Con et al:
I understand the frustration that many see in the current admistration and feel that it is like any other that has been in power since I can remember.  What President Clinton did to the military causing the Army to lose almost half a million in total Army end strength (Active, Guard, & Reserve) along with his increasing the deployments for us.  If he had taken action as we easily see in hindsight we may never have had a 9-11 but I do not blame him. 

I would go to Dafur in a heartbeat to help those people that are being murdered raped and having there women and children made slaves.  Why not look at the true nature of the Islamic-fascist way of life and read the truth about how a Palistinian woman murdered her daughter because her sons raped her just to keep family honor.  Also think of the young girls in Saudia Arabia who were not allowed to flee a burning building because they were not in Islamic attire.  I am sure you saw in Tet very similar suicidal attacks that seemed so strange to us Americans. 

We still need to pull together not fight over some of the stupid things that politians fight over.  I take offense at the thought that guns are the problem, if people practiced love like Jesus taught we would not be murdering or raping or bashing in the head of our fellow man.  If the Second ammendment was really allowed to stand as it is written, an armed American would help to keep crime down.  This is verified in the States that have right to carry laws. 

I know that it is a fantacy to think that all people will come to this state of agreement and that is one reason I have stayed so long in the Army.  We need law and order to go along with our freedoms. 

Very Respectfully,
David

From: Over Half my Life in the Military:  “

What we need is for America to wake up and realize that as much as people hate President Bush, he is doing the best he can and needs our support.”

David,

I’ll respond to your piece as one who has walked in soldier’s boots, although for a much shorter time than you.  I was drafted, 9/66, and got out 6/68.  Yes, I was in for Tet.  One of the main reasons I was opposed to this war was that I knew, from those terrible years, how difficult it is to know in time who the enemy is.  It was inevitable that we would have Hadithas, etc. with all the worldwide outrage that followed.  It was also inevitable that prolonged combat would numb our moral senses.  This has happened in every recorded war of any length, from the Peloponnesian to the present.  To think that it couldn’t happen to Americans is to live in fantasyland.

I’ve seen Dachau, I’ve seen the Berlin Wall, and I didn’t know until the afternoon of 9/11 that my wife and two of my sons had survived.  I know we have to defend ourselves and our freedoms.  I’m also sure President Bush is doing his best but, as was clear to me during the 2000 debates, his best is woefully inadequate.  He never had a thought for anything or anyone outside of our borders before 9/11, and it shows.  He skillfully used 9/11 to cement power in Washington but, in so doing failed in the primary mission of a wartime President.  Instead of rallying and uniting the country, calling for shared sacrifice, he used terrorism and war as wedge issues to copper-fasten his party’s hold on power, and to attack the underpinnings of the freedoms he (as did you and I, when we entered the service)took an oath to protect.  He has headed an administration in which politics trumps policy, and ideological correctness trumps competence.  We need to support our country, and force him to open his mind get his act together.  He can’t do that, as long as he gets the enabling narcotic of deference to the Commander in Chief.

The “whataboutery” in your mention of urban violence is a non sequitur.  I will point out, however, that the tax dollars of many of these lefty cities, especially Sodom on the Hudson, support the pork that underpins the economic health of many of the “rugged individual” rural states of our country.  If that tax money stayed at home, and guns didn’t flow in from NRA land, the levels of economic health and violence would take inverse, and desirable, trajectories.

Sincerely,
Con

I guess that most of you have not walked a mile in the boots of a Soldier.  I read Kevin Tillman’s commentary and indeed he is saddened by the loss of his brother and the state of our conflict but it does not invalidate the need for our nation to fight for freedom. 

By far the most frustrating thing I experienced in Iraq was the inability to ID your enemy at most times.  This frustration is a part of almost every Soldier.  It is suppressed by most since we know that the children who love to come and gather around us and the families who express true gratitude offset that frustration. 

Why is it that we focus so much on the losses in Iraq and Afghanistan and not on the higher losses to violent crime per day in total sum of the murders in the top 20 American cities? 

Who runs most of those cities, the Democrats do and they are trying to make this fight for freedom from attack an issue rather than fix what is on their doorstep. 

What we need is for America to wake up and realize that as much as people hate President Bush, he is doing the best he can and needs our support. 

I am glad to have served in the Army in Iraq, Afghanistan, Korea, Germany, Bosnia and a few other countries that I did not spend as much time in.  By far the American people owe a huge debt to the common Soldier who is slugging this out on the streets of Iraqi and Afghani cities as well as bringing peace and order to New Orleans when the Democrat leadership of the city gave up.

Very Respectfully,
David

Wow.  I think you should tell that to Kevin Tillman’s face.  How is it that someone is a coward and a fool for speaking their mind.  You’re for freedom of speech aren’t you?  You would probably rather give up your liberties for freedom right?  Would you prefer to live in a country with no civil liberties?  It looks like that’s where were headed.  I think Kevin Tillman was quite articulate in his writing if you ask me.

“Karl Rove is cool”......and you’re an idiot American to paraphrase Green Day.

