[LoTide]

I got e-mail from my mom, somebody sent it to her, and I just wanted to see what you guys thought about it...bear with me, it is in that annoying email form.

John Glenn (DEMOCRAT) said this ----- Perhaps It will make you think a little:


There were 39 combat related killings in Iraq in January.


In the fair city of Detroit there were 35 murders in the
month of January.

That's just one American city, about as deadly as the entire war-torn country of Iraq


When some claim that President Bush shouldn't
have started this war, state the following:


FDR (DEMOCRAT) led us into World War II.

Germany never attacked us ;

Japan did.

From 1941-1945, 450,000 lives were lost ...
an average of 112,500 per year.


Truman (DEMOCRAT) finished that war and started one in Korea

North Korea never attacked us.


From 1950-1953, 55,000 lives were lost ...
an average of 18,334 per year.


John F. Kennedy (DEMOCRAT) started the Vietnam conflict in 1962.
Vietnam never attacked us.


Johnson (DEMOCRAT) turned Vietnam into a quagmire.


From 1965-1975, 58,000 lives were lost .


an average of 5,800 per year


Clinton (DEMOCRAT) went to war in Bosnia without UN or French consent.

Bosnia never attacked us. He was offered Osama bin Laden's head on a platter three
times by Sudan and did nothing. Osama has attacked us on multiple occasions.

In the years since terrorists attacked us , President Bush
has liberated two countries,! crushed the Taliban, crippled al-Qaida,

put nuclear inspectors in Libya , Iran , and, North Korea without firing a shot,

and captured a terrorist who slaughtered 300,000 of his own people.


And the Democrats are complaining
about how long the war is taking.

But Wait, There's more


It took less time to take Iraq than it took Janet Reno

(DEMOCRAT) to take the Branch Davidian compound.


That was a 51-day operation.


We've been looking for evidence for chemical weapons
in Iraq for less time than it took Hillary Clinton

(DEMOCRAT) to find the Rose Law Firm billing records.


It took less time for the 3rd Infantry Division and the
Marines to destroy the Medina Republican Guard than it took

Ted Kennedy to call the police after his Oldsmobile sank at Chappaquiddick.

It took less time to take Iraq than it took to count the votes in Florida !!!

Our Commander-In-Chief is doing a GREAT JOB !
The Military morale is high!

The biased media hopes we are too ignorant
to realize the facts

But Wait

There's more!

JOHN GLENN (on the Senate floor - January 26, 2004)

Some people still don't understand why military personnel
do what they do for a living. This exchange between
Senators John Glenn and Senator Howard Metzenbaum
is worth reading. Not only! is it a pretty impressive
impromptu speech, but it's also a good example of one
man's explanation of why men and women in the armed
services do what they do for a living.

This IS a typical, though sad, example of what some who

have never served think of the military.

Senator Metzenbaum (speaking to Senator Glenn):
'How can you run for Senate when you've never held a real job?'
Senator Glenn (D-Ohio):
I served 23 years in the United States Marine Corps.

I served through two wars. I flew 149 missions.

My plane was hit by anti-aircraft fire on 12 different occasions.

I was in the space program.

It wasn't my checkbook, Howard; it was my life on the line.

It was not a nine-to-five job, where I took time off to take

the daily cash receipts to the bank.'

'I ask you to go with me .. . as I went the other day...

to a veteran's hospital and look at those men .....

with their mangled bodies .

in the eye, and tell THEM they didn't hold a job!


You go with me to the Space Program at NASA and go,

as I have gone, to the widows and Orphans of Ed White,

Gus Grissom and Roger Chaffee...

and you look those kids in the eye and tell them that their DAD'S didn't hold a job.


You go with me on Memorial Day and you stand in Arlington National Cemetery ,

where I have more friends buried than I'd like to remember,

and you watch those waving flags.
You stand there, and you think about this nation,

and you have the gall to tell ME that those people didn't have a job?

What about Metzenbaum?'
For those who don't remember....

