My big night out this weekend is tonight, so Saturday night I was doing the laundry, etc. and periodically checking in on the thread for ”Nobody Likes A Tease, Nancy.”
In the course of the thread, regular PW troll markg8 suggested the Iraq op was not supported by our troops.
So I asked him why the re-enlistment rates for the Marines and the Army are so high, particularly in units are in—or have been in—Iraq.
markg8—as trolls are wont to do—ignored the point. And I later pointed this out.
Karl I’ll explain it to you later when your keyboard commando misconceptions about American patriotism and the brotherly bonds of combat don’t irritate me so much I just want to pick you up and throw your silly ass up against the wall, not every 10 years but repeatedly, until your fucking skull shatters and you’re no longer insulting, as puny as your words are, my country or it’s soldiers. You really have no idea what you’re talking about and yet you keep blathering on about recruitment rates etc.
Quit trying to man up on the backs of others. You can’t. You look really bad trying.
Like our esteemed host, I have apparently joined the ranks of the hyper-masculine.
You will want to RTWT, as alphie stopped by for unintentional comic relief, and I don’t want to spoil B Moe’s response.
—–
Update: markg8 claims he never lost it. So his violent rant was apparently premeditated, though he still didn’t explain those re-enlistment rates.
Before he got into the ‘swinging babies round by their heels and smashing their skulls against the wall’ bit, margate had already come up with the slur highlighted above.
I have a fairly strong recollection from a previous post, involving michelle the internationalist interactor and a highly decorated millionaire living in a bunker in Montana, that alppuccino is in fact a veteran of the US armed forces.
As a matter of interest, what was margate’s rank on his retirement from the service?
President Merkin Muffley: Gentlemen, you can’t fight in here! This is the War Room.
Do I have this right?
Nancy and Harry trick Bush into vetoing the supplemental…
the price of peanuts skyrockets at American ballparks…
angering the “average low information voter”…
and consigning “the neocons straight into electoral hell for the next 30 years”.
Diafreakingbolical.
That’s right happyfeet. Watch the pennies and the dollars take care of themselves.
I think someone’s projection has managed to eject himself right out of the ballpark.
Fascinating. Or, at least, interesting.
It’s not just diabolical – it’s diaboldical!
Seriously, who cares what markgate thinks? He comes with insult not intelligence, derision not debate. He’s just a nasty bitter barrel of bile and a sterling example of the insanely frothing left.
Not worth the powder, etc.
Can’t lose what he never had.
By the way, has anyone else noticed that his voice there, toward the end, had gone from basso profundo to so high only dogs can hear it?
Yes. It was an interesting example of the power of the written word to transmit feelings, emotions, senses- although in this case, as you say, the emotions and senses were at the dog-whistle level.
fweep.
That’s because he can’t. And therefore you’re not allowed to bring it up. No wonder he lost it; you’re failing to abide by the established rules of civilized discourse.
FASCIST!
FACTIST!
I think Mark needs to just skip a night or two – when you devolve into wishing violence like that…whoo.
And one thing I always wondered about violent fantasy like that – what makes the person wishing that think they could actually be able to do that without getting turned into a pretzel knot and then handed over to the police?
So Mark, why don’t you lay off that nonsense – you won’t see anyone else here engaging in it.
This kind of bothers me, if true. I don’t like the idea of poking the mentally ill with a stick.
Of course, he could just be some sadistic orderly, in which case fuck him again.
Those who can perform in that manner don’t fantasize about it publicly.
boys41, eh? Does someone set these code words up to be oddly significant to the subject matter of the post?
The Menninger clinic moved to Texas in 2003.
Karl—when you start to git to our age, take those hypermasculine infusions wherever you can find them. WAY cheaper than a Cialis prescription or a Porsche…
B Moe—what do you call a mentally dysfunctional lefty?
Congressman.
Hmmm.
Actually it gets a lot funnier than that.
The US Marines have just instituted a new policy that allows Marines to request transfer *to* Iraq for combat duty.
Why?
Because many Marines consigned to non-combat posts or stations were getting pissed off that they weren’t getting a chance to get in on the fighting.
Look it up on strategypage.com.
Wonder if markg8 be able to explain this as well.
memomachine suggested to look it up on strategypage.com.
That would be here.
Good catch, though mark may have to start making a list now.
