Clay Jones for January 28, 2015

Like millions of others, including thousands of Viet Nam vets, protested the idiocy of “W” invasion plans for Iraq, that were in place before he was elected.

The brown dude has it right. The real heroes are those who spoke up and tried to stop a senseless and illegal war based on false premises. The villain is not the sniper who is only doing his job and apparently does it well. The real villains are the politicians and their military war machine who invade, kill, maim, and create chaos in foreign lands for power, influence, and control of resources.

If we are dedicated to “getting rid of countries leaders that oppress their people.” we have made a series of bad choices of who we support in the past. And what do we do about the leaders of such countries as Saudi Arabia and China?Which administrations have fought the good fight in your eyes?

You say, “No one that understands war would ever want to get into one. But I do wish we would topple more governments.” Oh.

The US has NO business toppling other governments. -In 1953 the CIA “toppled” the Iranian government by overthrowing the ELECTED prime minister. This was to protect BP’s profits because the PM wanted to nationalize Iranian oil. This led to the 1979 hostage crisis, which eventually led to some of the issues today.Several South American dictators were supported to enable US corporations to expand and control markets.

I mow my own lawn, but I don’t mow my neighbor’s lawn, and I certainly don’t blow up his house and kill his children so that I can mow his lawn.

The actual person this was based on was a demonstrated liar in his so-called memoirs (Jesse Ventura, a public figure, sued him for slander and WON), and a simpleminded, vicious killer, pretty much by his own admission.Haven’t seen the movie. Not really my thing.

“…..People are blind to what we are fighting against. Which is getting rid of countries leaders that oppress their people. Kill gays. Dominate women. Sell and abuse children. Crush religious freedom. Stifle the press….etc….”.Your thesis, of course, falls apart when people bring up the subject of Saudi Arabia, who are the worst offenders of what you oppose, but is an important American ally (witness Western and U.S. leaders flocking to pay homage at King Abdullah’s funeral). .And you “don’t know why we support the Saudi’s that have backed our enemies and had 19 of their people smash into the trade center.” Okay, I’ll tell you: Oil, and regional power and influence.

I replied to Logicalone a day or so ago, and followed up in a brief exchange. But I am a quick study and won’t be doing THAT again. I suppose there is some sport in sparring with a troll, but it’s not my game. Cute screen name, but, in fact, he is neither logical nor (alas) alone.

Michael Moore has supported the soldiers for years, not just with words, but with money and time. He employs former Navy SEALs. And yes, he tried to stop a needless war that killed thousands of them.

lonecat, your comment about not invading the neighbor’s lawn was spot on and worthy of being framed.

“put his life on the line to save others.” Going to see SELMA, then? I suggest reading the article I am linking to below. It has direct quotes from the sniper himself.Then, ask yourself, did he “put his life on the line to save others?” Or to have fun shooting people? http://theantimedia.org/the-real-american-sniper/“You do it until there’s no one left to kill. That’s what war is. I loved what I did… I’m not lying or exaggerating to say it was fun.”

Saying “But I do wish we would topple more governments” is a call to war. The US should be responsible for actions of previous generations; this doesn’t have to (not should it) involve more wars.-And before you go calling others cowards, you should read your own posts. Moore’s uncle was shot in the back by a sniper – I can see why he would be angry. You want to topple other governments yet say you don’t want to be involved for previous bad actions by the US.

“Trade is free because the Navy makes it safe to navigate the globe.”So US companies outsource jobs to factories other countries that pay their people a pittance. Then the US taxpayers get to pay for the Navy to protect the shipments on their way to US consumers.

I’m all in favor of nuance. Please add some nuance to “But I do wish we would topple more governments.” Also, could you explain the relevance of killing a rat with a BB gun. What does that have to do with this discussion?

Wow, really? American Sniper is decidedly not historically accurate; it isn’t even accurate to the book which has been proven to include lies.And Selma seems to be doing quite well indeed.

“….My “thesis” is they are not our friends ….. if we KNEW they were behind 9/11 I would “disappear” them from the face of the Earth and take the oil….”.Doesn’t much matter what you think, from when Bush walked hand in hand with Prince Abdullah like new lovers to leaders paying homage at his funeral, Saudi Arabia is demonstrably America’s ally, with all their human rights abuses and violations of democratic principles. As for responsibility for 9/11, The mastermind Osama bin laden and 15 of the perpetrators were Saudis; and there is ample evidence of Saudi royal family financial support through Saudi “charitable” groups. The full story won’t be known because Bush had 28 pages of the congressional report deleted for “security” reasons. I’m having difficulty seeing how “disappearing them and stealing their oil,” or escalating the violence and the law breaking, will solve any Middle Eastern, World, or U.S. problems. To repeat, the U.S. and military involvement in the Middle East is not for altruistic reasons and human rights, it is about oil, regional influence, power, and oil.

If one had to choose, I would choose the latter. But I think it’s possible not to blame the soldier but to be highly critical of the mission. In this era of high unemployment, the soldier might have signed up for his own economic survival. Hard not to believe the high unemployment is at least partly engineered to make possible a volunteer military.

Don’t get me started. I can talk about this problem for hours. I will limit myself to a few brief observations.1. Back in 1965 I took my first real philosophy course, with Robert Nozick. At one point he and his teaching assistant found that they were using a word (I forget which) in different ways, and they stopped the regular class (it was a seminar with just 16 students) and spent about twenty minutes working out their differences and resolving them. We, the students, were just in awe watching these two intellects going at it, all very friendly, but very intense. They clearly felt that they would not be able to make any progress in their treatment of the topic until they got their vocabulary straight. (What a Confucian would call “the rectification of names”.)2. It’s probably worthwhile to make distinctions between ordinary use of language, literary use of language, and philosophic/scientific use of language; these all have different standards. A lot of literature is concerned with the differing uses of words — for example, in Aeschulus’ Oresteia, the word “dike” (pronounced “dee-kay”) can mean revenge, abstract justice, or a court case, and a lot of the action of the play flows from these differences.3. One of the basic logical fallacies is “equivocation”, that is, the use of different senses of a word to draw an illogical conclusion. A criminal attorney is not (necessarily) a criminal.

It was a great experience. Not grad school, however — I was 17. It was an eye-opener for a high school kid.