Those who know me know that I have supported the war in Iraq since the beginning. I support it because I honestly feel Islamic extremism is going to be the greatest challenge my generation will face and that removing evil regimes in that area is one of the many steps we need to take.
However, not much has gone right in conducting this war. Not only did we underestimate the resistance we would encounter, we severely underestimated the amount of casualties and wounded we would incur. This has lead not only to a war lasting over four years, but to inadequate care our veterans received when they returned. Our military is over extended, exhausted, and over taxed. This has led to a virtual loss in confidence and lack of will to continue by the American people. To be honest, I do not fault anyone for feeling this way.
Despite all this I remain, for lack of a better term, cautiously optimistic that something good can come out of this. Exactly what, I do not know.
Throughout this entire ordeal, my viewpoints have come from not having any personal connections to the war. Yeah, people I knew in college are serving, but no one I considered a close friend, and I had no family members until now.
My sister’s future husband is a U.S. Marine and has already been to Iraq, I think twice. He had served four years and has been out for a year or two. He is a great guy, wonderful to my sister and a terrific father figure for her son. Recently he found out that the military is considering reactivating him and send him back to Iraq. He is proud to have served his country and never spoke ill of his previous tours, but since his last tour ended, he purposed to my sister, bought a condo, and is planning their wedding. Needless to say, this news has not been well received. That’s all I will say, as the rest goes too far into the personal realm.
So I am left wondering what to do now. On the one hand, if I continue to support the war, one that I acknowledge is not going well, I do so knowing my future brother-in-law is putting his life on the line. On the other hand, if I suddenly change positions, simply because the war has become personal, I become a hypocrite.
I just do not know what to do anymore. Life is hard and all the only thing I can say is that I wish all our military a safe return, and continue to express my gratitude for all they have sacrificed on my behalf.
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7 comments:
I see no problem in changing your position on the war. In fact, it would be almost insulting to your brother-in-law if you didn't.
Regardless of political views, family should always come first. The thought of you having a conundrum over whether to support your brother-in-law versus supporting a war that has been mis-handled since day one by the administration is troubling.
It is this strain of thinking (i.e. "staying the course") that got us where we are in the first place. In my opinion, this administration HASN'T changed its mind enough. They never seem to learn from their mistakes or listen to the voice of the people. They just keep listening to the same people, feeding them the same advice, and the war keeps getting worse.
You should definitely take a hard look at your support for this war, especially now that your extended family is involved. If you did not, you might as well be signing the papers that send your brother-in-law to Iraq.
I'd have to agree. This mentality that changing one's mind is a sign of weak will or buckling is fool's logic. A thoughtful person will feel no remorse about changing their mind once they have more information. If anything we should learn here is that blinding following a position for some vague fear of looking "weak" is a terrible motive.
I must say this is the most action my site has received ever. So in that sense, I thank you. As usual, I respectfully disagree with both points. I am not contemplating not changing my mind for fear of being weak nor has my position even been to “Stay the course”. The point I was trying to make was that war is unfortunately a necessary evil and supporting it, no matter how hard it has been to do so, means you are supporting sending many people off to make the ultimate sacrifice. It is one thing to support a war when you have no personal connection, but it is a much harder thing to do when you have family involved. When someone who believes one thing when nothing personal it at stake, but changes positions when things get personal, to me, that’s a sign of weakness. This is what has become the crux of my dilemma
If you go back to one of my first posts, you will see what my position is and I still stand by it. Perhaps I will generate another post of the subject, but for now, I just want to wait and see what happens to my brother-in-law. Either way, I predict we will begin to pull out of Iraq in 08’ (I have a post in mind about that; just not have had the time to write it).
Thank you for the posts.
"I am not contemplating not changing my mind for fear of being weak nor has my position even been to “Stay the course”."
"When someone who believes one thing when nothing personal it at stake, but changes positions when things get personal, to me, that’s a sign of weakness. This is what has become the crux of my dilemma."
These two statements appear to contradict each other. But I am most interested in the latter of the two.
This perceived weakness that mention is the exact argument I was using for not changing your mind. In my opinion, this is a dangerous stance to take on any issue. If we can't change our minds because we may appear weak, then we might as well not bother to have debates on the Senate floor anymore. Just take a vote on a measure and disregard any kind of persuasion that might be possible through discussion.
Sure, I may be taking things to an extreme, but I feel strongly that change is not a sign of weakness. Rather it shows an ability to adapt and succeed. To quote Darwin,
"It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change."
And to return to the original matter of the post...I would rather be perceived as weak by some if changing my viewpoint would mean I would not be supporting a cause that could put a member of my family in danger.