People who love their country are willing to fight for it.
Those who don’t, aren’t, and can’t comprehend how anyone else, of their own free will, is.
It’s that simple.
tw: remember91 (!)
This is really fuckin’ stupid. Agricultural subsidies keep prices up not down. Do you really think the farmers will pass on their cost savings because they got a storage facility bought and paid for by “average low information voter”?
But you’re a man marky mark. You want to throw Karl* against the wall BECAUSE OF THE PEACE!!
* the capitalization inconsistency was intentional.
BTW, let’s all note that alphie, with his kooky little Dr. Strangelove non sequitur, seems to have no problem with mark’s violent rant.
I’m not surprised, but it’s just something to keep in mind the next time a left-winger is asking right-leaning bloggers to condemn some comment by a completely unrelated party somewhere else.
Yes, it is. Close to 100% of everything markg8 says and effectively 100% of what alphie says reveals them to be uninformed, close minded, and way out of their depth here.
Anyone who thinks for him or her self knows parroting talking points that fly in the face of both logic and common sense does not make a coherent argument and can’t help but get extremely irritated when intellectual lightweights show their asses insisting that it does.
The jihadi boys are textbook examples of useful fools – of no more consequence than mob fodder with little prospect of improving their state.
That’s a modern peace lover, these days. He’ll throw you up against the wall and smash your fucking skull to pieces to make it happen!
Hmmm.
Some people join the military for the educational benefits. Quite a few join because of patriotism and love of country.
Then there are the US Marines who join because they really want to kick someone’s ass. Anybody’s ass.
Or that’s how I used to feel when I was 17 years old, just graduated from advanced infantry training, full of piss and vinegar and really wanting to shoot somebody. *shrug* it’s a Marine kind of thing.
could anyone explain to me how Karl, “insulted” markg8’s country or it’s soldiers? I’m still confused about that one. I thought maybe it was because it was late, but looking at it again it’s still not making sense.
Alphie is the ‘terse’ self-parodying troll, and markg8 is the ‘verbose’ self-parodying troll.
The more their ideas are NOT reflected in reality, the more angry they get AT reality.
What we see here are just symptoms.
When you’re like that, you can either adjust your ideas to fit reality, try to change reality, or you can push yourself farther and farther away from reality.
mark and alphie couldn’t give a shit about the effects on the country. They’ve been convinced they should hate George Bush, so they hate George Bush and everything he stands for (I say convinced, because they can’t articulate a reasoned position for the hatred, but that’s another matter.)
They are convinced that they should hate George Bush with such passion that everything else must be secondary. They hate him so much they are willing to sacrifice the well being and security of the country if by some twisted logic it can be used as justification for the hatred.
Defeat for the military translates to defeat for Bush. Regardless of the danger it puts the country in, they work to bring that defeat about in whatever unprincipled and abjectly cowardly ways that they can without ever admitting to the process or it’s probable consequences. They get around that by projecting both the mindset and the consequences onto folks who don’t share the hatred. I’d have a hell of a lot more respect for the BDS crowd if they would stand up admit to their motivations and let their rationale be judged on the merits. They can’t. It has no logical basis and they know it. So they turn it around and project it.
So no, the quoted text won’t make sense no matter how it’s looked at. Black is white and white is black. We are the ones who don’t support the troops and the troops in turn support defeat says mark. Giving up and leaving the field to the enemy is not losing as long as the enemy wants us to says alphie.
Men of straw, mark and alphie. Not men of consequence.
I was paraphrasing Jonah Goldberg describing the Ledeen Doctine back on 8/30/02, according to Goldberg Ledeen once said, “Every ten years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business.” That’s not losing it, that’s throwing stupid neocon logic back at you.
Now for your claim that troops support the war as evidenced by re-enlistment rates.
Now if you’re in the active Army and you’re being offered a re-enlistment bonus, which can be up to $90,000 tax free if you re-up in a combat zone, pressured directly and indirectly to re-up by your CO and others, and your other option is to decline and be placed in the reserves with no bonus, fewer benefits for you and your family, crappier equipment and little assurance you won’t wind up coming back to Iraq anyway, what are you gonna do? You’re going to take the money and stay with the men you know and trust. You’re gonna re-up.
