“So Dave avoided combat by joining the Airforce and picking where and how he could serve.”

Uh, you mean Egypt, Algeria, Morocco, Qatar, Indonesia, Malaysia?

There are many Muslim-majority nations that don’t suffer unduly from fundamentalist based terrorism.

I agree what Clinton did was reprehensible and really stupid. The Republicans were breathing down his neck looking for something to get him with and then he has a sleazy affair in the White House.

Very reckless, and shows no thought not only for his own administration but the Democratic party that he led.

Also, by keeping troops in Arabia, he was feeding Al Qaeda rage.

Absolutely true that Clinton shares a lot of the responsibility, as I have previously said.

But if you mean the United States I would remind you that the fact remains that Iraq did not attack us nor were they listed as a prime threat to the U.S.

there is NO shortage of contractors because they bring home about 120K a year tax free. If the raise the pay of the soldiers to that level, there will no shortage of people willing to sign upKen, I recently read that the retention rate for our special forces is down for that very reason. Our highest trained military personal can go to Blackwater and make well over 120K, in the same light there are several other private companies that pay well for regular soldiers. You could have a point.

The problem is people even though it keeps being said that there is no military solution, there is little talk except about a military solution. To quote Richard Armatage “We are dropping a good deal of our military, our money and time into using the Military as the only form of diplomacy in Iraq. A side effect for an administration that thinks the only form of diplomacy is to say “Do what we say or else!”. Is that we have no other choice but to use diplomacy where military force is needed.”.

Why not a draft? Fewer than 1 percent of the population has a dog in this fight and that one percent is being stretched to the limit – we give a lot of lip service to supporting our military, but lip service doesn’t buy 1 bandage, a crutch etc ..

Comparatively speaking most of the contractors there are not fighting a war as our soldiers are — they are on the gravy train created by Cheney / Halliburton etc …… probably the same gravy chain your kids will be on — and contributing very little

And Nancy Pelosi needs to put a stop to this madness.

They have not voted us out of the country because they have not been asked to and not surprisingly that won’t happen unless we allow it (hmm an Army of Occupation?) — most of them want us out — most of us want us out — something about a duck goes here ….

Get us out — Impeach / censure GWB and DC before they can do much more damage —

Kev — same comments to you — those job examples you cite do not have the same risks or level of risks of combat troops — in a war zone, wether on the front line or in a rear postion you are 24/7 risk of being rocketed, mortared etc ….. and I would venture a guess most of those professions earn considerably more with better bennies —

What is missing from this war from day one is a shared sacrifice of everyone, a viable energy policy and competent leadership. Less than 1 per cent of the population is fighting this war — the rest are profiting on it ….. SHAME ON YOU !!!

However, due to this war, NPR reported yesterday that Army enlistments were several thousand below target-level last year. The WSJ reported today that recruiters are being forced to dip down to lower-than-desired aptitude-test scores to get people who want to join, and are in some cases even being forced to waive past criminal convictions. Now the article didn’t say if the waivers were applicants with a single DUI at age 16, a single shoplifting conviction or carrying a pocketknife in middle school, or got caught with a single joint on a traffic stop, so we don’t know how serious the allowable crimes are. But even with these waivers, the Army can’t fill its recruitment quotas. (Navy and Air Force quotas are much easier to fill, since groundcrewmen and offshore sailors in a non-naval war aren’t often in harm’s way. The USMC gets people who are itchin to fight. ;))

Sorry to hear about your friend and your colleague’s wife. That sucks. Paramedi Friend now has Hep C from a needlestick. Gloves just don’t seem to stop needles. Sad

As an anesthesiologist, I put needles into several people a day. Got an occasional self-puncture, but was lucky. One of my colleagues, a nurse anesthetist doing a life-saving emergency surgery case accidentally punctured himself after injecting a patient and got Hepatitis B. A colleague of my wife go Hepatitis C. Not benign diseases, believe me. And you don’t even want to think about risks to frontline-provider paramedics and EMS techs.

