How, Exactly, Are They Defending Our Freedom?

spanky07
"it's one of those things that i guess you just don't "get", and the sad thing is you never will."

I couldn't have said it better myself.

I know this is asking for more than I could every hope to realistically expect to receive but beyond the military by its very existence acting as a general deterrent against mass open hostility, I would like a logical explanation as to how the vast majority of recent military action in any way shape or form protect the US from loss of freedom? That is a question that nobody has answered beyond basically stating it as some sort of incontrovertible obvious fact. Again, with all due respect, this article is obviously, if you read it, referring to recent large scale military action and past small scale military action that seems to not only NOT make us safer or defend or freedom but endanger us and make us LESS free. I can't understand how this would influence the validity of my opinions or rational but this view is shared by many military personal in the intelligence community, some of which I have had the pleasure of personal contact with, as well as many of the pentagons experts on the middle east. This is not meant to diminish our servicemen sacrifices only to call into question the necessity of such sacrifice and it's accomplishment of it's goals. It's tempting to assign value to their sacrifice because of the inherent horror of contemplating the alternative, that their sacrifices were in vain, that the atrocity of war have only made our world an uglier less safe place.

"cross post" huh?

Same old problem won't post an article unless you access his private site even though he never has actual content there just another link.

[edit: see next post] [ I don't pretend to understand the experience. Everything I have heard is that unless you do it you just can't. All I can do is understand that i can't. My statement was basically parroting the views of servicemen I have talked to about this throughout my life. Since it's the kind of question that is generally only answered when asked by a child, the views I got were mostly from elder male vet relatives who had been out for sometime and had the space to become somewhat curmudgeonly, which for me means WWII and Korea. These people told me what attitudes they thought I should hold about such things and I have done my best to do internalize them. These men are all dead now, If they weren't I could ask them but this is what I think they more or less might have said to me had I asked them. I could be wrong. ]

In answer of your question though which I think is a fair one, The act of "defending our freedom" in this case is not the particulars of the fact that they are in Iraq or what they are doing there per se. The statement applies equally for instance to air force pilots braving dangerous weather to supply antarctic science bases.

It is joining the military, giving up some of their own freedoms and rights, and putting themselves in harms way for the betterment of us, the American people. it's not about freedom it's about service. They used to call it that. "the service" it didn't used to be "I was a soldier" it was " I was a serviceman".
[edit: addendum]
[If the actions of the military are not 'defending our freedoms' it's not their fault, it's our fault. The duty of the American civilian is to support them to the best ability, and to make good and informed decisions about the way the military should be applied. Most specifically without regard to our own personal or political advantage, but that of America as a whole and the military itself since they are the ones standing in service to do it.]

The problem [with the term currently] is that the word freedom has been sloganized. The current refrain is "lovers of freedom". which has been bent into "those who agree with our platform". it's a standard technique. it's been going on for years. As the public becomes inured to the trick and the term loses power they will have to go and pollute a new word.

"How, Exactly, Are They Defending Our Freedom?"
This question should not be confused with being some sort of veiled insult against our military. Emotions aside the burden of proof should be on the side of proving how attacking Iraqi, or Afghanistan for that matter, has made us "freer". Military personnel being Injured, dying and killing are not, in and of themselves, even remotely sufficient proof of an increase in freedom or the avoidance of lose of freedom. Sometimes, as hard as it is to admit, people really do die for nothing. But lambs leading lions to slaughter shouldn't diminish our respect for the lion only our contempt for the lambs.

Freedom to what? be good servants to your corporation, and your mortgage holder??? Give it a rest... Even if you aren't enslaved to jobs you don't want just to cover basic needs, you're still being fuct over at every turn. If you want to be happy in this country you have to pay for it. Prime example; Disney getting a copy write on the "happy birthday" song, they charge 10,000 dollars to record and reuse the song... (that shit should be public domain)

Take into consideration all this land and these resources were stolen from natives, and everyone's wealth comes into question as well.....

Free my ass...... ask Leonard Peltier about freedom...

