I went to bed last night after reading the current Reuters article about the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll on Iraq with a few questions on my mind. With Militarytracy this questions at bedtime mindset usually doesn’t lead to a GOOD THING.
On Iraq specifically, 56 percent said they disapproved of Bush’s work and 62 percent said they thought the United States had gotten bogged down in Iraq.
AND
Despite growing criticism of the administration’s performance, nearly 60 percent of those polled said they believe U.S. forces should remain in place until civil order is restored in Iraq.
Before I begin may I just say that I suffer from SAD (seasonal affective disorder) and unlike the rest of you Blue Bloods the closer I get to Canada the crazier I become. I haven’t had to take medication in Alabama yet, but in Colorado I spend 3 months out of the winter on antidepressants.
Okay, now I want to get this right and I want to understand. So, almost 75% of the Americans polled said the administration underestimated the challenges involved in Iraq and a majority said that it had also “intentionally misled” the public in going to war and 62% said that the United States has gotten bogged down in Iraq. So far so good? Then 60% say that they believe that U.S. forces should remain in place until civil order is restored….right? Would someone please explain to me why soldiers must die for the lies of others. Do you know one single person who would step up and volunteer to take a bullet for the lie of someone else? I thought this was a democracy! I thought that we were each responsible for our own actions! I didn’t vote for these people in office and my husband didn’t vote for these people in office either so why should my husband have to eat a bullet for their lies?
Does anybody see how Americans can be construed as maybe suffering from some kind of group mental disorder right now? They like certain ideas but refuse to process the entire equation required to get to the desired outcome they get all misty eyed over. Seems a little bit DELUSIONAL to me! They seem to live in some weird happy pink cloud idiotville in their noggins.
Here in the United States there is no way anybody can make another person risk their life for the lying of another person and not face criminal charges and trials and jail time. I thought that all men were created equal here in the United States of America! When does anybody get to order anybody else to risk their life for another person’s lies? When does any labeled group get to decide that others of the group should risk their lives straightening out the lies and the consequences told by a group leader so that the labeled group as a whole won’t ever have to feel guilty about those lies they let the leader put over on them and the consequences thereafter suffered before the scrutiny of the entire world?
I am having one hell of a fucking temper tantrum today about my fucking countrymen. When people began to no longer enlist in military service and the numbers dropped like a stone I said fine, because if I were in their shoes I wouldn’t do it right now. We were in this military long before these Son-of-a-Bitches in office ever came along though.
When people get pissed off talking about a draft I agree with them on that also, I don’t think it is needed. If our military isn’t abused there are plenty of people called to the position of warrior/protector, and they study and train very hard for their job. If these people were ever genuinely pissed off I shudder to think about the force that they really are under REAL America in danger circumstances.
Also according to the poll 38% think that troop levels ought to be decreased in Iraq……..well, if they want this all to have a nice happy ending and as of like this moment the whole country is being blown to Jesus or Allah, and 62% say that we are bogged down in Iraq, how in the hell will decreased troop levels get us to our nice happy ending that 60% are dreaming of? It gets better though because another 43% think that troop levels should remain the same. In attempting to understand this segment of the population’s thought processes all that I can come up with is that everything has been working so fucking well so far that we shouldn’t fix what isn’t broken and you are interrupting my Big Mac with this stupid fucking polling business.
Everybody wants Iraq to become one big happy country full of American liking people. Me too! I am married to a soldier though so let’s start talking some fucking reality. This administration ripped the infrastructure out of a pretty volatile cultural mix of people. I didn’t do it…….they did it. Fueling the fires with our troops there will not quench the fires either unless you all want to do some real quenching. If you think you don’t have the stomach for the not so happy ending to all of this so far then believe me, you have zero stomach to go through with this quenching thing! And if we haven’t quenched “it” yet with the troop levels that are there, then maintaining those troop levels or decreasing them will do…………………?
