[RRWANTR]

http://ebird.afis.mil/ebfiles/e20060124412956.html


Edit:
Woopps...
I'll paste the text



Los Angeles Times
January 24, 2006 Warriors And Wusses
By Joel Stein
I don't support our troops. This is a particularly difficult opinion to have, especially if you are the kind of person who likes to put bumper stickers on his car. Supporting the troops is a position that even Calvin is unwilling to urinate on.
I'm sure I'd like the troops. They seem gutsy, young and up for anything. If you're wandering into a recruiter's office and signing up for eight years of unknown danger, I want to hang with you in Vegas.
And I've got no problem with other people — the ones who were for the Iraq war — supporting the troops. If you think invading Iraq was a good idea, then by all means, support away. Load up on those patriotic magnets and bracelets and other trinkets the Chinese are making money off of.
But I'm not for the war. And being against the war and saying you support the troops is one of the wussiest positions the pacifists have ever taken — and they're wussy by definition. It's as if the one lesson they took away from Vietnam wasn't to avoid foreign conflicts with no pressing national interest but to remember to throw a parade afterward.
Blindly lending support to our soldiers, I fear, will keep them overseas longer by giving soft acquiescence to the hawks who sent them there — and who might one day want to send them somewhere else. Trust me, a guy who thought 50.7% was a mandate isn't going to pick up on the subtleties of a parade for just service in an unjust war. He's going to be looking for funnel cake.
Besides, those little yellow ribbons aren't really for the troops. They need body armor, shorter stays and a USO show by the cast of "Laguna Beach."
The real purpose of those ribbons is to ease some of the guilt we feel for voting to send them to war and then making absolutely no sacrifices other than enduring two Wolf Blitzer shows a day. Though there should be a ribbon for that.
I understand the guilt. We know we're sending recruits to do our dirty work, and we want to seem grateful.
After we've decided that we made a mistake, we don't want to blame the soldiers who were ordered to fight. Or even our representatives, who were deceived by false intelligence. And certainly not ourselves, who failed to object to a war we barely understood.
But blaming the president is a little too easy. The truth is that people who pull triggers are ultimately responsible, whether they're following orders or not. An army of people making individual moral choices may be inefficient, but an army of people ignoring their morality is horrifying. An army of people ignoring their morality, by the way, is also Jack Abramoff's pet name for the House of Representatives.
I do sympathize with people who joined up to protect our country, especially after 9/11, and were tricked into fighting in Iraq. I get mad when I'm tricked into clicking on a pop-up ad, so I can only imagine how they feel.
But when you volunteer for the U.S. military, you pretty much know you're not going to be fending off invasions from Mexico and Canada. So you're willingly signing up to be a fighting tool of American imperialism, for better or worse. Sometimes you get lucky and get to fight ethnic genocide in Kosovo, but other times it's Vietnam.
And sometimes, for reasons I don't understand, you get to just hang out in Germany.
I know this is all easy to say for a guy who grew up with money, did well in school and hasn't so much as served on jury duty for his country. But it's really not that easy to say because anyone remotely affiliated with the military could easily beat me up, and I'm listed in the phone book.
I'm not advocating that we spit on returning veterans like they did after the Vietnam War, but we shouldn't be celebrating people for doing something we don't think was a good idea. All I'm asking is that we give our returning soldiers what they need: hospitals, pensions, mental health and a safe, immediate return. But, please, no parades.
Seriously, the traffic is insufferable.

[navydevildoc]

Yeah, you gotta be on a .mil machine for that.

Edit: Thanks.

[Mojave954]

Send him over to be a correspondent with no protection. Then lets hear his opinion of our brave boys and girls.... phucker doesn't deserve to live here.

[Latebraking]

I'm tongue-tied, I'm enraged that someone would feel this way and then go on to print it in a widely read newspaper. But that's what my (and many others') 20+ years in the Marines gave him the ability to do.

He needs a one-way ticket to Iraq, accompanied by Sean Penn, to broker a peace agreement with Osama, Zarqawi and their minions. We'll be sure not to interfere with their activities........