There hasn't been a war fought for freedom since WWII, but every since then this society has been deluding it's to believe every soldier is a hero, or patriot.... BULLSHIT... It's about like someone taking a job in "Corrections" because they have job security, health insurance, and retirement in enslaving others... Well these soldier/hero's are only murdering and enslaving (which is far better). Bunch of fucking cowards, taking the easy way out.....Let uncle Sam, run your life for you and get paid (not thought involved, some restrictions apply, act now).....

The real freedom fighters aren't fighting wars with guns, depleted uranium, carpet bombs, and torture... The real patriots, heroes, freedom fighter are waging a war with a corrupt system that seeks to enslave and run everyones lives.... The ones defending freedom defend everyones freedoms, not the ideals of a corrupt money grubbing war machine....

The United States wasn't even supposed to have a standing army.

Your country is being run by for profit corporations, when compared to the rights corporations have you have none.

Invading countries and killing millions of people makes us less safe as Americans. Common Sense. Our foreign policy is beyond broken. It's all about resources and profits, and we never see ANY of it.

OH, and boycott the military.

If we really want to protect freedom, the United States empire around the world needs to stop.

Continued:

CS – And finally Mr. President – Number 20; A few days after the attack, several newspapers as well as the FBI reported that a paper passport had been found in the ruins of the WTC. In August 2004, CNN reported that 9/11 hijacker Ziad Jarrah’s visa was found in the remains of Flight 93 which went down in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
At least a third of the WTC victim’s bodies were vaporized and many of the victims of the Pentagon incident were burned beyond recognition. And yet visas and paper passports which identify the perpetrators and back up the official version of events miraculously survive explosions and fires that we are told melted steel buildings.
(The Senior aide appears again beside the President whispering in his ear. He then quickly moves off).
PBO – Well Charlie I can’t say this hasn’t been interesting. As I said earlier you’ve showed up today focused and organized. Regardless how I feel about the material you’ve presented, I must commend your dedication and zeal. However, our time here is up.
(the President rises from his chair , I do the same).
CS – Mr. President! One more second!
(The President starts towards the door – I follow him quickly step for step).
CS – Mr. President, I implore you based on the evidence you now possess, to use your Executive Power. Prove to us all Sir, that you do, in fact, care. Create a truly comprehensive and open Congressional investigation of 9/11 and its aftermath. The families deserve the truth, the American people and the rest of the free world deserve the truth. Mr. President -
(He pauses. We shake hands).
CS – Make sure you’re on the right side of history.
(The President breaks the handshake).
PBO – I am on the right side of history. Thank you Charlie, my staff and I will be in touch.
(I watch as he strides gracefully out of the room, the truth I provided him held firmly by his side; in the hand of providence.)

Charlie Sheen

Continued:

In addition, over an hour before the collapse of WTC 7, at 4:10pm, CNN’s Aaron Brown reported that the building “has either collapsed, or is collapsing.”
CS – Number 13; Solicitor General Ted Olson’s claim that his wife Barbara Olsen called him twice from Flight 77, describing hijackers with box cutters, was a central plank of the official 9/11 story.
However, the credibility of the story was completely undermined after Olsen kept changing his story about whether his wife used her cell phone or the airplane phone. The technology to enable cell phone calls from high-altitude airline flights was not created until 2004. American Airlines confirmed that Flight 77 was a Boeing 757 and that this plane did not have airplane phones on board.
According to the FBI, Barbara Olsen attempted to call her husband only once and the call failed to connect, therefore Olsen must have been lying when he claimed he had spoken to his wife from Flight 77.
CS – Number 14; The size of a Boeing 757 is approximately 125ft in width and yet images of the impact zone at the Pentagon supposedly caused by the crash merely show a hole no more than 16ft in diameter. The engines of the 757 would have punctured a hole bigger than this, never mind the whole plane. Images before the partial collapse of the impact zone show little real impact damage and a sparse debris field completely inconsistent with the crash of a large jetliner, especially when contrasted with other images showing airplane crashes into buildings.
CS – Number 15; What is the meaning behind the following quote attributed to Dick Cheney which came to light during the 9/11 Commission hearings? The passage is taken from testimony given by then Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta.
During the time that the airplane was coming in to the Pentagon, there was a young man who would come in and say to the Vice President, “The plane is 50 miles out.” “The plane is 30 miles out.” And when it got down to “the plane is 10 miles out,” the young man also said to the Vice President, “Do the orders still stand?” And the Vice President turned and whipped his neck around and said, “Of course the orders still stand. Have you heard anything to the contrary?”
As the plane was not shot down, in addition to the fact that armed fighter jets were nowhere near the plane and the Pentagon defensive system was not activated, are we to take it that the orders were to let the plane find its target?
CS – Number 16; In May 2003, the Miami Herald reported how the Bush administration was refusing to release a 900-page congressional report on 9/11 because it wanted to “avoid enshrining embarrassing details in the report,” particularly regarding pre-9/11 warnings as well as the fact that the hijackers were trained at U.S. flight schools.
CS – Number 17; Top Pentagon officials cancelled their scheduled flights for September 11th on September 10th. San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown, following a security warning, cancelled a flight into New York that was scheduled for the morning of 9/11.
CS – Number 18; The technology to enable cell phone calls from high-altitude airline flights was not created until 2004, and even by that point it was only in the trial phase. Calls from cell phones which formed an integral part of the official government version of events were technologically impossible at the time.
CS – Number 19: On April 29, 2004, President Bush and V.P. Cheney would only meet with the commission under specific clandestine conditions. They insisted on testifying together and not under oath. They also demanded that their testimony be treated as a matter of “state secret.” To date, nothing they spoke of that day exists in the public domain.

Continued:

WHO TOLD HIM THIS??? To this day, the answer to this question remains unanswered, completely ignored and emphatically DENIED by Mayor Giuliani on several public occasions.
CS – Number 4; In April 2004, USA Today reported, “In the two years before the Sept. 11 attacks, the North American Aerospace Defense Command conducted exercises simulating what the White House says was unimaginable at the time: hijacked airliners used as weapons to crash into targets and cause mass casualties.” One of the targets was the World Trade Center.
CS – Number 5; On September 12th 2007, CNN’s ‘Anderson Cooper 360′, reported that the mysterious “white plane” spotted and videotaped by multiple media outlets, flying in restricted airspace over the White House shortly before 10am on the morning of 9/11, was in fact the Air Force’s E-4B, a specially modified Boeing 747 with a communications pod behind the cockpit; otherwise known as “The Doomsday Plane”.
Though fully aware of the event, the 9/11 Commission did not deem the appearance of the military plane to be of any interest and did not include it in the final 9/11 Commission report.
CS – Number 6; Three F-16s assigned to Andrews Air Force Base, ten miles from Washington, DC, are conducting training exercises in North Carolina 207 miles away as the first plane crashes into the WTC. Even at significantly less than their top speed of 1500 mph, they could still have defended the skies over Washington well before 9am, more than 37 minutes before Flight 77 crashes into the Pentagon, however, they did not return until after 9:55am.
Andrews AFB had no armed fighters on alert and ready to take off on the morning of 9/11.
CS – Number 7; WTC Building 7. Watch the video of its collapse.
CS – Number 8; Flight 93 is fourth plane to crash on 9/11 at 10:03am. V.P. Cheney only gives shoot down order at 10:10-10:20am and this is not communicated to NORAD until 28 minutes after Flight 93 has crashed.
Fueling further suspicion on this front is the fact that three months before the attacks of 9/11, Dick Cheney usurped control of NORAD, and therefore he, and no one else on planet Earth, had the power to call for military sorties on the hijacked airliners on 9/11. He did not exercise that power. Three months after 9/11, he relinquished command of NORAD and returned it to military operation.
CS – Number 9; Scores of main stream news outlets reported that the F.B.I. conducted an investigation of at least FIVE of the 9/11 hijackers being trained at U.S. military flight schools. Those investigations are now sealed and need to be declassified.
CS – Number 10; In 2004, New York firefighters Mike Bellone and Nicholas DeMasi went public to say they had found the black boxes at the World Trade Center, but were told to keep their mouths shut by FBI agents. Nicholas DeMasi said that he escorted federal agents on an all-terrain vehicle in October 2001 and helped them locate the devices, a story backed up by rescue volunteer Mike Bellone.
As the Philadelphia Daily News reported at the time, “Their story raises the question of whether there was a some type of cover-up at Ground Zero.”
CS – Number 11 – Hundreds of eye witnesses including first responders, fire captains, news reporters, and police, all described multiple explosions in both towers before and during the collapse.
CS – Number 12; An astounding video uncovered from the archives shows BBC News correspondent Jane Standley reporting on the collapse of WTC Building 7 over twenty minutes before it fell at 5:20pm on the afternoon of 9/11. Tapes from earlier BBC broadcasts show news anchors discussing the collapse of WTC 7 a full 26 minutes in advance. The BBC at first claimed that their tapes from 9/11 had been “lost” before admitting that they made the “error” of reporting the collapse of WTC 7 before it happened without adequately explaining how they could have obtained advance knowledge of the event.