Karl, maybe you think it’s because they support Bush, support his policy. I think they’re taking the best of the bad options they’re offered.
furriskey granted Karl has maturity problems but I don’t recall writing anything about ‘swinging babies round by their heels and smashing their skulls against the wall’. You seem to have a problem with reality. But at this that’s nothing new.
markg8, your ignorance of military matters is showing, I’d suggest you quit while you’re ahead.
Tell it to Jeff Goldstein and his penis cudgel, Not to mention the rest of you who fantasize about nuking most of the middle east.
In other words, you don’t know any soldiers, would consider associating with them slumming, and have a persistent, unchallengable stereotype of soldiers as badly-educated rednecks with violent tendencies, mercenary motives, and a death wish.
Re-enlistment bonuses are beside the point. The ones nowadays are comparable to or less than those of earlier days, considered as buying power. If I had re-enlisted in 1973 I could have bought a house with the bonus—despite having to pay income taxes on it, because I wasn’t in a combat zone at the time to “re-up”. You might check what the retention rates were at about that time, but you won’t, because it might not confirm your prejudices.
Regards,
Ric
No, it’s completely fucking stupid. No one cited Goldberg. No one used that quote. No one brought it up. I’ve read a lot of what Goldberg’s written, but I didn’t remember the quote; I doubt anyone but you remembered the quote, its source, or its relevance to the subject at hand.
It looked like what it was—you went totally berserk because you were caught by facts you cannot rebut.
The amazing thing is you apparently think it’s fine to dredge up a random quote from someone completely uninvolved in this discussion and treat it as if it were the personal words, the personal position, of the people actually in this discussion. The depth of intellectual dishonesty there, the depth of sheer bigotry, is breath-taking.
Or, rather, it would be breath-taking, if it weren’t par for the course from your type.
So much for Leftists and their better appreciation of humor.
Regards,
Ric
hey menonmachine I went to that site an didn’t find your article on marines itching to go to Iraq. I did find this though:
Maybe you have a link?
markg8,
You just made a utter jackass out of yourself using 10 USC 651 to try to rebut the re-enlistment rate argument. I will leave it as an exercise for you to figure out why. Hint – understand to who and under what circumstances that code applies. Further hint – it is not active duty enlisted in regular forces.
Who said that? Or are you once more taking what some random person said elsewhere and assuming we hold the same opinion?
Are you capable of arguing against what people actually say?
TW: why69. What a stupid question.
Actually, I think that was one of markg8’s fellow trolls. And in true troll fashion he’s going to lay the blame for it on us because it was said here.
Anyone here want to explain inactive reserve status to MarkG8?
Markg8, the rule of holes is: when you find yourself in one, quit digging. Evidently, you haven’t figured out that your every comment here reduces your credibility incrementally, and your estimated IQ. At present, you are in below zero territory.
LOL…markg8 has just pulled ahead in the outstanding troll game. His telling weak foray into “threatening” Karl was the deciding factor. Lying, deflecting and being a complete idiot are pre-requisites that trolls such as *lph** have in spades, but the “attempt” at being an alpha male (as opposed to *lp** the alpha victim) was priceless. Classic moobattery, markg8. Keep it up.
I guess Conway must be worried the war is going to end before the rest of the Marine Corp gets in on the action. Nobody joins the Marines to sit around Okinawa.
Well, all things considered, Alphie cracks an occasional joke from time to time. While he might be obtuse, I could see myself at the corner bar chatting with Alphie – just not necessarily about politics.
well, but to be fair BRD, a few of them have been called into service. but then, having signed that contract one would think they knew what could be in store.
The beauty of this & marky mark’s little out-burst is that just a few days ago he was complaining about how we were not being â€Âcordial†enough to him & then a few comments later let loose on Jeff, again. Apparently being polite is a one-way street in marky mark land, just like the proper use of facts & logic seem to be unidirectionally against him.
Given the fact that every point he has made has been immediately discredited, every link he has provided has been shown to be irrelevant or say the exact opposite of what he contends & every other comment he supplies completely contradicts what he previously said before-hand, I can see why he’d be upset & threaten violence. What else has he left to rely upon? Surely it isn’t his keen wit or argument skills & given his apparent & overly demonstrated lack of reading comprehension or military knowledge, he is at an inherent disadvantage here or within the world itself.