What an oxygen thief and waste of DNA........

[jaim]

What part of freedom so speech and freedom of the press don't you folks understand? He ha a right to his opinion just as you do. Shutting people up because of what they say about the most unpatriotic thing you can do in this country.

[seamus]

Originally Posted by jaim

What part of freedom so speech and freedom of the press don't you folks understand? He ha a right to his opinion just as you do. Shutting people up because of what they say about the most unpatriotic thing you can do in this country.

Damn it I actually have to agree with jaim on this one. It's merely an opinion piece from an editorial. But I can say Joel Stein ain't getting no Christmas card from me this year. But, then again, he's probably one of those hippies fighting for "Holiday Greetings" BS.

"I may not agree with what you say, but I'll fight to the death for your right to say it." I don't remember who said it 200+ years ago, but it still stands. Fortunately, there are still many who choose to fight.

[BDA116]

Originally Posted by jaim

What part of freedom so speech and freedom of the press don't you folks understand? He ha a right to his opinion just as you do. Shutting people up because of what they say about the most unpatriotic thing you can do in this country.

That has absolutely nothing to do with others expressing their opinion of him or his paper. If that jackass and his pals at that ****-wipe rag and their sister the NYT want to continue spewing their BS, people can continue to say what they want about them and not buy the worthless papers.

[oldgoat]

Originally Posted by jaim

What part of freedom so speech and freedom of the press don't you folks understand? He ha a right to his opinion just as you do. Shutting people up because of what they say about the most unpatriotic thing you can do in this country.

When you can't say what you think we're in real trouble.

[RRWANTR]

Originally Posted by jaim

What part of freedom so speech and freedom of the press don't you folks understand? He ha a right to his opinion just as you do. Shutting people up because of what they say about the most unpatriotic thing you can do in this country.

How does my expressing how I feel about this POS restrict his freedom of speech?

Where in this thread did anyone say to restrict it? From what I see, all people have done is expressed their opinion on this worthless pile, but as usual, some liberal jackalope has tried to put words in people's mouth and twist what has been said.

I have no desire to read the majority of the shyte this "publication" prints. This piece along with a ton of other despicable shyte I've seen published in this "publication" is why I am choosing to exercise my freedom of not subscribing to this worthless POS news item.

[oldgoat]

How does my expressing how I feel about this POS restrict his freedom of speech?



it doesn't ! Just saying what I think. Chill out dude

[CBRVFR]

RRWANTER -

A better approach than to stop reading the paper is to write a rebuttal. And they will print it if it's well reasoned and persuasive. And controversial.

Free Speech is ugly sometimes, but if you don't participate in the marketplace of ideas in the same way that your opponents do, you're leaving the field to them.

It would be especially effective from a vet. The LA Times, like all papers, loves money even more than ideology. That's why the primary job of OP-ED columnists is to piss people off.

My dad would take those guys to task. He had several letters to the editor published, and got many personal responses from writers and editors.

[Scout]

Maybe Joel Stein is trying to rationalize why he (or HIS hero's of the anti-war movement during Vietnam) called U.S. troops "baby-killers" and worse, when he see's a nation split by politics, yet unable to stoop to the lowness of victimizing the soldiers that protect, and have always protected the freedoms he enjoys.

Some people will never get it, and that's okay. Let them rant and rave about something they (admittedly) know little about, and let their peers judge them as they will.

To me, articles like the one posted mold and reinforce opinions which ever side they may lie on. That's not a bad thing.

[luvtolean]

Originally Posted by CBRVFR

It would be especially effective from a vet. The LA Times, like all papers, loves money even more than ideology. That's why the primary job of OP-ED columnists is to piss people off.

Looks like it worked spectacularly for them too.

[BDA116]

Typical media bias in that article as well. I like how they always refer to anyone outside the liberal good old boys club as a conservative columnist or a conservative site, etc. yet they don't refer to that guy or the LAT as liberal.

[Mo Noyz]

Outstanding point.