Question about Draft Card

[Bird]

Come on, guys, let's not start all over with a political discussion. Can't we just let this thread die a natural death? /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif

 

[Tractors4u]

That is what I was thinking Bird. I never believed in reincarnation until now. "Bringing the draft back" has been reincarnated as "Question about draft card".

/forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif

 

[TBone]

Bird,

I sat out the last discussion and was going to sit this one out until Libertine suggested that we just didn't "get it" and needed to read the pro-Iraq rhetoric over and over until we did.

As far as Don pointing out that some of the info was false, I always appreciate someone taking the time to do the research (personally I'm too lazy). This site has a reputation for civility and factual information. I'd like to keep it that way.

I'll gladly drop it. Sorry if I helped to rekindle the flame.

TBone

 

[Boondox]

Hey, how about them Red Sox!!! /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

Pete

 

[Egon]

Hey-Hey

Baseball season doesn't start till next fall. It's The Hockey wars now.

Egon

Egon

 

[cowboydoc]

I know my office manager has said that every word he wrote is exactly what is going on there. This was written by Ray Reynolds, SFC. He is in the Iowa National Guard in the 234th Signal Battalion. I would tend to believe the people who have actually been there over anything else.

 

[Libertine]

cowboydoc:
Thanks. Since you know the guy who wrote it I don't doubt he told it as he sees it. All of us tend to see things from our own perspective. The general thrust of what he had to say remains, even if OkeeDon is correct that some individual items were inaccurate.

TBone mentions "facts" above. What are the basic facts?
1) The survival of Western civilization as we know it requires the flow of huge quantities of oil at reasonable prices. (And that includes, my friends, oil for your tractors)
2) Sadaam twice in the past 20-25 years attempted to seize the oil fields of his neighbors by force. (I will leave it to the imagination as to the consequences of that)
3) When the British pulled out, several decades ago, of their responsibility for policing the mid-east it left a power vacuum. The effort to use Iran as a surrogate flopped.
4) If you kill your enemy, others may step forward to take his place but it is certain at least he isn't going to bother you again.

Regardless of your position, regardless of your interpretation, these are facts. Hard realities. Like it or not.

JEH

 

[California]

Folks, I have great respect for the spirit of civil discussion and factual information that prevails on TBN and if my own biases make this sound like a rant, then it is proper that the moderators delete it. I hope I have attained the high standard of factual scholarship represented in many of the previous posts.

I went looking to see if the letter cited by cowboydoc might be one of those emails that is widely circulated, rather than the personal observation of the office manager or someone known personally to him.

I put "list of things that has happened in Iraq recently" into Google and got many hits.

Here is my interpretation of the first two Google hits:

http://www.mountainstatesman.com/main.php?story_id=1278&page=27
repeats that same letter, and prints two replies.

The first reply cited in mountainstatesman points to
http://www.orwelliantimes.com/2004/04/26.html#a318 , an obvious liberal site,
which quotes Lt. Col. Gregory O. Hapgood, the Public Affairs Officer for the Ohio National Guard. Hapgood confirmed that Reynolds is real but is not a medic as reported in some versions of the letter. Reynolds does communications work in the 234th Signal Battalion. "Lt. Col. Hapgood said that members of the force are not to take a politically partisan stance in any communications they use in which they identify themselves as members of the force." and "in essence, also said that it was improper for Sgt. Reynolds to attack Senator Kerry in his email." That article then goes on to use sources that Hapgood said were Reynolds' sources, to disprove many of Reynolds' points. You can click on all the asterisks to see other sources cited to refute Reynolds. They are mostly official US government press releases that in my opinion were adequately reported in the media.

My own opinion: if Reynolds is a 'communications specialist', could he be a propaganda specialist? I'd like to see the mission statement for the 234th Signal Battalion! Long ago I had a friend in the Reserves who told me that was his specialty, helping a war effort by controlling what was told to the citizens of an occupied country. Could Reynolds have gone a little beyond the line of his professional duties by asking his readers to write to Kerry?

The second reply returned by Google points to:
http://www.truthorfiction.com/rumors/r/rayreynolds.htm
This labels as "Truth!" Reynolds' statement that "Iraqi oil reached 2 billion barrels exported" but the numbers cited in that paragraph don't add up. Mathematically that's 12 times the prewar production which I find hard to believe. One of the sources cited by orwelliantimes was a petroleum industry journal that looks credible to me and indicates oil production does not exceed prewar levels.

So - in summary, I think we each need to do our own research. My own limited efforts presented here make me question the facts in that letter, and therefor wonder what its real purpose is. I hope it simply represents a single overenthusiastic soldier.