Ugh.. I'm disgusted right now..

So I'm here over at my mums casa right now.. told her I'd stop by to pick up a few things, and on the desk by the computer is an obituary about Spc. Nathaniel Aguirre..

First off.. Who is this Specialist Nathaniel Aguirre you ask? He was a role model to his sister, proud son to his parents and a natural born leader. He was proud to serve his country with every ounce of his being and where is he now? He's buried in Grand Prairie, TX after being shipped home in a bodybag after a sniper took his life in goddamn Iraq..

This man wasn't a friend, nor was he family.. In actuality... he was my mothers co-workers son... And seeing my own mother that upset over knowing her co-worker is never going to see his son EVER again... It really hits home man.. I can't imagine losing a brother, or a friend, or if had a son or daughter serving.. knowing they're not walking thru the front door ever again...

WHAT THE HELL IS ALL THIS FOR? Goddamn this administration for the blood its shed over oil and empire. Its one thing to just watch from the sidelines but when it hits home in the slightest bit it changes the perspective you take on things. I was no fan of the Dubya before all of this happened, but now I loathe what this man stands for.. Apathy towards his own countrymen, contempt for the rest of the civilized world.. The US is supposed to be a beacon for lovers of freedom and democracy.. What happened to the great Crusader America that helped liberate Europe from the facists?

I love my country.. but its crap like this that makes me ashamed to be an american..

Has the war hit home for you? Do you think it won't?

 

No one I know personally is dead in Iraq. But I do have a few military buddies who Thank God! (and I'm not even Christian) aren't in Iraq.

What can I say? Compared to those who've lost loved ones or even acquaintances I can't compare.

All I can say is that I'm glad my friends are alive and I can't even imagine how others worry or mourn about their loved ones.

God damn Bush #2.

Ever since Bush came to office and unleashed his fury of incompetence and evil I can't stop thinking of that old saying "May you never be cursed with interesting times"

Jeez I wish we lived in more mundane circumstances.

 

This is why our troops are there. This is why our troops enlist and re-enlist, serve more than their obligation:

From: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15450497/

You say he was proud to serve his country and yet you turn the reason for him being there as a political stunt... Whatever the reasons the govt has for sending troops over you can be sure as hell that our troops are there to do good, not fight for oil. Be proud that he had a sense of duty to the people of the world.

Will this hit home for me. I sure as hell hope so, with luck im off to RMC Duntroon in January and if so, in 3 years I'll be in Afghanistan or Soloman Is protecting medical and construction teams, giving the children of the world the freedom to play in safety.

I'm sorry for being harsh, I'm not trying to kill your sorrow but I sense the same sentiment atm that made people boo our troops home from vietnam.

 

Hey DJ, don't be ashamed of being American. Its the person running your country that deserves the boot and shouldn't call himself American.

It sickens me too.

 

One of the younger fighters at my gym who happens to be in my weight class will be entering the ring for the first time in a couple months. It could also be his last time as he goes to Marine boot camp in February.

The kid is eighteen and has no idea what he's getting into. Eighteen is just too young to die.

 

It's their job, they sign up for it.

I wouldn't sign up myself as I would not feel comfortable with my life in the hands of politicians...but others(my older brother among them) sign up for whatever reason.This should come as no surprise, joining the military is not the best way to go about avoiding getting shot at..

 

No one is happy with the situaion in Iraq. The problem is no one is sure of how to get ourselves out of the morass we've gotten ourselves into. It does us no good to point fingers now and say we didn't support going in the first place. I didn't, but we as a nation, as a collective whole went there and opened pandoras box. Now we have Hobson's Choice.

We can pull out now, and let Iraq devolve into the what is sure to be the bloodiest and most vicious civil war ever seen on earth; as every regional power in the area will be semi-secretly involved with all parties bent on genocide. If we do that and you think a power like the Taliban or Al Quida won't sieze control you're deluding yourself. The extremist hardliners are the ones with the will to rule with and iron fist, the only thing that would bring "order" to the nation after we pulled out and left chaos in our very wide wake. Or, alternatively, we can stay there, hang through a very long convoluted process (think a decade minimum), and come out with a mediocre result no one really would have envisioned or wanted in the first place.

Two good friends of mine have been over in Iraq. One, an army specialist came back missing his leg. The other a Marine is still there with his wife and child here. I hate this situation, but even with people I love there, I can better stomach the notion of America being a nation willing to make the neccessary sacrifice to clean up the mess it made, even if paid in the currency of our own blood than the notion of America, the rediculous bully who opened the door to chaos and ruin and left innocents half a world away to suffer the concequences of our actions.


2,347 Americans have died in Iraq since the begining of this wretched war.

More than 655,000 Iraqui civilians have died.


Is their blood that much cheaper than ours, when we were the ones who opened the veins?

I hate it.

But we will either clean this mess we made, or we really are the monster others make us out to be.

 

Or we could call up Saddam and give him his country back..he may be an evil, brutal man but he kept the country under control.

How many people is Saddam accused of killing?

Compare that to the number of innocents who have died in our attempts to do a good deed and I think you will find Saddam managed better.

 

Just as sad as losing those kids is the fact that wars are not won. They simply stop and everyone goes back home. Except for the dead. So tragic.

koyo

 

But control isn't really the issue is it. If you follow that logic then we could easily abide by Stalin, Hitler or Pol Pot. They too were evil, brutal men that kept their countries under control.

Aside from the fact that not all of his country was under control. If it was then he wouldn't have had so many problems with Kurd insurgencies.

Again - this is flawed thinking.
The numbers that went missing under Saddam's regime are huge. They still don't have a full tally of the thousands that went missing because of him. The fact that he was busy gassing his own citizens I think is ample proof enough that he's not exactly cut out to run the place.

