Ask A Troop Sunday
I saw this sign at Victory Base on one of my visits there. It's on an "L" shaped corner where the only way you can turn is left... in the middle of nowhere, I couldn't see any other traffic anywhere. It was so random that I felt it needed to be photographed.Today is the day that I open up the comments section for anyone to say anything they like. Throughout the week I somewhat moderate comments by deleting ones I deem to be idiotic. Mind you, I don't get rid of those that I disagree with, just those that are baseless, pointless rants, or personal attacks. I have no problem with someone disagreeing with me as long as they can explain why, otherwise the discussion devolves into a did-not-did-to war which I'm sure we can all agree is just stupid.
"Ask A Troop Sunday" however is different. Today is the day when we can all regress back to elementary school and tattle, point fingers, and eat glue to our heart's content. Just don't run with the scissors.
posted by MarksMomma at 10:28
BANDIT.THREE.SIX
THE LIZ
THE WIZ
5 Comments:
This may be a bizaare comment/disagreement.
Why delete comments from idiots? For one, you're taking that much extra time out of your day to acknowledge them. Granted, yes you ARE ridding your space from the brainless bile that spews from their mouths so that no one else has to trudge through it to get to the next possibly insightful comment. But when you think about it, if we didn't have idiots in the world, we sure as shit would NOT be rotating units into Iraq. Instead, we'd be collectively exploring space together, or something else equally cliche-Full House-ending. I've had friends of mine have an all out idiot fight on my lameass blog, and I still didn't delete that retarded shit just because its a microscopic part of history, and they took the time to write it. Even if they were being stupid, they were still expressing their feelings, not to mention being brave (or dumb) enough to do it over the internet, where the world can read and scrutinize their every word.
But for the sake of clearing clutter, I CAN envision why you'd tidy up comments. This is just my opinion. Also, nice blog. Continue to get the word out, its a good thing.
Happy trails,
The Usual Suspect/The Unlikely Soldier
TheUsualSuspect,
I thought about all that when I was trying to decide whether or not to filter out the idiocy and came to the conclusion that while it will take time out of my day to delete their comments, that it is worth the time and effort to keep high-quality debate.
I think it encourages debate if people feel like they can get away from the stupidity that is so pervasive on the internet. As a reader of other blogs, I can't stand to waste my time scrolling through the idiots to read valid, well defended opinions. Since this blog is my little kingdom, I felt obligated to prevent my readers from suffering the same fate.
By deleting comments I knowingly open myself up to the argument that I'm censoring people who's arguments defeat my own, but that's a flank I'm willing to expose. I mitigate this through the belief that intelligent debate forces me to defend, improve, refine, alter, or abandon my points of view which only makes them better and more accurate.
Here's a shocker people: I don't know everything and I'm not always right! I'm know enough to know that I don't know enough and that I need to be careful about who I listen to to fill that gap. After seeing the difference between what happens and what's reported in the media, my faith that the MSM is where I should turn to fill that gap is non-existant. Now that I've seen how "government officials" really work and how they get the job done, my confidence and trust in them to do the honest and right thing has drastically improved.
ok since this is idocy day i may as well show my own with a couple of follow up questions in regards to my last one on Kurdistan.
1. So, does Kurdistan consist of 3 provinces or of the 6 you mentioned in your response to me?
2. Once the provinces are handed back to the Central government will the peshmerga just disband, be incorporated into the regular ISF or what?
3. There are stories going around the blogs of a biggie bad man having been caught by the ISF up north by Kurdistan, any truth to this rumor?
BTW, just wanted to add my belated congrats on making recruitment goals for the year. Think this more than anything says a lot for the voluntary forces we have now in regards to the support for victory over there.
There's still a lot of talk about civil war breaking out. Is this a real possibility, and if it did how would it affect our military? Stand off or be involved? Does the ban on running with sissors include tin snips and/or wire cutters? ;) Gotta run. A tire slashing across the street may cause an minor civil war. Can I get some air support? It ain't easy being a mediator.
The Griper,
1 - Iraqi Kurdistan consists primarily of the three provinces on the north-east border of Iraq. The other three are partially Kurdish areas, but have a good mix of everyone in them so it doesn't technically classify.
2 - I don't have good insight into the future of the peshmerga. By what I know of them, I'd have to say they're a relatively well trained and disciplined group and it'd be unfortunate to disband a good group of troops. I think they'll get legitimized and probably reorganized, but I think they'll stay in place.
3 - Muntasir al-Jubouri, the leader of Ansar al-Sunna, was picked up in the Diyala province recently. Ansar al-Sunna was a contributing group to the Mujahideen Shura Council, which was formerly headed by Zarqawi. While Ansar al-Sunna isn't necessarily a threat to the world on the scale that al Qaeda is, they are definately a regional threat and this take-down will have a significant impact on the group. This loss for the terrorists, combined with the loss of Zarqawi, the rumored death of bin Laden, and other fractures among the illegal militias and random bad-guy-groups is pointing towards a lot of in-fighting and power-struggles in the near future - all of which is good for us.
Solo,
Civil war? No. Power struggle? Yes. The average Iraqi just wants to live in peace and recognizes the current government as the best bet for that hope. The people you see instigating attacks now are trying to snatch up as much power as they can so they can impose their view of what the future of Iraq should look like. The difference between the bad guys grabbing power and the current government grabbing power is that the government has been elected by the people and can be peacefully deposed if the people think that they're doing a bad job. If the bad guys grab up power then their power will extend from the barrel of a rifle rather than the will of the people.
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