Continued:

CS – Interesting angle sir. Nevertheless, Vice President Cheney didn’t stop there. In early 2008, Pulitzer prize winning journalist Seymour Hersh and MSNBC, both reported that Cheney had proposed to the Pentagon an outrageous plan to have the U.S. Navy create fake Iranian patrol boats, to be manned by Navy Seals, who would then stage an attack on US destroyers in the Strait of Hormuz. This event was to be blamed on Iran and used as a pretext for war. Does any of this information worry you Mr. President? Should we just ignore it, until these realities can be dismissed years from now by our children, as ancient history as well?
PBO – Of course this information worries me, yet it’s not nearly as worrisome as you sitting here today suspiciously implying that 9/11 was somehow allowed to happen or even orchestrated from the inside.
CS – Mr. President I am not suspiciously implying anything. I am merely exposing the documents and asking the questions that nobody in power will even look at or acknowledge. And as I stated earlier, I voted for you, I believed in your message of hope and change. Mr. President I have come to you specifically hoping for a change. A change in the perception that our government has not yet made itself open and accountable to the people. These are your words Mr. President not mine. The lives of thousands were brutally cut short and those left behind to suffer their infinite pain are with me today Mr. President. They are with me in spirit and flesh, and the message we carry will not be silenced anymore by media fueled mantras insisting how they are supposed to feel. Deciding for them, for 8 long years, what can be thought, what can be said, what can be asked.
PBO – And I appreciate your passion, I appreciate your conviction. In spite of your concerns, in spite of what your data might or might not reveal, what you and the families must understand and accept is that we are doing everything we can to protect you.
CS – Mr. President , I realize were very short on time, so please allow me to run down a list of bullet points that might illuminate some reasons why we don’t embrace the warm hug of Federal protection.
PBO – We’ve come this far. Fire away.
CS – Please keep in mind Mr. President everything I’m about to say is documented as fact and part of the public record. The information you are holding in your hands chronicles and verifies each and every point.
PBO – You have five minutes left. The floor is yours. Brief me.
CS – Thank you Mr. President. Okay, first; On the FBI’s most wanted list Osama Bin Laden is not charged with the crimes of 911. When I called the FBI to ask them why this was the case, they replied: “There’s not enough evidence to link Bin Laden to the crime scene,” I later discovered he had never even been indicted by the D.O.J.
CS – Number 2; FBI translator Sibel Edmonds, was dismissed and gagged by the D.O.J. after she revealed that the government had foreknowledge of plans to attack American cities using planes as bombs as early as April 2001. In July of ‘09, Mrs. Edmonds broke the Federal gag order and went public to reveal that Osama Bin Laden, Al Qaeda and the Taliban were all working for and with the C.I.A. up until the day of 9/11.
CS – Number 3; The following is a quote from Mayor Giuliani during an interview on 9/11 with Peter Jennings for ABC News. “I went down to the scene and we set up headquarters at 75 Barkley Street, which was right there with the Police Commissioner, the Fire Commissioner, the Head of Emergency Management, and we were operating out of there when we were told that the World Trade Center was going to collapse. And it did collapse before we could actually get out of the building, so we were trapped in the building for 10, 15 minutes, and finally found an exit and got out, walked north, and took a lot of people with us.”

