You may be against the Iraq war, as I was and remain, but that’s not the same as being against the troops who have been sent over there. I’ve been in contact with a number of soldiers in Iraq from several nations (both relatives and non-relatives) and I’ve sent books, little luxuries (or even necessities) such as gum, soap, shampoo, and the like, and letters.
My opposition to going to war had nothing to do with any sympathy for the Ba’athists and Jihadists our soldiers (and those from Poland, Japan, Australia, Britain, Denmark, Italy, Estonia, and other nations) are fighting. The Ba’athists and Jihadists are remarkably evil (witness the beheadings, suicide bombings, random killings, assasinations, etc.) and I hope that the Coalition forces and the Iraqi police and army manage to kill them all.
While the soldiers are there, there are many ways to support them. Books, CDs, and DVDs are helpful to stave off boredom (and to help the soldiers to continue their educations). I recommend including merely fun reading (science fiction, mysteries, whatever), since just being bored is dangerous; it dulls the senses and can lead soldiers to want to go sight seeing when that’s not advisable. You can send items from Amazon.com and from Laissez Faire Books (for those who are interested in political economy and the like) to APO addresses. Also, drugstore.com can send useful toiletries, candies, snacks, etc., etc. (Rember that MREs are not all that tasty and that merely having something to chew — like caffeine gum, to keep you alert on patrol — can help to overcome boredom and even keep a soldier alive another day.) You can find other suggestions at a U.S. Department of Defense site, defendamerica.mil.
If you’re interested in supporting efforts to help the Iraqi people directly, I’m a big fan of Mercy Corps, which I support regularly. They also continue their work to provide clean water, health care, and local business opportunities (with sewing machines, small loans, and so on) in Iraq, despite the dangers.
I’m sure that I’ll get the usual share of “you’re objectively pro-war” email from the usual crackpots. I’m not. (I’m amazed that so many people assume that if you criticize a bad argument against the war, that makes you “pro-war,” rather than “anti-bad argument” and therefore “pro-good argument.”) But anyway, screw ’em; I’ve got better things to do than to worry about that sort.
Let us not forget some other war heroes of the Iraq War.
Mark’s comments are a bit opaque. I wonder if he is suggesting that the Jihadists who behead their hostages or the fanatics who blow themselves up in their bomb-filled cars are heroes. I hope not. (And I’ve not even used the term “war heroes” to describe coalition soldiers, so I don’t know where that term came from.) There’s no question at this point that people who kill Iraqi police recruits and American soldiers are enemies of freedom, enemies of civilization, and enemies of life. There is no legitimate justification for such actions. Those who hope for full independence and freedom for Iraq and Iraqis should support the new Iraqi government (which is far, far better than all the other options), support the elections, and oppose the Ba’athists and Jihadists. I’ve no more sympathy for those who blow up cars and behead construction workers and truck drivers than I would have had for Nazi Grey Wolves assassinating Mayors and trying to cause mayhem after the U.S. and British occupation of Germany.
My comments are more than a bit opaque. I inadvertently posted the first draft of the first sentence of a comment. I’d like to point your readers to a website that celebrates those soldiers who refused to fight in the Iraq War. Go to: http://www.tomjoad.org/WarHeroes.htm to read about U.S. War Heroes of the Iraq War: War Resisters are the Real Heroes.
I realize that critics will argue that these soldiers knew, or should have known, what they were getting into when they joined up. However, I submit that the consistent application of the principle of individual liberty and concomitant opposition to slavery requires us to defend the right of any individual to terminate his or her labor contract at any time, and that this application of the principle should apply to members of the armed forces without exception. I’m sure that many more soldiers from the U.S. and its allies would not choose to fight this particular war if they did not fear prosecution for desertion.
Even assuming your premises are correct (that this war is illegal and/or immoral), I don’t think that deserting (and no doubt leaving your unit physically weaker and surely with lower morale) should give someone the label “hero.”
I mean, let’s say we do allow soldiers to “terminate his or her labor contract” (even though I don’t think the “at will employment” principle can reasonably be applied to soldiers in the same way it applied to me as a busboy a few years ago). What about the termination is “heroic”? Is it because the soldier “did the right thing”? If that’s your position, you should demand it from all soldiers anyway, and certainly not consider it “heroic.” It seems that instead of praising the ones who do protest, you should condemn those who don’t.
I wouldn’t call those who abstain from murdering people “heroes” for following what I think is a proper moral code. I’d condemn those who refuse to follow it.
So if you really do think the war is unjust and illegal, AND you think the proper ethical response from a soldier is desertion or refusal to fight, then it doesn’t follow that those soldiers are heroes, only that those who chose to fight are in violation of your principle (and hence, I guess, NOT heroes at all).
But since your sentence celebrated “other” heroes, I can only imagine that you think both the soldiers who DO fight, AND those who deserted are both heroes. Maybe I’m missing something, but I don’t see how you can simultaneously hold both positions.
Please read and respond to what I wrote in my second post. I explained that my first post was more than a bit opaque because it was the first draft of the first sentence. Yes, you are missing something. You are assuming that I hold positions that I don’t.
Miilitary deserters may or may not exemplify heroism. It all depends on the context and what the deserter does or does not choose to do. Certainly at least some of those featured on the website are heroes in my book.
I think that Mark is missing Greg’s point, which is that the word “other” in the first partial posting indicates that at least some soldiers who are fighting, rather than refusing, are heroes. But if the war is unjust and refusing to fight is heroic, it’s hard to see how fighting in an unjust war could also be heroic. Perhaps Mark didn’t intend to use the word “other” and on reflection would prefer that he had not used it. In any case, it does seem to me that Greg is making a reasonable point about the texts available.
