ending the iraq war

[undercutter2006]

when you compare this to the vietnam war

during vietnam we had hundreds of thousands of conscripts torn from their lives by force and made to fight in bloody combat, so naturally their friends and families were up in arms about it

now we have a volunteer army, where people sign up to fight, and modern soldiers are coddled as well compared to vietnam, protected by body armor, up armored vehicles, and air strikes, the us military casualty rates are miniscule compared to what we went through in vietnam

the media was on the front lines in vietnam. in the current conflict the media can either be embedded with the american troops and, thus, have to parrot their point of view, or go out on their own and get killed or kidnapped in crossfire, which few journalistically inclined professionals would want to do

and it still took so many years of mass protest, tens of thousands of deaths, front line reports and bad publicity to end the vietnam war

this time the deck is stacked so much more heavily against us

is there any hope?

[undercutter2006]

1. plus the fact

that a regular american doesn't really expreience effects of war in any meaningfull way

if i think about myself - whether or not the iraq war happened, would that have any effect on my life - my professional life, my social life, my standard of living

and the answer is, not that much at all so far, if i wasn't following politics

and for many americans who think news is boring, the life haven't changed at all, they are barely aware that we are engaged in a war in some other country

with nearly million of iraqi civilians killed as collateral damage

and that's crazy

[undercutter2006]

2. and does anybody else notice

that demonstations and protest don't work anymore?

if you are in power, and you have a quarter of the population protesting in the streets, what does it matter to you? these people have jobs and will have to go home sooner or later. and since they are protesting against your policies, that means they never voted for you in the first place, so why should you care?

the united states today is very different place than what it was in the sixties

or modern europe or south america, for that matter. there, they still pay attention to protesters

[undercutter2006]

3. but i guess

not ?!!!

yeah, i am posting while drunk, is this making sense to anybody

[undercutter2006]

4. look smiles up