During W.W.II, Howard Metzenbaum was an attorney

representing the Communist Party in the USA


Now he's a Senator!

If you can read this, thank a teacher.
If you are reading it in English thank a Veteran.

It might not be a bad idea to keep this circulating. I AM!!!

[IcyCool]

Looks to be your bog-standard, holier than thou, partisan chain email. There are, quite literally, dozens of these sorts of things (hundreds, if you count the non-political ones). Some people like getting them, and annoying everyone they know by forwarding it to them. Others think they are a complete waste of time.

As to its content, it appears to be nothing more than a choice selection of tidbits cobbled together in an effort not to make a point, but to slander an opposing position. Worse yet, it states things like this as though they were "facts":

In the years since terrorists attacked us , President Bush
has liberated two countries,! crushed the Taliban, crippled al-Qaida

I'm fairly sure those "facts" are in dispute, but I digress.

Sadly, this sort of thing isn't unique to any one political party. Blame-shifting, name-calling, and finger-pointing is what people do so that they can avoid having to take responsibility for themselves. It is also a tried and true part of the political toolbox, which isn't going away any time soon.

[Tau-killer]

I think that the arguments it puts forward are pretty weak and more full of holes than our kitchen sieve.

For a start, it isn't even factually accurate in places. It was Germany who declared war on the United States, for a start, not the other way around. It is horrendously simplistic to say that 'John F Kennedy started the Vietnam conflict.' Did Sudan really offer up Osama Bin Laden's head on a platter? I haven't heard of anything like that - and it sounds suspiciously like another horrendously oversimplistic statement. It claims that George Bush has liberated two countries - presumably Iraq and Afghanistan. While it is undoubtedly a good thing that Saddam Hussein is gone and that the Taleban are no longer in control of Afghanistan - I certainly wouldn't call those countries liberated, looking at the current state of them.

The arguments and lines of reasoning used are also extremely poor. The entire first bit rests on a hopeless and arguably irrelevent appeal to history, which fails to address the unique situation of Iraq itself. Calling the current democrats who are criticising the war in Iraq hypocrites because Democrats in the past have taken the USA to war is an utterly ridiculous argument.

The comparison of Detroit to Iraq regarding murder rates in one single month is also ridiculous and completely fails to take into account many other factors - such as political stability and freedom, economic prosperity, etc.

The email also misses the point completely. Yes, the Iraqi army was defeated extremely quickly. But there was no coherent plan for stabilising and rebuilding the country once they were gone. That is the reason that troops are still stuck in Iraq, five years later. It is the time taken to rebuild the country that the Democrats are complaining about. So to talk about the speed at which Iraq was actually taken is nothing more than a straw-man.

The final bit of the email is also completely meaningless, from my point of view. I have complete respect for members of the armed forces. Everyone whom I know, regardless of their opinions on the Iraq war, has respect for members of the armed forces. No-one that I know of disputes the idea that members of the armed forces should be respected. So therefore, this line of argument is completely irrelevent to the issue of Iraq, itself.

So, in conclusion, just two words:

Utter garbage.

[CmdrBonesaw]

I agree with Tau-Killer on this one.

Most of these "facts" are really taken out of context:

35 murders in Detroit vs 39 combat related deaths in Iraq? What about terrorist attacks on civilians? Mutilations? Massacres among the civilian population (speak Sunnit-Shiit divide)?

Comparing Iraq (= backwater military) against Germany in WWII (= strongest, most modern military force at the time with loads of combat experience) is like comparing a SWAT team taking down a drunken, shotgun-wielding couch potatoe with the Battle of Helms Deep...

And so on. It`s propaganda at its finest. I especially liked this more-or-less hidden line of argumentation: Lawyer = democrat = Communist.

So kids, don`t take this too serious. Do your own research. And never ever take anything for gospel which has politics written all over it. ;D

Cheers,
-Bone

[Nox]

Originally Posted by Tau-killer

Did Sudan really offer up Osama Bin Laden's head on a platter? I haven't heard of anything like that ...

