Battle over soldiers scholarship

[eyeball]

You've said conscripts should be compensated for their sacrifices...

No I haven't.

Edited March 28, 2010 by eyeball

[Wilber]

No I haven't.

I think scholarships for the descendents of conscripts would be in order but not volunteers for war's where the justness of that war has always been in question. That clearly has politics written all over it.

I said I would compensate conscripts, I'd view them as victims.

As I said, I am having difficulty understanding what it is you are saying.

[Muddy]

Thats a gotcha Wilber

[eyeball]

As I said, I am having difficulty understanding what it is you are saying.

Well its no wonder given you persist in maintaining that when a conscript loses their life it's them who has sacrificed it when in fact it's the people or state who conscripted them who sacrificed it. An unwilling conscript is a victim. Victims are usually compensated for having been victimized not for having been hero's.

Capeesh?

But of course you do because you're actually just being disingenuous which only underscores how this particular scholarship attempts to glorify not just war in general but a very specific war at a very specific time. A war who's justness remains in serious doubt in the minds of millions of Canadians and billions of human beings around the world.

The fact that soldiers support being used as props intended to put a moral shine on a bad political decision to participate in such a morally questionable war doesn't seem very heroic to me and neither does volunteering to fight in it. That's why I oppose awarding, rewarding or compensating anyone who supported it. If anything I think we should be compensating Afghans for having invaded their country and killing them.

[Wilber]

But of course you do because you're actually just being disingenuous which only underscores how this particular scholarship attempts to glorify not just war in general but a very specific war at a very specific time. A war who's justness remains in serious doubt in the minds of millions of Canadians and billions of human beings around the world.

What does your perceived justice have to do with fair treatment of the people who put their lives at risk for your country? You would pick and choose who is worthy according to your own prejudices, not according to services rendered. Serve your country as you are asked then I will decide after the fact whether you are worthy. Freaking big of you.

[Muddy]

I am stll trying to figure out who these conscrips are people are on about.

I was a soldier ,I was never pressed into service or to brake laws. Because of professional army ,we have also prevent war. Bad guys don`t like an even playing field. God Bless our professional soldiers.

[eyeball]

What does your perceived justice have to do with fair treatment of the people who put their lives at risk for your country? You would pick and choose who is worthy according to your own prejudices, not according to services rendered. Serve your country as you are asked then I will decide after the fact whether you are worthy. Freaking big of you.

I would pick and choose what foreign wars we decide to send troops too through an open public debate and a referendum that leaves no doubt that Canada fully supports going. 50%+1 won't cut it, I'd say decisions of this magnitude should require nothing less than 65% support.

Freaking small of us to go into to such a war as this one without unequivocally knowing in our hearts that we were doing the right thing before the fact. Scratch 65%...75% after a referendum is more like it.

I've said before that volunteers have to take responsibility for having made their decision to fight in this war. Nobody forced them to go with such a loosely and lightly determined level of public support behind them. My heart does go out to anyone who's lost anyone in this war but I'm not about to apologize for objecting that they now be used after the fact as moral props to glorify what remains a very morally questionable war.

[Wilber]

Your heart goes out to them? My ass.

[eyeball]

Your heart goes out to them? My ass.

If you'd rather, I'd be willing to look at compensating them for sending them into a questionable war with less than our full moral conviction and backing. I can allow for the possibility our volunteers really are more like conscripts who were duped into thinking they did.

[Wilber]

If you'd rather, I'd be willing to look at compensating them for sending them into a questionable war with less than our full moral conviction and backing. I can allow for the possibility our volunteers really are more like conscripts who were duped into thinking they did.

Again, how big of you, not to mention condescending.

[eyeball]

Again, how big of you, not to mention condescending.

Maybe next time you'll think twice before supporting such a fool's errand.

[msj]

Maybe the debates you've seen. I've seen some excellent debates on the War in Afghanistan.

Except I did read the letter you're just ignorantly assuming I didn't. How about responding to the points I've made instead of trying to ignore what I said by moronically assuming I didn't read the letter?

Raise the bar of discussion on this forum, msj, rather than trying to discredit something someone else said without actually responding to it, which is something Shady and Mr.Canada would do.

