Wounded Iraq vet jeered at by students of Columbia - Polidicks

[QUOTE=UncleJimmema;28224861]Congradulations, you all won an argument on the internet! Yay! You get a free year supply of ez lubr and a speed boat! I'm gonna go to sleep now, I'm getting drown tomorrow so ill need all the energy I can get.[/QUOTE] "Goddamnit, fucking kids on the internet. Where's my dynamite? I need to blow up something to distract myself from my own stupidity."

Even if he said stupid shit, as an audience you are to respect the person speaking, and give your comments later.

May I ask what you people would do if present at said meeting?

[QUOTE=Elecbullet;28225045]May I ask what you people would do if present at said meeting?[/QUOTE] Probably not say anything, and then talk about what a tool he was later. But that's just how I roll.

Politely disagree to myself, perhaps nod disappointingly and then leave when it was over. I never said I supported the gathered crowd being assholes, I just agree with their relative sentement.

What a bunch of Ivy League pricks. Even though I disagree in when war is being fought, I still respect the soldiers who risked their lives to fight for something.

Also am I the only one who things that saying "Transpeople" as one word makes them sound like robots or something? I'm not the biggest trans rights activist ever, either

[QUOTE=Elecbullet;28225123]Also am I the only one who things that saying "Transpeople" as one word makes them sound like robots or something? I'm not the biggest trans rights activist ever, either[/QUOTE] I like it. It's like being called a Haberman. It makes you sound like you're from a fifties sci-fi novel.

[QUOTE=Elecbullet;28225045]May I ask what you people would do if present at said meeting?[/QUOTE] i probably would have laughed at his "there are bad people plotting to kill you" comment too [editline]23rd February 2011[/editline] [QUOTE=Elecbullet;28225123]Also am I the only one who things that saying "Transpeople" as one word makes them sound like robots or something? I'm not the biggest trans rights activist ever, either[/QUOTE] ok? how is that a good thing? heh i'm not the biggest womans rights activist either

It's not a good thing, I'm just commenting on the word which sounds silly and inappropriate to me

ok yeah i'm pretty sure they're just called transgender most the time anyway.

[QUOTE=Elecbullet;28225045]May I ask what you people would do if present at said meeting?[/QUOTE] Walk out, most likely.

[QUOTE=PvtCupcakes;28220524]Thanks for defending my right to buy cheap gasoline. Also, a big thanks for helping to take away my other freedoms via the PATRIOT Act.[/QUOTE] Because every day soldiers like the one in the news article are the reason the Patriot Act was passed :downs: you really are retarded.

[QUOTE=Elecbullet;28225045]May I ask what you people would do if present at said meeting?[/QUOTE] i'd tell everyone to shut the fuck then i'd distract them by talking about bjork because that seems to work on forums and off forums "you know that military shit's crazy but did you know bjork was almost killed by a stalker in 1997?"

[QUOTE=Kagrenak;28224752]You just [i]don't know[/i] and there are just [i]things[/i] that [i]can't be explained[/i] to normal people.[/QUOTE] No, stop with your fucking stupid straw men. As I said before, fuck the argument, yes the guy is full of shit but the behavior shown towards him simply because you [B]disagree[/B] with something he said is disgusting. If you disagree with him, then it should be all the more sad that this guy has lost limbs over ultimately being misguided. [editline]23rd February 2011[/editline] [QUOTE=PvtCupcakes;28224804]At least in the present era, the US seems to be the only country that can't solve disagreements with diplomacy. Nobody else is attacking each other as far as I can tell.[/QUOTE] LOL. Can't tell if serious or not

[QUOTE=ken188;28205145]Only people who didn't do well in school, and as a result didnt get accepted into a good college, join the military. Good luck recruiting people from Columbia...[/QUOTE] Doesn't a large chunk of the US Army require a college education?

Soldiers sure sound noble by virtue of their job! [quote]the military is great from a job standpoint there's nothing more solid. 2 guarenteed paychecks a month, free food, medical, room and board. Free school, free pretty much everything. Ontop of that I get paid to fly and blow shit up. While all this is a bonus for me those reasons are partially why I joined.[/quote] Free food, stable job, free medical, free school and so on, backed up by parroting of rhetoric you've heard but never really thought about deeply. Yeah, huge hero. [editline]23rd February 2011[/editline] Now, I'm not saying that soldiers can't be heroic - their occupation allows a far greater capacity for both good and evil, and there are legitimate heroes. But there is a reason why the US is the sole superpower, and that's because they've been involved in more wars than any other state in the post bellum period. [QUOTE=Murkat;28227244]Doesn't a large chunk of the US Army require a college education?[/QUOTE] All commissioned officers do, though they may complete a college degree during their service if they did not have one at the time they were commissioned. So everyone ranked ensign/second lieutenant and above, except NCOs who have risen through the ranks (to become NCOs).