I’m sorry that I don’t have any “happy purple dinosaur” answers for anybody concerning Iraq……and I know it may be easy to buy oneself a tad of disillusionment that maybe there is one out there when the soldiers you see on T.V. aren’t YOUR SOLDIER. If you are part of the 60% saying that we need to stay until there is civil order though then you better have your soldier where your mouth is because it is going to take more soldiers to get what you want done DONE, and to quell all of your guilt over what you have allowed to happen in your name and the name of your country and the name of American patriotism and American liberty.
MY HUSBAND VOWED TO GIVE HIS LIFE PROTECTING AND DEFENDING YOURS! YOUR EGO THOUGH ISN’T YOUR LIFE AND YOUR FALSE PRIDE ISN’T YOUR LIFE AND IF YOU TAKE MY HUSBAND’S LIFE BECAUSE YOU ARE TOO SMALL OF A PERSON TO BEAR YOUR OWN GUILT, SHAME, HUMAN SUFFERING, REALITY, OVER INFLATED EGO, or ENERGY DEMANDS FOR YOUR FAT MENTALLY DISORDERED AMERICAN ASS………I WILL NEVER LET YOU FORGET IT!
A List of Symptoms that can Signify Bipolar Disorder
*increased strength and energy
*decreased sleep
*extreme irritability
*rapid, unpredictable emotional changes
*racing thoughts, flights of ideas
*increased interest in activities
*overspending
*grandiosity, inflated self-esteem
*increased sexual drive
*poor judgment
A brief description of Dissociative Disorder
Dissociation is a mental process, which produces a lack of connection in a person’s thoughts, memories, feelings, actions, or sense of identity. During the period of time when a person is dissociating, certain information is not associated with other information as it normally would be. For example, during a traumatic experience, a person may dissociate the memory of the place and circumstances of the trauma from his ongoing memory, resulting in a temporary mental escape from the fear and pain of the trauma and, in some cases, a memory gap surrounding the experience. Because this process can produce changes in memory, people who frequently dissociate often find their senses of personal history and identity are affected.
I find myself torn. Is the majority of America suffering from a group Bipolar Disorder or a group Dissociative Disorder. I have Grandiosity, Inflated Self-Esteem, Overspending, Flights of Ideas, and Poor Judgment verses certain information not being associated with other information as it normally would be, and trauma is involved and we do have 9-11, and we do seem to have some mental escaping taking place over fear and trauma…….but then we have unpredictable mood changes whenever someone reminds some individuals about certain escaping of facts and fears and traumas……so maybe it is a Bipolardissociative Disorder!
You be the Doctor.
I think mental health education is very important. For both people who have concerns as well as other and learning how to deal and interact well with people with the conercerns.
I feel your pain. I was thinking about a bit of this earlier, when I read someone’s continued justification for this war, on this very board. My husband swore an oath to protect the US Constitution, not oil interests. Instead he was hornswoggled into a war in direct contradiction of our Constitutional process. Doesn’t seem fair to me either. I think most Americans are not so much mentally ill, as they are suffering from a lot of cognitive dissonance and a deficit of information. I also think we have become Rome. As long we have our bread and circuses, we seem able to ignore an awful of lot of corruption. And let’s face it most military families continue to convince themselves that is all very noble, because the alternative viewpoint is intolerable. I think we are about to have a crash, in this country. We are on the brink of a mass disillusionment.
I don’t think that America really suffers so much from a mental disorder as cognitive dissonance too. I did want to point out though that the gap between what most desire and reality is so huge that one really must have head totally up tush to not notice or to pretend to not notice. I feel the crash coming too. I guess I have braced for it now, coming in about six months or so I feel. Our troops are so drained that a draft or something is going to have to occur or some kind of pull out of Iraq with lots of spin applied. There is just way too much mental, emotional, physical exhaustion in the Army for things to stay on the same path that they are right now. That really pisses me off too when I read that people want troop numbers to stay where they are yet they have also read that our troops are really really beginning to SUFFER. It’s like the American public wants what it wants and it is completely deaf and dumb and blind to hearing that things are breaking down! It reminds me of the build up to this damn fiasco. I found plenty of stuff to read out there from dissenting voices about the WMD thing, but nobody else wanted read anything else or know anything else excepted what they wanted to read and what they wanted to hear. It was totally bizarre to me and I find this situation to be equally as bizarre and really frustrating! It’s funny that you mention that you think we have become Rome…..I have also felt that way for some time now. I feel like I am watching the same old mistakes right out of the history books happening all over again.