I gladly would had it been obvious from reading your post that you had in fact read the letter in its entirety.

[Muddy]

When one is called upon as a professional soldier ,General or Private by their country to fight they better damn well fight unless called upon to commit a criminal offence. We as a country were called up by the United Nations to fight this war. The United Nations asked NATO to prosecute the war. This is a legitimate war. Since then there have been no more terrorist threats carried out to completion in North America. You Eyeball can go to sleep tucked in your bed because tough ,honourable soldiers keep you safe.

We as a people elect our politicians to our parliament. It is that government in it`s wisdom that decide the merits of sending our volunteer armed forces into harms way. God give them strength. it is not easy to send our sons and daughters into harms way.

You eyeball and those like minded dishonour the sacrafices being made while you go on about your daily life. After WW2 and Korea our nation once again fell into complacency. Fortunately as part of NATO we were able to keep the our respect and the Warsaw Pact at bay by being prepared. But people like you Eyeball felt the same way then about being involved in NATO and preventing a cold war from becoming hot. We were a country respected by our allies. Then along came Trudeau and his ilk who decimated our forces and our country became irrelavant in world security. We need our allies and we must pull our weight or we could be a target and we will have no allies to call upon.

Sleep tight Eyeball. Your being taken care of.

[Army Guy]

I think some members here are lossing the main piont here. The piont is what was the intent of the hero's scholarship. The media has spelled it out in thier terms it was to remember our soldiers sacrifice, but is that the main intent.

Or was it to Give something back to family members who had lost a loved one in the service of this country, in this case in Battle...I mean lets take a look at this for a second in most Military families the main bread winner is now gone, leaving "normally" the wife who has sacricficed everything, Moving every 4 to 6 years precludes any real advancement in any job, She has in alot of cases put her life on hold such as further education, Get a serious job, to raise her family ,taken postings that in most cases are only small towns with limited oportunties....

And yet some would say or introduce it by some deep twisted meaning that we are honoring our militarism , or furthering our countries passion for expansion, through military conquest....But what are we really doing here...A group of privite Canadians have set up a scholarship, with funding raised to give back something to families that have had a loved one killed in the service of our country....It ends there, no policitcal meaning, no other motives...

It's another slap in the face that these families will have to endure, so i ask out of the over 140 Soldiers killed in battle how many even have family members ready for university, 5 or 6 and how many will choose to do that in Sask...I'd give it the same odds as me winning the lotto...

This scholarship is no different than the dozens already out there for policemen, fire fighters, EMS techs, or for that matter any other private group willing to donate funding for education for any other cause....we really need to shake our heads...with the dozens of major problems effecting our country on a daily basis they have chose to campion this cause, a cause that won't even effect thier little lives or kingdoms and to make they're statement...once again on our dead soldiers backs....

[Wilber]

Maybe next time you'll think twice before supporting such a fool's errand.

It's unfortunate you can't feel the same respect and consideration for your own as you can for the Taliban and its good works.

[eyeball]

Then along came Trudeau and his ilk who decimated our forces and our country became irrelavant in world security.

Actually it was Diefenbaker who decided we no longer needed to be a force to be reckoned with. Ever since then we've pretty much had to do as our allies have told us and follow their lead into quagmires like Afghanistan.

[waldo]

....But what are we really doing here...A group of privite Canadians have set up a scholarship, with funding raised to give back something to families that have had a loved one killed in the service of our country....It ends there, no policitcal meaning, no other motives...

This scholarship is no different than the dozens already out there for policemen, fire fighters, EMS techs, or for that matter any other private group willing to donate funding for education for any other cause....we really need to shake our heads...with the dozens of major problems effecting our country on a daily basis they have chose to campion this cause, a cause that won't even effect thier little lives or kingdoms and to make they're statement...once again on our dead soldiers backs....

I don't read any raised concerns for scholarships being provided by private Canadians/corporations - that's exactly what exists with Canada Company (as I linked to previously). The raised concern I read, the raised concern from the UofR professors, is that a public institution should not be involved in providing scholarships (per their alignment with "Project Hero").

[eyeball]

Project Hero...

The thing I mostly object to is how our dead soldiers from the war in Afghanistan will be used as patriotic props to justify slamming critics of our next war.

