My thoughts on the war...

[thechoson]

I had to write this, to get it off my chest.  It will do absolutely no good, for I am merely a voice amongst millions.  Yet I have certain feelings, that I need to get out.

I am a well of emotions right now.  More than 1000 men and women, many my age, have come back in body bags.  Some people have trivialized this number, saying it’s nothing compared to the 50,000 plus we lost in Vietnam.  Fine, you want to play a numbers game?  Many of the soldiers we lost in Vietnam were draftees, forced into a senseless war with inadequate training and lesser weapons than we have now.  Each of the 1,000 soldiers we have lost are professional soldiers.  They are better trained, and better equipped.  I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that losing 1000 soldiers now is losing almost 5,000 Vietnam draftees, in terms of fighting effectiveness.  I am not trivializing the loss of life.  I am merely challenging those who say 1,000 is not a significant number.  What about the 10s of 1000 Iraqis that have been lost?  Each was a life.  Each had a mother, a father, a face and a soul.  They are all lost.  And I fail to understand, why.  WHY?

I was reading an article in the LA Times the other day, about Ron Kovic, the Vietnam veteran, whose life was the focus of the movie Born on the 4th of July.  He says it’s like Vietnam all over again.  Sometimes, I am temped to agree.

For each man killed in action, there are, I think, 5-7 injured.  That is almost 7,000 casualties of war.  Just on our side.  What are they going to do with their lives?  They will be forgotten men.  A shadow on the sidewalk, begging for money as trust fund babies who don’t give a flying @#!* drive by laughing at them, unaware of the sacrifices they made.

I just want to know why.  I refuse to believe this war is making us safer.  How are we safer, when the number of nuclear weapons pointed at us has only gone up since we invaded Iraq?  Wasn’t that the justification?  Getting rid of their weapons of mass destruction?  Israel and South Korea, both nations with enemies right next to them, and previously victims of terrorist attacks, have kept their airliners safe from terrorism.  I know it’s a bad example.  But still, why is it that the strongest nation in the world, the richest in the history of civilization and the most technologically and militarily advanced, can’t guard our damn borders and our damn airports without resorting to bombing away sovereign nations?  We SAVED the Iraqi people?  We have killed over 10,000 of them.  I doubt Saddam could have inflicted such damage for the rest of his lifetime.

I remember that day.  The day that may have started this.  9/11.  I still sometimes cry when thinking of that day.  Yet, I can’t help but think, we haven’t really solved anything.  We have just made things worse.  And I’m filled with anger, fright, and sadness over the events that have unfolded since that day.

Maybe something good will come out of this.  Maybe we, a generation of Americans that grew up on Nintendo and getting cars when we turned 16 instead of an M-16, will continue to learn that war is horrible.  We were spoiled into thinking wars were about dropping smart bombs, being heralded as saviors, and nobody being killed on our side.  That’s not true.  And maybe we, as a generation, can learn something from this, and eventually change it.

[_EKC_]

The other night, I was driving to my boyfriends house for the night, and I must have heard something on the radio that prompted me to think about the war. All of a sudden I had this image of my ex-boyfriend, who is now like a brother to me and might as well be part of my family, out there in the middle of it. And I just started to cry. I think it was the first time that the war became real to me. It was the first time that I realized that this guy that I loved like a little brother was out there maybe killing people, maybe seeing other people get killed, maybe getting tortured and hung from a bridge. And I started to think about how it isn't fair that he has to go through all of that, even though he enlisted after the war began.

It was the first time that I ever considered that going to war might not have been the right thing.

[M2]

War
What is it good for
Absolutely nothing
War
What is it good for
Absolutely nothing
War is something that I despise
For it means destruction of innocent lives
For it means tears in thousands of mothers' eyes
When their sons go out to fight to give their lives

War
What is it good for
Absolutely nothing
Say it again
War
What is it good for
Absolutely nothing

War
It's nothing but a heartbreaker
War
Friend only to the undertaker
War is the enemy of all mankind
The thought of war blows my mind
Handed down from generation to generation
Induction destruction
Who wants to die

War
What is it good for
Absolutely nothing
Say it again
War
What is it good for
Absolutely nothing

War has shattered many young men's dreams
Made them disabled bitter and meanLife is too precious to be fighting wars
each day
War can't give life it can only take it away

War
It's nothing but a heartbreaker
War
Friend only to the undertaker
Peace love and understanding
There must be some place for these things today
They say we must fight to keep our freedom
But Lord there's gotta be a better way
That's better than
War

War
What is it good for
Absolutely nothing
Say it again
War
What is it good for
Absolutely nothing

[L1]

My brother has just been discharged from the Marines. He has had to go twice now to Iraq. It makes me mad that any of them have had to go. I wouldn't mind if Bush said that he needed to go to Afghanistan and find Bin Laden. I think that's perfectly okay. But Iraq? I don't think that any of the justifications that they have given are sufficient to tell ppl to give up their life.