Continued:

PBO – And I’d like to believe that I am here to restore that hope. To restore confidence in your leaders, in the system that the voting public chose through a peaceful transfer of power.
(An odd moment of silence between us. Precious time ticking away).
CS – Mr. President, are you aware of the number of days it took to begin the investigation into JFK’s assassination?
PBO – If memory serves I believe it was two weeks.
CS – Close. Seventeen days to be exact. Are you aware sir, how long it took to begin the investigation into Pearl Harbor?
PBO – I would say again about….two weeks.
CS – Close again sir, eleven days to be exact. Are you aware Mr. President how long it took to begin the investigation into 9/11?
PBO – I know it must have seemed like a very long time for all the grieving families.
CS – It was a very long time Mr. President – four hundred and forty days. Roughly 14 months. Does it bother you Mr. President that it only took FIVE HOURS for Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld after the initial attack to recommend and endorse a full scale offensive against Iraq?
PBO – I am not aware of any such purported claim.
CS – I have the proof Mr. President, along with scores of documents and facts I’d like you to take a look at. Here.
(I hand him another file – much thicker than the first)
PBO – I see you came prepared Charlie.
CS – No other way to show up Mr. President. When in doubt over prepare I always say.
PBO – Now you sound like the First Lady.
CS – That’s quite a compliment sir.
PBO – As you wish. Please continue.
CS – Sir, I’d like to direct your attention to the stack of documents in the folder I just handed you. The first in from the top is entitled “ Operation Northwoods“, a declassified Pentagon plan to stage terror attacks on US soil, to be blamed on Cuba as a pretext for war.
PBO – And I’d like to direct your attention to the fact that the principle draftsman of this improbable blueprint was quickly denied a second term as Joint Chiefs chairman and sent packing to a European NATO garrison. Thank God his otherworldly ambitions never saw the light of day.
CS – I wouldn’t be so certain about that Mr. President.
PBO – I could easily say the same to you Charlie.
(the President checks his watch)
CS – The next document reads “Declassified staged provocations.” Now, Honestly Mr. President I wish I was making this stuff up. I’m certain you are familiar with the USS Maine Incident, the sinking of the Lusitania, which we all now know brought us into WW1, and of course the most famous, the Gulf of Tonkin incident.
PBO – Of course I am familiar with these historical events and I’m aware that there’s a measure of controversy surrounding them. But to be quite frank with you, this is all ancient history.
CS – Mr. President, it has been often said; “Those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it.” And I concede to you sir, these events are the past.
PBO – A vastly different world young man, shouldering a radically disparate state of universal affairs.
CS – No argument sir, I’m merely inviting you to acknowledge some credibility to the pattern or the theme. Case in point; the next document in your folder. It was published by the think-tank, Project For a New American Century and it’s entitled “ Rebuilding Americas Defenses“, and was written by Dick Cheney and Jeb Bush. To quote from the document sir – (the President interrupts)
PBO – “Further, the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbor.”
CS – Touche, sir. Your thoughts on this statement Mr. President?
PBO – I would call this a blatant case of misjudgment fueled by an unfortunate milieu of assumption. For some, the uninformed denial of coincidence.

