Out on the OP - LP (3.2.13)
Home, home on the range
Where the deer and the antelope play
Where seldom is heard a discouraging word
And the skies are not cloudy all day
--Home on the Range, Roy Rogers
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Where the deer and the antelope play
Where seldom is heard a discouraging word
And the skies are not cloudy all day
--Home on the Range, Roy Rogers
_______________________
Happy Sunday, Ranger readers. Not being an American football aficionado, today is a wide-open, quiet day. What's on you mind? It is barely possibly to get Ranger to discourse on any matters in the world which do not go "BOOM!", but perhaps some of you are game.
Our Sunday open blog. "Out on the OP -LP" doesn't get much action, and I'm wondering how to change that. If there's any topic -- ANY topic -- that piques your interest now, please let us know. As always, RangerAgainstWar is always a place for dialog and discovery, but this feature was intended to be an advice column, of sorts. We wouldn't pretend to fill the recently departed Dear Abby's shoes (though others have), but give us a spin; we are about as qualified as she was, which is to say, we are opinionated, and not afraid to say it.
Maybe your issue is also that of another, and shared difficulties are often halved, as some wise person said. We think a militarily-minded advice column is a neat idea, and hope you do too.
So, shoot.
Labels: advice column, out on the op lp (feb 12 13), ranger advice column
posted by Lisa at 4:30 PM
15 Comments:
1. Why do Americans think killing foreign brown people who don't have nearly as many arms, and are fighting for local causes justified or makes them more of a man?
2. Why isn't the simple fact that Western militaries like America have such a great kill ratio ever thought about? In Afghanistan some 2000 Americans died but at least 30,000 have been killed by direct American action (civilian deaths cannot be counted).
3. Why do you guys have an all or nothing mentality? If they fight US troops they are terrorists hell bent on another 9/11, if they fight they are Taliban hell bent on subjugating the Afghan people. There is not middle ground, people fight for local issues, for revenge etc. They adapt to whatever structures (or groups) give them that. The fact is the Taliban and Afghan government are from the same stock.
4. Why are the civilians faceless victims incapable of any agency to you. The civilians are back ground extras meaning to be saved by the white hero. They oppose and support for whatever reasons. For example in Egypt its ISlamist vs secular liberal and neither side compromises for example. People have views that range. People may support a more conservative government because its more keen on defence and sovereignty than its liberal counterpart but they may also be against certain polices. In my opinion the Egyptian 'liberals' are blatantly hypocritical calling for military coup when their candidate doesn't win, not accepting rules of the game, dismissing the rural majority. Yet they are heroes in the media and their hypocrisy not mentioned.
5. If military action is simply policy of state, and the world operates on a Westphalian paradigm, then how is at all moral to join a military? How can you consider yourself to be the good guys when you simply follow orders, even if those orders are to kill.
6. Isn't it more moral to volunteer ala Spanish Civl War in causes you truly feel are justified in combat. You are more likely to get killed but you can leave and you are not told my country right or wrong.
Love RAW, and don't mean to make a big thing about this little fact in in the use of English. 'Fraid that "peaks your interest" should be "piques your interest." Your interest can be "piqued" but not "peaked." Sorry to be a pain, I truly love your blog.
Why can we not, as a democracy, have a media that informs us? The more I learn from a certain Lt that has recently returned from A-stan, the more disgusted I am with our level of information (lack thereof).
We get stories about some bigwig sitting down with the troops on Turkey day at some collosus of a FOB and we hear about how those troops are sacrificing being away from home on the holiday and what a big deal that is, as if that's all there is to the war.
But out on the little outposts, away from the big FOBs, there is a real war going on and the hardships go a little deeper than missing out on Aunt Jane's cranberry sauce.
And we are not "winning".
Out in Indian country one can expect one's outpost to be rocketed every day - EVERY DAY. Every excursion outside the base results in contact with hostiles in the form of remote detonated IEDs and/or gunfights. Americans are being killed and wounded in grisly ways every day. They are also killing a lot of Afghans.
Rockets and insurgents come out of Pakistan daily.
We hear nothing of this.
We are NOT in control of the countryside after 11 years of war.The enemy had NOT shown any signs of giving up. Their bank of personnel and ordnance has not dried up. This effort is a total fail and NOTHING is going to improve it.
Yet the media totally ignores these facts and refuses to show us anything that would help us to come this conclusion on our own.
