Pre-bed

"To be honest, it's time to pull out now."

-Spc. Jeans Cruz. Ret.-





There's a direct correlation between the quote and why Msg., Ret. or Col., Ret. isn't after that name.



An SF colonel once relayed some information to me. "I'm damned sick of everyone asking you all why you're over there. Hell, most of you have no idea," he said. "So I'm going to tell you."



We're protecting a pipeline. (GASP. So it is blood for oil!)


Damned right it is. Fuel equals economic power and that equals national prosperity in all facets.



You know, gas prices would be even higher if Iraq sold that oil off to the ever-industrializing China, which they definitely wanted to do. Imagine the entire country of China as our main competitor for energy. If you want to pay $6.50 a gallon for gasoline in the apparent land of milk and honey known as England, just go ahead and do that. Maybe you'll be used to it by the time you return to the States after we've decided to give into the bitching and moaning of every fat-ass, reefing college boy who fears being "drafted", and we bend over and let the entire Middle East minus Israel bleed us dry through China.


Last time I checked, China was still a communist state.




Being passive never accomplished anything. Oh, it's comfortable. But it never accomplished a damned thing.



Meghan

I'm sorry, but that whole comment is twisted. You are saying that you'd rather flat out kill other human beings than take a hit in the pocketbook. I don't take America's prosperity lightly; I know it's damn lucky to live here. But at what price? What hope is there for humanity if the only solution we can figure out is murder?

That's the solution people have been using for thousands of years. Not very original, I must say. With all of our progress and knowledge, can't we come up with anything better? We just keep thinking of more effective ways to kill each other.

Ending lives isn't the only way to be active.

Have you murdered anyone? Do you think your view will change after you personally look a human being in the eye, watch the blood flow, and know that you are soley responsible for ending his or her life? And know that it's for the sake of oil? Are you honest to God prepared to do that? If so...wow. There's not much I can say to you.

I know several survivors of violent crime. I've dreamed for years about friends who have died. I know the value of life. Perhaps you do not.

Maybe I'm a fat-ass, reefing college kid, but I'm not a murderer.

If you've got an issue with Jeans Cruz then write to him. This was more about an administration that continues to somehow put its head up its ass on a regular basis, as if that was the only way to ever get anything done.

Connecticut's suing the Federal Government, by the way. "No Child Left Behind is a federal mandate that doesn't provide the proper funding to execute the program."

Surprise, surprise.

And being "passive" accomplished quite a bit for the country of India. Just a side note.


fin

What the hell does No Child Left Behind have to do with the war?



And if we had all followed Gandhi's advice, we'd all be National Socialists or in prison. Quite frankly, I probably wouldn't even be here to speak today, because if anyone had listened to him, the death toll would have been far more than six million. India has accomplished shit. They're still under a horrific caste system. Their manufacturing centers are little more than sweatshops. Their hospital walls are flaking with uncleaned blood. Their poorest have food that's barely fit for human consumption. Instead of fighting Britain, they sat there and allowed themselves to be dominated. The effects of that will never be shaken, even in the present day. Why? Because they laid down and took it for over 50 years.




India has never been completely passive. As a matter of fact, they actually gained their independence by agreeing to fully cooperate against the Axis powers in World War II. The British-trained Indian Army was nothing to screw with. Just a side note.



War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free...
- John Stuart Mill

You're perfectly entitled to your opinion.



Just know that the blood I (or the individual beside me) may have to spill, whether it be mine or enemy's, keeps you living comfortably and gives you the absolute right to say whatever you choose.





I really do encourage you to speak to a veteran at some point, and be sure to express your sentiments to them. And make yourself comfortable in your chair; it'll probably be a while.

My Grandpa Bill spent three years in Europe, has two purple hearts and saw plenty of his friends die. He landed in France in '42 and was marching through Northern Italy when word reached that Berlin had fallen.

His support of this war is at a slightly lower level than mine, and he may dislike Bush even more.

His sacrifice and those of the people around him kept us living comfortable. They kept us from speaking German in Chicago.

Those soldiers in Iraq are being killed for no reason. They're not protecting my freedoms; rather, they're instilling the ideals of this country on a place that doesn't really care for them in particular. Maybe I missed Iraq declaring war on the United States and carrying out an attack.

So gas might cost $5 bucks a gallon. (Saudi Arabia still has larger reserves and can still sell to whoever the hell they want. Are we gonna have to "spread democracy" there too?) Whoopti shit. I haven't bitched once about the rising gas prices yet. Why should we pay less than the rest of the world anyway? Does our incredible ability to waste natural resources entitle us to pay less than everyone else?

I'd rather see those 140,000 men and women safe at home. That's worth a little more to me than not paying $10 extra to fill up my gas tank. I'm sick of seeing their grieving families on the news every night.

And hell, maybe we'd actually have to instill emitions standards, push the use of alternative fuel sources, maybe buy the earth some time in the process. God forbid we scale back the use of petroleum. God forbid people give up their H2s, Suburbans, Expeditions, and Corvettes to save the lives of those soldiers. I think their lives are worth at least that much, not to mention the lives of all those Iraqi civilians that have become little more than just another statistic of the war to the people in this country.


We can't kill all the terrorists, and now we're just creating more. We're fueling their hate. We've giving them new reasons every day to kill more and more.

But they're evil because they're doing in the name of some kind of twisted Islamic view. We're fine because our Christian president is shining the guiding light of America across the Middle East.

Our soldiers are simply doing their job and I commend them for that. But I can't commend this country for trying to instill fear across the world with its bigger stick of a military.

I'm not comfortable living in prosperity gleaned from murder.

If I felt like this war was justified at all, I would likely agree with you. I didn't disagree (at first) with Afghanistan, considering Sept. 11. But protecting a pipeline? Why don't we just exterminate the rest of the world so we have all the resources to ourselves?

I have spoken to vets, thanks, they're in my family. Or, what about Coach Taft? He's served in Afghanistan multiple times and is more opposed to this than I am.

AGAIN...Even if it does slightly prolong my ability to live comfortably (read: nations fall), can't we find a DIFFERENT way?

Don't kill anyone on account of MY rights. Justice for me cannot be born of injustice to someone else.

Final fin

It's not worth the time.