Some advice, mark, scream “palomino†& go back to whatever self serving, leftist echo chamber your came from. It’s not that we don’t appreciate someone of a differing POV, we do, it’s just that we’d prefer someone who has taken the time to actually be bothered enough to form one & not just react w/ slight of hand, cut-n-paste, reactionary, non-related drivel presented as a point. Of course since very few get banned here, you may want to change your approach, because being the unhinged, slightly more illiterate form of little “a†sure isn’t getting you anywhere & your idle threats make you appear even more immature & childish then your arguments. Though truth be told, I personally didn’t think that that was possible, so pat yourself on the back for entering a new low & know I’m not laughing w/ you… I just pity you.
Maggie,
The thing that I found to be interesting is that I’m rather under the impression that MarkG8 thought that the 8 year term of service had something to do with re-enlistment rates. Just because it is an 8-year term, altogether, doesn’t mean that re-enlistment isn’t an actual factor.
But as you note, there have been some folks called up. A lot of that arises from the restructuring of the reserve component eons ago to shift combat roles to the active component and support to the reserves. That means, unfortunately, that one can’t do much of anything that’s not pure warfighting without calling reserves, and for specialties that we’re particularly short in, that we tap inactive reserve individuals.
BRD
Where’d you get your $90,000 figure? Are you not aware that that’s a cap limit, and not a bonus amount?
Re-enlistment bonuses in combat zones are, right now, only $15,000. Some SRBs are as high as $40,000.
So once again you are talking through your hat.
You also have little to no understanding of the enlistment contract even though you cite part of the stautory authority.
The initial enlistment contract is for 8 years. This is usually broken up. Say a 4 active and 4 reserve period though you can elect to do 8 active. 6 and 2 is very common. This division is agreed to when the enlistment contract is made.
I enlisted on a 6 and 2. Had I not re-enlisted for 6 years, I would have had 2 years of IRR to serve. Had I merely extended my enlistment for 1 year, I’d have had 1 year of IRR to serve.
So yet again, we see that you do not know what you are talking about.
(I re-enlisted for the second time for another 6 year term in June 2006.)
In counter to the cynics who claim re-enlistment bonuses and such are the prime motivators (Yes, I got mine, but I was always going to re-enlist anyway. For me it’s “found money.â€Â) is that servicemen sign up to serve. Enlistments are up because we are deploying. It’s not a universal trait, any more than that of the destitute reservist, but it’s enough to stave off the fulfillment of the “broken army†warnings I’ve been hearing every three months or so since the end of 2003. It’s my opinion that they keep making their predictions either because they think they may actually come true and can say “toldjya†or because it’s a plausible scary story that might convince people to join the white flag/white feather circle in which marky and Alphred move.
It never ceases to amaze me how the left feels so qualified to judge the motives of military members, few of whom with which they would ever stoop to associate. Try actually speaking with marines rather than reading about them, Mark. Every man and woman in my son’s marine reserve unit volunteered for Iraq duty. In fact, there was a waiting list. The only issue that they have with the way the war is being run is that the ROE have been too restrictive and putting our military at unnecessary risk.
What a shock! Still more bad faith from markg8:
Of course, I posted the link immediately following memomachine’s comment… I guess he just didn’t notice. Sure.
But nice to see he’s regurgitating the stereotype about our troops being disadvantaged mercenaries. Funny how often the anti-victory types resort to that while claiming to support them. The notion that they are bribed (which is wrong, as others have explained above) is particularly rich coming from merkg8, who was earlier defending all of the extras taked onto the House bill to win Dem votes for the timetable.
And in that supposed quote from Jonah Goldberg, I didn’t see anything about smashing my—or anyone’s—skull into pieces. That’s all markg8.
Apologizing the typos above allows me to add that markg8s entire approach in this thread is rich in irony, considering that he accused me of insulting the troops.
I am rather curious about the assertion that MarkG8 made about “insulting the troops”. Perhaps I’m hopelessly dense, but who insulted the troops?
a primer for you BRD.
implying troops are poor witless mercenaries = not insulting
citing that troops are re-enlisting at record rates = insulting
up is down, black is white, blah blah blah
mishu sometimes yes, sometimes no. But regardless
the $74 million in peanut storage funds which critics are so quick to jump on were unanimously approved by the Appropriations Committee last year as an extension of a program in the 2002 Farm Bill. The 2006 bill was never funded due to the Republican leadership just abdicating their responsibility to even approve a 2007 budget before or after the 2006 election. Like other programs stranded because of the 109th Congress’s incompetence, it was added to this later bill in order to ensure that ongoing programs would not go unfunded due to the failed leadership of House Republicans. Where was the Repub outrage last May when they approved this bill in committee?
the thing is, why not make a separate farm bill? why hold this bill hostage?
