Saturday, March 22, 2008

Look on the bright side, folks: Wow, the fifth anniversary of the war. Sure, Iraq has been a disaster that will cost us multiple trillions, but why doesn't anybody ever try to find something positive in all the rubble? Maybe this war will convince people around the world that we're the really big, dumb bully on the playground you need to be friendly with: if some unknown kid in the crowd calls him a pinhead while his back his turned, he might be happy to pound in your face just because he doesn't like you.

You don't like that one? How about if we think of this war as really good practice for a future war that is actually important? Practice makes perfect, they say.

And everybody likes a parade, right? You can't have a good parade without some veterans, and you can't have veterans without some wars.

Am I getting nowhere here? Well, at least I tried--my mom taught me that if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all.

6 comments:

  1. Anonymous10:45 AM

    I like your point about practice for a future war - There's no substitute for a real live war to spur innovation and new technology

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous11:18 AM

    Vietnam led to advances in military medicine that led to advances in trauma medicine. There are some who argue the whole reason the murder rate's gone down (while the aggravated assault rate's gone up) is that they're a lot better at saving you when you get to the ER.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous12:19 PM

    Ron,

    If only this were true. You wrote:


    "You don't like that one? How about if we think of this war as really good practice for a future war that is actually important? Practice makes perfect, they say."


    The thing is that the kind of fighting we are doing in now way prepares us for anything except perhpas ANOTHER occupation. We aren't testing new anti-tank or anti-missile equipment or any of that jazz. We are being policemen who pay off the neighborhood to behave and to not shoot at us.


    Its cost 600 billion so far, but in increased oil prices easily over 1 trillion. The 30,000 or so wounded and dead will cost alot in benefits and morale for years to come. Seeing a man missing a leg or arm or whose face is permanently altered will do more to suppress military recruitment than what a small increase in the budget can offset, I assure you. The fact that there were no WMD's, and that every reasonable person now knows that we were lied to about that undermines people's very patriotism.

    Our president, vice president, Fieth and Wolfy over at the Pentagon, openly and brazenly lied to us, and everybody knows it.

    How do you feel about NATIONAL REVIEW now? Yeah, me too. Sources I used to trust, I now despise. Its changed so much.


    I think in the future, people will be true to themselves and nothing else. If they want individualism as they endlessly preach, they are going to be getting it from a populace whom the government and their media lackeys have lied to for the past 8 years.

    ReplyDelete
  4. As someone who looks carefully at the evidence, I think you would appreciate BackTalk by Engram:

    http://engram-backtalk.blogspot.com/

    It is probably the best source of information on Iraq I have seen.

    ReplyDelete
  5. bgc: Thanks, you're right. It is a good blog.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Anonymous5:01 PM

    You've killed a million innocent iraqis.

    ReplyDelete

Are gun owners mentally ill?

  Some anti-gun people think owning a gun is a sign of some kind of mental abnormality. According to General Social Survey data, gun owners ...