AWOL?
In Ramadi, Fetid Quarters and Unrelenting Battles
By DEXTER FILKINS
U.S. commanders say they are planning to convert about
three blocks in the middle of Ramadi into a "Green Zone."
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/05/world/middleeast/05ramadi.html?th&emc=th
.............................
I happened to hear a re-run of an interview yesterday on npr with Brian Lehrer of "Kathy Roth-Douquet, and Frank Schaeffer, co-authors, AWOL: The Unexcused Absence of America's Upper Classes from Military Service -- and How It Hurts Our ..."
http://www.wnyc.org/search/?q=AWOL&x=24&y=6
The brief excerpt from the book description above gives the core of the concerns of these joint authors, one Republican and the other Democrat, to the effect that our upper classes are de facto exempt now from military service -- some 4 members of Congress have children in the military -- and, thus, detached from its human costs.
In my generation -- the Korean war -- there were no such exemptions and the Viet Nam war did not begin to wind down until a draft lottery was finally introduced at the beginning of 1970 which could hit anyone.
I happen to have a daughter who was briefly in the military during the Clinton years and had occasion to meet her friends during that period. Thus, those giving their lives and bodies in Iraq and Afghanistan are very real to me as were those who made comparable sacrifices during WW2, the Korean War, and the last fragment of the Viet Nam one. We had people about whom were cared at risk and war was not something to be undertaken lightly -- or in the citation from Livy in my signature below: "A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli).
The authors of AWOL are making the obvious point that there has opened up a class gap (chasm?) between those in America who launch wars and those called upon to fight them.
I'll leave it as this. It does not take much imagination to see where this gap has led us. The NY Times account above gives some direct sense of the horrors for all of this particular war. Read it through if you are a gung ho war supporter.
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PeaceEfforts
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net
By DEXTER FILKINS
U.S. commanders say they are planning to convert about
three blocks in the middle of Ramadi into a "Green Zone."
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/05/world/middleeast/05ramadi.html?th&emc=th
.............................
I happened to hear a re-run of an interview yesterday on npr with Brian Lehrer of "Kathy Roth-Douquet, and Frank Schaeffer, co-authors, AWOL: The Unexcused Absence of America's Upper Classes from Military Service -- and How It Hurts Our ..."
http://www.wnyc.org/search/?q=AWOL&x=24&y=6
The brief excerpt from the book description above gives the core of the concerns of these joint authors, one Republican and the other Democrat, to the effect that our upper classes are de facto exempt now from military service -- some 4 members of Congress have children in the military -- and, thus, detached from its human costs.
In my generation -- the Korean war -- there were no such exemptions and the Viet Nam war did not begin to wind down until a draft lottery was finally introduced at the beginning of 1970 which could hit anyone.
I happen to have a daughter who was briefly in the military during the Clinton years and had occasion to meet her friends during that period. Thus, those giving their lives and bodies in Iraq and Afghanistan are very real to me as were those who made comparable sacrifices during WW2, the Korean War, and the last fragment of the Viet Nam one. We had people about whom were cared at risk and war was not something to be undertaken lightly -- or in the citation from Livy in my signature below: "A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli).
The authors of AWOL are making the obvious point that there has opened up a class gap (chasm?) between those in America who launch wars and those called upon to fight them.
I'll leave it as this. It does not take much imagination to see where this gap has led us. The NY Times account above gives some direct sense of the horrors for all of this particular war. Read it through if you are a gung ho war supporter.
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PeaceEfforts
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net
posted by Ed Kent at 7:29 AM
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