Boots On The Ground?

I agree 100% with your article Nirek. As you know, I am also a veteran, and do realize that those who are clamoring for war know they are not going to be the ones who have to put the boots on and go fight the battle. They also know it won’t be their children or even the children of friends of theirs who go fight these battles. Those like McCain and Graham are warmongers, chicken hawks, and perverse to the core when it comes to exploiting the children of middle class and poor Americans for their own political gain.

As for the draft, I don’t believe it should be implemented. I believe those that have to fight wars, should volunteer to do so, and that the regular military should be paid the same as the mercenaries that fight for the vulture corporations like Xe, formerly Blackwater and others. I believe the only way a person should have to become a soldier is if he/she volunteers. Maybe if enough people stop volunteering we will see an increase in military pay, and as you know, when the pay gets too high, we will find another way to solve our problems. At least that would be my wish, that war become too expensive and we have to start to use diplomacy to solve problems.

ISIS would not exist if it weren’t for the war in Iraq. When will we quit creating terrorists due to the so called ‘War on Terror’? We just continue war to profit the corporations and we need to stop.

Nirek, good points all. I’m not military. I turned 18 in the ’70s a few months after the draft ended, although I have a health condition that would have excluded me anyway. This is supposed to be a decade where we pull out of the wars started by the Bush administration. We are supposed to start withdrawing troops from Afghanistan this year.
It’s been my opinion for decades that we don’t defend our nation by fighting in foreign wars. The goal of the military should be to defend the HOMELAND. If we were defending our homeland in 2001, the 9/11 attacks would not have happened. Why? Because we would have been ready to defend our homeland and the rest of the world would know that.
Seems to me that our willingness to bet involved in foreign conflicts is partly responsible for why the rest of the world seems so unwilling to defend itself. They seem to just hang back and wait for the U.S.A. top step in and fix everything no matter how long it takes, and they resent us for sticking our military nose in.
Our message to the rest of the world should be: “Grow up already! Defend yourself, because we won’t. If you aren’t willing to defend yourself you deserve to be taken over.” I have no problem with helping out our friends with airstrikes, advice and strategy. But the “boots on the ground” should come from the nation that is defending itself.

By they way, ISIS doesn’t stand for “Islamic State in Syria and Iraq.” ISIS stands for “I Suck I Suck” (repeat continuously until the message sinks in). That’s the message ISIS is sending to the world. That they suck.

My two cents.

I agree with you Nirek. No boots on the ground. It’s galling how the Iraqi army just seemed to disappear in a puff of smoke. How many billions did we throw at that “army”?

I agree with kes that bombing their positions to help the kurds is good but I’m also aware that I am swayed by the horror beheading vids, which generate an emotional reaction in me and lust for revenge. Whenever I feel lust for revenge I stop trusting my “opinions” fully.

Building ebola clinics in Africa seems like a much more worthy project for “boots on the ground.”

Those people screaming for boots in Syria were the same people screaming about the deficit last year. Remember the debt ceiling / government shutdown? What happened to that?

I believe we should give the baggers the benefit of the doubt and let them all follow Ted Shitpants Nugent to fight ISIS! Seriously. They can even take their lectric scooters with them and wear their best 1776 outfits with white wigs and tri-corn hats. After a few hours their dead bodies could be loaded back onto the same transport planes and brought back to merika and be dumped on a forest fire or a landfill.

Well well, listening on my way home to NPR/BBC, many Kosovians are leaving their country to join ISIS because they cannot find jobs so they join as mercenaries.Same situation with many Iraqis too.They become extremists and can get “hired” by joining the jihadists.

Well said, my friend.

And you raised an interesting point near the end. What politician — other than Joe Biden — has family fighting overseas?

I watched a documentary on the Rooseveldt family and was surprised to learn that FDR had several family memebrs serving in combat zones during WWII.

