2 posts tagged “support the troops”

Main Entry:

¹sup·port

Pronunciation:

\sə-ˈpȯrt\

Function:

transitive verb

Etymology:

Middle English, from Anglo-French supporter, from Late Latin supportare, from Latin, to transport, from sub- + portare to carry — more at fare

Date:

14th century

A little over a year ago Sgt. Eddie Jeffers posted an article, Hope Rides Alone.  Sgt. Jeffers 23, serving as a U.S. Army infantryman in Ramadi, Iraq did a great job of expressing the view a soldier has of the people at home when he is wading through the destruction of war and the deaths of friends.  I recommend following the link above to read the full story but here is an excerpt for the purposes of clarifying why I say what I have to say to the anti-war crowd 5 years into a conflict.

["People like Cindy Sheehan are ignorant. Not just to this war, but to the results of their idiotic ramblings, or at least I hope they are. They don't realize its effects on this war. In this war, there are no Geneva Conventions, no cease fires. Medics and Chaplains are not spared from the enemy's brutality because it's against the rules. I can only imagine the horrors a military Chaplain would experience at the hands of the enemy. The enemy slinks in the shadows and fights a coward’s war against us. It is effective though, as many men and women have died since the start of this war. And the memory of their service to America is tainted by the inconsiderate remarks on our nation's news outlets. And every day, the enemy changes...only now, the enemy is becoming something new. The enemy is transitioning from the Muslim extremists to Americans. The enemy is becoming the very people whom we defend with our lives. And they do not realize it. But in denouncing our actions, denouncing our leaders, denouncing the war we live and fight, they are isolating the military from society...and they are becoming our enemy.

Democrats and peace activists like to toss the word "quagmire" around and compare this war to Vietnam. In a way they are right, this war is becoming like Vietnam. Not the actual war, but in the isolation of country and military. America is not a nation at war; they are a nation with its military at war. Like it or not, we are here, some of us for our second, or third times; some even for their fourth and so on. Americans are so concerned now with politics, that it is interfering with our war. "]

You may take exception to Sgt Jeffers comments on dissenters.  Sorry, he isn't available to hear your complaints. Sgt. Eddie Jeffers was killed in Iraq on September 19, 2007.  What it means to support someone is in no way justified by the phrase, "Support them by bringing them home."  You cannot say to the Cardinals, "I support you because I want you to go to the dressing room and hang up your uniform."  Neither can you support the troops by bringing them home and the troops feel your sentiment for what it is, hypocrisy.  The enemy knows it too.  You cannot support the troops and not support their cause. 

From 1969 until the end of the war, over 20,000 American soldiers lost their lives in a war that the United States did not have the resolve to win.  The sensationalism by the American news media and the anti-war protests following the 1968 Tet Offensive gave hope to Communist North Vietnam, strengthening their belief that their will to succeed was greater than ours.  Instead of seeking a successful resolution at the Paris Peace Conference following the disastrous defeat of the 1968 Tet Offensive, they employed delay tactics as another tool to inflame U.S. politics.  This delaying tactic spurned further anti-war demonstrations.  Those who sensationalized their reporting of the war and those who supported anti-war demonstrations are guilty of giving our enemy hope. Because of their actions, they must share partial responsibility for those 20,000 + Americans deaths. 

We won the war on the battlefield but lost it back home on the college campuses and in the city streets.

1st Cav Medic Radio Station

Those who were there remember and don't mince words when it comes to naming the traitors who aided the enemies of the U.S.  Those who are there know and don't mince words when it comes to naming the traitors who aid the enemies of the U.S. 

Given that we have been in this conflict for more than 5 years and that we are not going to quit until we can walk away with a stable government ensconced and not have to worry that they will offer aid and comfort to threats against us, isn't it time to stop the anti-war rhetoric and unify behind our troops?  Isn't it time to acknowledge that we are winning in both Iraq and Afghanistan?  Isn't it time to say to the troops, we are behind you, we recognize what you do is necessary for our national security?  Because we are winning.  We are winning the support of the common citizen, we are winning the stability of an indigenous police force.  We are winning by building the infrastructure so they can have running clean water and working toilets.  We are rebuilding the electrical generation system.  We are building communications systems.  We are making friends in the local community and we are training the local volunteer police force to operate on standards of integrity and honor.

