The pioneers of a warless world are the young men (and women) who refuse military service. Albert Einstein
You cannot abrogate your responsibility in choosing to follow.
US military beats out Disney as happy place to work
- Thread starter Big Don
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The pioneers of a warless world are the young men (and women) who refuse military service. Albert Einstein
You cannot abrogate your responsibility in choosing to follow.
So you are blaming British forces and probably all of NATO for Fallujah now?
I've already said I can't watch videos and I know more about Fallujah than you may think, I do read you know as do many of us. It was in the news straight after it happened and the the story about birth defects there isn't new either it has been known for a couple of years now. It was on Sky news in May 2008.
All wars are based on lies, look at history. All wars are hell, for everyone.
Righteous anger is all very well but thinking you are the only one who is right is a dangerous path to tread.
and if the generation before us had refused to fight Hitler what then? If the RAF pilots had refused to fly against the Luftwaffe? If there had been no troops to mount the D Day Landings where do you think the world would be today? You think it would have been a better place full of concentration camps, the Jewish people extinct, black people extinct and the Gestapo on every corner?
Do you think peace is made by countries with no armies? I think you need to re read Einsteins stand on war btw.
http://www.ppu.org.uk/learn/infodocs/people/pp-einstein2.html
"Einstein's attitude to war resistance began to change. In the spring of 1933, he had believed that an efficient and wholesale economic blockade would be enough to bring down the Nazi regime. Now, in the summer, he pressed for an international peace force to prevent Nazi atrocities. Now, he supported the New Commonwealth Society's call for 'no disarmament without security, no security without an international court of arbitration and an international standing army'.
More than that: he told the King of Belgium that, in the present situation, Belgium's army was a means of defence; if it came to it, conscientious objectors should be offered alternative war service. And he told an antimilitarist colleague; 'If I were Belgian I would not, in the present situation, refuse military service. I would enter it in the belief that I was helping European civilisation' "
Me, I'll follow the colours, Death or Glory and the devil take the hindmost.
OP
OP
Big Don
Sr. Grandmaster
+1
I really like this quote from noted pacifist Gandhi:
Which, seems to me to apply to a fair number of anti-war/anti-military types.
Why on Earth would you think that I was against self defense? What else could I possibly be saying?
I actually agree with Einstein before and after his statement.
What makes you think that this war and those wars have anything in common? You said before that these wars were terrible and that you thought you shouldn't be there. Don't you think that it's dishonest to compare these two situations and demand that we honor the people who chose to follow two entirely different paths equally? It sounds like you are demanding honor for something you didn't do?
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Yeah, it is obvious.
Eventually, everyone will have to grind this axe, or we won't have a future. Or at least not the future we want for our families. My children (and your children) deserve more then to be saddled with the debts incurred by these wars. They deserve more then sacrifice their economic opportunities and their freedoms to the MIC. They deserve to know the truth about what they would choose to serve and about what they would have to do.
How long are you going sit on the sidelines and make excuses?
If you can't do this, what kind of world will you invite?
I actually think we both agree. The wars need to stop. We can't afford them and the waste in human life is horrendous.
The only difference is that I'm pointing the finger at the all volunteer military and saying, "you are joining this and you are responsible."
That's a hook that very few people will throw into the mix because we are conditioned to respect our military and support them no matter what they do.
The necessity of actually stopping this and having the kind of future I want for my family forces me to break this tradition.
Irene, it would be easier if everyone was ignorant and it simply was a matter of educating people about the reality of what is going on. The truth is more complex and some people do know and they join anyway.
In the end, it's a matter of priorities. What would cause you to overlook the crimes against humanity and the rotten purpose the government has committed it's troops? And a more important question then that is, should anything cause you to bump those things lower on your priority list? Coming from a Jewish heritage with family that was directly affected by the Holocaust, this is a poignant question indeed. Perhaps some Germans should have asked this of themselves?
I don't doubt that we share the same moral thoughts about these matters. What matters is whether or not we think we are living our lives in alignment with those beliefs.
I am not living my life in alignment with those morals because I haven't done enough to stop this and I continue to surrender a part of my productive energy (taxes) to grease this war machine. A small fraction of my labor is dedicated to rape/torture rooms and that is abhorrent to me.
So, there's my responsibility...and the more I point this out by holding up the mirror and having others take a look at their responsibility, the closer I get to being in alignment with what I believe.
Our army is a very old one, as you know it was old when we fought you, we have regiments older than your country. The way however you look at your forces and the way we look at ours is different, ours just is there, as it has for hundreds of years. Respect for the army, probably very little in actual fact, respect for individual soldiers plenty at the moment.
Have our soldiers committed atrocities? I don't know. I don't blame our troops the way you blame yours though, I've not been called to investiage any war crimes allegedly against our troops, doesn't mean to say they haven't overstepped the mark somewhere. As far as Afghan is concerned people seem to think the Taliban is a bunch of farmers, they aren't, they are a highly skilled, highly mobile force of professional soldiers. War is war and thats what our army has always been good at....fighting. The government sent them in and they are doing their duty, so far I have no reason to believe they have acted anything other than professionally so no I'm not going to condemn them. As for the leaks on the internet, I need to see more proof than that, I want witness statements, and physical proof that our soldiers have done anything wrong. It's only fair that without proper colloborating evidence they aren't condemned. I can't speak for your troops but I won't have mine thought guilty out of hand. Show me proof, proper concrete evidence of cases that haven't been investigated and dealt with.