Continued:

(the President continues to view the documents)
CS – On pages two and three, sir, are the statements, as well, from commission co-chairmen Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton, commissioners Bob Kerrey, Timothy Roemer and John Lehman, as well as the statements of commissioner Max Cleland, an ex-Senator from Georgia , who resigned, stating:
“It is a national scandal. This investigation is now compromised. One of these days we will have to get the full story because the 9/11 issue is so important to America. But this White House wants to cover it up.”
He also described President Bush’s desire to delay the process as not to damage the ‘04 re-election bid. They suspected deception to the point where they considered referring the matter to the Justice Department for criminal investigation. Mr. President, this information alone is unequivocally grounds for a new investigation!
PBO – Mistakes were clearly made but we as a people and as a country need to move forward. It is obviously in our best interest as a democratic society to focus our efforts and our resources on the future of this great nation and our ability to protect the American people and our allies from this type of terrorism in the coming years.
CS – Sir, how can we focus on the future when THE COMMISSION ITSELF is on record stating that they still do not know the truth??
PBO – Even if what you state, might in some capacity, begin to approach an open discussion or balanced debate, I can’t speak for, or about the decisions certain commission members made during an extremely difficult period. Perhaps you should be interviewing them instead of me. Wait, don’t tell me; I was easier to track down than they were?
CS – Not exactly sir, but let’s be honest. You’re the President of the United States, the leader of the free world, the buck stops with you. 9/11 has been the pretext for the systematic dismantling of our Constitution and Bill of Rights. Your administration is reading from the same playbook that the Bush administration foisted on America through documented secrecy and deception.
PBO – Mr. Sheen, I’m having a difficult time sitting here and listening to you draw distorted parallels between the Bush/Cheney regime and mine.
CS – Mr. President the parallels are not distorted just because you say they are. Let’s stick to the facts. You promised to abolish the Patriot Act and then voted to re-authorize it. You pledged to end warrantless wire tapping against the American people and now energetically defend it. You decried the practice of rendition and now continue it. You promised over and over again on the campaign trail, that you would end the practice of indefinite detention and instead, you have expanded it to permanent detention of “detainees” without trial. This far exceeds the outrages of the former administration. Call me crazy Mr. President, but is this not your record?
PBO – Mr. Sheen, my staff and I authorized this interview based on your request to discuss 9/11 and deliver some additional information you’re convinced I’d not previously reviewed. Call me crazy, But it appears as though you’ve blindly wandered off topic.
CS – Sir, the examples I just illustrated are a direct result of 9/11.
PBO – And I’m telling you that we must move forward, we must endure through these dangerous and politically challenging years ahead.
CS – Mr. President, we cannot move forward with a bottomless warren of unanswered questions surrounding that day and its aftermath.
PBO – I read the official report. Every word every page. Perhaps you should do the same.
CS – I have sir, and so have thousands of family members of the victims, and guess what; they have the same questions I do and probably a lot more. I didn’t lose a loved one on that horrific day Mr. President and neither did you. But since then I, along with millions of other Americans lost something we held true and dear for most of our lives in this great country of ours; we lost our hope.

Not sure any of us are complaining, but we are free to question the motives of our leadership. (As it was written: "self evident") but. . . a statement could be made that on all sides there is economic motives along with the social subdue-ing. Al-Qaeda, US industry, NATO, all want to posture themselves/ourselves in the best possible light wile taking the best possible advantage of situations. Al-Qaedo (regardless if you think it was a Pakistani intelligence community concoction) is run like a business, with investors, mission statements, holidays, events etc. . . put in that light they are no different then any of our regimes. their methods clearly deplorable but on scale we Americans have tore ass a sunder all over the world for over a century now and not by the thousands but by the millions. So if it came to questioning ones motives, the logical best target of questioning would in fact be ourselves.

no really, how does killing a million civilians make us safer? when we carpet bomb women and childeren how in the fuck does that make us safer......somebody handed our government a note saying 9/11/ was coming and they didnt do shit. where were all the heros on that day. when america was defeated by a couple of boxcutters..you tell me who is responsible for this war to begin with before you condone it.

That's an easy one, I can't believe people are actually asking this question.

They are defending your freedom in that they have forfeited a life of peace and countless career opportunities to live by the gun so YOU DON'T HAVE TO. They are defending your freedom to do whatever you want to do, and you're choosing to complain about it. Outstanding.

The war in Iraq has nothing to do with freedom. The only benefits of the war go to large corporations that are in bed with the government.