[Rizz98]

Is 1000 a significant number? Hell yea it is. So is 3000 people, on 9/11. So would another 300 on a jetliner, and so would another 10K or many, many more if God forbid somebody get a nuke or other bombs here.

Perhaps I'm naive for having faith in some of our government leaders, but I have to believe that the administration just may know something we don't. Sure, this war has been a very unfortunate and tragic period for all parties involved. But this is far from a Bush phenomenon, far from a new phenomenon. Virtually all US administrations have taken "unprovoked" preemptive swipes at other countries for a variety of reasons. It's easy to criticize, but if you have a gun and an attacker has a gun, are you going to wait for him to shoot you first? It would not be wise.

I wouldn't give Israel credit for keeping airliners safe - they have suicide bombers killing people day after day after day. At least an airline is a relatively easy choke point - how about a city street? Watch The Siege, which gives a really scary way pre-9/11 view of a terrorist-filled NYC.

This too shall pass, and all we can do is hope and pray that either Bush or Kerry leads us through it strongly and decisively.

[Tobias Beecher]

Is 1000 a significant number? Hell yea it is. So is 3000 people, on 9/11. So would another 300 on a jetliner, and so would another 10K or many, many more if God forbid somebody get a nuke or other bombs here.

Perhaps I'm naive for having faith in some of our government leaders, but I have to believe that the administration just may know something we don't. Sure, this war has been a very unfortunate and tragic period for all parties involved. But this is far from a Bush phenomenon, far from a new phenomenon. Virtually all US administrations have taken "unprovoked" preemptive swipes at other countries for a variety of reasons. It's easy to criticize, but if you have a gun and an attacker has a gun, are you going to wait for him to shoot you first? It would not be wise.

I wouldn't give Israel credit for keeping airliners safe - they have suicide bombers killing people day after day after day. At least an airline is a relatively easy choke point - how about a city street? Watch The Siege, which gives a really scary way pre-9/11 view of a terrorist-filled NYC.

This too shall pass, and all we can do is hope and pray that either Bush or Kerry leads us through it strongly and decisively.

you do know how cozy the bushies are with the saudi royal government, right?

and most 911 hijackers are saudi.

[john6675]

 Now another pandemic of mass killings is being documented, recorded and widely ignored. This time the perpetrator is Saddam Hussein, whose Baathist Party was said to be based on that of the Nazis, and accounts of its killing efficiency continue to flow to the Coalition Provisional Authority. The U.S. Agency for International Development reports that since Saddam was ousted, 270 sites of mass graves have been reported. These contain an unknown number of Iraqis, Iranian prisoners of war, Iraqi Kurds and Kuwaiti prisoners among the long list of those Saddam tortured and killed. British Prime Minister Tony Blair puts the remains in mass graves at 400,000 so far.


"You come away from these fields and torture chambers -- the senselessness of it -- having seen pure evil and knowing that to do nothing in the face of such evil is to perpetuate it. It's not a question of weapons of mass destruction, it's a question of evil, and if you let it continue, you have to take responsibility for what's happening. You can't just turn a blind eye."


That's 270 sites, people- not bodies.  Over 400,000 dead.  We didn't kill them- Saddam did.  If I saw a stranger being attacked on the street, I would do anything in my power to help them.  And I would want them to do the same for me.

I agree that every life counts, which is exactly why we had to go in.  As far as military numbers, the Russians easily lost over 100,000 people in one battle.  Losing only a 1,000 soldiers in over a year of fighting and liberating an entire country is unprecedented.

[M2]

Just a gentle reminder...

[Tobias Beecher]

Just a gentle reminder...

good one.

[dgatl]

I'm not a peace on earth type, but I just see no justification for us going to war in Iraq.  We had perfect reasons to go after Osama bin Laden, but it seemed like Bush needed to divert attention from the fact that we couldn't capture him and decided to attack Iraq.  I'm happy that the dictator is gone now, but it shouldn't have been initiated by the US.  If the Iraqis had wanted freedom from Saddam, then they would have pursued it regardless of the human cost of Iraqi life, and well, I'm sure after they initiated it, Saddam would have struck back with such brutal force that the world, including the Middle Eastern community, would not have been able to consciously sit by and watch innocent people being slaughtered.     I don't know what we can do about this.  Getting Bush out of office will not dissolve our nations responsibility to the Iraqi people,  because now that we've screwed their *&^% up, we have to clean it all up.