"Every gross brained idiot is suffered to come into print." ~ Thomas Nash (1592)
"The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing."
--Archilochus
Glenn Reynolds:
"Heh."
Barack Obama:
"Impossible to transcend."
Albert A. Gore, Jr.:"An incontinent brute."
Rev. Jeremiah Wright:"God damn the Gentleman Farmer."
Friends of GF's Sons:"Is that really your dad?"
Kickball Girl:"Keeping 'em alive until 7:45."
Hired Hand:"I think . . . we forgot the pheasant."
A reminder to the President, the Secretary of Defense, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff of an appropriate exit strategy: Tokyo in February, 1945, and the deck of the battleship Missouri on September 2, 1945.
Presented for your delectation by the Gentleman Farmer at 5:05 AM
Comments on "December 7, 1941"
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Gentleman Farmer said ... (12:40 PM) :
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Gentleman Farmer said ... (8:30 PM) :
post a commentYou think that we should fire bomb Tokyo in order to get out of Iraq. Frankly, I don't get it, but perhaps it is worth a try.
The Oldtimer
give me a fucking break. this war is far different than WWII was.
im so sick of this war mongering from people who didnt serve. the scars of war (both physical and mental) don't fade when one country crushes another. what do you think Gentleman Farmer? would you serve in Iraq? what about Vietnam? im sure you were 4F on account of your good looks or something.
This sort of argument is very confusing to me. I've never been a policeman. Does that mean I'm not entitled to an opinion respecting law enforcement?
Or again: If only those who have served are allowed to express their opinion, then the vast majority of those we're allowed to hear from are the troops themselves.
Here's my proposal: Let's let only active-duty troops vote in the next 5 presidential elections. Deal?
your thoughts on policemen are interesting, but the situations in Iraq and what happens on, say, the streets of Philadelphia are not analogous.
if there were people setting off car bombs in my neighborhood, murdering my family and torturing my friends you can be assured that i would take up my own defense.
i believe that we are all entitled to our opinions regarding the war in iraq. i also feel that we have put hundreds of thousands of our own citizens into a war zone in which we have no plan for victory OR withdrawal.
the point of my original comment is that the very people who got us into this mess and have now grossly mismanaged the execution of this war (democrats included) are not combat veterans. look at the biggest cheerleaders for this war - down the line, how many of them have combat experience? granted being on the front lines isn't a pre-requisite for adequate leadership, but as this situation becomes more untenable it is interesting to note that the remaining people thumping their chests were/are either unable or unwilling to fight.
furthermore, your posting of a flattened Tokyo is in very poor taste, especially on the 65th anniversary of Pearl Harbor. if anything this photo should serve as a warning, it should not be lauded as a "reminder...of an appropriate exit strategy." moreover, it conjures up images of Hiroshima and Nagasaki which were terrible incidents, the likes of which i hope we will never have to see again. firebombing Basra or nuking Baghdad isn't going to solve our problems in Iraq.
instead we should revere the heroes of 12/7/41 and all of the others who fought for us in WWII. the hideous situation we're in inside of Iraq is a sad tribute to the ideals of the greatest generation.
finally, you never answered my question. given that we are experiencing troop shortages would you, if you could, serve in Iraq? did you serve in Vietnam? if not, why not?
if there were people setting off car bombs in my neighborhood, murdering my family and torturing my friends you can be assured that i would take up my own defense.
As a matter of fact, there are any number of neighborhoods in the United States where criminals run wild, robbing, dope-dealing, conducting gang wars and the like. And folks who live there do little or nothing to help the police. Those silent neighbors are silent for the same reason we are not succeeding in Iraq: The regular folks don't trust the police, and the regular Iraqi folks don't trust us or their Government. They're more afraid of the bad guys than they are afraid (or respectful) of us and our power and will.
And they're certainly not wrong. They believe, correctly, that we no longer have the will to flatten Tokyo. Are they wrong?
Had we proceeded in the Pacific as we have proceeded in Iraq, would fewer people have died? Would the war have gone on for decades? [The answers, by the way, are "No" and "Yes."]
Pacifism is a perfectly respectable viewpoint, but you must be willing to die for it, and you must be willing to live as a slave for it.
so we should "proceed" in Iraq as we did in the Pacific? how, then should we go about defeating the enemy? flattening al-Anbar province?
i don't believe anybody on this thread is advocating pacifism. we fucked up by going into Iraq and now our kids are getting killed without a discernable strategy to win or to get out. WWII was a just and necessary war. as the iraq situation meets neither of those criteria, it is not remotely comparable to WWII (not even to Vietnam).
in the end i think what happened at Hiroshima and Nagasaki probably was the fastest way to end that war. but the impact and aftermath of those bombs (politically, physically, psychologically) screams for careful evaluation.
you do an extreme disservice to those WWII warriors by promoting the sort of violence the world was forced to endure 65 years ago. it shows a lack of understanding of the current situation and blatant contempt for the men and women who have fought and died for our country.
Or not.