I’ve been resisting posting what I’ve been thinking about marky mark’s screeds:
How can he type with a jihaddist dick in his mouth.
If I did post that, do you think it’s be, you know, too edgy?
N.O’Brain,
No, but you may have to go to rehab.
What Goldberg paraphrased Leeden saying:
“Every ten years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business.â€Â
What markg8 wrote:
… don’t irritate me so much I just want to pick you up and throw your silly ass up against the wall, not every 10 years but repeatedly, until your fucking skull shatters and you’re no longer insulting…
What’s kind of fun about the comparison is reflecting on the new elements added by his painfully wounded ego.
I especially like the new part “until your fucking skull shatters.”
I also like the parts where he talks about being “irritated” and about his sense of having been insulted and how he wants to shatter a skull so the occupant of the skull can’t insult him ever, ever, ever again.
Sounds like someone needs “Poor Impulse Control” tattooed on their forehead.
Come on mark, you can do better. The bill just passed was in response to a specific request for a military appropriation. It’s not the federal budget. The problem with earmarks is that they are usually appropriations that would never stand scrutiny on their own. Pork is the common word. So they are attached as riders to other bills.
The whole god damn point in this farce is that this was a MILITARY appropriations bill. Tacking on earmarks forces the representatives from the affected districts to vote for the bill because of the rider, no matter what the other stipulations (timetables). It’s bare faced bribery.
Understand the processes you opine on for christsakes.
Be that as it may, but tonight there are peanuts sleeping out under the stars, freezing their………well……..you know…..nuts off.
………do you know what that means? SOMEWHERE, AN INNOCENT PEANUT SHIVERS!!!!
You also need to decide which side you’re on and stick with it.
Your position is supposed to be that Republicans are wasteful panderers to Big Business, offering subsidies to ADM to support their plutocrat buddies. Having them refuse to fund a pork-laden rider, then seeing Democrats add it in as a bribe to support a bill which is itself not defensible, has you confused, doesn’t it?
Regards,
Ric
I see the reenlistment issue has slipped on by again. Sigh – I am wondering, Mark – how do you explain the officer corps staying past 20 these days? Guys used to count down the days to 20 and retire…now, not as much. Why do you think that would be – we don’t get bonuses foro re-upping. And many of us find that we get a bit less $ on active duty, now that we are getting up therer in our civilian careers. If it was all economics, wouldn;t we be shedding field grades like crazy?
Jeez, ya think Ric? Regarding this gem:
The guy seems to forget an election already.
Major,
reactionary leftists ALWAYS try to force EVERYTHING onto the Procrustes Bed of economics.
Remember, marxism it the opiate of the intellectual.
You know what gets me irritated about you 101st fightin keyboard commandos?
My mother’s brother, my late Uncle Harry almost died in the Battle of the Bulge and the Tet Offensive. My father spent 2 years flying around the South Pacific as a flight engineer on a B-24 hoping like hell the 20 year old navigator could find the flyspeck island base before their fuel ran out and they had to ditch in shark infested waters. He would have much preferred going to the U of Illlinois as the first in his family to attend college on that football scholarship he earned but he did his duty.
Uncle Harry helped liberate the Nazi death camps. My dad saw one of his unit’s airmen court martialed after the war for damn near beating to death a suicidal captured Japanese soldier who wanted to regain his self respect by taking on an American after he missed his opportunity to die for the emperor.
The Geneva Conventions were civilization’s reward for winning WW11. Learning that we should never engage in another occupation of a hostile nation was our consolation prize for Vietnam. Even if we had put half a million troops we didn’t have into Iraq after the invasion, our military didn’t have the training for that kind of mission because
nobody thought we’d have an administration dumb enough to repeat those mistakes.
The Bush Administration sadly has trampled on the
sacrifices of the people of all nations who fought and all who suffered in those earlier conflicts. It particularly saddens me that my Uncle Harry who died a couple of years ago saw some of the most important accomplishments of his generation and his life personally cast aside by the much lesser men who now hold power.