Micah, you are really making me use my brain here. I must say you still miss my point. Yes, change is important. A species does survive by adapting to a changing environment. However, say you have an animal adapted to live in the cold and thus has a layer of fat, for argument proposes, equaled to 3 inches. Now the environment changes by getting colder (he he). For that species to survive, you would expect evolution to produce individuals with thicker layers of fat, say 4 inches. You would not expect evolution to produce species with, say, 2 inches of fat and still expect that species to survive.
So yes, change is necessary, but change in the wrong direction is bad. That’s what we as a society need to debate about our strategy in Iraq. We need change. But how? So that is what I mean when I say I am not for “Stay the course”, but also not for retreat. We need a new tactic, what I do not know. I am against retreat, but also against doing the same thing over and over again. Somewhere in the middle is the answer.
In response to your response about this quote: "When someone who believes one thing when nothing personal it at stake, but changes positions when things get personal, to me, that’s a sign of weakness. This is what has become the crux of my dilemma."
Here is another analogy. Say I am a regular guy making $30,000 a year and we are debating the appropriate tax rate for people making more than $100,000 a year. My position, in this example, is to tax the hell out of them. Say then, I develop a computer program that makes me rich and the debate of appropriate tax rate for people making more than $100,000 a year comes back up. I then take the position that we SHOULD NOT tax the rich any more than we tax the non-rich. Doesn’t that now make me sort of a hypocrite?
This is what I mean when I ask myself, how I can support military action when I do not have a personal connection, then change my mind when I suddenly do have a personal connection. There are many reasons to change my mind, but is that one of them? Is that fair to do to the many fellow Americans I do not know personally already fighting? I say it is not. That is why this is hard for me. Again, I am NOT saying I am unwilling to change, I am saying, is this a good reason to?
This leads me to my final point. Doesn’t the need of the many out weigh the needs of the few? Is one person’s life worth more then that of the group?
This is why it is so hard. I am trying to structure my opinions to achieve two things:
A) Ensure the safety of my family
B) Ensure the safety of my country
The two are hard to separate.
Thanks for using your brain, because I apparently did not use mine hard enough. Your new examples/explanation do clarify your stance greatly and I have a better appreciation for your opinion/dilemma.
We appear to be in agreement that some sort of change needs to take place in Iraq, but you do not believe a pull-out from the area is the correct answer. I would argue that in times of war, you can only really do two things: 1) keep fighting or 2) stop fighting. I don't know of any middle ground where you can "kinda fight". Even if you pull-out from Iraq using a gradual time-table, the end goal is still complete withdrawal and giving the country back to the Iraqis.
In my opinion, however, I have been so frustrated with the lack of progress in Iraq, I would not balk at a swift and sudden removal of US forces from the area. It feels like we are not wanted there and it also feels like the Iraqis are just not ready as a society for Democratic rule. Their religion is still woefully tied to their governing process and I don't see the separation occurring in the same time frame as our withdrawal from Iraq.
I am getting off track, though. Regarding changing your mind: who are you afraid of accusing you of being a hypocrite? I do not think your friend or family would fault you for changing your mind. And if it is your own self that would be critical, I would encourage you to not be so critical of yourself. The common phrase of, "Nobody's perfect" not only implies that we will all make mistakes, but that we all should be able to change our minds without fear of repercussion.
I think I have discussed this point enough for now. As I said earlier, I have a better idea of how you are approaching this issue and it does make more sense with me now. We could go back and forth numerous more times, but I think we have reached a good position to end this topic. Of course, since it is your platform, I imagine you will have some final words.
With that, I wait with bated breath for your last (hopefully) response.
I thank you for the last word. I will be as brief as possible as I too am ready to discuss a new topic. Let me be clear, this post was written in a rhetorical (I think that is the right word) fashion. I am not, to any degree, worried about being called a hypocrite, nor would I care if I was. As you know, I fully stand by my positions, as I think I do a pretty good job of researching my facts. This post was a way for me to wrestle my personal feelings with my political feelings and I greatly appreciate your and Erik’s input.
If you go back to one of my earliest post, you will see that my position on Iraq was that I am willing to support this surge, IF, and I mean IF we see significant progress by the end of the summer. This is because I think it is worth it, both because of the sacrifices our military have already made as well as for the freedom of the Iraqi people. However, and this is a huge however, if the Iraqi people do not want to stop killing each other, then we have to get out. But I think it is worth it to allow the Iraqi police, army, and government a little more time to get their act together.
You can argue that we should have done this years ago, and you would be right. But just because we should have done this earlier does not mean we shouldn’t try it now. Again, I will attempt to tackle war strategy in a later post.
In conclusion, I no longer fear being labeled anything negative. People will say things about me no matter what I say and do. All I can do is be me, and I like me.
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