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So I am sick of the right wing slogan "Support our Troops". Yet their tours are lngthened, their families suffer and they receive little in pay or benefits upon their return home. Then they are getting sent back for more tours. The dems had a decent idea of requiring troops to spend equal time at home as they do in Iraq (1 year on, one year off) but our troop supporting leaders on the right squashed it.
Heres an idea
Each time a soldier completes a tour of duty in Iraq he receives 500K. In the event he is killed, his family receives $1,000,000.
To pay for this we can have windfall taxes on oil companies. They are each raking in billions of dollars each quarter and this war is honestly going to benefit them more than us as a nation. If our war was really about terror or the inhumane actions of a regime, we would also be in Darfur and we'd have many many more troops in Afghanistan.
Any thoughts? I think there needs to be some action associated with "Support our Troops" its not just a bumper sticker. I'll even pay a little extra in taxes, they deserve it and they should have never been sent to this sham of a war.
"Cliches about supporting the troops are designed to distract from failed policies, policies promoted by powerful special interests that benefit from war, anything to steer the discussion away from the real reasons the war in Iraq will not end anytime soon." -Ron Paul
"Cliches about supporting the troops are designed to distract from failed policies, policies promoted by powerful special interests that benefit from war, anything to steer the discussion away from the real reasons the war in Iraq will not end anytime soon." -Ron Paul
I agree with many of Mr. Paul's proposals but not enough to vote for him.
Billy4 - we lost before we went into Afghanistan or Iraq. We lost when the fascist neocons stole the election in 2000 and 2004. We lost our Republic in all but name and I wonder how we will get it back. For a start we can repeal Homeland Security and the Patriot Acts.
In the long term we need to close most if not all of our overseas military bases, shut down the clandestine ops section of the CIA and use our military to defend our borders. Let the rest of the world go to chaos by them selves. If our overseas investors take a loss that will be too bad because the government should never back a private investment in a foreign country.
One of the very few things about which I probably agree with Ron Paul.
However, I think the military industrial complex made a severe miscalculation on Iraq. Now it is all about face saving and delaying the inevitable I don't think oil companies are making all that much money in Iraq, at least not directly as intended.
Supporting the troops is a rather thoughtless meme that the right has used in this country to bury criticism of the military industrial complex. Always has been. It is also a cheap way for lazy people to feel like they are doing something without actually doing anything.
Thats what I'm hearing these days when people yell support the troops. I gave this failed Iraq policy a lot of chance and support, not because I believed in the President's handling of Iraq, but because I hoped like hell we could stabilize Iraq enough for them to secure their country long term. While things are going pretty descent the last few weeks, it is quiet obvious that Bush is not going to be satisfied with a stabilized Iraq, even if we can get that to happen. He wants to start another war, and send more troops to the middle east. He is depleting our financial resources, and he is depleting our military strength.
Supporting our troops means caring about their well being both here at home and abroad. It doesn't require wanting to send them off to war in order to support them.
"Support Our Troops" means supporting them during their obligation to complete their mission. It means not emboldening their enemy by not providing films and articles which emphasize the mistakes of a few as if they are commonplace, in order to make a political statement. It means allowing them to complete their missions without ramifications from doing what is legitimately necessary to defeat their enemy.
To me support our troops means ralleying behind them even when you don't agree with the war. Supporting troops has nothing and I repeat nothing to do with politics..
WWII about 3/4 of the way through it there was a strong antiwar movement that was pressuring the whitehouse to find a way out of it. I think most of are glad we saw through to the end.
I don't agree with the war in Iraq. I don't agree with Nation building.
I don't agree with sending our troops into harms way when the conflict is none of our business. ie Kosovo, Somalia, the sudan etc.
But our troops are our business. They are our sons and daughters, our brothers and sisters. We allow the media to trash them. We have elected officials who slander them. If you want to support our troops vote against whomever is currently in office. It is they who have failed us, not our troops.
Our elected officials excel at finger pointing, name calling and excuse finding.
Not JUST GWB but all of them.
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