I don’t normally give into political rants but this has been rattling around my head for a few days and I want it out. So here it is, maybe it will be quiet in my head.
I support and believe in the troops of my country.
I do not support or I believe in the leadership of my country.
It is bad that the leadership I don’t believe in is in charge of what the troops I do believe in are doing. I am not happy about that.
I support a reasonable plan to get our troops out of Iraq. I don’t think our leadership has one. I think we need to give up on democracy in the Middle East now and work on a system that will build the foundations for some sort of democracy in the future. Democracy can not be enforced from the top down, it has to grow from the bottom up. It can’t work when violence and suicidal bombings are considered appropriate ways of solving problems. The current culture in the Middle East is not ready for what our leadership thinks it wants to establish. I am not even sure our form of democracy is the right thing for them. I think they need something like their own version of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Someone that has the country’s best interests at heart and leads. I think the problem with Saddam Hussein wasn’t that he had complete control but what he did with that control.
I know I don’t know enough to even have a clue what really needs to be done. But I do feel that our leadership is not on the right path to figuring it out. Sending in more people to fight and die for the wrong thing is also wrong. I don’t support it.
Nod. I’ve figured that democracy requires two things.
1) that most of the people are willing to put their lives at risk to achieve it. There will be risks; if people would rather not face them, then it might not say anything bad about them, but it suggests that they’re not ready for democracy.
2) the country must think of itself as a nation, first and foremost. “Well… if it’s good for the nation, then, in the end, it’s good for me. So long as it’s not *really* bad for me, that is.”
I think Iraq might not have either. I’m pretty sure they don’t have the second; I won’t ask whether or not they have the first. (I won’t ask, because people will point to how much they’ve suffered so far “in pursuit of democracy”. No, they haven’t suffered “in pursuit of democracy”, they’ve suffered because we brought war to their nation.)
I appreciated reading this post. I agree with you. My boyfriend just got deployed to Kuwait and while I will support the troops because he is among them, I cannot get behind the Bush administration’s plan in Iraq. Sending more people to risk their lives is the wrong thing to do, but I admire the sacrifice our military personnel make.
Having had a son over there for two tours, I understand and agree with you entirely. He made it home; I grieve for all the mothers whos’ sons didn’t make it home.
The boys are doing what they perceive to be their duty. They are acting out of love for their country and a sense of personal honor. The government of that same country is failing to live up to its part of the bargain, and take care of them.
Sparrow
I however…
I believe you cannot support the troops without supporting their mission. That being said, let me explain. You can disagree with our policy, you can want them home, but whenever anyone states for the world to hear that we need to pull out and leave the Iraqi people to kill each other in the same tribal manner they have for centuries, it is counter productive. Everytime a public figure says the “american public doesn’t want our troops there” or “we can’t win this” or my least favorite any quote with the word “vietnam” in it. It undermines our troops morale, and boosts the terrorists morale. The people killing our boys and girls over there see these messages as a reinforcement of their belief in Radical Islam’s ultimate victory over every other religion in the world.
Do I think we should’ve overthrown Saddam over the weapons debacle? No, I think we should’ve done this the first time with the Bush senior but once again world sentiment wasn’t behind it.
The reality of politics in the middle east is that a ruler must rule with an iron fist or not rule at all. Fighting has always been over which tribe gets to rule their neighbors, and it still is. Saddam realized this and that was why he was the brutal destroyer of villages, if terrorists took root in a village, he leveled the village innocent and terrorist alike.
Many people are correct when they say Iraq isn’t ready for democracy.
I say we need to back our government and the troops and give them everything they need to finish this mission, or we’ve had all those young men and women die for nothing, absolutely nothing at all and that is to me a greater crime.
supporting troops means supporting them in completing their mission on every level because that is the right thing to do
-w
Re: I however…
The hard part about supporting the mission the troops are on is that I don’t believe it is possible to win this way. I feel it is just another way of wasting our troops and I don’t feel that supports them.
Give me a viable plan, even with the current leadership and I will support it. I can’t support a plan just because people I don’t trust says I should. When it comes to working for a company for like that, I usually leave and find somewhere else to work. I am very concerned that half of this county seems to support this leadership and where it is going. There are good things about this leadership and some not so good things. I am not going to tear apart the country but because one of our freedoms is free speech, I can and will say I don’t agree with what it is doing.
I totally agree with you on the point of Iraq needing a ruler with an iron fist. I can see where Saddam thought he was doing the right thing. I think he needs to be replaced with another iron fisted ruler that works towards moving the country forward instead of backwards.
The current mission our troops are on is flawed at a very basic level. It is trying to impose democracy without any of the foundations. A lot of those young men and women have died for nothing and the only way to redeem those sacrifices is to modify the mission into something workable. And I don’t see the current leadership willing to do that.
There is a reason I don’t have one of those Support Our Troops ribbon things on my car. I believe in them as individuals and I believe in them as a unit but I do not believe in their mission. I can only partially support them. I am aware of that.
I believe in our military being there to protect our freedoms and our country. I don’t believe it is right to use that sacrifice to push our ideas onto others. That is what I feel we are doing in Iraq. Some of what we are doing is good but a lot of it is trying to make another culture conform to what we think is the right way to be.
I believe in what we did with Afghanistan. I believe that we needed to do something in Iraq because of the instability that was left behind during the Gulf War. I also believe that we should have moved forward with Global approval instead as we did. But our leadership and many of those that support it were motivated by fear and fear alone. It is hard to chose a correct path when it is informed by fear. And all I see is that even though our leadership is admitting to mistakes, all that is planned is more of the same.
Oooo looky, I get all wordy when discussing something like this. I will admit that most of this is fueled by emotion. It is too horrendous for me to look at and get all the available facts. I only skim the media given facts. I don’t even know what is going on in Afghanistan to know if I still agree with that side of things. I think you and I agree on some of the basics but not necessarily on the process.