He didn’t fight to empty the death camps in Germany to make the world safe for American torture at Abu Ghraib or in secret detention sites. He didn’t dodge Viet Cong death squads on the streets of Saigon so his old unit could ride around Iraq in humvees waiting to get blown up. He didn’t spend most of his adult life in the US Army earning substantially less than what he would have been payed in civilian life so you could beat your jingoistic chests and have your tender wounded psyches healed by Reagan’s misbegotten “morning in America” speech. He didn’t do what he did so yellow elephants could prove how tough they were against communism by killing 250,000 campesinos in the 1980s down in Central America for the crime of wanting a better life for their kids than Chiquita and the oligarchs we propped up were willing to tolerate. He felt the same way about chickenhawk traitors like Ledeen as I do.
The Right hasn’t been right on foreign policy or defense since they hamstrung FDR with isolationism in the late 1930s. Since that political debacle it’s been one overreaction after another in an attempt to prove how tough you are. Conservatives have piled stupid short term decisions and under the table deals on top of each other in attempts to gain and maintain power that have come back to
bite us time and time again. Iran, Guatemala, Nixon having his people whisper in South Vietnamese ears about his better deal if they’d scuttle the 1968 peace deal LBJ put together
just before the election, to the October surprise in 1980 that led to Iran-Contra, to telling Saddam we don’t get involved in Arab disputes in 1990, all have damaged our reputation and our interests. And now this ghastly civil war in Iraq.
There are millions of your fellow conservatives who are starting to wise up. But not around here.
And that’s why sometimes when I read the crap guys like Karl write I feel like cracking their skulls open.
oh, are we going to start with the “military relatives and personal service” points again? it seems you’ve missed how many of the respondents here have been overseas in the current conflict markg8. you might want to think about that before you invoke your ancestors. I’m just sayin’
and ftw I think I had something like 4 and a half points.
Always! First, trade gets undermined from subsidies which undermines competition. As a result, the farmers get to dictate price. Secondly, congress adds to the price by using tax money, an inelastic cost, to support a product with a completely elastic demand.
oops, there’s another unintended insult.
So fucking what? They aren’t you. Your screed is beyond parody.
Rob Crawford that’s not a ramdom quote, that pretty much defines why you guys support Bush’s invasion of Iraq. It’s the doctrine you subscribe to in a nutshell.
Cuz let’s face it if you thought the justifcation for war was WMD you’d be angry at Bush about the way that turned out. If it was about democracy promotion or pacifying the middle east you’d be really pissed off at him. None of that is turning out the way he said it would. But hey killing Arabs and throwing a crappy little country up against the wall? Mission accomplished!
Then stop demanding we ignore them! Support the letter of the GC, not the imaginary bits that lead to treating unlawful combatants better than they treat civilians and our lawful combatants.
Fantasize much? I mean, really, when you cite discredited conspiracy theories, it doesn’t do much to earn respect. Seriously—if one of the regulars started talking about Hillary being involved in Vince Foster’s death, wouldn’t you roll your eyes and flip the bozo bit?
And besides, which president nearly started a nuclear war? Which president got us into Vietnam?
markie, markie… <sigh>
If yer so worked up over FDR being “hamstrung with isolationism,” how is it you have no problem with Congress attempting to hamstring the current President? And for reasons that are much less truthy?
TW: Yes, I know it’s a waste of my time52 to try.
or, some of us have a better understanding about how long these things take and would really appreciate it if you would shut up and let them do their jobs. (I’m mainly speaking for my husband that’s currently conked out in Kabul at the moment. but, I also hear things from others)
Mark,
Spare me the 101st keyboardist crap. You sure talk big for someone who has to reach back to your mother’s brother in the Big One to even hear a whisper of the “incommunicable experience of war.”
Just argue your points and drop the headsmashing fantasy and “chickenhawk” crap. You are coming across more than a little in need of lithium, rather than someone who is sure and patient in their arguments.
MarkG8,
I find it intensely interesting that you wrote that response to a bunch of people who are a) active duty, b) reserve callup, c) in the defense community and/or d) have long familial traditions of military service, about some “insult” to the military and the country.
I am also amazed that the best you can manage in the waving the bloody flag department is some sort of second order reflex through which you stuff words in the mouths of others.