We are not the evil.  Fighting evil is not evil.  Naming evil people as evil is not evil.  Equating good works with evil works is evil.  Using the torturous death of a village child to terrorize the village into falling inline with insurgents' purposes is evil.  Its not that hard to tell the difference between those who are evil with those who are fighting evil.  Its time to make a clear choice to unify behind those who are fighting the evil and stop calling the fight evil.  The stated purpose of the evil ones identifies them as the evil ones.  The stated purpose of the forces for good identifies them as the forces for good.  And the evidence of the works of the evil forces defines them as evil.  And the evidence of the works of the good forces defines them as the good.  Muddling up this simple definition is aiding and abetting the enemies of the United States and the Coalition forces today.

The greatest sin of the second Bush administration is poor communication with the people of the United States.  I understand why they have done such a poor job of it, but it is the greatest failing of George Bush's presidency.  The Main Stream press have continually worked to discredit him and have joined the Democratic party in undermining his credibility and have thought nothing of the damage to national security or the morale of our military in a war time effort.  In publishing military and national secrets during war, in seeking only the worst stories for the front page and spinning every event to make the US look as bad as possible in an international light, by burying positive news deep in the mid to back pages of the papers they are complicit in harming the reputation of the US and encouraging the enemies of freedom and Democracy.  David Horowitz is a great communicator and should be the Republican Party's spokesman on the war against Radical Islam.  He was giving a speech introducing his new book, "Party of Defeat" when he spoke these words:

The opposition party has full access to our secrets and our intelligence.  They conducted a campaign beginning in July 2003 to attack the United States and its commander in chief.  That is the position of the Democratic party.  That is a national disgrace.  We went into Iraq in March 2003, we liberated Baghdad in April 2003 with 139 casualties.  It was July (that's three months or so) after we liberated Baghdad.  We were winning the war.  But when the resistance was starting from the al Quaeda terrorists and the Baathist Fascists in Iraq and our young men and women were in harm's way that the Democratic party ran a national TV ad.  And the TV ad said "Read his lips, President Bush deceives the American people."  President Bush is a war criminal, that's what that was saying.  What change was there in American policy between April and July?  There was none.  The Democratic party, you'll remember, had a presidential primary at this time.  I can't think of anything lower than selling your country out.  Selling your young men and women who are on the battlefield out.  Selling the security of 300 million Americans out, because you wanted to win the Democratic presidential primary.  Now, let's look at a couple of these lies that the Democratic party has based their campaign against America, against the American people, against the Iraqi people, and against the war on terror.  The first is that Iraq is no threat, or was no threat.  Was Afghanistan a threat?  Afghanistan is a much poorer nation than Iraq.  Afghanistan has no oil.  Its got half the population.  Its virtually all tribal.  Baghdad was a pretty modern city.  Of course, that's the whole point of the Bush doctrine and of the war that we are fighting in Iraq.  That 9/11 told us that a weak and fragile and unstable nation, a very poor nation, if it supports terrorists, can strike the American mainland.  Something the Nazis never did, the Germans could not do.  Something the Japanese could never do.  Something no enemy in the last 150 years could do.  And that's why Saddam Hussein was a threat.  Because Saddam Hussein had put... after the Gulf war had put Alahu Ackbar into the flag as a calculated effort to join the forces of the Islamo-fascist crusade because they shared a common enemy.  America, the great Satan.  He had tried to assassinate the president of the United States, he had held international conferences for terrorists, he had hosted abu Habbas and abu Nedal, and Musab al Zachari, and Ansar al Islam.  All of this Saddam Hussein had done.  And so, if you look out at the world, with any modicum of responsibility on 9/11, you would see that Iraq was the next big threat to the United States.  I tried to lay out here, why Iraq should have been considered a threat, but you don't have to take my word for it.  You can go to Al Gore.  On February 2, 2002, Al Gore gave a speech.  Now this speech followed a speech... the state of the union that year by George Bush.  And that was the axis of evil speech.  And many Democrats were in a rage over the use of the term evil to describe Iraq even though the regime had murdered 300,000 Iraqis and put them in mass graves, even though it had dropped poison gas, a wmd, on an ethnic population (the Kurds) even though it had invaded two countries within recent memory, even though Saddam Hussein was in violation of the terms of the Gulf war truce, Al Gore gave a statesmen like speech and he defended Bush's use of the term evil because it was an accurate description of Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq.  And this is what he said about whether Iraq posed a threat.  Instead of saying it posed no threat and would cause us to be judged harshly by history, what he said was, and this is an exact quote, "Iraq is a virulent threat in a class by itself."  "a virulent threat in a class by itself, and the United States would be justified in going to the limit to take Saddam Hussein down."  That's what Al Gore said.  So this book I've written, "The Party of Defeat" is about a party that betrayed its own war.  that betrayed its own country, and that betrayed its men and women in the field.  Don't let anybody tell you that you can support the troops but not the war.  If you support the troops, you support their mission, because when you do what John Kerry did, and say, "Its the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time" you send a demoralizing message to our troops and an encouraging message to our enemies.  On the WMD's, Saddam Hussein lost the Gulf war.  When he invaded Kuwait, the first George Bush organized an international coalition to stop him.  But actually, that coalition was a little too multi-lateral, because it included the Arabs and the Arabs said you cannot remove Saddam Hussein.   What ended the Gulf war was a truce.   It said Saddam Hussein can stay in power but these are the conditions.   And the conditions were UN resolution 687,  and UN resolution 689.  The Gulf war truce UN resolution 687 and 689 said "You will not build, you will not plan to build, you will not have programs to build weapons of mass destruction.  and you will allow UN inspectors onto Iraqi territory and freedom to go anywhere they want so they can determine that you're not doing it, because nobody in his right mind can trust you."  Those two UN resolutions which were followed by fourteen others, were there to keep Saddam from doing what he wanted to do, and what we know he wanted to do, which was to build weapons of mass destruction.  Saddam Hussein systematically violated these resolutions until a day came in 1998 when he actually threw the UN inspectors out.  Iraq was always on the U.S. government's mind.  Hillary Clinton in one of her statements said that she... not only did she vote for the war when she was defending her support for the war, not only did she support the war because of the intelligence that Bush gave her, but the intelligence she got from the Clinton administration.  Saddam Hussein was a threat.  Now, this is what George Bush did, he gave a speech identifying Iraq as a national threat, part of an axis of evil.  And then George Bush in September went to the United Nations and spoke to the general assembly and said, "There are 16 outstanding resolutions which are arms control agreements which are part of the UN truce with Saddam Hussein that kept him in power.  Either you will enforce your word, or you will be seen to be irrelevant."  Which the UN is.  "And we will do it for you."  That's what George Bush said.  And then he went to Congress and he got the authorization for the use of force.  So the very opposite of what the Democrats claim is the truth.  George Bush did not violate international law, he tried to enforce it and the Democrats didn't support him.  The Bush administration made a diplomatic mistake, which was to go back to the UN.  Once they had the resolution, they should have acted on it.  And Tony Blair begged the Bush administration to go to the UN again and get another resolution.  And unfortunately, the Bush administration listened to Colin Powell and did so.  And Colin Powell got what he deserved for this.  Because, what he did, go to the UN to sell the war.   And the way he sold it was to imply that Saddam had more weapons capability than he had.  And that's why people say its about WMD's.  No it isn't!!  It wasn't at all about the weapons of mass destruction.  It was about his potential to build those weapons and his programs to do so, and his intentions to do so.

