This is not abstract to me. I hate this war. I haven't been there, I do not toil under the hardships the troops do. But it's not faceless to me. I have friends there, they don't want to be. Some of them used to come back with hero stories or lies they were told that they believed but now I hear nothing good. They want to know when they can come home to stay. They see no light at the end of the tunnel. To those who say we must continue the war please remember all of the children who won't see their fathers or mothers for over a year, some will never meet their fathers. Remember those who fought for your imaginary ideals only to have you turn your backs on them when they said they don't feel right, and now have killed themselves. Remember the shattered lives that cannot be counted, then tell me what we're fighting for.
I have to cut this short, I'm leaving work early so that I can go console a friend. She was talking with a very good friend of hers (I know him but not as well) who recently left for his third tour of duty. She was talking to him when his based came under attack. He is ok, but she is shaken and needs a friend. I wish I could do the same for him.
Fuck this war, and fuck anyone who still supports it.
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5 comments:
One thing you could do is to help frame this properly.
This thing in Iraq is an occupation, not a war. We won the war way back in 03. We are now bogged down in an occupation. It astounds me how even the politicians on the left continue to let the right control the language. I know it's kind of petty, but it changes the tone and perspective.
Wrong. It's a war, albeit a bad one. It's too bad so many people think all this is necessary, this occupational war; this losing of American lives to pretend to defend people who will never be our friends and will always want us dead.
War....occupation... who cares about the semantics? It's wrong wrong wrong. Let's please not forget the thousands upon thousands of innocent Iraqi victims of this travesty.
People may not care about semantics, but they react to them. I am not forgetting the victims, that's why the framework needs to be shifted. The term war tends to be a positive term, people hear it and sub-consciously people are put on the offensive, no one wants to lose a war. The term occupation has more negative sub-conscious reaction. No one wants to be the oppressor.
I will grant that this and any occupation is a result of conflict hence a war, but the conventional, accepted common denominator of "war" is two parties in conflict. We did that, we won "mission accomplished" remember? We won the war, it's the resulting occupation where we allowed an insurgency to be blurred with a sectarian/ethnic civil war (a war we are only involved in due to occupying the country) occupational war is an acceptable term also, as long as the word occupation is involved, fine by me.
My main point is control, the left allows the right to control the language (ala the use of the term DemocRAT party) used giving them the dominant status. (alpha dogs lead, the pack follows) In my opinion the reason they still maintain the 30%'rs.
These things may not mean much to those who can think for themselves, but lets face it, much of American cannot. So it matters, it matters alot.
Nice points guys. Sorry I was gone all weekend. Even had a long weekend to celebrate some murderer from hundreds of years ago.
Anyway, yes this is about semantics, but semantics are shockingly influential. Yes occupation is probably a more accurate term for our mission in Iraq. As long as we're talking about semantics I'll also point out that the powers that be were able to label this "The War In Iraq" as opposed to the usual War On Iraq. It somehow seemed less aggressive, more neutral that way. But its not, a war against something means that there are two sides fighting. A war that is simply in a place but doesn't say who its against is an occupation, and a quagmire
And finally yes the dems need to step up on many levels, but the only way the can take the lead is by framing the debate, which is something the right has been extremely effective at. Once the right has set the vocabulary then the most the dems can hope for is to not lose any ground.
And finally Rob is also right, we can call it whatever we want it was still wrong right from the start.
Peace
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