Another thing I find fascinating is your stunning misapprehension of the Geneva Convention, even in basic terms of history or background.
Never-ending font of surprises, and quite a piece of work you are.
Or, alternately, to mirror your statement, in every generation, without exception, back before the Revolutionary War, a member of my family has joined the military. In the Revolutionary War, we had people on both sides of that conflict.
And I’m pretty damned sure that none of them joined up with the express intent and purpose of watching ignorant American citizens to their level best to cause their country to lose, to be embarrassed in defeat and made as vulnerable as possible to wanton death and destruction.
I give you some credit for at least having written a response, but I’m still perplexed that you would come in to a comment thread, and tell current and former military personnel about how they are being insulted by, I guess, themselves, and your moral authority on this is the moral choice of military service conveyed to you through genetics.
BRD
And you know this because of what, exactly? Or are you simply assuming that’s what I believe, because I disagree with you?
Only if I were a child who assumed fore-knowledge was perfect, or that people should be held responsible for making reasonable decisions under time pressure based on incomplete information. Hell, the entire world thought Saddam had WMD stockpiles—the peacenuts were declaring we’d be bringing home 10’s of thousands of GIs in body bags once Saddam unleashed his gas. There’s some evidence Saddam’s own generals thought he had WMD. The most reasonable explanations I’ve heard is that Saddam was running a bluff, or that Saddam himself thought he had stockpiles, but had smoke blown up his ass by subordinates.
And, hell, we certainly have kept Saddam’s programs from being rebuilt, which he had quite clearly maintained the ability to do.
Again, only if I were a child expecting instant perfection. It’s certainly a hell of a lot better than it would have been with Saddam still in power. Ask the Kurds, ask the Marsh Arabs—I’d bet they would do their best to set you straight.
Again, you’re the only one in this conversation talking like this. Does it make you feel manly? Or are you simply venting your unthinking rage?
Listen carefully mark. The justification for the war on terror was an attack on native soil on 9/11. The US policy in response to that was outlined on 9/20/01. It was made clear that it would be a long war in that speech. The justification for the timetable for prosecuting the Iraqi campaign in that war was to preemptively prevent Iraq from becoming an imminent threat because of it’s WMD programs and open support of terrorism.
That’s all well understood by folks here. They understand what’s at stake, what it will take to safeguard the country, and that expecting it to be quick and easy was unrealistic. They listened. You obviously didn’t. You should have someone explain it to you.
And thus we get to the root of why markie and his ilk don’t have a problem with us abandoning Iraq.
C’mon P’main that was Jeff who told me you were really a bunch of cordial jokesters and then namedropped such lefties as Matt Yglesias and Atrios who he assured had been welcome particpants here in earlier days. I just called him on it and his silly taunts. I never said I was a wallflower.
I was going to mention that, but like I said, beyond parody. If Uncle Harry really existed, he’d jump out of the grave and kick the little pissant’s ass for spitting on his memory.
On 9/11, my brother-in-law drove to Chicago and then was flown to NYC to help collect and identify the dead.
Neither of these facts bestows on either of us any higher authority—moral or intellectual—in this discussion.
M’kay?
JPT,
Well, as MarkG8 has established, the Geneva Convention arose in the aftermath of WWII, and Uncle Harry was both at the Bulge and Tet. I’ve looked up the signing date of the Geneva Convention, and done a little math, and have found that Uncle Harry topped more than 100 years of active duty service, something to be commended. Given the dates, he also probably was quite familiar with the Civil War. I would be intrigued to hear about how Abu Ghraib was an American torture camp, unparalleled, evidently in American history, while, presumably, Andersonville was a spa of some variety.
BRD
Given Uncle Harry’s service in the Tet Offensive, do you think markg8 was outraged by John Kerry’s smearing the troops in Vietnam as war criminals? Or do you think markg8 voted for Kerry?