Setting that to the side for the moment, the point that Mark raises is an interesting and difficult one. Can one legitimately bind oneself in such a way that one could not back out (without being penalized) if one were to change one’s mind? If I understand the law of contracts, one can do so when there is detrimental reliance by some other party or parties. Thus, an airline pilot could not agree to fly a plane and then, upon gaining altitude, decide that he’d rather “terminate his labor contract” (as Mark put it, “at any time”) and parachute out, leaving the passengers to die in a crash. He could certainly be legitimately forced by the other passengers to continue flying the plane or, if he were to succeed in jumping, he could be punished for choosing to terminate his labor contract in that manner. (One could multiply the examples: a brain surgeon in the middle of surgery deciding he’d rather watch TV, etc., etc.) I doubt that Mark would disagree with such an approach.
The question is whether agreement to military service is like agreement to fly a plane. If the soldiers in a unit were to desert, would they put the rest of the population (or at least the other soldiers who did not desert) in a position of detrimental reliance that would justify insisting on completion of the contracts to which they had freely agreed?
As I explained before, my first post was a mistake.
That said, if you go to the website I mentioned, you will read about Lance Corporal Abdul Henderson of the U.S. Marines who saw combat and won the Marine Corps Achievement Medal after trying to rescue British soldiers who were trapped in an overturned vehicle. His participation in the rescue mission sounds pretty heroic to me. Henderson has not attempted to separate himself from the U.S. Marines, but has publicly stated in Michael Moore’s film Fahrenheit 9/11 that he would refuse to return to fight in Iraq, where he has already served a 2 month tour of duty. That’s not costless for him for the Marine Corps is conducting a preliminary inquiry into Henderson’s appearance in Fahrenheit 9/11. Marine spokesman Capt. Patrick Kerr says authorities need to decide whether any action is warranted. “He made it very clear that he would not follow orders,” Kerr says. “We’re trying to determine what, if anything, he said or did was wrong” and what the punishment might be. Henderson faces harsher penalties if he fails to report for a second Iraq tour. “Technically, he’d be a deserter,” Kerr says. Punishment could range from an administrative discharge to a court-martial, which could land Henderson in a military prison for up to a year, Kerr says. Henderson’s stand against the war also sounds pretty heroic to me.
As regards detrimental reliance, I deny that the examples of an enlisted soldier who refuses to participate in a war (for whatever reason) or one who deserts without imperiling his comrades in the fox-hole are analogous to the examples of a pilot who bails out of a plane or a surgeon who quits halfway through an operation. Indeed, if soldiers were legally entitled to quit, this would act as a major restraint on the ability of governments to wage war.
Well, Mark has denied that the cases are analogous. So that settles that.
Yet…he also implicitly answered in the affirmative a part of the question that I posed above. He did so when he specified as disanalogous only the case of “one who deserts without imperiling his comrades in the fox-hole,” which suggests that imperiling one’s comrades in the fox-hole would be a case of detrimental reliance that could merit punishment for desertion. Mark, it seems, does not believe that a soldier should be able “to terminate his or her labor contract at any time.”
I’m not clear myself on what is the best answer to such questions, although I think that Mark is right to draw back from his earlier claim and to suggest or imply that deserting under fire in a way that imperils one’s comrades ought to be a punishable offense, which is another way of saying that one ought be held to one’s obligations under such conditions. Where would one draw the line? If you train with your unit and then refuse to go, have you imperiled them? It seems fair to say that you’ve probably done so at least a little. How much imperilment is enough to merit enforcement of the terms of one’s voluntary agreement? Or should the line be drawn at the point where one signed an agreement to receive benefits in exchange for taking up arms when called on to do so?
Regarding Lance Corporal Abdul Henderson, it’s also not clear to me that his actions are all that heroic, for the reason that serving military personnel are not supposed to criticize the commander in chief or say what legally valid orders they would or not obey. (Illegal orders are, of course, a different matter.) Keeping the military out of politics has served the U.S. quite well and one of the guardians of civilian control of the military has been the restriction on the expression of such sentiments by military personnel. Soldiers who said “I wouldn’t obey orders from President [Clinton or Bush — take your pick]” are a danger to the republic and should be booted out or subjected to some form of discipline. So, in the absence of more information than the web site and the USA Today article to which it links presented, I fail to see how Lance Corporal Henderson is a hero for appearing in a very political film bashing the president in order to elect another candidate. Legal? Maybe. Heroic? Not even close.
Regardless of one’s political perspective, or feelings and beliefs about the present military actions, we hope to motivate individuals and businesses to assist us in providing scholarships for veterans.
Personally, I would like to be part of an effort to make sure that today’s veterans do not suffer the same treatment, as did many Vietnam veterans. Since I have heard the saying: “I support the troops” from both sides of the political debate, I hope that this is an encouraging sign- that we learned a hard lesson 30 years ago and that we will do what is possible to not let it happen again.
Part of what we are trying to do is involve people personally. Having them carry the pail (do the footwork) not just fill it with water (donations). We have a goal of 100 college districts in the next two years and 100,000.00. We have two colleges and 1000.00 so far. Long way to go. But each person who assists brings us closer.
Money donated to the fund goes directly into the designated college’s scholarship fund and is administered by them. Scholarships for Veterans will be a clearinghouse and selection committee only.
Scholarships for Veterans http://www.scholarshipsforveterans.org
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