A lot of Americans have become convinced by the relative brevity and low US casualty rates of our miltary adventures post-Vietnam, that war is kind of easy, because we are so militarily superior. And, our news is so sanitized, it’s remains easy to space it off until you’re personally affected. Even so the population is catching up to the reality, which is actually to their credit. I’m with you that we need to get the hell out of there, but I think a lot of people are ascribing to the “Pottery Barn Rule.” Even I felt that way until it became absolutely clear that we are not capable of fixing what we’ve broken. I, too, felt it was criminal to go into this country, smash up their infrastucture, and punch. And, I opposed this war, and protested this war, from the outset. I’m not justifying those stats, and I do think there is still tremendous ignorance. I just don’t think hard stats ever tell the whole story.
I feel the crash coming too. “
That’s what a lot of us are feeling. Something’s got to give. When people reach a breaking point, only then will they demand that things change, in the military or on Capital Hill or in the White House. 9/11 did a lot of strange things to the psyche of this country… but people are slowly beginning to wake up. Like we talked about earlier… things are beginning to unravel in Iraq, unravel for Bush.
Bad part about that is that while the country takes it’s time waking up, our men and women are sent into the Iraqi meat grinder daily. These are dark times. But something is going to happen… I feel it too.
And amen, sister. To every word.
I want your husband to come home. Now. Today. As much as I respect and admire him and his service, he doesn’t need to be over there fighting for me or any other American, because we’re already free, dammit, and this war was over a year ago. Right!?
I get so tired of hearing Bushit talk about how ‘freedom isn’t free’. Well, no shit, there, brilliance, but we’re already free. Our freedom was never a question, so don’t give me that shit. I won’t swallow it.
I don’t want your husband fighting in my name, Tracy. I want him home, with you, where he should be. Where he is free. Where he is loved. Where he is safe.
Fuck this war.
Thank you Mindmouth! I don’t want any soldier dying or killing over there in my name…none of them!
There is something so wrong with some of the American people and I am so often ashamed of them. You have said it exactly. Your husband and all the others do not have to die for someone elses greed. Nor do they have to kill others for it either. I would have them all home tomorrow if I could. I am not sure you can blame it on a mental illness and let them off that easy. Bad is as bad does.
But in reality it is probably just plain old greed, self absorption and immaturity….stuff like that…it is so embarrassing though for me also when I see the dead kids, women, you name it. They are all people no different than me and their life was just as much a story as mine is and theirs is over because…….? I am a precious American though and if I get caught disrespecting my preciousness by not wearing my seat belt I will be reprimanded. If I am Iraqi though and I happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and I get blown to Allah that’s okay because I am not precious. It is okay for my life to have been completely obliterated because the Americans are paving the way to Democracy in my country!!! I was just a stupid Iraqi being someplace where I wasn’t supposed to be and all the smart precious Iraqis are the ones who will be alive and living when America says we are finally a democracy!
OH how I agree with you, my Dear Tracy. There is not one word that I can speak to you that will give you any solace in all of this misery. Just know that I think it is 1700+ and many thousands of innocent Iraqi citizens too late IMHO. I will be right along your side in the march to get them all home..I do not want one soul left there…for if we leave some behind, we will be sending a delegation over there to bring the bodies home. So when we leave, we must all come home not just a few. God bless you and your husband and children for your endurance of all of this s**t. HUGS…..
Having someone in the family who, I finally figured out, finds all the lies for power to be admired. They figure if they can’t be the bully they will fly on the bully’s coat tails. I don’t think I can classify this as mental illness just meanness and the wish to be surpreme and domineering. I am so horrified by this behavior I can’t even find words to express what I feel so I can only guess at how angry, upset, and lost you must be.