Comments on: The Sunday Paper

By: M.H.

M.H. — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 12:57:56 +0000

There seems to be great difficulty in separating the issues here.
– The man served in the armed forces and for that we should be grateful.
– The armed forces were sent on an illegal, imperialist and poorly managed mission. The man died on that mission.
So saying he died for our freedom is simply untrue. He served to protect our freedom, but he died for something else. He died because of our folly.
We cannot use the honorable aspect — that he served — to cover up the crime of the war itself. Images like this are used to emotionalized and blur the reality that this war was wrong. This boy shouldn’t have lost his father. Whether he will grow up realizing that and have justified rage against what happened, or whether he will find peace in the blurring of messages remains to be seen.

By: Ward

Ward — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 16:17:44 +0000

Fair enough, Darran.
This may be a leap in logic from the point you were trying to make, but as I wrote in my op-ed at Military.com regarding Cindy Sheehan’s “retirement” from the public eye a few weeks back, I’ll never buy the idea that a servicemember who is killed in the line of duty died in vain. Doing one’s duty lives outside of the political sphere.

By: Wembley

Wembley — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 12:42:07 +0000

If you want to stabilize the country, then get the troops out of it. As the Brits found in Basra, the presence of foreign soldiers is the major provocation. Remove that and yoy can make some progress.

By: Ward

Ward — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 19:43:14 +0000

No, Darran, you’re off the mark. You see, in your detached smugness you’ve discounted the idea that these things are real to some.
And that you label Staff Sergeant Golczynski a
“soldier” speaks to your absolute lack of military experience. He was a Marine. I don’t expect the difference to matter to you, though. You’re ignorant of the military and tolerated as such. Heck, we even let you post here at DT like you might know what the hell you’re talking about. What a great country, huh?

By: Darran

Darran — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 19:17:29 +0000

Cognitive dissonance at its finest. You are telling yourself a story to go along with the picture in the hopes of it making you feel better, or to justify what you see. Even to fit your own opinion of larger issues.
A soldier died doing his duty and a son has lost his father. Leave it at that. It’s not about doing what’s right or what’s wrong, finishing a job or saving more soldiers from the same fate.
That kid may grow up to idolize his father and respect what he did…or he may grow up hating his father for leaving him and his family for some ill-conceived war. Will you be there giving him semper fi’s when he does good and calling him a coward when he does bad? No you won’t be there at all. Neither will his dad.

By: Ward

Ward — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 18:38:42 +0000

Then stick with the New York Post. This isn’t rhetoric. These are real people doing what’s asked of them — a concept increasingly foreign to a nation of self-centered, bloated consumers interested in little more than widescreen TVs and Wii.
If that statement doesn’t feel apolitical to you then we’ll never see it the same way. Oh, and you’re wrong.

By: Wembley

Wembley — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 12:46:29 +0000

We should eb equally mindful that scenes like this play out in a lot of other countries too, including Iraq. And to the kid who loses their Dad it doesn’t make any difference which side they were on.

By: Nixer

Nixer — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 08:31:38 +0000

Ward
I am very touched by that piece. I don’t see the promotion of an agenda by you anywhere in it.
Don Bacon
While I agree that there are lots of things wrong with or leadership’s conduct of the Operations in Iraq, I don’t feel a a report with a picture of one very gutsy heartbroken kid is the place to air ones political views.
You wanna do something positive for your country? How about you start a scholarship fund for that young man? I’ll be the first to kick in a couple of hundred bucks.
His father died a hero, irrelevant of the right or wrong of the politics behind it. He died for your rights man.

By: Don Bacon

Don Bacon — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 05:04:05 +0000

Ward,
You suggest that we need to do what is right (Drescher letter) and do our duty. What is it that we are to do? It seems obvious, during this pivotal time of the Petraeus report that you are promoting the continuance of the military occupation of Iraq and the Bush policy of ‘victory’ no matter the time and cost. Is that what you think we ought to do? Is that why you published this piece of off-topic propaganda? And, if you are promoting continuance of the occupation toward Bush’s “victory”–what will victory look like?
Myself, the way this government operates, without any diplomatic component to solve this mess, I haven’t a clue, so that’s why I’m asking you. Or are you just taking orders from someone.

By: Ward

Ward — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 03:47:57 +0000

Don:
You obviously have an answer for your question. Why ask me?