Chickenhawk Alert!

[Doug]

NONE Of The New GOP Congress Members Has Served In The Military...
Huffington Post | Posted December 6, 2006 03:49 PM

Below are the bios of the GOP's freshman congressional class. Note that not one new GOP congress member has served in the military...

See here.

[Barbara Fitzpatrick]

If this surprises anyone, they haven't been paying attention. Did you guys see the Doonsbury strip week before last? It had BD (the vet who lost his leg in Iraq) visiting an ethics class whose students were all good little R chickenhawks.

[Betsy]

just to keep it fair and balanced, what are the military records of the new Democrats in Congress?

[Dardedar]

DAR
Check out this to see how groups like "Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America" and "Disabled American Veterans" rated the demo's v. repub's (chart at bottom).

Found this:
"In November 2006, more than 50 veterans of the U.S. armed forces from around the country competed for seats in Congress."

And this:

"The Fighting Dems is a nickname given to more than 60 military veterans who ran for Congress as Democrats in the United States' 2006 congressional elections. 4 of these candidates were elected to the House of Representatives and 1 was elected to the Senate." --link

[Doug]

just to keep it fair and balanced, what are the military records of the new Democrats in Congress?

DOUG
It's different, as Darrel has noted. But the point is, it is the Republicans who are so enthusiastic about war, and the warmongers should be expected to be consistent. If they think war is good, they should be willing to go into one.

And look at how few warmongers in Bush's administration went to war. Bush didn't even do all his time in the National Guard, let alone go to Vietnam.

[Barbara Fitzpatrick]

That is the difference between a pacifist and a chickenhawk - the former doesn't think anybody should go to war, that war is bad, and the latter thinks other people should go to war, but war is good.

[Betsy]

good point, Doug. hadn't thought of it that way. So the Dem's don't have to "put their money where their mouth is", because their not mouthing off for war (although their service record still far exceeds the Repub's).

[JamesH]

I wish I could remember the time of the show and who was telling the story but it was some young college Democrates or freethinking group on the Randi Rhodes Show on Air America. But these young college students went to a Young Repblican meeting/national convention sometime last year. They went in and talked to some of the participants and asked them their views on various topics but finally asked about the war in Iraq. Well of course they all supported the war and we should all support the war and if you did not support the war you were un-American! So the young college investigators started asking why they had remained in college and not joined up to serve in the war in Iraq. They all had excusses why they had not served.

"I'm serving my country by staying in college"
"I have a good job waiting as soon as I graduate"
etc.....etc.....etc.....

But my favorite cop out was the kid that started rubbing his shoulder and said he had a "football injury". If you really want to serve a little football injury is not going to keep you out! When I was a recruiter we had a kid that shattered his leg playing football but he wanted to be a Marine more than anything else in the world. It took a year and a lot of work on his part but he did join and he made it.

[LaWood]

Neocons like war for the huge profits it generates. Profits are what is American, and profits are without conscience. Hence Cheney, a draft-dodger, was the Iraq Invasion's most powerful supporter. To mention Haliburton should not be necessary.

"War is a Racket (1935) is a short work by former U.S. Marine Brigadier General Smedley Darlington Butler, where Butler discusses how business interests have commercially benefited from warfare. Butler points to a variety of examples, mostly from World War I, where industrialists whose operations were subsidised by public funding were able to generate substantial profits essentially from mass human suffering."
Excerpt Chpt One:
"In the World War a mere handful garnered the profits of the conflict.
At least 21,000 new millionaires and billionaires were made in the United
States during the World War. That many admitted their huge blood gains in
their income tax returns. How many other war millionaires falsified their
tax returns no one knows."
Wikipedia

It would be easy to project that-limited as Iraq is-no less than 50,000 additional millionaire-billionaires will be created before we depart.

[Dardedar]

It would be easy to project that-limited as Iraq is-no less than 50,000 additional millionaire-billionaires will be created before we depart.

DAR
I don't know about that. If you take 50,000 and times it by 1,000,000 you get fifty trillion.

OOPS. My boo. You get fifty billion. I heard today that we are about 400 billion into this war so far and it will easily be two trillion when you consider the long term costs. So your claim is very plausible (and by plausible I mean likely, believable, probable).

D.

[LaWood]

Perhaps things have changed since Smedley did his revelation n war profiteering. One thing is there is beaucoup more concentration regarding who gets the bidness. Here's an example from Truthout:

"Halliburton and Blackwater are two of the most controversial corporations working in Iraq. Halliburton has been accused of grossly inflating the costs of its services in Iraq. The company has overcharged taxpayers for fuel and food, and most recently has refused to turn over documents to a government auditor who became suspicious that the company was taking advantage of taxpayers by overstating the true cost of its work.
Prior to the start of the Iraq war in March 2003, Halliburton was inching dangerously close to filing for bankruptcy as a result of billions of dollars in asbestos settlements. In the three and a half years since the start of the war, Halliburton's profits have increased by nearly 500 percent."

During the mid-late sixties we had protest that went
"WAR IS GOOD BUSINESS, INVEST YOUR SON"
_

[Barbara Fitzpatrick]

Chickenhawks haven't changed. From war to war to war, it's always "you and your children should fight and die to make me money - it's patriotic"

[Doug]

This seems appropriate in this thread.