Actually, they did offer Osama to Clinton. They were trying to curry favor with the US at the time. I saw a television interview with Bill Clinton where he defends the fact the he turned them down by saying that there was no "legal" reason for him to want Bin Laden. However, I believe that Bin Laden had already staged attacks against US interests over seas several times at this point. Still, he wasn't - at the time - considered a top priority.

It was Germany who declared war on the United States, for a start, not the other way around.

Correct, Pearl Harbor occured on 7th December 1941 and the US declared war on Japan on the 8th December 1941, subsequently Italy and Germany declared war on U.S.

Comparing Iraq (= backwater military)

Actually, Iraq was considered to have one of the top 10 military forces at the time. They were most definitely not considered a backwater military by the military analysts of other countries.

35 murders in Detroit vs 39 combat related deaths in Iraq? What about terrorist attacks on civilians? Mutilations? Massacres among the civilian population (speak Sunnit-Shiit divide)?

If you are going to lump in all 25+ million people then you have to make a comparison with more than Detroit. You would need to add New York (about 8 mill I think), LA etc. to make it a fair comparison. Comparing all of Iraq with only 1 US city is hardly a apples to apples comparison.

[Commander Cool]

Just to toss in a couple of cents here:

I've been seeing alot of people (anti-war) whine and complain about why we've been at war for 'so long'. Mostly refering to Iraq. But these people that complain about things taking awhile tend to forget that five years is not a long time at all. In fact it's a rather short period of time when you look at it in historical context.

But unfortunately since we do live in times where everything is to be done at a very rapid pace, we forget that though we have an incredibly advanced military, war takes time. It's a slow, autonomous process that people think is working at the speed of our world. But it doesn't, and unfortunately the small conflicts of the past two decades led people to believe that it does. Things like the original gulf war told people that wars could be fought over night with minimal casualties, and because people (collective) are stupid, they bought into it. So now we have people complaining because a very complex war with a shadowy enemy is taking too long for their liking, and automaticly assuming that the whole place is a poop-hole.

And so we have what is considered our world today, confused, spoiled and biasedly informed by media sources with goals only ment for their companies dominance, with no consideration for the country that allows them to exist.

[deraj]

I was against the war in Iraq until my adopted brother returned from Iraq. I asked him how he felt about the war and he answered me with one word: "proud." This amazed me, so when another of my friends returned, I asked him what he thought. He also told me that it was a good thing. There seem to be a large amount less military protesters than you hear about for other wars, which seems to me to mean that those fighting the war believe in it, and that's what really matters to me.

[compubrains]

Of course we're winning the war! What's the US death toll in Iraq? 3 or 4 thousand? Over 5 years. That's not a war. In a war, you ration things like sugar and nylon. In a war, everyone feels the effects. Everyone loses relatives. Do you know what this is? This is "give our military some real combat experiance." Our military is still at peacetime levels! I don't care how many people we're freeing. Why are the taxpayers dollars going to help people the taxpayers don't care about? I certainly don't care what happens to people in Iraq. I think the government should be funding it's debt in preparation for the coming economic recession. There are problems at home to worry about. If the Iraqis wanted freedom, they could've gotten it themselves.

[khanaris]

I delete that sort of email, whether I get it from liberals or conservatives. They are never worth the bandwidth. This one is worth no more than a viagra ad.

To salve some of the ignorance it presents as fact:

Germany declared war on the United States after the United States declared war on Japan. This was because of a prior agreement between countries. Iraq did not declare war on the United States because we invaded Afghanistan. In both the Korean and Vietnam wars, the United States went in to aid allies on the ground. This was not the case with Iraq.

The email implies that these situations are the same because the Republican housewife sending it is relying on the reader being unaware of the history, or is perhaps unaware himself/herself.

If you want to discuss these issues, frame your own argument. Don't post chain letters.

[GeekyGator]

Meh, these things tend to circulate among the uneducated so the uneducated of one side can all feel smarter than the uneducated of the other side.