At 07:15 01-04-03 -0500, John Giorgis wrote:
As such, by not launching the war now, if you were George Bush, would you be prepared to bear the following costs of waiting until September to let a dictator whom we know with certainty will try and succeed at hiding *something* from inspectors prove to France that he really needs to go? These costs include:
I am absolutely baffled that people can consider the reasons below to be valid reasons for starting the war.
[snip]
-Leaving 1 in every 1,000 Americans away from their families, loved ones, and jobs for an extended period of time.
Away from their jobs? The US doesn't have the draft, so for all those soldiers being a soldier *is* their job. Therefore they are not kept away from their job, they have gone where there job took them.
Many of the soldiers who are now in Iraq or preparing to go are not full-time members of the armed forces but rather are members of the National Guard or Reserve who have full-time civilian jobs and who drill with their military units on weekends. Those people have had to leave their families and put their regular lives on hold.
Further, they will be away from home for an extended period of time anyway. Those troops are not going to leave Iraq as soon as a pro-US regime has been established in Iraq.
Some will rotate back to the States and be replaced by other "part-time" soldiers who will have to leave their jobs and families for as much as a year or more. Try to imagine what it would be like for you and your family if you were told today that this weekend you had to leave your family and regular job and spend the next year or so in a desert thousands of miles away from home, and you'll have a better idea of what many of these soldiers and their families are experiencing. Or, since you work for the Dutch department of defense, if they have reserves who are subject to callup, perhaps you know some of those reserve members who have been called up in the past and you could ask them.
Which brings me to your earlier argument that the US had to start the war because of the costs of keeping those soldiers waiting in the desert till after the summer. That argument is also bogus, as you will have those costs anyway, with or without war.
Most of them would not be in the desert thousands of miles from their homes if there was no possibility of a war. There are extra costs in keeping them in a remote location. If we kept them in that remote location for six months or more, then had to fight, the costs of the months of waiting would simply be added to the already high costs of fighting a war.
-- Ronn! :)
God bless America, Land that I love! Stand beside her, and guide her Thru the night with a light from above. From the mountains, to the prairies, To the oceans, white with foam… God bless America! My home, sweet home.
-- Irving Berlin (1888-1989)
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