A Walk in the Shade

Too bad the War in Iraq was lost back in 2005.

Better luck next time (you'll need it if you still keep electing morons to plan your wars).

Clearly you're enjoying the shade.

I see you're doing your part for the tree by singling our obscure anti-war vandals.

That's some great work! Thanks to you I can kick back and enjoy the shade. Don't think I don't appreciate it.

Some of us serve in Iraq, others at our keyboards.

Don't piss on me and tell me it's raining.

Similarly, don't cut down the tree, chop it up, sell it to Haliburton, and then tell me I'm still sitting in its shade...

http://www.newsobserver.com/161/story/522085.html
http://www.thepost.ohiou.edu/articles/2007/01/26/features/17233.html
http://sandiego.indymedia.org/en/2005/03/108009.shtml
http://www.firstcoastnews.com/news/news-article.aspx?storyid=2178
http://sistertoldjah.com/archives/2006/04/29/military-recruiters-targeted-again/

Not so obsure Colin, recruiting stations have been a prime target for violent lefties for quite a while. This is just another example of how the left supports the troops.

C'mon. How stupid is that rationale? Does Fred Phelps represent all of us on the Right? I know for a fact people like him and Anne Coulter don't represent me. Why should I think these trust fund brats represent the Left?

Sick of this demagoguery bullshit from people on my side of the aisle.

You can't tend another countries tree of liberty, you can only tend your own.

And by the way, if this fight is so critically important, why aren't you over there instead of letting others die for your obsession?

If you are too old for the military, join a security contractor and protect supply lines for the troops you claim to support.

I wonder if "Robert" is even an American.

http://memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Page=archives&Area=sd&ID=SP150807

"Your concern should [only] be introducing topics which... will cause [them to feel] frustration and anger towards their government..., which will... render them hostile to Bush... and his Republican Party and make them feel they must vote to bring the troops back from Iraq as soon as possible."

"Does Fred Phelps represent all of us on the Right?"

Tangental to the thread, but I thought Phelps had previously been active in the Democratic party, serving as an elector for Clinton/Gore and even seeking (unsuccessfully) the Democratic gubernatorial nomination for his state?

Yep, Fred Phelps is a Democrat, there's nothing "right" about him. But his anti-troop activities are certainly more extreme than most Democrats.

But who made the argument that these people are representative of all protesters - or everyone Rush Limbaugh refers to as "liberals"? Weird that so many are defending the issue here without anyone suggesting it in the first place - it almost evokes a "methinks you protest too much" response...

As for commenter "Fred" - are you refering to me?

Greyhawks,
Being on the Homefront is quite a niche. I am inviting you to check out the book: Bombshells: War Stories and Poems by Women on the Homefront. One editor writes:
Voices-

"No doubt each Bombshells contributor has her own view on the military and war, including the current War in Iraq, and I'm willing to bet they are all not the same. Throughout the making of Bombshells, we never asked the writers to profess their political stances, or used politics in any way to shape the book. In fact, the only agenda of Bombshells as a project/compilation is to validate the homefront experience as a legitimate "war experience," and to encourage women to write about their personal experiences to add homefront voices to the large archive of war writing. I recently read a column in Newsweek by Anna Quindlen called "Write for your Life" in which she states, "writing can make pain tolerable, confusion clearer, and the self stronger." Well said, Anna! All of us on the homefront feel pain and confusion (among other pathos) regardless of our politics." Missy Martin
The book is available at Amazon.com
We are at www.bombshellsbook.com
Jesse

Valerie
Robert is an American pretending not to be an American.

To clear up any other confusion on the part of the folks clicking in from Salon.com - I'm currently preparing for my second tour of duty in Iraq. I'm one small part of the surge.

“Some families have long histories of tending to the tree of liberty, others have a long history of living in its shade.”

Maybe. Or maybe “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.” The patriots have been paying already, time for the tyrants.

I wanna "DO" them. I want 'em on the dark side today...now.

While it's popular to think that our liberity is the result of the bravery of the military, in reality it's liberals, who stood up to tyrants that are responsible for our liberity. Sometimes those liberals joined the military, like in WWII, and sometimes they stood up to militarist views like now.

I'd like to hear other's thoughts.

