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I think the respect and appreciation that I and others feel for members of our military will diminish if those soliders, sailors, etc start to adopt a "I'm better than you because I serve(d) and you didn't" attitude. Zoanas has not gone over that line, in my view, but he might be getting close.
As for deferring to the government's knowledge, I will do that as well and that is why I originally supported the war in Iraq. However, at some point the weight of the evidence has got to open your eyes. The US government's own expert (David Kay) has concluded, after searching Iraq and interrogating Iraqis and reviewing Iraqi records for months, that Iraq didn't have effective WMD weapons. Iraqi scientists have admitted as much. It turns out that our pre-war intelligence was flawed and, while maybe no Whitehouse aide instructed any CIA analyst what to write, the pressure to provide the desired conclusion was very high. When do you sit up and say "my government was wrong"? Does President Bush have to get on Larry King and admit it? Do you still think Nixon didn't order Watergate, or The Reagan Administration didn't support the contras, or that Clinton didn't have sex with Lewinsky? Being a loyal American doesn't mean not doing your own thinking. It means - to me - that initially you give your government the benefit of the doubt, but if it turns out they were lying or wrong, you call it as it is.
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I absolutely support anyone's right to voice their opinion, regardless of their military service. It was my intention to assert my own opinion, and I did not intend to imply that my service entitled me to any greater voice.
As for the "news media", I always find it interesting how people will take what they see on the news as the truth when it supports their political views. What I have read is that the top Iraqi nuclear scientist reported that they were in posession of 2.5 lbs of depleted uranium, and working towards a supply big enough to create a nuclear weapon. Also, the fact that the Kurds were gassed should have been evidence enough that the WMD's existed, at some point. Also, my reading has indicated that the US had furnished some of the WMD material in the past, so where is it? If there was none, why the 10-year dance with inspectors?
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It turns out that our pre-war intelligence was flawed and, while maybe no Whitehouse aide instructed any CIA analyst what to write, the pressure to provide the desired conclusion was very high.
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It turns out? Who says? You? CNN? ABC?
Again, I say that the media is the last place you should turn for information on what takes place inside the halls of the Pentagon or the White House. It seems to be the case that spending cuts over several administrations have reduced the intelligence community's "agent-based" gathering techniques, and replaced them with more high-tech methods, which has severely reduced our ability to infiltrate groups like Al Qaeda. Pointing a finger at one man for that lapse, in my opinion, is less than justified. You can bet that the money is now flowing back into the grass-roots, human-based intelligence gathering community, and the lesson has been learned. It has always been that way in government. Change comes after the fact.
This whole thing has been a spin in one direction or the other from day 1. The left spins it to try and unseat the President, and the President spins it back the other way. Somewhere in there lies the truth, and it isn't partisan. Your opinion, as well as mine, are simply not based on anything but the information we are specifically allowed to hear. Because of that, I find it difficult to make any statements of fact. I can only ask questions and use only facts that are indisputable for argument.