That being said... I hope you can discern that the above is not the same as supporting the current administrations absurd policies in the region. Much of what kept Saddam in power were machinations of Rumsfeld and others who were happy as a clam with Saddam when he was buying their weapons and going to war with Iran... but when he no longer jumped through the right hoops of fire... they came down on him.

Saddam didn't solve any of the problems that are the underlying cause of strife and a large if not much larger part of the reason why so many civillians are being killed in Iraq. The Sunni/Shia problem has existed longer and has deeper roots than the American occupation of Iraq. It will in the long run kill more Iraqi's than the Americans and their Allies put together.

Again - the real issues are more centered around the power shifts and struggles taking place in the Middle East and South Asia between the different sects of Islam - but most people either don't know enough about the different sects involved or are too lazy to do some reading to understand what is really going on. Until people can get their heads around the underlying issues between the Sunni's and the Shi'ites... the American occupation is a convenient and popular target... but in reality there are and have a been a whole host of problems that predate the occupation.

 

So if they believed what their superiors were doing was wrong?
They should have the same rights as anyone else to stay away from the fighting if they thought it was. But no, they'd probably get thrown in jail or court martialled. (I don't know what would happen...can someone enlighten me?)
I was going to join up as a musician/medic. But I have changed my mind knowing that one more person might die for something as stupid as a non-renewable energy source and a misuse of control. I don't want to be in the hands of a useless president's lapdog.
I don't think I would fight even if there was another world war. Because what it would be for would not be worth it.
The money spent in the war for oil would be better used to build more solar energy plants and sustainable sources.
True, Saddam Hussein needed to be got rid of, but it is NOT America's or Britain's place to do it. They may be powerful nations, but what gives anyone the right they should interfere in someone else's place?

 

How would it be possible for soldiers to choose which war they fought in???? It is the decision of politicans to go to war, not soldiers, even if they don't agree with the war.It's unfortunate,but that's just the way it works.

It really is tragic. I work in a war memorial,so on a day to day basis read about young boys who went away to fight, those soldiers who went away and died on the first day of the Somme didn't want to go either.

The Iraq war is so contentious, but it is the duty of those soldiers who signed up for the military to go and do what they are ordered. They did sign up, yes it is tragic that they die and families lose them, but this is the nature of war. I'm not saying that I agree with the war at all, but that is the nature of joining up.

 

Only that is doesn't work that way. Military personnel don't have the same rights as civillians in many ways. This is why military personnel fall under military law as well as civilian law. I'm entirely sure of the finer points of it... but when you sign up for the military they own your ass.

On a very basic level soldiers don't have a job description to question their superiors orders. They aren't privy to the bigger picture in many ways. They have neither the time nor the resources to be questioning orders. Their purpose is to carry them out. They understand this implicit contract between themselves and their superiors. In fact that contract is actually explicit when you enlist.

Only that doesn't make any sense - as WWIII has not started you can't say whether or not it'd be worth it.

Because as history shows... that's what the most powerful nations do. I don't really think there was anyone else capable of removing Saddam from power. Certainly the groups in his own country that opposed him were too far under the thumb to be able to do anything about it.

Again - not saying it's 'right' that we're in Iraq... but I guess if I had to try to put some positive spin on the whole debacle that'd be it.

 

Death. It's what war is all about. Everyone dies in a war, even the ones who return. Don't ask me any questions about this, either you understand it or you don't.

 

Jester: I sympathise with how you feel, I'm lucky, I've only had one friend deployed to Iraq and he came back ok, he wasn't to badly changed by the experience that I saw except to have a considerably stronger haterd of Iraqis than when he left.

For me, in a way the whole army thing appeals to me, I would love to be able to serve in the Army but I just don't feel like I could give up my right to decide whether or not to kill someone and entrust it to elected officials.

 

I agree. That's what makes it so sad.

 

Its good he came back still together in one piece...

For everyone else.. don't get me twisted here.. I love my country and I would jump in a second to serve if it called me.. something like a throwback to the mass voluntary enlistment of G.I.s in WW2. If to serve the greater good then I'm all for it.. Hell I've even considered enlisting before all of this came to pass.

We know what our soldiers are there to do by what we're told.. But my governments reasons for being there in the first place are based on arrogance and a bold faced lie to the American people.. We were told we are going to war in Iraq to find WMDs.. a likely scapegoat right? Rid the Evil Dictator of his sinister arsenal and save the world? Now my opinion is the world portrays us as a bunch of oafs that can't get our own intelligence straight, and whats worse is we have a president that sounds like a broken record and shows nothing but contempt for the rest of the worlds opinion.

"Stay the course (more people die)"
"We're gonna stay the course (even more people end up dying)"

And whoever said that I was something akin to a vietnam protestor.. if thats what I am.. then so be it.. But lets not forget we supposedly went to vietnam to prevent the communists from taking over and causing a dominoe effect of countries falling to communism and saving S.E. asia from the evil Soviet sphere of influence.. Well check your books.. The country went communist anyways and that supposed domino effect never happened. How many good American boys did we sacrifice for nothing there?

 

I can understand you Slindsay.
I have been a conscript in the Belgian army.
Out ot 8 conscripts in my section,4 admited that they where not chure if they would be able to kill on commande(i was one of them)

 

I'm affraid you are dreaming my friend.
The situation in Irak and Afganistan is gething worce day by day.
I think there's little hope for the future,it's only a metter of time before the troops will be pulled back.
If only you new haw i hope that i'm wrong,but i fear the worce.
:bang:

 

It hasn't yet, purely because I'm not actually out there probably. But my dad is supposed to be going out in 2008 for 3 months, so I'm not sure how I'll feel then.

:cry: