do you have any idea how many members of say, SAIC are former administration members or even now present members? Dozens, maybe hundreds.
| Quote: |
Quote:
Great nations and empires were not so through their military but through their ideas, commerce and self prosperity in education, human rights and values.
Such a DDurant scholar you are! Name me one nation which has become great in the historical tradition without a strong military. Just one. |
Let's start with the fallacy of "historical tradition". What does that mean? You wouldn't see a nation as great without a great military because that is your value system. And I say you are wrong, blinded and repugnant for following that value system of "big gun, lots of ammo" , I am GREAT. Wrong.
So I will name one. from long ago. Ashoka. Then if you wish to continue to debate, I'll keep naming them. Right up to present day Germany.
I would add that you would do well, given your proclivity to war, to not just read but learn from The Art of War. The first principle is that, a nation is great that does not go to war. War is always a weakness of a nation. But his second notion of warfare is that if it happens, it is always based on deception. You don't seem to understand that.....
DD |
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stevemcgarrett
Joined: 24 Mar 2006
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| Posted: Wed Mar 07, 2007 7:11 am Post subject: |
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ddufus:
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| I'm not worried about China persay. |
Did you mean per se, or Ben-Gay? |
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TheUrbanMyth
Joined: 28 Jan 2003
Location: Retired
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| Posted: Wed Mar 07, 2007 4:28 pm Post subject: |
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So a deserter has negative thoughts on the war? Who woulda thunk it?  |
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