Wow, Charles Sweckert’s letter is a difficult one to reply to because it’s so rhetorical – no facts, just questions.
Military recruiters have a place they can recruit; it’s called a recruiting station. They have no business preying on our junior and high school students.
I think it is important that those of us who are supporting the troops by working for peace have organized peace vigils for five years in Bend, while the pro-war fanatics want to send our children off to two wars based on nothing but lies.
As a veteran who served in Germany during the Vietnam War, I am very aware that all branches of the military are in need of reform. The Air Force I served in encouraged alcoholism and looked the other way at homophobic and racist incidents. It is unfortunate that the military is a static organization and very slow to change or clean up its ranks. In fact, because of lowered enlistment the military is now lowering already low standards. We in the peace movement are the ones working to see that our veterans receive help once they leave the military, while the pro-war folks decorate their cars with plastic ribbons.
I personally am opposed to the draft, although I know others in the peace movement think it might get this current generation energized to oppose our aggressive wars.
I served honorably in the military; I just want it cleaned up. I believe that if military recruiters are allowed on campus, then those of us who want to suggest alternatives to military recruitment also should be. That is what a balanced education is all about.
I suggest that Charlie visit the Middle East, as I have done, so that he is less naive and better informed about that region of the world. Also maybe he should check out the movies War Made Easy and Iraq, the Untold Story.
His “love or leave it” statement is beyond contempt. My late father fought in World War II and was one of the few bomber pilots who returned from the raids on Ploesti, Romania. Also I am a direct linear descendant of Robert Richard Randall, a naval hero of the Revolutionary War, for whom Randall’s Island in New York is named.
Philip H. Randall, Bend
This article appears in Feb 14-20, 2008.
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Any shool that accepts federal money must accept military recruiters. Nuf said. Anyway, how much worse could a military recruiter be?
I believe you are entitled to your own opinions, but I believe your views are blurred. The armed forces are not trying to invade schools and persuade as many people as they can. They are setting up opportunities for people not only to find a good steady career, but they also have many other options such as college. My dad is in the army and I know that he and about 90% of the people I have met that are in the army too do not believe in the war and want nothing to do with it. If you have problems with that you should take it up with the government, not the recruiters. The armed forces are like the last leg on the totem pole. If you have a problem you shouldnรข โขt be attacking the armed forces, but the source of it. The government. One last thing, those plastic ribbons you referred to in your article are a sign of pride and support. If you believe otherwise that is your opinion. They show, not they support the war, but the troops. I believe Iรข โขve basically summed it up for you, but I seriously believe that you need to open your eyes and smell the flowers.
-Taylor Ridge
Randall: Since when is military recruitment part of an education, balanced or otherwise? How do you support the troops by working for peace? What the hell is peace? How do you have ‘it’ if your enemy doesn’t want it? Reality dictates, that when one side wants peace and the other side doesn’t, the peace side becomes peacefully dead. How desirable is peace, if your peaceful head has been lopped off and you are peacefully resting six foot under peaceful clods?
The problem with the peace mongers is that they do not reside in the real world. They deal in theory rather than reality. The real world is dog eat dog, kill or be killed, root hog or die. We are all animals dealing with other animals. Theory doesn’t kill you, the reality of your enemy does. Until you peace theorists have figured out a way to deal with the reality of the real world, you might consider that our military occasionally needs to kick some ass, here and there.
You need to take a long look in the mirror and come to grips with the fact that if some Islamic Jihadi was about to cut off your wife’s, or your children’s, or even your own head, you would abandon your ridiculous ‘peace’ faster than greased lightning. You know it, I know it, everyone reading this knows it.
So what game are you really playing, dude?
Mr. Randall: How do you “support the troops by working for peace?” The troops are not in the peace business, they are in the war business. If your desire is actually to assist the troops then you should be devising new, more efficient ways, to blow things up, tear things down, and kill, maim, or disable the various enemy. That would actually assist them and help them get their job done.
The reality is, peace activists are actually in the lie business. As Tuck states above, they are in the philosophy business, the theory business, the ‘feelings’ business, the obfuscation business, the slight of hand business, the anti-military business, the anti-war business.
Has a peace activist, such as yourself, ever met a war you liked? The answer is most assuredly, no. Thus, the question arises, why are peace activists so dishonest about their true goals? Your true goal is to abolish all war, do away with the military and everyone will live happily ever after in total warm fuzziness. Is that a realistic concept? If four billion of us wanted peace and two billion of us wanted to gain something from that perceived weakness, what would you have? War.
To comprehend the true nature of man, one merely has to study man’s history, look around, observe everyday life, watch the news.
Sometimes a man has to fight, or be beaten into submission or death. Sometimes a collection of men have to fight or be beaten into submission or death. In those situations, a peace activist becomes your enemy, because their ultimate goal is your submission to despots, which can lead to your death or conditions where you would just as soon be dead. A reasonable collection of men, historically, finds having an able military a desirable condition. If an able military is a desirable condition, then all reasonable actions to facilitate it should be provided and enforced.