There's nothing wrong with being in the military. The military doesn't have a bad purpose, but to do good. If you feel that this is impossible due to the accepted possibility of lethal defence, then you're a fool for believing that violence never has a valid use. And the guy's still right. I have no doubt that in Iraq, there are people who want to kill Westerners simply because of who we are, or because of some religious ideology.

[QUOTE=Dr_Funk;28227902]If you feel that this is impossible due to the accepted possibility of lethal [b]defence[/b], then you're a fool for believing that violence never has a valid use.[/QUOTE] Here's an analogy on an individual level. You give guns to someone who you know is violent (Iraq), and has shot his pets before. You tell him to try and kill his neighbour(Iran). They fight for about a decade, and you sell both him and his neighbour ammunition. Then, because this someone spent all his money on your ammunition, he tries to steal money (oil( from another neighbour (Kuwait). This other neighbour sends you money, so you attack the guy you gave guns and sold ammunition to in the first place. You cripple this someone (still Iraq) by only allowing them foodstamps. They shoot some more of their pets. Then, a decade later, some one throws a brick through your window. It's not Iraq. In fact, it's another one of the people you gave guns and ammunition too. Even so, you tell everyone it was that other violent guy you supported, and that this violent guy, Iraq, has guns and ammunition (the ones you sold him). Then you fuck up his house and live there for a decade. And then you call it self defense. Gee. I seriously can't understand why some Iraqi's want to kill Westerners. Of course, by the same logic, because there are people who want to kill Muslims, Easterners, Africans and so on, in the Western world, this makes that the people who fight the countries where these extremists reside are heroes, right?

You're saying America was responsible for the Iran-Iraq War? Or that the support of Iraq at the time as a counter-balance to post-revolutionary Iran was wrong, when the US really hoped "they would both lose" (Kissinger)? Or that the US was wrong for supporting Kuwait against an unjust invasion by Iraq? Or that the US shouldn't have embargoed Iran, who was producing WMDs for use against his own people (see: Kurds) and possibly against the West? Or that Saddam deserved to remain in power, despite his calculated acts of mass-murder/genocide and huge destabilising influence (there's more bad men than just Al-Qaeda) because the US once backed him twenty years ago? That the "pets" aren't better off in the long-term with the US removing Saddam? That the US isn't trying to turn, and succeeding, Iraq into a solid democracy? And that the Iraqi people should thus fight against the US in order to gain... Saddam, or anarchy? And that these people are all right, despite the fact they spend as much time killing their own civilians as they do killing the Western troops? Your logic's skewed, mate. You really think that the violent insurgent forces A) are right and B) are justified in their actions. If they really want a stable Iraq, they'd work with the US to make Iraq a free democracy - after all, the US doesn't actually have any reason to keep huge amounts of troops/equipment there. Also a fallacy to assume that all insurgents are only motivated by nationalist defence, and that even if they are, their methods are justified. I doubt that everyone's the same. E: Also fallacy to assume that because we supported a group once, we should always support them. Common argument used against fighting the Taliban, except they went from being an anti-Soviet resistance movement to a brutal, oppressive regime which shouldn't exist. People change.

