USS New York...Just Commissioned

Here is my take on this:

Using the twin towers steel:
Why the hell not? The steel was availible and the ship was named the USS New York so seems good enough for me. At least there is a supposed honor and duty in the military which is more that I can say for what the twin towers represented (capitalism, greed, money, etc) I guess they could have put the steel back into whatever replaces the twin towers but that doesn't quite have the same flag-waving psudo-patriotism as a warship. At its basest level I think the commemoration of 9/11 in this way is a nice gesture. The only problem I have with it is that the talking heads in DC see this more as a photo-op and good press than a commemoration

As for the politics of war in general:
Personally I think that our military is a necessary evil. Just like guns, the military is a tool. Sure we can all go around wishing that war didn't happen but the reality is that it does and having a standing military force at our nations disposal guarantees our nations security even if we are not using it. My issue stands not with the military itself but with its handlers. Just like an attack dog, the US Armed Services are good at one thing and one thing only: To kill people and break things. They are not ambassadors, liasons, humanitarians or a police force. I think that those who send the military in to handle a situation do so without much regard for the lives they are risking, and rarely do so for altruistic purposes. War is the complete failure of diplomacy and I think that it is used simply because our elected officials are either too lazy or inept to do their jobs. If the Iraq war was really about human rights offenses, acts of terror, or weapons of mass-destruction; instead of guaranteeing oil rights, then why aren't we invading Rwanda, Pakistan or North Korea, respectively?

Perhaps, but it is coming from a guy who has put ordinance on target. So his opinion is not based on CNN special reports.

 

There's no oil in Bosnia. :?:

 

I agree 100%. I am in the group of people who have sent bombs and missiles to take lives and seen the destruction firsthand. It's a lot different than the perspective you get from your living room sofa.

 

Long live the USS NewYork, may her strength and image remind us to never forget the horrors of September 11, 2001.

 

"Never forget" has become so tired and overused as to almost completely lose it's intended meaning and impact.

Why is it that folks continuously insist on reminding us to "never forget" that date as if anyone older than the age of 3 when it happened could possibly forget 9/11?

 

True, but due to its proximity to the former USSR and the instability in the area at the time, it offered the possibility of a strategic ally in the area.

I am not suggesting that the US get involved in every moral conflict across the globe, nor am I an advocate of isolationism, I am just suggesting that the conflicts we get into is because we can benefit from it, not because we are taking the moral high ground.

 

Not to mention that we have bombed and killed so many innocents around the world and supported other in doing the same that we have created our own monster. Why are Americans naive enough to think that the other people of the world don't have a "never forget" moment that we are responsible for? It's partially why the terrorist organizations exist. We gave tons of people a reason to hate us. I am by no means saying we should act like it never happened but we need to keep things in perspective. The lack of logic behind our military excursions is one of the reasons my Naval Academy education is being used in the civilian world and not the military. "Never forget" is right up there with "Suport the troops" as one of the emptiest phrases in the english language. Both of them really only exist for political reasons.

 

I respectfully have to interject here. This is a weapon of freedom, a weapon of defense, and a weapon that allows you to ride bikes on trails at your leisure. There ARE bad guys out there who want YOU DEAD, DEAD, DEAD.

 

Force without diplomacy is exactly why we are in this mess. You can't just go around blowing people up who don't agree with you or won't give up their land or won't give up their raw materials or won't just roll over for you after you have killed their family members. The military needs to be used only when all else fails and right now that is simply not the case. The military is one of MANY reasons we are able to have the freedoms we have.

 

I am not debating your point here, as I believe the U.S. Military's primary purpose (from a civililian perspective) is to defend our nation, land, freedom, and right to life HERE (not to act as the world's police force). I was simply stating that I don't look at our warships as weapons of mass destruction, but as weapons of defense (which they are). I do believe that the politicos of the U.S. and the world for that matter, may use them otherwise, and that I wholeheartedly disagree with.

I truly love our military, I take pride in being an American, I do however, have an utter distaste for the state of affairs in D.C. and beyond.

 

No worries and respect is appreciated. However, right or wrong, it's a weapon of mass destruction. Plain and simple.

