DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Tailgate Forum US Troops: "If you're going to support us, support us all the way".

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We are also free to criticize the manner in which our President has chosen to fight this conflict. If you free justified do it...but don't expect a parade of support for that viewpoint.

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It's not hard to see that if a soldier held those same values, then you feel the same about them.

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Not surprisingly, you can't imagine you've done anything offensive.

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2. I believe they are asking if still one feels like not supporting the war after reviewing the facts. To cut out the BS and the "feel good" proclamations of - I don't support the war but I support the troops. Cause those are nice words that just don't apply in their world.

JMHO

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By extension, that would mean you felt anyone that supported the war were those same things. How can one person be all those things and not another?

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What I am saying is that they (these men in the video, my friends and my brother) definitely don't feel the support that the anti-war screamers are giving them. (I am NOT claiming that everyone against the war is a screamer).

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You can defend anything you want, but don't expect me to sit idly by while you condone and take joy in the taking of millions of lives because people don't want to live responsibly, "got it"?

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That's the bottom line....how the soldiers feel.

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And what I'm saying is that just because I think the war is dumb doesn't mean I think what they are doing is dumb.

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They are doing their job....they didn't chose to go to war, it's what they were dealt. I don't understand why people can't see the difference.

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Some soldiers don't see it that way. When they hear people say the war is dumb, they hear a message from their fellow countrymen that they are risking their lives for nothing. They don't feel supported.

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I know several soldiers who do not feel that way and have returned home after at least a couple of tours. Two of them are completely against the war. Don't tell me they don't support their fellow soldiers. That would be the ultimate insult that some on here have been screaming about.

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I guess that depends on who you ask, Pit. Do you think those soldiers that are against the war, and we really don't know how many there are, feel supported? According to the soldiers in the video, yes you are wrong.

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All three of them coach?


I gave links of soldiers,as well as their families who do not support ths war earlier in this thread.

So their views shouldn't be talked about as well? I just support the views of soldiers who don't support the war very much the same as some share the views with soldiers who do support the war. There's no difference.

Soldiers in Iraq view troop surge as lost cause

By Tom Lasseter - McClatchy Newspapers

Sunday, February 4, 2007

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Baghdad, Iraq — Army 1st Lt. Antonio Hardy took a slow look around the east Baghdad neighborhood that he and his men were patrolling. He grimaced at the sound of gunshots in the distance. A machine gunner on top of a Humvee scanned the rooftops for snipers. Some of Hardy’s men wondered aloud if they’d get hit by a roadside bomb on the way back to their base.

“To be honest, it’s going to be like this for a long time to come, no matter what we do,” said Hardy, 25, of Atlanta. “I think some people in America don’t want to know about all this violence, about all the killings. The people back home are shielded from it; they get it sugar-coated.”

While senior military officials and the Bush administration say the president’s decision to send more American troops to pacify Baghdad will succeed, many of the soldiers who’re already there say it’s a lost cause.

“What is victory supposed to look like? Every time we turn around and go in a new area there’s somebody new waiting to kill us,” said Sgt. 1st Class Herbert Gill, 29, of Pulaski, Tenn., as his Humvee rumbled down a dark Baghdad highway one evening last week. “Sunnis and Shiites have been fighting for thousands of years, and we’re not going to change that overnight.”

“Once more raids start happening, they’ll (insurgents) melt away,” said Gill, who serves with the 1st Infantry Division in east Baghdad. “And then two or three months later, when we leave and say it was a success, they’ll come back.”

Soldiers interviewed across east Baghdad, home to more than half the city’s 8 million people, said the violence is so out of control that while a surge of 21,500 more American troops may momentarily suppress it, the notion that U.S. forces can bring lasting security to Iraq is misguided.

Soldiers such as Hardy must contend not only with an escalating civil war between Iraq’s Sunni and Shiite Muslims, but also with insurgents on both sides who target U.S. forces.

“We can go get into a firefight and empty out ammo, but it doesn’t accomplish much,” said Pvt. 1st Class Zach Clouser, 19, of York, Pa. “This isn’t our war — we’re just in the middle.”

Almost every foot soldier interviewed during a week of patrols on the streets and alleys of east Baghdad said that Bush’s plan would halt the bloodshed only temporarily. The soldiers cited a variety of reasons, including incompetence or corruption among Iraqi troops, the complexities of Iraq’s sectarian violence and the lack of Iraqi public support, a cornerstone of counterinsurgency warfare.

“They can keep sending more and more troops over here, but until the people here start working with us, it’s not going to change,” said Sgt. Chance Oswalt, 22, of Tulsa, Okla.

Bush’s initiative calls for American soldiers in Baghdad to take positions in outposts throughout the capital, paired up with Iraqi police and soldiers. Few of the U.S. soldiers interviewed, however, said they think Iraqi forces can operate effectively without American help.

Their officers were more optimistic.

If there’s enough progress during the next four to six months, “we can look at doing provincial Iraqi control, and we can move U.S. forces to the edge of the city,” said Lt. Col. Dean Dunham, the deputy commander of the 2nd Infantry Division’s 2nd Brigade, which oversees most of east Baghdad.

Maj. Christopher Wendland, a senior staff officer for Dunham’s brigade, said he thinks there’s a good chance that by late 2007 American troops will have handed over most of Baghdad to Iraqi troops.

“I’m actually really positive,” said Wendland, 35, of Chicago. “We have an Iraqi army that’s actually capable of maintaining once we leave.”

If the Iraqi army can control the violence, his thinking goes, economic and political progress will follow in the safest areas, accompanied by infrastructure improvement, then spread outward.

In counterinsurgency circles, that notion is commonly called the “inkblot” approach. It’s been relatively successful in some isolated parts of Iraq, such as Tal Afar on the Syrian border, but in most areas it’s failed to halt the bloodshed for any length of time.

Leaning against a pile of sandbags last week, 1st Lt. Tim Evers took a drag from his Marlboro cigarette. He said that while sending more troops sounded good, Sunni and Shiite fighters would only move out of Baghdad, fight elsewhere and wait until they can re-enter the capital.

Evers’ men were part of the last U.S. effort to subdue Baghdad, Operation Forward Together, which included Iraqi and American soldiers. It lasted most of last summer and ended in failure.

http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2007/feb/04/soldiers_iraq_view_troop_surge_lost_cause/

It would appear much of what I've been saying is a view shared by many soldiers. They simply don't have confidence in the Bush strategy. You try to make "how the troops feel" as a blanket statement.

These debates and discussions mirror the diversity that exists among our troops as well. So if you don't mind,you can stop saying "I don't support the troops",because I do. And I share many of the same sentiments many of our troops do as well.

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"What would the Troops like me to do, if I don't support the war?"

1. I think they are asking you to educate yourself more on the facts and not on the POLITICS and LIBERAL MEDIA SPIN before making that decision final.

2. I believe they are asking if still one feels like not supporting the war after reviewing the facts. To cut out the BS and the "feel good" proclamations of - I don't support the war but I support the troops. Cause those are nice words that just don't apply in their world.

JMHO

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Just remember you are telling a Soldier who is the one who volunteered and the one over there...that they are wrong how they "FEEL" and Interpret any lack of support as if they are the ones who DON'T GET IT.

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