As a former military man, and as a current fire and ems provide, I agree. i just want to start a conversation of overall national policy. Kosovo deployment good, Kosovo deployment bad. Darfur should be deployed to, Iraq should not. On and on. B lied, no he didn’t. Blah Blah Blah. I think that we should take a good look at deployment policy, regardless of who is in the White House at the time.

I do kow what I’m talking about. It’s spelled out the world over where the radical ISlamist have taken over.

The Iraqis have yet to vote for us to leave, hindsight is always better than foresight. Wrong does not make “lies”, can;t prove otherwise. That is part of the problem I have had in the past lisenting to dissenters. They start out with the “Bush lied, people died” mantra and I think, just another one. However, I agree that the current situation is unstainable. Hence, I offer the following for discussion. It is only about half thought thru, but a place to start. We immediately begin a pullot of our troops throughout the world. We leave a small training contingent in Iraq, only to train Iraqui troops. We leave all foreign countries and redeploy troops along our borders, and in our ports of arrival for security purposes. We allow all of those countries in the world to their own devices. That includes, Korea, Europe, The Balkans, etc. And, we remove those countries from our nuclear umbrella. They gotta get their own. However, we also do the following:Because of the immediate disruption of the worlds oil, we allow drilling in ANWAR and all coastal waters. In return, oil companies must spend at least 30% of their research and development and exploration dollars in renewable energy. We build nuclear and wind power turbines wherever feasible. Further, we position air craft carriers throughout the world. They have one mission. Defense of the United States. We tell everyone, do what you will to your own. If you take an American captive, we will come and get you. We will kill all of your associates, regardless. IF you are a nation that sponsors terorism, and one of those terrorists attack the UNITED STATES or it’s people, we will reduce your governmental buildings to rubble. We don;t care if you are Saudi Arabia, yada yada yada. WE simply don;pt care. Attack us, and feel the wrath. Kill your own people, we don;t care. Kill us, you cease to exist.

Stop sanctions against Saddam.Get us out of Saudi.Stop supporting Israel.

OH, I forgot, he had to spend all of his time, defending himself against the Monica scandal.

“To assuage uneasy consciences, the many who do not serve proclaim their high regard for the few who do. This has vaulted America’s fighting men and women to the top of the nation’s moral hierarchy. The character and charisma long ago associated with the pioneer or the small farmer—or carried in the 1960s by Dr. King and the civil-rights movement—has now come to rest upon the soldier. The signatories of the Appeal for Redress make full use of the prerogatives of this ranking.

Justice alone seemingly demands that they be allowed to do so. The thousands of Americans killed in Iraq include no members of Congress and not a single general. Shouldn’t those who bear the burden of war have some say in determining its future course?

…In fact, however, empowering groups of soldiers to join in the debate over contentious issues is short-sighted and dangerous. Implicit in the appeal is the suggestion that national-security policies somehow require the consent of those in uniform. Lately, media outlets have reinforced this notion, reporting as newsworthy the results of polls that asked soldiers whether administration plans meet with their approval.

On matters of policy, those who wear the uniform ought to get a vote, but it’s the same one that every other citizen gets—the one exercised on Election Day. To give them more is to sow confusion about the soldier’s proper role, which centers on service and must preclude partisanship. Legitimating soldiers’ lobbies is likely to warp national-security policy and crack open the door to praetorianism.

The Appeal for Redress does not pose an immediate threat to the republic. It’s been signed by only a tiny minority of U.S. soldiers, and the movement could simply peter out, becoming little more than a minor historical curiosity, rather than a harbinger of something larger. Yet in either case, it offers further evidence of advancing constitutional decay.

As the Founders anticipated, a democracy intent on maintaining a great and powerful military establishment confronts acute challenges. Deflecting those challenges today requires renewed attention to hallowed principles of civilian control. In recent decades, these principles have eroded badly. The irresponsible politicking of generals and admirals is one reason. But so, too, is the abdication by Congress of its constitutional duties on matters of peace and war—and the recent exploitation of that abdication by an imperial, irresponsible, and habitually dissembling administration.