Too bad we wasted so much time and money in Iraq when we should have been in Afghanistan rooting out these damn terrorists. Hind sight is always 20/20.

Hunter, we've always been very good at blowing people up, that's why we're still #1.

 

:clap: This is a wonderfully civil discussion/debate! Congratulations everyone!

 

If your village in islamabad, tora bora, kazakhstan or where ever was hit by a tomahawk missile, inadvertently or not, you' might think differently.........[/quote]

 

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The point is, we do not TARGET innocents, they are unfortunately killed sometimes, and that is of course a sad commentary on war. But terrorists DID target innocents when they deployed their planned murderous attacks on the WTC. There is a big difference.

Then, go ahead and also back up to WWII (based on your photo showing the charred remains of what I will assume to be Nagasaki or Hiroshima) and remember that the Japanese wholeheartedly started the war in the Pacific with the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Prior to our "dropping the big ones" on Japan, we had warned them repeatedly of the consequences of not surrendering, and Japan showed zero interest, and continued to kill American soldiers. I don't like that we dropped the bombs, but it effectively ended WWII in an instant.

So, I again will respectfully disagree with the "weapons of mass destruction" statement about the USS New York.

 

Strength without compassion is brutality. Compassion without strength is weakness.

 

A better question, what are we going to build out of all the crushed clunkers?

 

I'm pretty sure they have some additional steel left over if someone wants to commission a big metal flower box with a table for discussion and a kick-ass coffee maker.

 

"The point is, we do not TARGET innocents, they are unfortunately killed sometimes, and that is of course a sad commentary on war. But terrorists DID target innocents when they deployed their planned murderous attacks on the WTC. There is a big difference."

Not officially we don't - and I really, really would love to believe that we don't.

Unfortunately our history has shown differently, but that's another thread.

However, 99% of those displaced by attacks that kill innocents, intentionally or not, have no clue about intentions. They are some of the most uneducated and poor on the planet and are just trying to scrape enough food to survive another day.

You're poor, haven't eaten in days, family is slowly dying but you somehow manage to finally get to a safer village, trade/work to get a few goats together for milk and for meat. One day you wake up to the sound of explosions because some ahole and his buddies decided to hide out in your village. But you did't know that they came in during the night. Not that is anything you could about it anyways.

Your goats are gone, your home is gone, most if not all of your family is gone.

Along comes some folks who offer all of the food you and your remaining family need, plus some shelter in exchange for picking up a gun, or wearing a bomb or setting up a IED all in the name of keeping the foreigners that bombed some your family out of existence out of your country. Or more importantly, your lives.

Now imagine this has been going on for decades.

Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose. Yeah, it is a simple lyric, but it hits at the core truth of a given situation. The majority of the population have nothing left to lose. And there are a lot of folks in the world with nothing left to lose, but everything, or anything to gain.

Our great plan, or lack there of of offense (and make no mistake that what we have been doing in Afghanistan and Iraq is offense), has been creating and fine tuning the best recruitment program in the history of terrorism.

We helped Afghanistan to rid them of the Russians only to bail out afterwards. It's what we do every time we invade or assist countries for own interests, not theirs.

We are vigorously fighting our own version of the tar baby and it's going to get a lot worse before it gets better.

That's assuming it will get better.

 

Pacifist hardly. If you botherd to ask you would know that I went to war for this country.#-oTalk about a misinformed blanket statement.

 

fat, drunk and stupidd is no way to go through life son

75 Percent of Young Americans Are Unfit for Military Duty


WASHINGTON (Nov. 3) -- Are America's youth too fat, dumb or dishonest to defend the nation against its enemies?

The latest Army statistics show a stunning 75 percent of military-age youth are ineligible to join the military because they are overweight, can't pass entrance exams, have dropped out of high school or had run-ins with the law.



"We've never had this problem of young people being obese like we have today," said Gen. John Shalikashvili, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

He calls the rising number of youth unfit for duty a matter of national security. "We should be concerned about how this will impact this overstretched Army and its ability to recruit."

Between 2004 and 2008, the Army more than doubled the number of "conduct" waivers it granted to would-be soldiers with criminal or misdemeanor records. The loosened standards proved necessary in a time of war and amid a booming economy that forced military recruiters to work overtime to fill the ranks.