A centered human being, looks around at the world as it really is…not at how he would prefer it to be. Until you have figured out how to change the nature of man all at once, peace mongers are sucking wind and blowing hot air, and do all the rest of as a major disservice.
Mr. Randall, you and those like you, are my enemy, because of your potentially fatal ignorance.
The desire for peace is fundamentally universal. That fact that peace is not fundamentally universal indicates peace is not a function of a desire for it.
That simple fact is the fly in the peace mongers ointment. One only has to ask why is that so and the obvious answer is the contrariness of human nature.
To have peace requires fighting for it. One first needs to defeat those that prefer not having peace. Did Hitler give a single damn about peace? Did Stalin? Did Saddam? Do the Islamic Ignoramus? One could go on and on. Peace was obtained by removing the impediment to it. removing the impediment requires force. Force requires a military. A military requires maintainence of it. Maintenance of it requires recruiting.
If you read history, one finds peace here and there, but always as a product of war.
If the peace activist really wants peace, then they should support war against those that prevent it.
The Zen of it is, war brings peace. You can’t have one without the other, as there is no up without a down, no ying without a yang, no hot without cold, no left without a right, etc., etc., This is a dualistic universe. Nothing exists in it’s own right, nothing can be explained without explaining something else, ad infinitum.
The problem with the peace activists is that they are fundamentally ignorant of the laws of the universe and entirely ignorant of human nature. Their failure of purpose is guaranteed.
A strong argument can be made that the surest path to war is by having a successful peace movement. Historically, which country is more likely to be attacked, one that has a robust military and the willingness to use it, or the country quick to back off from a confrontation, which despots see as weakness?
There is no more powerful incentive in the human psyche than fear. I would rather despots fear us than feel contempt for our weakness. Peace doesn’t bring respect, it brings contempt. Ask any Islamic terrorist.
Peace can only be maintained through the ability to inflict overwhelming devastating destruction and the clear willingness to use it, if provoked.
The peace movement is an empty, silly, childish exercise by unrealistic theory junkies with nothing worthwhile to do.
One of the pervasive elements in the so-called “peace movement.” that I personally find loathsome, is something I call “conditional compassion.”
You will find these folks just dripping with compassion when it suits their goals and contemptuous disdain and total disregard for blood shed when it doesn’t. An example: These were the very same people calling for a precipitous withdrawal from Iraq because, in part, their deep concern for the Iraqi people. Yet, all available information, logic and common sense pointed toward an enormous loss of Iraqi life were we to suddenly withdraw. These two-faced “peace” clowns didn’t give a tinkers damn about the horrendous reality that Iraqi’s would suffer. Their “compassion” was a political ruse to sway the ignorant to their point of view, and the obvious horrific consequences be damned.
Even The Source’s own HBM, in a rebuttal posted on this web site several months ago, stated that what happened to the Iraqi people if we suddenly withdrew, and I paraphrase, “that is their problem, my concern is with ending the war.” There is your true compassion of an anti-war leftist.
Most peace activists that I have met are self concerned single minded political hacks who want one result, and damn the cost to whomever, who lack the ability to comprehend the simple rule of cause-effect.
Life on this planet, the true nature of our fellow humans, requires that if you want peace, you must fight for it with non-peaceful means.
Peace without the ability to wage war, brings war. What the hell is hard to understand about that?
Randall’s statement: “supporting the troops by working for peace,” comes off as that of a complete hypocrite.
These folks despise the troops, despise what they do.
The entire peace movement is a monster of hypocrisy. These narrow minded self serving cowards only have the privilege of uttering their blatant hypocrisy because of the military. Were it not for the military and the non-cowardly sacrifice of our parents and grandparents, we would all be now living as Nazi’s. The Nazi’s weren’t known as folks that put up with any outspoken political issues that went against the regime. In WW2, there was a peace movement that fought against our going to war. This current batch of hypocrites, like this Randall, are the ‘intellectual’ foster children of those same short-sighted ignorant cowards.
Military recruitment on campus and those opposed, have nothing whatsoever to do with a “balanced education,” and Randall’s tying them together to make an invalid point is intellectually fraudulent, if not perverse.
How does Randall’s self serving peace movement reform the military, one of his supposed goals? His letter puts forth a collection of such absurdities in an attempt to camouflage the fact that they are against the military from the get go. To deny the military recruitment…is anti-military…no matter how industriously fraudulent they spin, spin, spin.