Now, if there is any doubt left that the Bush administration lied to the American public, to the Congress or to the UN or that we were justified in invading Iraq, or that we could afford to allow that tyrant to continue in his plans to help work destruction on the innocent people of America, please, tell me what it is.  More, if there is any doubt that the actions of the Democratic leadership is not traitorous in their actions against our national security and against our men and women in the field at war, please, inform me.  If there is any doubt that these actions expose the complicity of the American main stream press, please, tell me what doubts you can dredge up.  This is not patriotism to act this way, careless of the effects on our security or that of the troops, or their morale.  If the Democrats win this election with this for credibility, I am without hope for our nation and its future.  John McCain is a moderate.  He has worked across the aisle enough times to anger most Republicans and only got the nomination because the more conservative Republicans were split between the two more conservative candidates.  Barack Obama is a radical leftist and his voting record proves it.  He is unvetted and has zero accomplishments to point to, much less working with the opposition, so how can he fulfill his promises to be the agent of change and hope?  Hillary Clinton is running on her husband's experience.  She voted for the war before she promised to abandon the war.  This isn't flip flop, this is pandering to the base merely for the seat of power.  The Democrats are proven traitors and deserve nothing less than a trial for treasonous act against national security in a time of war.  We cannot afford to put into office any member of the party of defeat, and of enmity with the nation that grants that power voluntarily.  We have to have a Chief that isn't moved by every wisp of breeze of political winds.  We have to have a leader with the vision and the steadfast resolve to meet every challenge with the grace and assurance of having practiced what's right and good.  No promise of benefits is greater than the value of assured security to continue in our existence as a nation of freedom and democracy.  The only issue on the ticket this election has to be the security and continuance of our great culture.  Everything else pales in comparison.  Without that security, there are no human rights protection, no freedom of speech, no opportunity to succeed in business, no opportunity to live in peace and security, no opportunity to participate or not participate in the religion of your choice.  Do not reward the party of defeat this election year.  Don't even encourage them to speak until they get this one issue right.  National security is tantamount in politics.  Everything else is secondary.