New Jersey United States
Member #1
May 31, 2000
27,939 Posts Online
Quote: Originally posted by Prob988 on Nov 20, 2006
It is true that rich connected people will be able to avoid the draft. George W. Bush got to have a drinking binge in the Alabama National Guard. Dick Cheney didn't go to Vietnam because he "had other priorities." Rush Limbaugh got out of the draft because he had anal cysts.
The fact is that everybody loves a war fought with other people's bodies.
Charlie Rangle is a Korean War Vet. He was awarded the Purple Heart and the Bronze Star. He was subject to the draft, as was I. He served his country four years, from 1948 to 1952 and was, as his medals indicate, in combat.
Dick Cheney - who did not serve, who never thought of serving - and George W. Bush - who is not even known to have shown up for the bull evasion stint his daddy got him - are intellectual and moral cowards. They dragged our country into an unnecessary war based on lies while ignoring the enemy who actually attacked our country.
Did anyone here ever hear of Osama bin Laden? No?
I remind everyone that even while George's daddy is still trying to bail him out of his puerile screw-ups (James Baker indeed) still that the waiting list to get into the Air National Guard during the Vietnam War was six years long. You really had to know someone to get in, and of course Georgie, the big warrior, did know somebody.
Our depleted and severely damaged military is being cycled into a civil war in which Americans had no dog to hunt - even if Halliburton had a dog to hunt - and it is extremely telling that the same people who cheered this moral absurdity are now trying to claim its Charlie Rangle's fault. If things are so wonderful, why are National Guard units - who are supposed to protect people from national emergencies, like say, Katrina, being sent for a third tour? Is that not a compulsion like a draft.
Of course this is typical of the type of moral cowardice and evasion that has characterized this whole affair. The American people have the attention spans of lemons. It takes a draft to make them think.
I am relieved that Charlie Rangle has courage, even if his detractors don't.
I love to see you all squirm. You deserve it.
You'd love to see kids who don't want to go to war "squirm"? Says more about you than it does about them. I find no courage in making people squirm.
I have found that people who want a draft fall into three basic categories:
They have no kids in danger of being drafted, or,
Their kids are already serving or want to serve, or,
They were in the military, so they think everyone else should be.
Southeastern Ohio United States
Member #13,850
April 16, 2005
783 Posts
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When I was 11 years old I was traveling back to Tampa, Fla from Missouri with my 2 older brothers, my mother, and a great uncle. Me and my mother were in the back seat of my brothers 49 Merc with this great uncle sitting between us. This great uncle was an alcoholic. Around midnight, we were right outside of Jonesboro, Ark when old unc decided he just had to take a crap and couldn't wait to get to a filling station. My brother pulled over in a primitive area and old unc jumped out into the bushes. Well, he yanked his pants down, took a real healthy crap, pulled his pants back up, and jumped back in the car between me and my mother. It took me about 10 seconds to realize there was someyhing really wrong here. My mother caught on real quick too, and hollered at my brother to pull over! This is where we discovered old unc had failed to drop his drawers when he yanked his pants down, and had filled his drawers, pulled his pants back up, and jumped back in the car between us! The weather was cold. We stopped at the first filling station we could find and my oldest brother took old unc in the restroom and tried to clean him up. Problem was, the juices had already embedded in the backseat of that Merc. We had a long way to go, and I can tell you right here, it was real bad.
The aroma during that ride is about where I think this thread is headed to...
United States
Member #45,801
August 28, 2006
335 Posts
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Quote: Originally posted by jarasan on Nov 20, 2006
OK since this is a lottery forum lets look at some odds. What are the odds that we'll have another 9-11? Let's say our odds result in a good hit, another 9,000 dead American civilians. What are the odds that we won't need a draft? Probably good. Be intellectually honest with yourself. What are the odds that the American people will unite like never before? My guess is, they will like never before. Maybe, sometime in the future we will realize that we are all in this together, just like when we got knocked upside the head in '41, when we trying to stay out of it. Well, if you seen Adolf, Tojo, Stalin, Mussolini, Idi, Saddam, Castro, Mao, etc. in action, you ain't seen nothing. Watch Obsession if you get a chance.
LOL jarasan.
I totally agree with your logic but ever since WWII the palace of pure thought in Washington has really never wanted us to fight to win.
Ike stopped Patton from running his mouth because he wanted to stop the Russians once and for all. Result Cold War.
Truman fired Doug Macarthur because he wanted to put an end to the Korean war once and for all. Result Having to deal with a crazy man and Atomic weapons again.
Kennedy, Johnson and Bob McNamara wanted soldiers to fight a limited war. By the way McNamara has since said he was wrong. Result 50, 000 dead and nothing achieved and still plenty of unrest in the region.
A few other skirmishes along the way such as Grenada and other small conflicts and of course the first cut at the war in Iraq. Nothing ended, nothing settled.
Now, this mess, my God! even many of the R's and even Kissinger have said it is unwinnable.
So tell me what 60 years of war has gotton us other than the deaths of about 1/2 million of our youngest and brightest and untold men maimed and in pain for the rest of their lives, in many cases limited lives.
I say again Washington will not let the Generals fight the wars.
I appreciate Charlie Wrangle's service, as I do John McCain's but they are only saying the things they do because they are now politicians and these tactics in the past have worked to generate political power and helped the course of one upmanship.
God! what I would give for a real statesman.
By the way the rich have been evading military service as long as their has been an America. They want the blood spilled as long as it is someone else's. Just because I was in the military does not mean I have to agree with the logic anymore. Like I said earlier in this thread, your life experience has to teach you something.
The old saying about paying attention to history or it is doomed to repeat itself is still alive and well.
You see jarasan to end a lot of this stuff you have to have a country totally committed and America will not even vote in elections. As long as the problems are not hitting folks directly in the face who cares is the attitude. When Americans have had enough they will respond. I just hope and pray the wait is not too long.