I got this e-mail forwarded to me by a friend of mine who forwarded it with enthusiasm.
I wrote all this out and then decided not to send it back to Chad. Whenever I send replies to e-mail forwards that I think are ridiculous or full of false information I often get ridiculed and taken off the e-mail list, and I haven't seen Chad in about 5 years so coming from a near stranger some of this stuff might have hurt him. But I wasted a good half-hour or so on it so had to send it to somebody.
The >'ed parts are the parts of the e-mail. Everything without a '>' next to it is my own words. The e-mail was entitled "What Senator John Glenn Said," though his statement doesn't come in until the very end, and according to Snopes that speech was made in 1974, and Glenn did not make the comments before his speech. I made only a short comment on that. Here's what I wrote:
The idea of this forward is that 3000 some odd combat deaths is nothing to worry about (it doesn't mention the deaths of innocent Iraqi civilians) and that liberals or people against the war don't "Support Our Troops," but it happily ignores the fact that supporting the troops is not accomplished by sending 120+ thousand troops into war under criminally false pretenses, sometimes without proper armor, properly armored vehicles, and recently without full training. The idea that the media, and I'm assuming this means everything but FOXNews, isn't reporting the true nature of events in Iraq is ridiculous. Their correspondents face extreme danger and the risk of murder or kidnapping daily. They report that. They report it when John McCain says you can walk around safely in some Baghdad neighborhoods, and then they follow up by reporting on him when he does walk around Baghdad neighborhoods--"safely" wearing a bulletproof vest, flanked by armed soldiers and the most advanced attack helicopters in the world, whose lives he happily risks for moot political points.
There is a difference between supporting our troops and supporting the negligence and lies that put them in danger.
Comments on individual parts of the e-mail follow.
> Things that make you think a little:
>
>
> There were 39 combat related killings in Iraq in January.
> In the fair city of Detroit there were 35 murders in the
> Month of January. That' s just one American city,
> About as deadly as the entire war-torn country of Iraq
I'm sure that both the families of the murdered civilians in one of the most hopeless, crime ridden cities in America and the families of the soldiers killed in Iraq would have something to say about the futility of the deaths of their husbands, wives, sons, daughters, fathers and mothers.
> A. FDR led
> us into World War II.
FDR led us into a war against the nation that attacked us--he did not declare war against Germany unilaterally.
> B. Germany never attacked us; Japan did.
> >From 1941-1945, 450,000 lives were lost ..
> An average of 112,500 per year.
We joined that war as part of a world effort to stop a country that was attacking and invading and conquering multiple other nations. I see few parallels between WWII and the Iraq War.
>
> C. Truman finished that war and started one in Korea.
> North Korea never attacked us.
> >From 1950-1953, 55,000 lives were lost ...
> An average of 18,334 per year.
It was a war founded on irrational fear, a fight against an ideology. I see a lot of parallels between this war, and the one mentioned right below...
> D. John F. Kennedy started the Vietnam conflict in 1962.
> Vietnam never attackd us.
>
> E. Johnson turned Vietnam into a quagmire.
> >From 1965-1975, 58,000 lives were lost .
> An average of 5,800 per year.
Right.
> F. Clinton went to war in Bosnia without UN or French consent.
> Bosnia never attacked us.
> He was offered Osama bin Laden' s head on a platter three
> Times by Sudan and did nothing. Osama has attacked us on
> Multiple occasions.
The US entered the Bosnian conflict as part of a NATO force that reacted when NATO shot down Bosnian planes defending the no-fly zone. I don't consider this a unilateral action. When Clinton did act, and attempt to attack Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan with missiles (that missed by a few hours) he was accused of trying to draw attention away from the Lewinsky scandal). Clinton's political climate, and anti-terror climate was one that was drastically different from the post-9/11 climate. He tended to rely too much on diplomacy at times, which he felt was important because peace in the middle east was a major goal of his. He acknowledged the sovereignty of nations like Sudan and relied on them to capture and prosecute terrorists within their grasp. In retrospect, he might should have been a bit more bullish. I don't know about this "head on a platter" thing with Sudan--that's clearly hyperbole.
> G. In the years since terrorists attacked us , President Bush
> Has liberated two countries, crushed the Taliban, crippled
> Al-Qaida, put nuclear inspectors in Libya, Iran, and North Korea without
> firing a shot, and captured a terrorist who
> Slaughtered 300,000 of his own people.
Okay. I might argue that "liberated" is an overly positive view of what we did to Iraq...it rings of Cheney's oft-repeated "we will be greeted as liberators" speech...
> The Democrats are complaining
> About how long the war is taking
> But It took less time to take Iraq
> than it took Janet Reno
> To take the Branch Davidian compound.
> That was a 51-day operation.
This assumes that the war in Iraq was over when Bush stood on an aircraft carrier and announced that it was. That's preposterous.
> We've been looking for evidence for chemical weapons
> In Iraq for less time than it took Hillary Clinton to find
> The Rose Law Firm billing records.
This point makes no sense whatsoever, but it might be notable that at least the Law Firm records existed.
> It took less time for the 3rd Infantry Division and the
> Marines to destroy the Medina Republican Guard
> Than it took Ted Kennedy to call the police after his
> Oldsmobile sank at Chappaquiddick
Ted Kennedy talked to the police the next morning. You could also say "...than it took Dick Cheney to tell somebody he shot his friend in the face." I don't know what this point is trying to make.
> It took less time to take Iraq than it took
> To count the votes in Florida!!!!
If "taking Iraq" means what we did between the time the war started and Bush did the Mission Accomplished thing, then sure. Whatever that proves. Our bureaucracy is slower than our Air Force, I guess.
I don't think most people, liberal, conservative, looney, whatever, would says that being in the military or being an astronaut isn't a "real job". I've read The Right Stuff--being an astronaut was no cakewalk. Being a soldier is not one either.
> Senator Glenn (D-Ohio):
> "I served 23 years in the United States Marine Corps.
> I served through two wars. I flew 149 missions.
> My plane was hit by anti-aircraft fire on 12 different
> occasions. I was in the space program . It wasn't my
> checkbook, Howard; it was my life on the line. It was
> not a nine-to-five job, where I took time off to take the
> Daily cash receipts to the bank."
>
>
> "I ask you to go with me ... As I went the other day...
> To a veteran's hospital and look those men ...
> With their mangled bodies in the eye, and tell THEM
> they didn't hold a job!
>
>
>
> You go with me to the Space Program at NASA
> And go, as I have gone, to the widows and Orphans
> Of Ed White, Gus Grissom and Roger Chaffee...
> And you look those kids in the eye and tell them
> That their DADS didn't hold a job.
>
>
> You go with me on Memorial Day and you stand in
> Arlington National Cemetery, where I have more friends
> Buried than I'd like to remember, and you watch
> Those waving flags
>
>
>
> You stand there, and you think about this
> nation,
> And you tell ME that those people didn't have a job?
>
> What about you?"
>
>
> For those who don't remember
> During WW.II, Howard Metzenbaum
> was an attorney Representing the Communist Party in the USA.
>
> Now he's a Senator!
>
>
>
> If you can read this, thank a teacher.
> If you are reading it in English
> thank a Veteran.
>
