Posted on 06/02/2005 11:39:05 PM PDT by churchillbuff
Two years into the war in Iraq, as the Army and Marines struggle to refill their ranks, parents have become boulders of opposition that recruiters cannot move.
Mothers and fathers around the country said they were terrified that their children would have to be killed - or kill - in a war that many see as unnecessary and without end.
At schools, they are insisting that recruiters be kept away, incensed at the access that they have to adolescents easily dazzled by incentive packages and flashy equipment.
A Department of Defense survey last November, the latest, shows that only 25 percent of parents would recommend military service to their children, down from 42 percent in August 2003.
"Parents," said one recruiter in Ohio who insisted on anonymity because the Army ordered all recruiters not to talk to reporters, "are the biggest hurdle we face."
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Yes, I wish Bush was MORE aggressive. I had enough of this "Islam is a religion of peace" crap. It's not and never has been.
Take my kid......please!!!!!!!!!
Had my son readdy to go....His Girl Freind talked him out of it.
I really do believe many Americans of the left despise the men in uniform. The leftist politicians would never admit it - it would be political suicide.
"Our occupation of Germany and Japan lasted a DECADE. "
Actually, it is still technically ongoing. We have lots of troops in both countries.... still.
The Japanese are still bound by their wartime surrender treaties to us, as well.
"If you go back and read the articles and predictions that were put out, pre-invasion - - including here on freerepublic -- what's going on in Iraq today is nowhere, NOTHING, like what was predicted."
Yup you're right.
There was no mass starvation, as was predicted.
Millions haven't died from disease, as was predicted.
Saddam didn't get a chance to torch the oil wells...again.
We didn't lose 50,000 troops in the battle for Baghdad, as many predicted..
Iraq didn't turn into Sudan or Afghanistan or any other failed state, as many predicted.
Instead, Iraq is now the only Arab country with free elections, liquor licenses, civil liberties, and a vibrant economy.
Out of a country of 50 million or so, the number of people dissatisfied enough to blow stuff up is numbered in the thousands. Most of them are imported foreigners or former Ba'athists.
"Query: Why can't either of the Bush girls put on a uniform?"
You clearly watch too much reality tv.
The military is VOLUNTEER. It doesn't matter that they are Bush's daughters, they are adults who can do what they like.
"Uh, remember Osama - - - "dead or alive" ???? He did 9-11 and we don't have him. It hardly makes me a "dove" to think he should have been our top target, not Saddam."
Churchillbuff, has your brain been replaced by Michael Moore/DNC talking points???
It took almost a year after WW2 to prove that Hitler was dead.
Finding a guy in one of the roughest mountain ranges in the world when he is being hidden by natives whose families have been smugglers in the region for over 1000 years isn't exactly easy. He is one guy, he is on the run for his life, and he's lost power in his own organization.
In any event, what's with this either/or one track mindism?
We fought the Japanese and Germans at the same time. Saddam was a major threat to the region, and taking him out led to the conditions that will end up transforming the middle east by creating an alternative option - democracy and prosperity - in a region where the only ideas that previously got play were totalitarianism and dictatorship and wahhabism and the Iranian islamic revolution.
I laugh when I hear dems say we should promote democracy in the middle east instead of having invaded Iraq - when that was part of the entire purpose. Dems point to the PNAC plans as something evil.... when in fact thats what they do! It's a sneaky debate tactic, and you, sucker, fell for it.
I suggest you change your name to Chamberlainbuff. It would be more authentic.
"Well, how did the Israelis do it?"
If the Israeli technique were so hot, they wouldn't still be fighting these stupid ragheads 50 years later.
It's not something to emulate.
"I thought so."
You know, you sound a whole lot like the liberals who tell us that Bush's numerous cabinet members and confidants (or Bush for that matter) who managed to bail out of the Vietnam War have no right to send people to war because they never served. If churchhill's opinion isn't worth a darn because he never served, than neither is Chaney's or that of numerous other folks.
What's the military coming to? To think soldiers are now actually expected to shoot the enemy and even risk getting shot. /sarc
Then you agree with churchillbuff that Iraq was not a threat to national security?
Interesting how the arguments for invading Iraq shift. When we first went in, it was to get WMDs. (If it didn't have WMDs, it's not a threat to US security in any other way, because it has a fifth world army and no air force. On the pecking order, Cuba is more of a threat to our security than Iraq - it too has no military to speak of, but it's closer at hand so might be capable of some marginal mischief, at the edges of things). Now that there are no WMDs, so no threat to national security has been shown, invasion supporters say all the cost ($300 billion at a time that our taxes are still too high and our deficits exploding) and all the injuries and deaths are worth it- we're told - because it "takes the fight to terrorists." I don't get that argument. It assumes that all terrorists are stupid, and that they'll come from all over the world to risk death in a firefight in Iraq, instead of making plans to act against the American homeland. Obviously some terrorists - the stupid ones - may have traveled to IRaq. But if a nuclear suitcase is brought to America and set off, it will be by terrorists who are smarter than to go to Iraq for some fighting. It'll be by terrorists tempted by our OPEN BORDERS POLICY. IF you don't think that there are terrorists out there who are smart enough to focus on the US instead of a far-away fight, you and I are on different wavelengths. Bottom line: Our "war on terror" is a joke without a border policy that assumes we're really threatened by terrrorists with nukes and other weapons. We can send 10,000 marines and army troops to their deaths in Iraq and it's not going to protect us from the nuke-carrying terrorist who's too smart to get involved in that mess. We need border security and we need it before we have a mushroom cloud in America.