Let’s see:
101st fighting keyboard commandos reference – check
Chicken-hawk updated to yellow elephant meme – check
Obligatory Jeff cock slapping reference – check
Clouded & historically inaccurate Vietnam comparison to Iraq – check
Appeals to authority using family members from wars 60 & almost 40 years past – check
Ignoring the opinions by those actually currently serving & posting here – check
GITMO! & NIXON! – check
Threats of violence instead of rational argument – check
WMDs canard & ignoring the contents of the AUMF bi-partisanly passed – check
marky mark you are short one HALIBURTON, IMPEACH BUSH NOW, WAR FOR OIL & ROVIAN PLOT short of hitting every already debunked, hysterical “progressive†talking points all within one comment, congratulations! Unfortunately, you also get subtracted several points by using periods instead of exclamations points & your lack of capitalization throughout, but the good news is you garnered extra points by physically threatening Karl, proving once again you are an unintelligible, unoriginal, close-minded, selective point regurgitating, obtuse troll, who wishes not to engage in debate, make a valid point or be civil, but show how pathetically weak the opposing side is in generating rational, clear points of contention. But don’t worry, sir, Matlock will be on in an hour & you can rest assure that all of the world’s immediately problems will be taken care before the last commercial break & the “real” America, where politicalizing the funding of troops in harm’s way is acceptible will return after this messages from their sponsors.
RTO TRAINER
I’m not sure if you need to be medicated, are medicated or are the by-product of too much semen retention (I don’t really want to know), but you were the one complaining about the lack of cordiality here, or have you once again already forgotten your own comments? Given your inability to make a valid point w/o name calling, to read the links you’ve provided to substantiate your own hollow little arguments or pathetic channeling of the political preferences of relatives of wars past, marky you sure aren’t accomplishing much, other than providing some very interesting, though pitiful entertainment for your political opponents. Thanks for the laughs!!!
maggie Bush is threatening a veto, not Dems. This money is overdue, in some cases since 2005. Repubs decided to just drop the ball between Nov and January and not even enact a budget, probably so they could blame Dems for all kinds of “new” spending that got rolled over into this year. Petty and cynical and all too typical of your modern Republican party.
http://usmilitary.about.com/od/terrorism/a/armycallup.htm
Explain to me what about the ready reserve?
N. O’Brain teeheehee aren’t you cute! I bet all the kids on the playground are impressed by your potty mouth. Just like PMain.
Such boundless ignorance.
You are a fucking black hole of stupidity, asshhole.
“Third Geneva Convention “relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War” (first adopted in 1929…”
You’re an ignoramous, marky mark.
RTO:
http://www.military.com/recruiting/bonus-center/resources/military-bonuses-explained
MarkG8,
Far as I’m concerned, RTO’s comment tackled most of what I thought was interesting to note about the IRR.
As to the origin of the original quote, it ties back in to what ever point you thought you were making in tying in 10 USC 651 to re-enlistment rates.
So, now that I guess you’re all comfortable with IRR, would it hurt you to explain how you think that is related to high current reenlistment rates?
Thanks,
BRD
MarkG8,
Or, for that matter, is there something about the link you offer to RTO that has something to do with something being discussed? I mean, are you posting a link to support his statements? I’m honestly confused about where you intended to go with that.
BRD
JST Tacking on earmarks doesn’t force anybody to vote for the bill. What it does do is get money for these provisions that should have been paid last year sooner instead of waiting until the next budget is passed late in the year. And of course it forces Bush to either sign the bill or veto funds for constituencies Repubs would rather keep in their camp.
Life’s a bitch when your president is as popular as Nixon and you’re in the minority.
and mark’s link to military.com confirms what RTO said about bonuses. 90,000 is a cap. if you follow some of the links to each service you’ll see that no one is offering more than 40,000. so, I suppose theoretically, in the future, some service may decide to offer that much, but it’s not currently happening.
and again, if this some of these projects are so important to fund, why don’t they get their own bill? why risk looking like you support the war?
alppuccino
Now see that’s actually funny alppuccino. You’re much better when you’re not a complete dick.
No different from one of your good friends saying;
‘You give us what we want, or we kill the hostages, and it’ll be your fault.’
or more to the point;
‘You declare defeat, or we’ll hamstring the military, and it’ll be your fault.’
The earmarks were put in by the Donks to buy votes from members whose constituents may not take too kindly to abandoning the troops.
Good Lord, are you even paying attention to the news?
Well, then, why don’t you give it a try?
Ric Locke
Hell Dick Durbin does that. I keep trying to talk him out of it but we have a lot of corn farmers here in IL. Whaddya gonna do?
Does any of you really think anybody voted for or against this bill because of peanuts or spinach?
Not as confused as you are.