I wonder how many current day leaders would be okay with this…

Dad, once again you have valid points. We have no business putting our troops out there again. The ONLY way I’d even consider supporting that kind of action is if it were as part of a NATO or a United Nations thing and we were not the only ones there. Ideally even then it wouldn’t be putting our people in harm’s way, but if it’s part of a larger action via the UN at least we wouldn’t be seen as ‘going it alone’ as we did in Bush Jr’s war (oh we had his “Coalition” that was a few minor countries we paid off to agree with us). As far as the draft goes – I don’t see a need for it, but if it were ever needed again it should be everyone capable of serving – no exceptions for wealth or anything else.

I agree gentle friend Nirek.

Too much American blood has been shed in the defense of those who could have saved themselves, if only given the kind of help other nations gave us during our revolution.

And if they failed, it would be because not enough of them were willing to fight and die for their own freedom. A sad fate, but a fate that no amount of American lives could alter.
ST

“There are times when evil must be fought, and when the good must come to the aid and defense of the innocent.

But it is the responsibility of those who desire freedom to fight for it. I believe that freedom loving and compassionate peoples should, from the beginning, simply provide those who desire liberty with arms and training, so they are capable of battling, and dying, for their own freedom.

Just as other countries did during the American revolution.

And as brutal and abhorrent as it is, a war of any kind, if necessary, is best fought on the ground.

Ground forces are the only ones who can accurately target enemies of freedom, limiting the death of the innocent to as great a degree as possible.

Bombs and missiles simply cannot.

But make no mistake, and harbor no delusion, any war will kill the innocent, no matter how it is waged.”
SearingTruth

“A peoples revolution cannot be won by a foreign army.”
SearingTruth

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing.”
Edmund Burke

A Future of the Brave

Hello Nirek, your article is a very good look at things.

As for the draft, I was not drafted. IF they put back the draft rich sons should not get any waivers at all. IF drafted my father would have seen me to the induction center. His effort would not be needed i would report anyway. He served in WW2 in the push to japan and again in Korea for 4 yrs

I would not fight over there now if boots are needed it has not worked yet for decades.

It is very hard to destroy religious beliefs and they will reform again in a few yrs. The leaders of ISIS/ISIL are not even in the country.

I am in agreement the congress should go over and serve in the front lines no matter their age. There would be much less wars if this where true.

The native america word for leaders in the US congress is translated as HINDMOST also translated as cowards in safe far away places.

No one knows who is on who’s side and the worlds oil companies are on both sides.

I real hope Obama can keeps us out of the military fighting on the ground.

———- Sayings of (THE Child of Nature)
” IN the sands of time, time flows over and over again. It
Slides in back currents and the falling sands hide the future of the conflicts that occur to change history. ”

A synthesizer can create any instrument made and others that have not been created yet.

As usual they are making ISIS into a much larger threat than they really are. They need to gin up the fear so their defense contractor buddies can get richer on the blood of our soldiers and that caused by “collateral” damage. It’s time to stop creating future enemies.

Nirek, I’m in agreement with all of your comments. I can’t think of 1 reason to put boots on the ground in Syria, nor very many reasons for airstrikes.

This is an old old old political problem that we are trying to solve militarily. There are several things to we could do prior to unleashing hell on earth or more young Americans to trudge into the desert.

I have mixed feelings on the draft. On one hand I think it might policy-makers a hell of a lot less casual about deploying troops into a war zone. I think it would certainly keep the American people’s attention on what are political leaders are doing with our military.

On the other, you have seen first-hand the effectiveness of a drafted army in the field. Is it as effective as it could be? Unlikely. Does that make it more likely people die? Probably.

There has to be another tool that would work as well, but I can’t think of one.

Yes Nirek, it is past time that the first to sacrifice for their country are those that vote for war. Putting their children in the cross-hairs should be a foregone conclusion, as they are the war advocates (the parents).

As to women being included in a draft (and yes I am in favor of a draft), I am absolutely for it. I would have served, but I was born in the early 60s. By the time I turned 18, we were on a somewhat peacetime stance.

There is a reason that we should all serve in some capacity, it gives us a sense of civic duty that we are seriously lacking these days.