In an environment where governing principles have seemingly ceased to govern, it is surely understandable that some members of a more assertive military would be tempted to dip their toes into political waters. What is unforgivable is that elected officials and activists have indulged and nourished that desire, while the problems that are producing an increasingly politicized military establishment continue to be ignored.”

(I apologize upfront that this link requires a subscription, paid in full, before it can be read)

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200705/military-dissent/2

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The author, Andrew Bacevich, is a very interesting Old School Conservative:

“Both his recent books are critical of American foreign policy in the post Cold War era, maintaining the United States has developed an overreliance on military power, in contrast to diplomacy, to achieve its foreign policy aims. He also asserts that policymakers in particular, and the American people in general, overestimate the usefulness of military force in foreign affairs. Bacevich believes romanticized images of war in popular culture (especially movies) interact with the lack of actual military service among most of the population to produce in the American people a highly unrealistic, even dangerous notion of what combat and military service is really like. Finally, he attempts to place current policies in historical context, as part of an American tradition going back to the Presidency of Woodrow Wilson, a tradition (of an interventionist, militarized foreign policy) which has strong bi-partisan roots. To lay an intellectual foundation for this argument, he cites two influential historians from the 20th century: Charles Beard and William Appleman Williams.Ultimately, Bacevich eschews the partisanship of current debate about American foreign policy as short-sighted and ahistorical. Instead of blaming only one President (or his advisors) for contemporary policies, both Republicans and Democrats share responsibility for policies which may not be in the nation’s best interest.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Bacevich

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I think Bacevich would agree with Mary in principle (as do I), but I’m less sure he’d agree with her tactic (a return to a conscription army).

His point was that you don’t use the draft as some type of social/political agenda.

All this talk about war for oil.I would like to hear the libs ideas of what we would do if tomorrow the oil dried up? What if the entire Mid East said no more.

What do you think would happen to your job within 3 months. Do we all go on welfare? Since no one is working who will foot the bill? We’re not allowed to mine our own resources, so what would happen?

Will 7.25/hour for minimum wage cover the cost of 8.00 a gallon gas. I have a 65 mile round trip to go to work, what would that do to my budget.

I make widgets, my company sells them for 3.00 each. The cost to my company to now truck widgets to the store has increased by 100% (3.00 gas now, 6.00 gas then) do you think my company will sell as many widgets? Do you think my company will be able to hold on to the number of employees they have? They are forced to lay off half the employees. What do the laid off employees do? Will my taxes go down when the price of gas goes up? How many of you have received raises since the price of gas has now topped 3.00. Is the price of products higher or lower now due to the price of gas?

Hate to break it to you kids. It may sound all good on the posting and in your little cliques of “hate bush.” But our economy RUNS on oil. Our old people keep from freezing to death because of oil.

“Sorry you might freeze to death grandma, but we are not allowed to drill in Alaska because the striped/spotted marmaduke may only have 3 baby marmadukes instead of 4. Rest in peace.”

So either come up with a quick workable solution, or let us develop our own resources or let us continue our use of oil. Which is it?

Yeah, you really don’t know what you’re talking about, do you?

Why didn’t these America-haters who wanted to rip our hearts out attack us in 1970? Or 1985? Or 1990?

They attacked us when the Ayatollah took over in Iran, because we had supported the Shah (king) for 20 years (after we helped overthrow the democratically elected PM Mossegadeh in the fifties).

They attacked us in Lebanon because we had stationed troops in Lebanon (there to quell the civil war which we help start by overthrowing the democratically elected Islamic government).

They attacked us in 1993, in ‘95, in 2001 because we had troops in Arabia, troops Dick Cheney promised would not be there “one day” after the first Gulf War ended.

We finally pulled the troops out.

Too little, too late.

The continued occupation of Iraq begets violence against the United States. It doesn’t alleviate it.