mike_c (1000+ posts) Fri Feb-15-08 09:23 AM
Response to Original message
1. I don't get it either-- they're fighting in defense of fascist imperialism...
...and committing the supreme war crime-- a war of aggression. There is NOTHING honorable about their service in Iraq-- just the opposite, it disgraces America daily.
You know when I read a thread like this it's so hard for me not to hate them. My son says, "It's okay mom, they don't know any better." But they SHOULD! Most of them are has-been hippies, still looking for meaning in their life. Or the youthful and gullible, sucked in by the pseudo-intellectual rhetoric. In my head I realize it's because they're angry and bitter, their souls tainted by a lifetime of hate and arrogance. But in my heart it's difficult to understand how people who SAY they're so devoted to peace can harbor such hatred for men and women they don't know. For all their homage to "nuance" they never seem to grasp that others just as intelligent as them, who have spent just as much time pondering solutions, looking at both sides have decided on a different course.
Have they truly never seen the pictures of our troops surrounded by smiling (brown) Iraqi children? Not the ones in the papers, but the spontaneous ones taken by fellow soldiers in the field. How can they look at those children and NOT see hope? I'm constantly amazed at how well the Iraqi people are doing. Despite decades under a brutal dictatorship, terrorists running amok, and religious & tribal differences as old as time itself, they press on. It's not like we didn't have our own setbacks on our way to freedom. Nor did Germany, Japan, Poland, or any other country you can name. Most were able to rebuild after war ended...the Iraqis are rebuilding while war wages around them.
My son was a young teenager on September 11th. It changed his life. He was in his 20's and a college graduate when he enlisted in the Marine Corps. He spends his days with native Arabic speakers...you know, brown people. Muslims, Christians, Iraqis, Egyptians, Syrians, male, and female. And all are grateful we are there. All have lived through dictatorships, violence, terrorism, bigotry, and religious intolerance. THEY GET IT! My son has come to admire these people. I wonder how many Arabic people the DUmmies talk to everyday. They seem to know what's right for all mankind, surely they've spent time getting to know and understand the hopes and dreams of people all around the world.
They don't know my child. He was the one who brought home stray animals. He even found a stray rat once someone had abandoned. We had that damn rat for 2 years. Every single cat that lives here now except for one are ones he found. One was pregnant. We kept all three kittens. He collected stray neighborhood kids as well. Kids who went home to an empty house, kids whose parents didn't care what they did or where they went. They just sensed that Jake was someone they could trust. They could talk to him and know he wouldn't judge them or betray their confidence.
It's that compassion, coupled with a deep-felt patriotism that led to his decision to join the Marines. It certainly wasn't MY idea. I don't know any mother who hopes the baby she nursed, whose boo-boos she kissed, who held them when they cried wants her child to join the military when their country is at war. But I'm very proud of him. He's my hero. And to see him disparaged by fellow citizens who don't know him, who don't know his heart gets to me.
We were talking on the phone last week. He was upset because he'd gotten a C on a portion of his test for the first time. If you get a couple C's in a row they put you on academic probation and it could delay your graduation if they roll you back. I told him it was just ONE grade on ONE portion of the test. He said (I'm paraphrasing here...unlike your average DUmmie, I don't remember conversations word for word), "Mom, as long as I'm over here, that's one more Marine still in Iraq who can't go home and see his family." THAT'S the kind of person they're harboring such hatred for. Screw them!
Cindie
