The Real Iraq Body Count

[Plu]

You were a teenager once, shoe. You should know this kind of attitude usually doesn't work on teenagers, no matter how smart. Because you sounded like a condescending cunt there, and that isn't the kind of person people are going to take anything from, no matter how smart it might sound. Especially as an intelligent adult, you should know this.

[Plu]

Because that's more important than pointing out something real to a kid.

You're not pointing anything out if your subject tunes out after the first line. There is a big difference between telling someone they are wrong (which you did) and being a condescending cunt (which you also did).

The problem is that the latter destroys all the use of the former. The second problem is that your post seems completely unrelated to what was actually said, and seem to be telling Insult that he believes and thinks things that he never even closely mentioned, and that you seem to be completely missing the whole point of his post.

The fact that you seem to be missing the entire point of my post suggest that you're stuck in rage-mode again, so maybe you should calm down a bit, reread the conversation, and see what you're actually being accused of. You're throwing around all sort of comments that seem completely unrelated to anything going on here.

[SGOS]

The last Mel Gibson movie I saw was some war movie where a soldier is dying surrounded by his comrades.  He's been gut shot, and in typical Gibson-esque fashion he's laying on the ground with his guts coming out of his abdominal cavity, and his last words are, "I'm so happy that I could die for my country."  I remember thinking Mel Gibson must have his head up his ass or something.  Now when I see a movie playing that has anything to do with Mel Gibson, I run the other way.

I was born during WWII, so I grew up watching patriotic John Wayne war movies almost every Saturday afternoon at the local theater.  Watching these post WWII propaganda movies as a pre-teen, it was impossible not to develop a sense that war was about heroics.

Then along came Vietnam.  I was 10 years older and in metropolitan areas, I saw filthy streets where the Vets congregated, some in wheel chairs without legs, some missing an arm, or deformed in other ways, a few on little skate board things they could propel their legless bodies down the side walks with their hands.  They would come to a curb, and in the flash of an eye, slide off their skateboards, pick them up, place them on the curb and hop back on to continue going wherever; Grown men, now reduced to three foot high half men slithering along the walkways.  I didn't see heroes.  I saw what seemed like human remains barely alive and mostly drunk.

It pissed me off to realize that those John Wayne propaganda films were all a bunch of lies designed to tell us how great we were.  I had believed them, and had been unaware of reality.

[AllPurposeAtheist]

The prelude to war is always a slick marketing con job. They fill boys heads with fancy of glory and all that happy horseshit, give them a pretty uniform then toss them straight in hell, pin a piece of brass on them if they survive it then shitcan them for the next crop of young saps.. This is nothing new and as best I can tell will never stop.

[Plu]

You are again talking down from some high and mighty place.

Yeah, sucks when that happens, doesn't it? Imagine how it must feel for the people you're talking to  :roll:

You seem to be thinking that a lot of things were said and meant that really aren't. You're talking to a poster that I've never met before, because Insult seems to understand all of your points already.

[SGOS]

The prelude to war is always a slick marketing con job. They fill boys heads with fancy of glory and all that happy horseshit.

I remember watching an sadly ironic news clip back at the beginning of the Iraq War.  During the first wave of US casualties, a reporter was interviewing a mother who had just lost her son.  She said he wanted to go to Iraq.  When he boarded the plane, his last words to her were, "I'm going to go kick some Iraqi butt."

[Plu]

That's why it's so important to have news, video and stories of the real war. Nobody in their right mind would sign up for a war if they really understood what they were getting into. Your body might make it through the battles intact, but your mind pretty much shatters and dies by the end of the first week. If you last that long.

[Plu]

I don't think that's what he said. But that'll need clarification from Insult from Rocks himself. If that is indeed what he meant, you are totally in the right for what you said (which doesn't change my opinion on how you said it) but I'm fairly certain that's not what he meant at all.

[AllPurposeAtheist]

I didn't read anything condescending.  I read truth and if someone can't handle truth there's always some fucking holy book.

[AllPurposeAtheist]

So now shoe has to worry about how the truth is written about horrors of war? What's next, everyone gets a trophy for participating?

[Shol'va]

It's an adult's responsibility to say, 'this is wrong'

Except that's not what Plu and I are discussing with you.
If I were to adopt your attitude I would say that whoever did not live through armed conflict has no business talking about it. Have you?

[Plu]

I'm pretty sure anyone who hasn't been through it has some form of a delusional vision of war. To think yours is correct even though you've never experienced it is probably even worse than some teenager doing the same, because you of all people should know better.

[Plu]

I have honestly lost track of what exactly your problem is.

[Solitary]

War is a living hell period! If anyone thinks it is glorifying they are delusional. unfortunately there are people that would got to war after being in it for the same reasons they did the first time, stupidity. One doesn't have to go to war to know it is insane to invade another country based on lies, or know we have to protect ourselves, and that at any cost is immoral. We don't fight wars for our country, we fight them for politicians and their propaganda to make their friends richer now. If we have World War three we will all be back in the stone age, if we survive. War is not a video game where you don't get hurt or die and come back.  :roll:  Solitary

[Plu]

Honestly, I haven't changed my opinion on anything (and won't unless Insult to Rocks happens to come by and clarifies what he meant) since I made that first post. I also don't have the idea that you've been spending all that much effort trying to understand anyone else's position here either.