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Sounds like the great lakes coastguard boasting of his service while trying to tell people the incidents in the Gulf of Tonkin really happened like they had claimed at the time.

"Cowardice" is as irrelevant as your service, however the proven indifference you hold towards the lives of your countries troops is about as bad as you want to make it for yourself.
If you cared about the troops you wouldn't still spout the tired old lies, you would be holding the politicians accountable for wasting the troops lives over silly obvious lies and for aiding the enemy.
Come to think of it aiding Iran would be treason wouldn't it, does supporting the aiding of Iran carry the same label?:hmmm:

Yes, by not believing the bull from politicians I do the best service the country can ever have:yeah:

Good one, I suppose it would be funny to point out that as well as the claim being a lie the bit about what was originally claimed is also a lie.
Does this mean August is really a politician?

No. And I am a good example, because I left (or more accurately, was removed by my parents) from my country because I refused to be drafted as cannon fodder for a pointless, bloody war (which I would've been) that was was originally started by idiots/criminals and cynically used to raise the profile of a greedy future dictator and resulted in a little more than a gangster being established as a regional vassal to an equally gangsterous central regime. This is one of the hardest choices that anyone can face, and to this day I regard that choice as the right one. I have a lot of admiration and more than a little sense of guilt towards my peers who served in this horror. But no amount of spilled blood and noble service will vindicates fundamental wrongs behind the war and the shame that participating in an unjust conflict brings. Sometimes turning around and leaving is the only thing you can do to avoid making a bad situation worse. Nor does service give anyone an ethical higher ground. Hitler served his country too. So did that guy who shot up the Sikh temple last week.

There is no "your own kind". Everybody as people. I admire the courage of people who served, but it's against the principles of the society you fight for to suggest superior ethical categories of people. There is nothing preventing a critically-thinking civic person from passing ethical judgments of war. In fact, therein lies one of the big mistakes of many, many societies - the equation of service with violence and danger. Again, it's admirable. But the fundamental hero ideal of a just society must necessarily be a civic one first.

Well this may surprise you but I respect your decision not to serve your country (especially since there is such an obvious disconnect between your countries best interest and that of your leader) as I respect your willingness to admit it.

The people I don't respect are those who hide behind the anonymity of the internet just criticizing the actions of others. For Vienna to accuse me of the things he did is despicable in my opinion yet you seem to be quite willing to give him a pass on it and that I don't respect.

the same could be said about military personal who have never seen combat, when debating things about war.

You wrote that in a topic about the useless wasteful Iraq war and the lies the politicians told:har::har::har::har::har:

Yet instead of acknowledging the lies like your leaders and military have already done you are still running with the lies as you are unwilling to face reality and admit it.
Why does the truth make you so scared?:hmmm:

True. Before I enlisted I was neoconservative. Several years later, I found my views had changed dramatically to a more middle of the road perspective, and I certainly wasn't as hawkish as i was before.

For me, my world view changed the day i looked into the mirror before a deployment, and realized that who i was as a person didn't matter. I could be the nicest guy in the world, help old ladies accross the street, donate my last dime to some non profit organization to feed the hungry, be the father of umpteen children and raise them all with the most loving care, but NONE of that would matter. No, who I was did not matter to the world. What did matter, was WHAT I was. And for that, I would be shown no kindness to put it mildly. But it was what I volunteered for, it was my job and nobody else's. When I realized this, I felt some icy cold run down the core of my being. The world was suddenly very real to me, very cold, and very lonely.


As an aside. Getting rid of Saddam, to me , was not worth it. That's just my armchair opinion. I think saying, "but we got rid of a dictator" Its like some BS bonus prize. "We found no WMD's that would endanger your country, but what do we have for him Johnny?!?!". I think it's the same ole story from other places we ended up sending our people to. Blood sweat and tears goes into the place, and half the local population spits in your face the first chance they get. That's never worth it. Id have sooner left Iraq to its own devices and left saddam in place. At least then there'd have been no power vaccum in the region and we'd be dealing with a known entity.

Now that I can get behind. In the weeks leading up to hostilities I was telling people it's a big mistake but the juggernaut was unstoppable by then. The average Joe wanted to kick some Arab ass and really didn't care where. The most common response was "Do you like Saddam? Do you think he's a nice guy?" to which I said no I don't like him and I don't think he's a nice guy, but I do know it takes a ruthless hand to keep those countries from degenerating into civil war and this will end badly for us. Now where are we? No Saddam, billions wasted, and a country trying hard to rip itself apart still. Mission failed.

To me the focus on WMDs is a bit of a red herring. It was the official reason for the war, but there were other reasons why govt officals signed off.

There had been a group around since 1991 that thought Saddam should have been removed from power. In the Bush administration, they were grouped around Paul Wolfowitz. If 9/11 had never happened, they would never have been able to get the support needed for the invasion.

After 9/11 and the successful invasion of Afghanistan, there was a policy vacuum as people decided what was to do next? Wolfowitz with the support of Rumsfeld and Cheney argued that removing Saddam was the logical next step. In the absence of an appealing alternative and under popular pressure to do something, the decision to invade Iraq kept moving forward.

Bush administration officials/politicians signed off on it for a variety of reasons: WMDs, sending a message to Islamic radicals, removing a regional threat, removing a potential support base for terrorists, etc.

In a sense, the progression towards war from 2001 to 2003 is very similar to how WW1 started: an international crisis occurs and events move inexorably towards war because no one else can offer a viable alternative.

To be fair and honest, I thought the original invasion was a good idea. Only on the premise that he had Nuclear, Biologocal, Chemical weapons.. I thought it was a good idea, because I remembered my NBC training. The reality is, we have no defense against an NBC attack, and I have no doubt in my mind that if they were to fall into the wrong hands that they'd be used without any hesitation. So on that premise, i thought it was a good idea to get in there and get rid of them. Which is why earlier in some post last week or so, i said I wish he had them. I really do. I thought he did. But, he didn't, and now we have this money pit called Iraq.

A massive waste...
 

http://news.msn.com/world/militants-...jor-iraqi-city

Insurgents are back on the offensive in Iraq and their current leader is headed down the same path as Saddam. :roll:
Why did we even bother?:stare:

We were supposed to be greeted as liberators and Iraqi oil revenues were to pay for the war. :shifty:

No, thats the flip flop moment.
The initial plan was that Iraq when "free" would pick up the tab, then they changed it so the US taxpayer got stuck with the bill.
There was some politician who supported the first plan but voted against it when it was changed.
I seem to recall that he was widely lambasted for changing his vote when the finances were altered:yep:

"We" bothered, because Hussein wanted to sell oil for Euros or gold (just like Gaddafi, so "we" had to save the Petrodollar) and because he was a threat to Israel (they have a strong influence on American politics).

WMD's and liberating people was the official story for the folks to support the war.
Some simple minds even thought he was involved in 9/11.

Your surprised?