My grandfather fought in WWI, my father fought in WWII, my BIL is a retired Navy captain, I have a nephew in the Army, and a niece in the Air Force. My son is in the Army, currently deployed in Ramadi. He puts his life on the line for his country every single day. Don't lecture me on sitting in the shade. I am also a liberal, anti-war, and anti-Bush. Wars should only be fought as a last resort, when every other option has been exhausted and when the people of the United States are directly threatened by another country. The war should be well planned, with clear objectives and an exit strategy--the Powell Doctrine, remember that? This war has been and is a disaster from the beginning. Support the troops? Bring them home. By the way, the link belows explains why Building 18 at Walter Reed was such a mess. Blame Rumsfeld and the privativers in the administration.

http://www.military.com/NewsContent/0,13319,129198,00.html?ESRC=dod.nl

Here's the story Carol linked above - no surprise, looks like there's plenty of blame to go around:

The trail goes back to the end of the Clinton administration. The Army began studying the cost benefits of privatization in 2000.

When President Bush took office, he mandated the competitive outsourcing of 425,000 federal jobs. At the time, the Pentagon was aggressively pushing for increased outsourcing, and in June 2003, then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told a Senate committee he was considering outsourcing up to 320,000 nonmilitary support jobs.


That's the same year that the Army asked for bids on Walter Reed and, coincidentally, the same year the United States invaded Iraq.

One company responded: Johnson Controls World Services Inc., which would be acquired by IAP in March 2005. It initially bid $132 million, but it and Walter Reed's then-management agreed that the Army was underestimating the cost.

By September 2004, the Army had decided it would be cheaper to continue with current management, which said it could do the work for $124.5 million. Johnson Controls filed a protest with the Government Accountability Office.

The protest was dismissed in June 2005, but the Army agreed to reopen bidding three months later to include additional costs for services. In January 2006, after two rounds of protests by IAP and two appeals by Walter Reed employees to the U.S. Army Medical Command, IAP was named the winner, according to Steve Sanderson, a Walter Reed spokesman.

Instead, in an unusual turn of events, the contract wasn't awarded for another 11 months, the GAO said. Walter Reed officials blame several factors, including an additional protest to the GAO filed by Deputy Garrison Commander Alan D. King, a separate appeal to the U.S. Army Medical Command by Walter Reed's public works director, at least one intervention by Congress, and delays on required congressional notifications about government employee dismissals.

IAP spokeswoman Arlene Mellinger said "it was up to the Army to decide when to begin that contract." The company was ready to start at any time, she added.

In August 2006, led by Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., lawmakers asked then-Army Secretary Francis J. Harvey to hold off on the contract until Congress finished work on the fiscal 2007 defense appropriations bill. Congress approved that bill Sept. 29.

The Army's plan then was to eliminate 360 federal jobs at Walter Reed in November and turn the work over to IAP, according to the American Federation of Government Employees, a federal workers' trade union. But the Army failed to notify Congress 45 days in advance, as required by law, so the turnover was delayed until early this year.

Then it was IAP's turn to have problems.

When work finally began at the hospital, IAP made an immediate request, which the Army approved, to hire 87 temporary skilled workers for up to four months "to ease the turbulence caused by employees being placed into positions or other installations and otherwise finding new jobs early," said Sanderson, the Walter Reed official.

However, a "tight" job market in the Washington area meant that only 10 qualified temporary employees were found, he added. Meanwhile, injured Soldiers continue to arrive weekly to a short-handed, deteriorated hospital, which the Army still plans to close in 2011.

My grandfather fought in WWI, my father fought in WWII, my BIL is a retired Navy captain, I have a nephew in the Army, and a niece in the Air Force. My son is in the Army, currently deployed in Ramadi. He puts his life on the line for his country every single day.

That's nice Carol, but you have to realize that the sacrifice of your family doesn't count for crap. Why? Because this whole "tree of liberty" nonsense doesn't have a damn thing to do with patriotism or shared sacrifice. What it does have to do with is smearing the political opponents of the Republican Party, and furthering the Republican propaganda war against blacks, Mexicans, feminists, liberals and homosexuals. Thus, Republicans never simply frame the issue as competing visions of legitimate national interests, but always accuse Democrats of Treason, Surrender, Appeasement, Defeatism, Cut-and-Run, blah, blah, blah. Or - as does this post - claiming that opposition to the war means sitting in the shade of the tree of liberty.

And, of course, Republicanism generally requires not merely smearing one's political opponents, but lying about it too. Thus, Greyhawk asks,

who made the argument that these people are representative of all protesters - or everyone Rush Limbaugh refers to as "liberals"? Weird that so many are defending the issue here without anyone suggesting it in the first place.

