first, to thiaggo: it seems to me that you aren't really addressing the thread, but something else that chaps your ass, so i won't bother to reply. if you'd like to have a conversation with me about what i was actually talking about--the activity of encouraging troops to disobey orders (and I'm reading this in terms of a wider marxist/leftist debate over the meaning of mil defection for advancing leftist goals)--then we have something to discuss. you seem to want to talk about whether or not we should accept .mil members as members of the working class...? I'm not sure, but what you are on about seems to have little to do with my criticism of waving banners for the truth without also, at the same time, cultivating the soil within which that truth grows.
At 11:29 PM 3/17/03 -1000, Reese wrote:
>It's all about viewpoint, and odds are that military will not accept the
>interpretation of someone who _wants_ them involved in Somalia and Kosovo
>but does _not_ want them chasing El Queduh, or in Afghanistan or Iraq.
please. you mean it's about the fact that they're lib'ruls? i'm so tired of this being bandied about. what do you or anyone else who claims that "we" didn't protest then actually know about what "we" did then.
>Under 42, that downsizing continues under 43.
irrelevant.
> >>These are not warrior types--they are the guy from the mail
> >>room who fixes trucks or the guidence counselor from the high school
> >>whos a Army nurse on the side.
>
>Point of order:
>
>Those "not warrior types" receive the exact same training as the
>active duty types, with one weekend a month and 2 weeks in the summer
>for refresher - so if the reservists are not qualified, the active
>duty troops are not qualified much better. Is that your contention
>Alan?
he's talking about identification with the .mil. with a sense of commitment to it and its purposes. the contention is that active duty lifers and people who re-up are 'warrior' types. i suppose he's suggesting that their decision to stay in the mil rather than leave has to do with some internal enjoyment of killing and destruction that reservists doing it for the extra cash do not have.
i'm not saying that this is true and i may well have misinterpreted alan, but i believe that this is the line of logic pursued on the list, in general. but, i'll be happy to stand corrected.
> >One of the students in one of the classes I taught this winter got
> >called up and shipped to Kuwait. I understand that he will be in the
> >rear with gear. He was not at all happy about having to go.
>
>Too bad so sad, he shouldn't have signed the contract (it's called "Life
>Happening"). You'd rather he went to the front instead?
this has little to do with anything yoshie typed. it wasn't a call to pity him, it was to point out that reservists are not all that happy about even going to the "rear with gear." (and perhaps suggesting that active duty are, conversely, happy to be going either to the rear or the front.)
> >>BTW when I went through Army basic training in 1985, they instructed
> >>us on rules of engagement and the Geneva conventions and proper
> >>conduct in combat re civilians, etc. Its not like they spent tons of
> >>time on it, but it was brought up.
>
>Alan, what _your_ instructors did in _your_ classes does not speak to
>the official Army position, or what is taught in other classes, before
>or since yours.
your position is limited to your personal experience as well.
> >I agree.
>
>You agree with what, Yoshie? You can offer your _qualified_ opinion
>but you cannot corroborate fact, especially as poorly presented as
>that anecdote from Alan was.
you actually have to follow the thread
> >GIs are not as ignorant as some LBO-talkers make them out
> >to be, nor are they conscienceless killing machines.
>
>Wow, I'm momentarily impressed.
>
> >_Far from it_,
> >in fact -- if the decision were left up to them, there probably would
> >be no war on Iraq now:
>
>Similarly, if the "GIs" you speak of made the decisions, eventually
>there would be no military uniforms, no grooming standards, no discipline
>of any sort to distinguish military from any other group of civilians,
>and then where would we be?
aside from the fact that this is irrelevant to anything yoshie or alan typed, it's bullshit. just because enlisted chafe at the rules and regs that control their life (too bad, so sad...), it does not follow that, were they to have control over creating the rules and regs, they would do things any differently.
kelley