"If you don't have a dog in this fight." This is something I intend to research today. If my son is wrong, I will let him know. Meanwhile, here is his reaction after reading the thread:
"The real vets understand where I am coming from. The outsiders are all up in arms about how I am a left wing pland reading from the talking points. Typical. Instead of debating the validity of the argument they attack the messenger.
The funniest were the people challenging my bona fides. I suppose I am just one of those poor dumb white trash grunts who are too stupid to understand what is 'really' going on. LOL. The American people are horribly misinformed about the war. Unfortunately, the truth is classified.
All the same, there is not a mission end state. Perhaps the Keyboard Kommandos would first like to define the doctrinal term "Mission End State." Then they could tell me what it is for this operation. Because, I still don't know what we are trying to do here [in Afghanistan] or how we are supposed to achieve said unknown objective."
Here are some further thoughts from my soldier in Afghanistan. Personal note, his father was Scottish (tight with money).
"A lot of these 'conservatives' are NeoCons. A major tenant of conservatism is fiscal responsibility. This war is a black hole for resources. There is little in the way of responsibility or accountability. We are throwing money at this problem. The same way money is thrown at every other problem. Most conservatives hate how we waste money on govt programs yet this govt program gets a pass. And again, we don't have a clear objective. What are we spending this money on? Why? Will expenditure X yield result Y? No one can answer this. This is to say nothing of the waste that is inherent to all govt programs in general and the military in particular. Yet, none of this seems obvious to the 'conservatives' who support this war.
Now this is not to say that I don't support this war or the concept of war in general. Some people need to be killed. My problem is that I really don't know what I am supposed to be supporting. I have no idea what we are trying to accomplish here.
Your son is way too defensive.
You see, here's the problem. It's not what he said and its not his explanations of what's going on. The problem is the thread itself. You didn't say this was your son. You didn't say who it was at all. You didn't provide any background info at all. We didn't know who was being interviewed. We didn't know who was interviewing, either. No link to any story was provided. We didn't know who this was or what was going on.
Therefore, we automatically had to be suspicious and approach this with a grain of salt.
Your son is also attacking people he doesn't even know, calling them "outsiders" and saying they "just don't understand." Does he think you're the only person in the entire country with a serving family member? How would he know whether or not people here have loved ones serving?