We cannot direct our government, as our representatives, to make the right decisions on our behalf if we don't know what is happening.
Where can we lodge a complaint?
avedis
Moe,
We have discussed all of your areas of interest on many occasions here at RAW.
Welcome aboard.
Avedis ,
The Brits are gonna vote concerning their EU membership, but we in America never get to vote on our continued Nato membership.
jim
Dear Anon,
Thank you for being a close reader; mea culpa. I love matters grammatical, and knew as I wrote "peaks" I was foundering. (Of course, I could say I was just testing you ;))
Moe,
I compliment you on a splendid moniker. Your questions are many and valid. I confess, I was seeking the deep, dark recesses of the human psyche with this advice column -- a bit of a break from typical RAW matters; psychology's my bag :)
I admire your considerations of what constitutes the "righteous fight", and what motivates most people in a war scenario. Yes, the people always have loyalties but, aside from animosities in tribal society, most folks probably just want to get on with the hard-scrabble business of a life.
We at RAW are rarely Manichaean and tend to adhere to the Westphalian model (the sovereignty of states and the imperative of political self determination.)
People are hypocrites the world over, and who says "brown people don't have as many arms"? Have you never seen a representation of Shiva or Kali?!?
avedis,
Refer to "Moe Hamid's" #2 comment:
Why isn't the simple fact that Western militaries like America have such a great kill ratio ever thought about?
...ergo -- Success by the numbers!
Alas, there are so many ways to count an endeavor a success, and probably an equal number of ways to see failure; all depends on who's doing the counting.
As for registering your complaint, I'm afraid Monty Python's Complaint Department is defunct, replaced by the ultra-nationalistic, "Ooh-Rah" Department.
Right, then ... move along.
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Okay, so I thank the participants for their thoughtful input. Perhaps we can continue shaping this feature. Would the participants be willing to step outside of matters military for one day per week?
Suggestions welcome -- what would you like to do here? Maybe this could be a page where we consider the nexus between matters military and the rest of life?
I would like a highly allusive approach. Got an idea? Please pitch it.
Thanks,
Lisa
Any thoughts about the Chris Kyle affair?
I dropped a link about him some days ago, and now he's gone.
With all these CCs and guns everywhere and freely available, nobody's gonna see it coming.
bb
Hello avedis, long time no see.
Hoping you and the other avedis are fine and safe from my liberal gun-grabbing ways.
bb
or, Lisa, it just came to me a bit ago, I did see a bit of the Hagel grilling in Congress, as much of it as I could stand to bear.
Perfect fellow for the DoD, very defensive in his responses.
bb
bb, Hello. Yes, we are fine, though hunkered down for the winter, which has been rough this year so far. A good lawyer can do wonders. I am down to a shotgun and a rifle - both legal - and I will keep it that way as long as I live in a gun grabber state. I got lucky and it cost significant $. I won't tempt the man. Next time probably wouldn't go so well.
avedis
Even my liberal gun-grabbing psyche is appalled at your experience.
AFAIC, the only crime was a bit of miscommunication.
But good to hear you're not hammering at rocks.
bb
bb,
Per Chris Kyle: Live by the sword, die by the sword.
I don't see how PTSD could be effectively treated via shooting. I understand how exposure therapy works with some stressors, but how could shooting help one find relief from shooting?!?
My first thought when i heard about Kyle was that someone had called Billy Badass out, someone wanted to be the guy who killed the most deadly sniping SF MF that ever lived, put that notch on his gun.
But then when I learned about the whole therapy angle, I broke out laughing. That is the stupidist thing.......
Thanks for the nice thoughts BB. have you seen what has hapened to the Army NCO combat vet arrested recently in NY for five 30 round magazines he thought were legal pre-ban (or something)? They want to give him 15 years+ (a felony count for each magazine.
I know your gun grabbing - your personally - is well intentioned, but look what happens. You can't trust gov't to carry through with the good intention part. They just see the opportunity to squash citizens that represent even symbolic challenge to their authority. They're playing you my friend.
avedis
Cops Nab 5-Year-Old for Wearing Wrong Color Shoes to School
"Thank god for Mississippi." -- My first wife Victoria. When I asked for an explanation she replied that it was the only state in the union with a worse school system than Arkansas.
PoLT,
It's good to know where the bottom is, eh, Peter?
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