The political views of the Taliban and much of the other mujahideen never changed, they were always pro-fundamentalist Islam, which will always be anti-US because it would be bad for America if a pan-Arab Caliphate emerged, it's just that they had more pressing issues, such as being occupied by the USSR. They removed Saddam, but somehow failed to predict the enormous power vacuum that would result? Also, I like how you imply that the US is trying to bring democracy to Iraq. It's not like America has issues with rigging elections and delegitimizing others. Hell, they should have allowed the Balkanization of the state, including a Kurdish independent state. As you can see with the variously affiliated insurgents now, the only way the people of different political and religious factions are going to coexist is if one is brutally oppressed. I never indicated that they US should continue to support terrorist groups - they never should have supported them in the first place. Obviously I'm in the privileged position of being in the post-Cold War period, because back then Arab terrorism wasn't nearly as big a deal as it is now. Neither the insurgent forces, or the United States are 'right'. Both use violence as a means to further their interests, and to think otherwise is naive. There is no 'right and wrong' on an international scale. Any war not restricted to self-defense (and pre-emptive strikes do [b]not[/b] constitute self defense), is arguably morally wrong, however. In real terms, though, it doesn't matter. [quote](there's more bad men than just Al-Qaeda)[/quote] Oh, you mean like in Saudi Arabia or Pakistan, where women are raped are stoned to death? Where there is a great deal of the hardline, extremist Muslims that most military men would be expecting to fight during their service? Yeah, sorry, we continue to give billions of weapons aid to those states. There's your heroic, just war. But certainly not crippled Iraq, barely functioning with it's former dictator who is well past his prime. [editline]23rd February 2011[/editline] Oh, right, my point is that war is generally waged for ignoble interests, and in a professional army where members get a range of benefits and incentives, simple membership isn't indicative of heroism. See, the difference between Vietnam vets and Iraqi vets is that the former were conscripted, in a time before you know, we had the internet and whatnot to see a whole bunch of anti-government opinions, and it was primarily working class men that fought. For example IIRC, out of the 1000 people that were conscripted at Yale, only a couple served on the front lines in 'Nam.

Fucking degenerates.

[QUOTE=Contag;28204641]It's true, he was shot 11 times and for what? Iraq is still fractured and an incredibly dangerous place to live, and the US has already withdrawn combat troops. Fuck the war, fuck the lies the soldier has been told, but still feel sympathy and love, and he too is a member of humanity.[/QUOTE] The south of Iraq is really peacefull. See the new episode where Top Gear is in Iraq.

[QUOTE=mrpirate;28230533]The south of Iraq is really peacefull. See the new episode where Top Gear is in Iraq.[/QUOTE] It helps that the majority of Iraqi oil is in the south of the country, especially Basra, which is one of the reasons why the Iraqi government has really stepped up domestic security in the region, (as opposed to others).

[QUOTE=Kagrenak;28224752] normal people.[/QUOTE] no such thing [editline]23rd February 2011[/editline] [QUOTE=PvtCupcakes;28224804]At least in the present era, the US seems to be the only country that can't solve disagreements with diplomacy. Nobody else is attacking each other as far as I can tell.[/QUOTE] you're right, lets just ignore everyone else in the world killing each other and focus on the US because we hate it so much obviously

[QUOTE=Moose;28230676] you're right, lets just ignore everyone else in the world killing each other and focus on the US because we hate it so much obviously[/QUOTE] The world focus' on the US because it is the only superpower in our world.

US launches shuttle full of experimental test subjects to the moon creates a superhuman army of overgrown genitals more at 11 on fox news

[QUOTE=agnl;28204791]Half the troops over there hate the war just as much, it's keeping them from their families. Most of the time people don't have other options but the army. You're being a dick just as well by calling him ignorant.[/QUOTE] So uh, why did they join the military? [editline]23rd February 2011[/editline] I think it's a rather awful representation of American society that people are forced to join the military because their lives are so bad. [editline]23rd February 2011[/editline] [QUOTE=Mabus;28210467]the military is some sort of horrible monster that feeds on destruction and killing, you believe that it impedes intellectual pursuit and limits freedom. I can see that no amount of reasonable debate will change your views.[/quote] It's not like the military ISN'T any of those things. [quote]But I shall just say this I disagree with you, I am a University student and a member of a defense forces, I believe that the military is a honorable organisation that is dedicated to the protection of it's people and the upholding of freedom. I am currently studying Engineering with the help of the military. I'm grateful to be a part of it. I plan on traveling on many peacekeeping missions in the future with the knowledge I will have learned and hopefully I can put that knowledge to some use. I disagree with Americas current wars, but still I have respect for those who go out there and try to make a difference, I find it saddening that their is such hostility to what I do. But I will respect your opinion even though though you may not mine.[/QUOTE] upholding freedom against who? Pissed off Iraqi farmers. Localised Taliban who just want power over their own government? The military isn't honourable. How can it be? How can there be honour in a organisation that deals death?

[QUOTE=amute;28239676]Localised Taliban who just want power over their own government?[/QUOTE] Are you seriously trying to play off the Taliban as good people?

Reread that broseph [editline]23rd February 2011[/editline] I'm referring to threats against the united states. The only way you can misread that is if you think the Taliban honestly is planning to invade the US or something