Interesting how the arguments for invading Iraq shift. When we first went in, it was to get WMDs. (If it didn't have WMDs, it's not a threat to US security in any other way, because it has a fifth world army and no air force. On the pecking order, Cuba is more of a threat to our security than Iraq - it too has no military to speak of, but it's closer at hand so might be capable of some marginal mischief, at the edges of things). Now that there are no WMDs, so no threat to national security has been shown, invasion supporters say all the cost ($300 billion at a time that our taxes are still too high and our deficits exploding) and all the injuries and deaths are worth it- we're told - because it "takes the fight to terrorists." I don't get that argument. It assumes that all terrorists are stupid, and that they'll come from all over the world to risk death in a firefight in Iraq, instead of making plans to act against the American homeland. Obviously some terrorists - the stupid ones - may have traveled to IRaq. But if a nuclear suitcase is brought to America and set off, it will be by terrorists who are smarter than to go to Iraq for some fighting. It'll be by terrorists tempted by our OPEN BORDERS POLICY. IF you don't think that there are terrorists out there who are smart enough to focus on the US instead of a far-away fight, you and I are on different wavelengths. Bottom line: Our "war on terror" is a joke without a border policy that assumes we're really threatened by terrrorists with nukes and other weapons. We can send 10,000 marines and army troops to their deaths in Iraq and it's not going to protect us from the nuke-carrying terrorist who's too smart to get involved in that mess. We need border security and we need it before we have a mushroom cloud in America.
So Israel's wall provides no protection against terrorists?
"So Israel's wall provides no protection against terrorists?"
Not to the Israelis stuck on the other side.
Nor to the Israelis in the places where their courts are blocking it's construction.
Nor does/will it stop the Palestinians from shooting mortars and rockets and M-16's that Clintigula and Peres gave to them over it.
The fact that 55 some years after Israel won it's independence that they are in such a bad position that the only option is to retreat and build a Maginot line is nothing to emulate.
SO YOU MAKE MY POINT. THE WALL IS EFFECTIVE WHERE IT HAS BEEN BUILT, AND FOR THOSE PEOPLE WHO LIVE BEHIND ITS PROTECTION.
So if Israel is smart enough to fight terror by protecting its border as Job 1, WHY CAN'T AMERICA PROTECT ITS OWN BORDER IN THE NAME OF FIGHTING TERROR?
"Interesting how the arguments for invading Iraq shift."
Convenient how you can twist the fact that there has always been more than one reason in PARALLEL, and instead you choose to look at them serially.
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"On the pecking order, Cuba is more of a threat to our security than Iraq - it too has no military to speak of, but it's closer at hand so might be capable of some marginal mischief, at the edges of things)."
Cuba hasn't shot at any US planes, tried to assasinate presidents, or violated a ceasefire with us recently either, now have they?
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"Now that there are no WMDs, so no threat to national security has been shown, invasion supporters say all the cost ($300 billion at a time that our taxes are still too high and our deficits exploding)..."
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1415901/posts
Banned weapons equipment 'missing from 109 Iraq sites'
Ireland Online
United Nations experts say equipment and material that could be used to make biological or chemical weapons and banned long-range missiles has been removed from 109 sites in Iraq.
So the weapons that never existed are now missing! What a disaster. For your argument, that is.
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"and all the injuries and deaths are worth it- we're told - because it "takes the fight to terrorists.""
That's called evolving your strategy to take advantage of the situation. Funny how you turned that into a bad thing, Chamberlainbuff.
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"I don't get that argument. It assumes that all terrorists are stupid, and that they'll come from all over the world to risk death in a firefight in Iraq, instead of making plans to act against the American homeland."
The evidence shows that you don't get the argument, because they are all going to Iraq and dying.
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"Obviously some terrorists - the stupid ones - may have traveled to IRaq. But if a nuclear suitcase is brought to America and set off, it will be by terrorists who are smarter than to go to Iraq for some fighting."
Good thing that working nuclear suitcases don't really exist then, huh? And what do you have against killing the stupid ones? They are just as dangerous.
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"It'll be by terrorists tempted by our OPEN BORDERS POLICY."
There's hope for you yet.
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"SO YOU MAKE MY POINT. THE WALL IS EFFECTIVE WHERE IT HAS BEEN BUILT, AND FOR THOSE PEOPLE WHO LIVE BEHIND ITS PROTECTION."
No, it hasn't been that effective. There haven't been suicide bombings *lately* in the areas where there is no wall, either.
Why don't you reply to the rest of my post?
Oh right, because then your "point" would be lost.
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