People expect a mistake free war?

[UATrewqaz]

I contend that in the age of insta-info mass media hysterical play up everything 10000% that it is impossible for the US or any other country to effectively wage any sort of real war for an extended period of time.

Every war in history has had so many mistakes, screw up's, corruption, idiocy, unnecessary deaths, abuses, etc.

Think of the horrors of the Civil War, on both sides.

Think of WW2.

People tended to be ignorant of many of these mistakes and they only came to light much after the fact.

Since Vietnam the media has made it almost impossible for the populus to support any war.

Every little boo-boo in Iraq is front page news for weeks.


My basic underlying contention is that war is a dirty, nasty business and it's impossible to wage and win a war without some inevitably bad things happening and the media can go F itself.

A 4 star general said we needed 500,000 troops to secure Iraq. He was demoted. He was also right.

That is not a mistake, that is dereliction of duty on the part of George Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld.

They betrayed our volunteer army by not sending enough troops and by not equipping it properly.

Personally, I think its treason to make the parents of our boys buy their own body armor so they don't get killed or maimed.

http://www.rall.com/rants.html

If our volunteer army is abused, it will cease to exist. Can anyone guess what the alternative is?

[PoBoy321]

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Can anyone guess what the alternative is?

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Me taking a trip to Fort Dix because my GPA sucks.

[UATrewqaz]

Alot of what your describing sounds like incompitence.

Incompitence does not equate to dereliction of duty or treason, although can have just as bad consequences.

[Philuva]

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Alot of what your describing sounds like incompitence.

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Exactly. I don't think people expect a mistake free war or a war without casualties, but they surely don't expect incompetence when so much is at stake. People probably don't expect the guy that sent our troops to this war and responsible for their mission telling the country, "It's hard work" and that, "he thinks about Iraq everyday" either.

[BCPVP]

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Personally, I think its treason to make the parents of our boys buy their own body armor so they don't get killed or maimed.

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This doesn't make sense unless you're making up a new definition.

And I'd step off the high horse you take towards the military when you include a link to Ted Rall's website. The man is the lowest of the low.

[theweatherman]

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Personally, I think its treason to make the parents of our boys buy their own body armor so they don't get killed or maimed.

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This doesn't make sense unless you're making up a new definition.

And I'd step off the high horse you take towards the military when you include a link to Ted Rall's website. The man is the lowest of the low.

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A little anecdote about army personel buying their own equipment. A kid in my Arabic class is a marine reservist and was supposed to makea speech on fox news right after class. He broughtin a scope he had bought himself b/c the marines wouldnt supply him one (by scope i mean a sighting device, meant to be used with 2 eyes, I'm not gun expert.)

Anyways, the scope still had an AK-47 round rattleing around inside of it. The scope stopped the round only 1 inch from the marine's head. It freaked him out pretty good, but makes for an awesome memento.

[BCPVP]

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He broughtin a scope he had bought himself b/c the marines wouldnt supply him one (by scope i mean a sighting device, meant to be used with 2 eyes, I'm not gun expert.)

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While I'm certainly no gun expert, your description is confusing me. Is it like binoculars? You don't use 2 eyes with any scope I know of. Whatever.

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Anyways, the scope still had an AK-47 round rattleing around inside of it. The scope stopped the round only 1 inch from the marine's head. It freaked him out pretty good, but makes for an awesome memento.

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He's pretty lucky. I haven't heard of "scopes" stopping bullets.

Do you know what he did as a marine that he would need a "scope" but wouldn't be provided with one?

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He broughtin a scope he had bought himself b/c the marines wouldnt supply him one (by scope i mean a sighting device, meant to be used with 2 eyes, I'm not gun expert.

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While I'm certainly no gun expert, your description is confusing me. Is it like binoculars? You don't use 2 eyes with any scope I know of. Whatever.

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He probably bought a red-dot sight from Aimpoint or EOTech or maybe an ACOG. The Aimpoint M68 CCO used by the Army is a red-dot sight for rifles that allows the user to shoot with both eyes open. It looks like a scope but isn't, it doesn't provide any magnification. It's a piece of equipment that's nice to have but not really a necessity.

[MMMMMM]

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Personally, I think its treason to make the parents of our boys buy their own body armor so they don't get killed or maimed.

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It's not treason, but our servicemen damn sure are entitled to be provided with the best protection money can buy.