Ooooh, isn't that just adorable? After all, what could possibly lead anyone to believe he is trying to paint bomb-throwers and flag burners as representative of the entire anti-war movement? Except, of course, the slimy tactic of putting "Peace" protesters in quotes, and accusing them of being unwilling to condemn violent extremism. Or of torturing the crappy liberty tree metaphor by claiming that violent extremists and mainstream Democrats are alike in seeking to destroy liberty. Yea, "weird" indeed. Alas, for the followers of Republicanism, political smear by association is about as natural as breathing.

Such tactics are hardly surprising, of course, when your hero is a flabby, beady-eyed, pill-popping sack of dogcrap like Rush Limbaugh, whose legacy to Republicanism is that propaganda is the same thing as intellectual debate, and that impuging the patriotism, the integrity, and the motives of one's opponents is a perfectly appropriate method of political discourse.

Want to know who really sits in the shade while the rest of us toil? Here are a few: those who leave wounded soldiers lying in urine-soaked, rat-infested snakepits (oh, yea, and great try on the "bipartisan" angle on that one); those who send troops into battle with inadequate armour; those who deprive soldiers' families of full survivor benefits; those who turn soldiers into virtual slaves with unlimited tours of duty; and - perhaps most of all - those who, when called upon to actually pay for their little adventure by raising taxes, start squealing "Commie, Pinko, Stalin, Socialist, etc. etc. etc."

What do every one of these loathsome backstabbing groups have in common? That's right: it's spelled REPUBLICANISM!

Sure, GOP before country. That's what matters.

legaleagle

Wow - I had no idea I'd said all that. Thanks for clarifying - I thought I was the guy who said this:

...slanted media coverage of the upcoming debate on Iraq will mask that debate in the eyes of the American people. In fact (in a point I haven't gotten around to making in this series yet) as individuals shift their positions on Iraq (centrist Dems, Repubs, and Independents seek common ground while extremists and "party uber alles" types on both sides move to the fringes) I predict the media will pander to the minority - those extremists, who will make great headlines.

You'll be able to identify the extremes - one side will call for "troops home now" while on the other side "don't listen to Democrats - they want the troops home now!" will rally the faithful.

The rest of us will work to "fix" Iraq.

But enough of that - I prefer to focus on the positive, and want to commend your expressed concern for my ill-treated injured brothers in arms, and I hereby offer you space below to provide details of what you've done to improve their lot over the past five years, and how others can help, too.

While it's popular to think that our liberity is the result of the bravery of the military, in reality it's liberals, who stood up to tyrants that are responsible for our liberity. Sometimes those liberals joined the military, like in WWII, and sometimes they stood up to militarist views like now.

Stalin
Khrushchev
Brezhnev
Andropov
Mao Tse-Tung
Kim Il Sung/Kim Jong Il
Fidel Castro
Ho Chi Minh
Pol Pot
Idi Amin
The Sandinistas
The Shining Path
Mohammed Reza Pahlavi
Yasser Arafat
Hezbollah/Hamas et. al.
Hafez Assad/Bashir Assad
Ayatollah Khomeheni (and his succesors)
Mahmoud Ahamdinejad
Saddam Huessein (and his sons)
Hafez Assad/Bashir Assad
Osama bin Laden

The above is a partial, post-WWII list of people and organizations who could be considered tyranical -- including a few who were used as proxies by America in the years of the Cold War.

To my knowledge, "liberals" have yet to make any substantial stand (i.e. composed of more than just talk -- as in, demanding that America ACT to deal with the conflicts involving these entities) against any ONE of these on the list, except perhaps bin Laden ... and that was only after 911!

In fact, some have even been SUPPORTED, not just by the fringe Left, but a few Left-leaning Congresscritters!

Keep in mind that the biggest reason we acutally stooped to having some of these act on our behalf, in conflicts cold and hot, is because many, many "liberals" stridently refused to support direct/timely/resolute/decisive action by our own military to resolve these conflicts ... because to them War is Never the Answer, and those who think otherwise are "militarists" who merit disdain.

Well ... tell me what is "militaristic" about demanding that our global civilization be defended by invading Iraq ...

... when it is justified in the simplest of terms!

Have we become so enamored of our intelligence, that we can't see the forest for the trees?

Alas, the days have passed, and the time has come where comments will have to be turned off on this post or soon the spambots will take over.

Has legaleagle ever done anything for the troops other than find their blogs and leave comments attacking Republicans? It seems we may never know.