Many Germans did ask themselves the question and were put to death for it, more Germans were guillotined by the Gestapo than French people ever killed in the Revolution for being 'enemies of the State' and asking questions and protesting against the Nazis.
Have our soldiers committed atrocities? I don't know. I don't blame our troops the way you blame yours though, I've not been called to investiage any war crimes allegedly against our troops, doesn't mean to say they haven't overstepped the mark somewhere. As far as Afghan is concerned people seem to think the Taliban is a bunch of farmers, they aren't, they are a highly skilled, highly mobile force of professional soldiers. War is war and thats what our army has always been good at....fighting. The government sent them in and they are doing their duty, so far I have no reason to believe they have acted anything other than professionally so no I'm not going to condemn them. As for the leaks on the internet, I need to see more proof than that, I want witness statements, and physical proof that our soldiers have done anything wrong. It's only fair that without proper colloborating evidence they aren't condemned. I can't speak for your troops but I won't have mine thought guilty out of hand. Show me proof, proper concrete evidence of cases that haven't been investigated and dealt with.
Many Germans did ask themselves the question and were put to death for it, more Germans were guillotined by the Gestapo than French people ever killed in the Revolution for being 'enemies of the State' and asking questions and protesting against the Nazis.
Archangel M
Senior Master
Tez. I think it's important to remember that this is ONE Americans opinion about the military. And from someone who also thinks that the gvt "possibly" wired up the Trade Center as part of a conspiracy on 9/11.
Grain of salt. A lagre one.
Grain of salt. A lagre one.
Ah! I see!
I don't mind what he thinks, its just funny when he tries to put the guilt trip thing on us.
Archangel M
Senior Master
As the saying goes "opinions are like *******s. Everybody has one and they all stink".
It's not guilt and it's not blame. I'm simply pointing out the fact that we have a choice and that we are responsible for them. If the bigger picture is something terrible, our choices contributed to making that happen.
Americans and British people may have a lot of differences, but this is something that all humans have in common.
Americans and British people may have a lot of differences, but this is something that all humans have in common.
Really? If?
http://edition.presstv.ir/detail/135896.html
Every person who pulled the trigger and shot this stuff over Iraq is responsible for polluting and harming innocent civilians who aren't even born. Every human who will ever live in this area for as long as humans inhabit this Earth will be harmed by what these people did.
Really? If?
This is worse then the Holocaust because over time, the health effects these munitions cause will kill MORE then the Germans could ever imagine. The only difference is that they aren't piled in mass graves. People will be killed by this so many generations after this happened that they will not even have myths to record this event.
You were part of that...and before you get mad at me and try to say that I'm just trying to "blame" I'd like to also say that I was part of it. Every American and British citizen who payed for this munitions and turned a blind eye to how they were used is responsible.
The Mongols salted the Earth ruined the agricultural potential of the Fertile Crescent for 1000 years. We just polluted this region for all eternity. It will be in the food. It will be in the water. It will be in the dust that sits in the carpets that little babies are crawling over for every generation of human existence.
I am mortified at the part I have taken in letting this evil happen and I didn't even fire a shot.
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It's 'reported', thats not proof of anything. By nature and training I like hard evidence, I want to see that proof and I want colloborating evidence.
Who said it was a blind eye? You are assuming that here at least we didn't know about the bombing and the birth defects, as I said it's been in the media for at least two years, you aren't bringing anything new to the table here. The UK used 1.9 metric tons of depleted uranium bombs in Iraq, that's official btw. We knew that, it was announced in the House of Commons by the Defence Minister. The World health Organisation is one of those which is claiming that it doesn't cause as much damage as you say.
I'm not a scientist so can't argue on the effects of these bombs. I do know however having made a point last night of asking someone who trains with us and is in the Royal artillery what these bombs were. He explained that the depleted uranium is used as ballast in these bombs not as a bomb itself and that the effects weren't known as it was believed that it burned up when the bomb went off. It sounds as if it doesn't but it does seem clear that the using of depleted uranium to poison people wasn't intentional at all but a by product of the bombing. You can argue that the bombing itself was unecessary but that's another argument. The bottom line is that the poisoning is accidental in that it wasn't used as a chemical warfare weapon. I realise that there's still a tragedy out there but it's not the same as you are accusing us of.
Who said it was a blind eye? You are assuming that here at least we didn't know about the bombing and the birth defects, as I said it's been in the media for at least two years, you aren't bringing anything new to the table here. The UK used 1.9 metric tons of depleted uranium bombs in Iraq, that's official btw. We knew that, it was announced in the House of Commons by the Defence Minister. The World health Organisation is one of those which is claiming that it doesn't cause as much damage as you say.
I'm not a scientist so can't argue on the effects of these bombs. I do know however having made a point last night of asking someone who trains with us and is in the Royal artillery what these bombs were. He explained that the depleted uranium is used as ballast in these bombs not as a bomb itself and that the effects weren't known as it was believed that it burned up when the bomb went off. It sounds as if it doesn't but it does seem clear that the using of depleted uranium to poison people wasn't intentional at all but a by product of the bombing. You can argue that the bombing itself was unecessary but that's another argument. The bottom line is that the poisoning is accidental in that it wasn't used as a chemical warfare weapon. I realise that there's still a tragedy out there but it's not the same as you are accusing us of.
Archangel M
Senior Master
"It's reported" means "I get my material from conspiracy web sites".
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