Don’t wanna be an AMERICAN idiot.
Don’t want a nation under the media.
And can you hear the sound of hysteria?
The subliminal mind fuck AMERICA

Welcome to a new kind of tension.
All across the alien nation.
Where everything isn’t meant to be okay.
Television dreams of tomorrow.
We’re not the ones who’re meant to follow.
For that’s enough to argue.

Well maybe I’m the faggot AMERICAN
I’m not a part of a redneck agenda.
Now everybody que the propaganda.
And sing along in the age of paranoia.

Welcome to a new kind of tension.
All across the alien nation.
Where everything isn’t meant to be okay.
Television dreams of tomorrow.
We’re not the ones who’re meant to follow.
For that’s enough to argue.

Don’t wanna be an AMERCAN idiot.
One nation controlled by the media.
Information age of hysteria.
It’s calling out to idiot America.

Welcome to a new kind of tension.
All across the alien nation.
Where Everything isn’t meant to be okay.
Television dreams of tomorrow.
We’re not the ones who’re meant to follow.
For that’s enough to argue.

stay the course my (dibetic) fot!

“The Best and The Brightest?”

“Dumb and Dumber” is more like it tho I agree there are disturbing similarities, with Kissinger apparently experiencing an ecstatic flashback of Nobel Peace Prize vertigo, reliving his relative youth (power as aphrodisiac), and re-fighting that other “crazy Asian war” this time in the southwest portion of the continent.

For now, “State of Denial” will have to do.

Kevin Tillman is a coward and a fool.

this is our generations Vietnam. REad best and brightest by halberstram. Incredible similarities.

MEMO TO REDSTATE AMERICAN-VALUE CUT-&-RUNNERS--

SMELL THE $ULPHUR YET?  Yup, it’s Your PResident--tenderly enabled by Hell’s Cherub (aka Turd Blossom, Karl Rove)

CHICKENHAWKIU$ WREXUS
A Folksy Free-Range-War-Future$ Breed
of Martial “Product Launcher”

~An over-privileged, over-indulged “American” who would be “King”

aka: The Enemy Within

ARTIST GENERAL’S WARNING:
Stoploss: Soul America:
From THE
Most Chickenhawked War in U.S. History
http://www.symbolman.com/chickenhawks.html

“Anybody want some wood?”
--W (very nervously) in debate with Kerry on Presidential Portfolio ‘conflict of interest’…

imagine the ‘next question’ --the growing Bush Estate hard-wired to Defense Industry--re: how much of it is ‘bloody’--how much might 43 ‘expect’ if the ‘Death tax’ is eliminated?

IF IT’S GOT NOTHING TO DO WITH PROFIT, WHY WOULDN’T THE BUSH WAR CABINET WITH READY CONVICTION ANSWER “YES” TO RECU$AL-FOR-LIFE QUESTION? Do they hope it’ll never get asked of them?  duh...what do YOU think?

Re-posted July 06
http://www.kyndmusic.com/2006/07/01/artist-general-war ning-recusal-question-bad-for-bush/

WHOA!
Takin’ us to WAR?
~You ForGOT to “ReCU$E” Yourselves!

“Who knows, maybe mainstream journalists might even begin questioning why a war cabinet of Texas oilmen lied their way into occupying some of the most oil-rich regions of the world. . .”

--Steven T. Jones / San Francisco Bay Guardian


A SLIPPERY-SLOPE QUESTION OF

["POTENTIAL!"] “SACRIFICE” IN “TIME OF WAR”

MORAL ARGUMENTS AGAINST ASKING IT? 
--NONE.

WATCHIN’ ‘EM SQUIRM?  PRICELESS.

Imperfect but Plausibly-"Effective" Compliance
to be “Increasingly” Monitored by the Blogosphere:

AN “OATH” OF MARTIAL OFFICE

To Strike or Not-to-Strike
A Potentially National
Moral Funnybone

In Requesting of Public Servants Exercising Fatal Authority In Our Name A Formal

“DECLARATION OF DISOWNERSHIP”

--A For-the-Record Concession that No Entitlement Exists to Present or Future Personal Profit ‘Demonstrably Connected’ to Any War Authorized, Promoted, Advanced or Otherwise
“Engaged on Their Watch”:

We the People Hold Ourselves Deserving of “An Explanation” Should the Answer to This “Recu$al-for-Life” Question be “No”.

If the Answer is “Yes”, Then Be It Understood:
Martial Planner Agrees
to Surrender-on-Demand Said Profit--
(Deliberate or “Unintentional”, Exposed or “Discovered")
to Veteran Benefit Groups, College Funds For Children of the Fallen, etc…

IF NOT NOW, WHEN?

...IN AMERICA…
TO ASK OR NOT TO ASK?
~SHOULD NEVER
BE THE QUESTION


ironically? :
“relevant” as ever…

TRUTH TO POWER:

Healthy for the Media,
Good for Democracy--

Bad for “Our Due” Mind$et Public Servants

Moral Multi-tasking
~A question of courage
in a measure of character~
...for the Asking…