Bottom line… these peace activists are elitists… what is good enough for us dumb slobs… joining the military… with the possibility of going to war… is for the lower class… the dummies… not for these fine high blown college educated cowards offspring (read left wing professor brainwashed) that…should be ‘protected’ from being within a 1000 yards of a military recruiter… these elitists are nothing better than functional cowards… who outwardly justify their cowardice by hiding behind their egotistical self serving smokescreens of “superior ethics”… in an effort to hide… from the obvious loathing and public censure the smarmy truth about themselves would reveal…
Sadly, these elitists know perfectly well… for they are not all retarded… that they, and we all, owe our freedom… their right to speak out… our very existence… to several generations of our military who have provided us all with what peace we do enjoy… for our very country was founded… our Constitution written… when the War of Independence was still smouldering… it is not called Independence by Peace Activists… you will please notice… Freedom does not exist long term for the peacemakers… the very first law of freedom is… you must be willing to fight and die for it… or you shall not have it… so, these peace elitists are, and should remain, the bitter enemy… of all freedom loving peoples… and are to be despised… never forget… our country was/is built and maintained… not by peace… but by war.
No country can exist with peace as its basis… it would quickly be destroyed by those that view peace as an opportunity for an easy war… these elitists know that… they do what they do… for other motives… perhaps they hate Bush… and see their peace stance as a way to influence votes… or to keep their precious little Johnnie or Jane from doing their duty and possibly serving in the military… whereas those of us that love this country… are proud when our children join the ranks of all who have kept us free… it is easy to come to the conclusion… that these peace elitists actually hate America… for they work very hard to bring it down…
They are traitors… to the very cause of continued freedom itself.
“Wow, Charles Sweckert’s letter is a difficult one to reply to because it’s so rhetorical-no facts, just questions.”
Mr. Randall: How do you reply to facts? If something is a fact-there is nothing to reply to. Questions, on the other hand, require answers. Did you provide any?
Questions are often asked as a methodology to make one think. When one is stumped by the questions, as you seem to be, perhaps that might serve as an impetus to rethink your position? Presumably those questions were asked, because the questioner knew a thoutful person could not answer them and continue to hold the same view because to do so would obviously be illogical.
Enlightenment does not occur because one is presented with facts, but occasionally occurs as a result of difficult questions.
You stated, that as one who has served in the military, it is clear to you that all branches of the military need reform. Did you serve in ALL branches of the military while in Germany, presumably avoiding Vietnam? If not, where did you acquire your vast knowledge of every nook and cranny of the entire military? Oh, I’m sorry, there is one of those pesky questions you are so reluctant to answer.
Is Code Pink the organization you belong to that is helping the military?
Did it ever occur to you that someone might be anti-peace activist and not be pro-war? Might ‘plastic ribbons’ be pro-military and not neccesarily be pro- any particular war? Do you see, Mr. Randall, that your letter makes clear that you deal in rhetoric and not facts, yourself?
You make the statement, “aggressive wars.” Do you in the peace movement suggest and support “passive” wars? What a novel concept!
“A balanced education,” is about military recruitment and those opposed to it? Really? Not math and science and such? You state, “thats what its all about.” Another novel, but rather limited concept.
Are you personally acuainted with Charles Sweckert (probably Charlie Swecker, who posts above)? How do you know whether or not he has been to the Middle East? Your missive is rife with empty rhetoric and empty ass-umptions. That you jump to erroneous conclusions is evident in your subject matter and approach.
Mr. Randall: Are you suggesting that military recruitment is on parity with your peace movement? Does the military do what it does because of it’s political bias, delusions, emotions and feelings, as your group does? Does the military have a government mandated job to perform? Does your group have a government mandated job to perform? Is the military part of the Federal Government? Does the Federal Government partially fund the schools where military recruitment occurs? Does your peace movement fund these same schools in a amount equal to the amount the Federal Government provides? Does your group have a standing as a government agency?
Well, Mr. Randall, there are some more questions for you. You know, similar to those you usually don’t, or can’t, answer.
So, let me see if I have this straight…You think the military recruiters fill our kids heads with lies and propaganda…so you want equal time to fill our kids heads with lies and propaganda? And this you call a balanced education? I’ll withhold further comment, though I could pop an Important Gasket.
Coming from mild curiosity, how does a “peace vigil” support our troops? If we are at war, wouldn’t a “war vigil” offer better, more realistic, support?
By peace vigil, do you mean forming a loose knit lump and burning some Frankincense and Muir, a vanilla scented aromatic candle or two, or do you mean stand on a street corner with a sign that states, “honk if you want peace?” Sure, people honk. We all want peace. But, imagine for a moment, if these same folks, in a rare moment of honesty, held up a sign on the same corner that stated, “I hate the freaking’ military! I hate the war because it scares the living crap out of me! Honk if you think I’m accomplishing a damn thing holding up this ridiculous sign!” I wonder how many would honk…
Are those of us who think those in the peace movement really suck, big time, necessarily war fanatics? There are many of us who think Iraq was a colossal mistake, yet who have enough wisdom to comprehend that now that we are there, pulling out would be a ginormous colossal mistake. I guess being smart makes me a war fanatic.
And the reverse?
Randall, I really don’t think I need to go into it as many others have hit the same point as I would. But I would like you to know it disgusts me that you served in my Air Force. Your facts about the Air Force are completely wrong. And the Pro-War comment about the stickers on cars, Wow!!! I think you have been smoking a little too much of the Ganja. รข LOVE IT OR LEAVE ITรข ย