If I had a dollar for every time I've seen the dead soldiers of past wars used to stifle criticism of this war...I could have sent my kids to university too.

[Wilber]

I would think that people who serve their country at its request, regardless of their own feelings and consequences for their personal lives, deserve a certain modicum of respect and support. It would seem that your personal politics would deny even something as basic as that.

I have to ask, who is really using Project Hero for what? Not particularly keen on that name by the way but that's no reason to trash the program.

[eyeball]

I would think that people who serve their country at its request, regardless of their own feelings and consequences for their personal lives, deserve a certain modicum of respect and support.

I would think that critics do too.

Edited March 29, 2010 by eyeball

[Wilber]

Really? That's certainly not the impression I get.

[eyeball]

That's obvious.

[Army Guy]

I don't read any raised concerns for scholarships being provided by private Canadians/corporations - that's exactly what exists with Canada Company (as I linked to previously). The raised concern I read, the raised concern from the UofR professors, is that a public institution should not be involved in providing scholarships (per their alignment with "Project Hero").

Waldo i don't think i'm following your thought process...From what i understand, is the public institution is not providing the scholarship, the scholarship and all it's funding is being approved and funded through a private source...All that is at stake here for the unversity is placing it's name on the program....This is no different than accepting any other student with a private scholarship, such as those provided from fallen policemen or fire fighters etc...or if the student themselfs had paid for thier education via cash payouts made from life insurance or DND compasation packages in event of death...Do they ask everyone where does the cash come from because we don't want in thier minds dirty money....

Does the unversity have the right to refuse entrance based on those facts....I think it boils down to the name of the fund, the "hero's project"....I personally like it, but then again i have a vested interest. Had the fund been called something else would there still be a problem...i doubt it...

After all it is just what it says it is An offer of free education to one individual that meets the critera of the scholarship....in this case one has to have their mother or father die while serving this nation's military...it does not say that the student must follow in their parents footsteps, or follow the same polictical way of thinking, or any other thing these proffesors can think of....it leads to the question what are they afraid of...

[Army Guy]

Actually it was Diefenbaker who decided we no longer needed to be a force to be reckoned with. Ever since then we've pretty much had to do as our allies have told us and follow their lead into quagmires like Afghanistan.

Diefenbaker's decision was based on world events changing and the advent of nuk wpns, massive ground forces where expensive, and nuk wpns made them more expendable...was it the right choice depends on who you talk to....Personally i think it was the wrong choice, and set us on the path we are on today...other PM's have rode this pony for all it's worth until you arrive today....A military that is stretched to the piont where we can only afford to send out a meager force of just over 3700 combat troops....Sad when you think of it...

Canadians have for sometime forgotten just how important our nations military is, they have forgotten just what services we provide...aside from our military role, we provide SAR, fisheries patrols, Assist other depts such as Coast gaurd, RCMP,CSIS, inter- national comms, because these depts have been gutted as well, we provide them equipment and personnel to complete thier basic jobs....we also are a major player in internal diasters, such as ice stroms , floods, forest fires, earth quakes major air crashes etc ...We are also our nations response to inter national diasters....

Instead they have come up with excuses to satisify themselfs such as Who would attack us, the Americans our favorite neibours to the south we love to slag... they will come to the rescue...we are a peace loving country , everyone loves to love us....

And yet a small internal problem such OKA, involved a major chunk of the CF, the ICE storm involved almost the entire CF, not to mention the Winnipeg floods....these events are on the small end of the scale..I ask you when katrina hit the US military with over 2.5 million troops had an extreme time responding in a timily manner...lets picture a major earth quake in Vancover BC, i hope the city has a good reponse team, because by the time we get there, we will be to late and a dollar short....History does not lie we just chose not to listen to it...and in the end Canadians will have to piont to themslefs " and say we are responsable for this....not Diefenbaker, not trudeau...

[Smallc]

Posts like the one above make me wonder how much some people think we should spend. There aren't very many countries that can project force around the world. We are one of only a few. As for an earthquake in Vancouver, that wouldn't be only a military response:

http://www.publicsafety.gc.ca/prg/em/usar/index-eng.aspx

The US doesn't have 2.5 million active military personnel.

Edited March 30, 2010 by Smallc