Help me debunk a freeper email!

[timber84]

Sorry being the computer idoit I am cannot figue out how to reformat it better. If you choose to read it bless you would really love to shove it back in their face.

JOHN GLENN SAID


Things that make you think a
little:

There were 39 combat related killings in Iraq in January.
In the fair city of Detroit there were 35 murders in the
month of January. That's just one American city,
about as deadly as the entire war-torn country of Iraq.

When some claim that President Bush shouldn't
have started this war, state the following:

a. FDR led us into World War II.

b. Germany never attacked us; Japan did.
>From 1941-1945, 450,000 lives were lost ...
an average of 112,500 per year.

c. Truman finished that war and started one in Korea.
North Korea never attacked us..
>From 1950-1953, 55,000 lives were lost ...
an average of 18,334 per year.

d John F. Kennedy started the Vietnam conflict in 1962.
Vietnam never attacked us.

e. Johnson turned Vietnam into a quagmire.
>From 1965-1975, 58,000 lives were lost ..
an average of 5,800 per year.

f. Clinton went to war in Bosnia without UN or French consent.
Bosnia never attacked us.
He was offered Osama bin Laden's head on a platter three
times by Sudan and did nothing. Osama has attacked us on
multiple occasions.

g. In the years since terrorists attacked us , President Bush
has liberated two countries, crushed the Taliban, crippled
al-Qaida, put nuclear inspectors in Libya, Iran, and, North
Korea without firing a shot, and captured a terrorist who
slaughtered 300,000 of his own people.

The Democrats are complaining
about how long the war is taking.
But
It took less time to take Iraq than it took Janet Reno
to take the Branch Davidian compound.
That was a 51-day operation..

We've been looking for evidence for chemical weapons
in Iraq for less time than it took Hillary Clinton to find
the Rose Law Firm billing records.

It took less time for the 3rd Infantry Division and the
Marines to destroy the Medina Republican Guard
than it took Ted Kennedy to call the police after his
Oldsmobile sank at Chappaquiddick.

It took less time to take Iraq than it took
to count the votes in Florida!!!!

Our Commander-In-Chief is doing a GREAT JOB!
The Military morale is high!

The biased media hopes we are too ignorant
to realize the facts


But Wait .


There's more!

JOHN GLENN (ON THE SENATE FLOOR)
Mon, 26 Jan 2004 11:13

Some people still don't understand why military personnel
do what they do for a living. This exchange between
Senators John Glenn and Senator Howard Metzenbaum
is worth reading. Not only is it a pretty impressive
impromptu speech, but it's also a good example of one
man's explanation of why men and women in the armed
services do what they do for a living.

This IS a typical, though sad, example of what
some who have never served think of the military.

Senator Metzenbaum (speaking to Senator Glenn):
"How can you run for Senate
when you've never held a real job?"

Senator Glenn (D-Ohio):
"I served 23 years in the United States Marine Corps.
I served through two wars. I flew 149 missions.
My plane was hit by anti-aircraft fire on 12 different
occasions. I was in the space program. It wasn't my
checkbook, Howard; it was my life on the line. It was
not a nine-to-five job, where I took time off to take the
daily cash receipts to the bank."

"I ask you to go with me ... as I went the other day...
to a veteran's hospital and look those men ...
with their mangled bodies . in the eye, and tell THEM
they didn't hold a job!

You go with me to the Space Program at NASA
and go, as I have gone, to the widows and Orphans
of Ed White, Gus Grissom and Roger Chaffee...
and you look those kids in the eye and tell them
that their DADS didn't hold a job.

You go with me on Memorial Day and you stand in
Arlington National Cemetery, where I have more friends
buried than I'd like to remember, and you watch
those waving flags.

You stand there, and you think about this nation,
and you tell ME that those people didn't have a job?

What about you?"

For those who don't remember ..
During W.W.II, Howard Metzenbaum was an attorney
representing the Communist Party in the USA.

Now he's a Senator!

If you can read this, thank a teacher.
If you are reading it in English thank a Veteran.

It might not be a bad idea to keep this circulating

[ET Awful]

1. Just go to Snopes, it's been covered there and here before.

www.snopes.com

[timber84]

2. i looked couldn't find it

[smoogatz]

6. Try harder.

Why should we do your "research" for you? Or maybe just try thinking, and doing a little bit of reading on your own.

[timber84]

7. Geez this is a first a Du'er not willing to help another.

[smoogatz]

9. There's help, and then there's hand-holding.

And frankly I think your motives for re-re-re-reposting this nonsense here are suspect.

[MsUnderstood]

13. wow a bit of the monday morning snap

Maybe you should have some coffee and step away from the subject.

Snopes doesn't easily come up with a response to this e-mail.

[timber84]

14. Give me a break !

Go ahead and flame me plenty of Du'ers know there is nothing suspect about me

[smoogatz]

21. Then why post this with exactly the same lame excuse

that I've seen at least a half-dozen obvious freepers use? And why not give a bit of thought to debunking at least the simple stuff yourself, instead of asking others to do it for you? Have you even tried?

[timber84]

22. not that I have to prove anything to you but searched snopes

and could not locate any info. I knew DU'ers would have probaly seen it before and know immedialtely a reference to use. And if your not apart of DU to help others then why bother to be here?

on edit have not seen many freepers posting with more that 10 posts at best.

[smoogatz]

23. Post count proves squat.

Trolling the site with freepmail, on the other hand, says a lot about you. Since you're having trouble navigating Snopes, why not try Google? Why not look up Metzenbaum and Glenn? Why not check to see if there were really 39 U.S. KIA in January of this year (hint: there were 55)? Why not ponder the statistical mis-analogy that's being drawn between Iraq and Detroit (hint: there are almost a million citizens of Detroit, but only 150,000 or so U.S. troops in Iraq)? Why not give a bit of thought to world history leading up to WWII and tell me why the analogy to Bush's invasion of Iraq is bogus?

On edit: and don't forget to check out Clinton's air campaign over Bosnia (the one that helped to head off a genocide) and tell me how many U.S. servicemen were killed (hint: zero).

[timber84]

25. So if you think I'm a freeper why are you helping me out or are you

just being nice now?

[smoogatz]

26. I didn't say you were a freeptard.

I said posting freepmail and asking (challenging) us to debunk it is a common (and remarkably unoriginal) form of trolling. And I'm not helping you as much as I'm asking you to try thinking for yourself and doing a bit of actual research on your own--something freepers never do.

[timber84]

27. FYI

got the email at work where I presently am. The person who sent it to me also works here. I needed a quick response and knew my fellow du'ers would be here to help and I got mostly very helpful feedback except from you. If you did not want to help then why bother to post except to turn this simple request into some useless diatribe aimed at me, a person you've probably never seen a post from before, and ridicule them. If we are going to change minds and ways of thinking in this country we don't need to be attacking people of the same political philosophy. Truce.

[smoogatz]

28. Lordy.

First, it's not a simple request. It's a long, rambling multi-part email that contains dozens of obvious misstatements of fact, numerous false conclusions and several outright fabrications. A thorough debunking would take fifteeen minutes, at least. Second, asking you to think for yourself is a "useless diatribe?" How sad is that?

[timber84]

29. put a fork in it

done with you

[smoogatz]

31. Whatever, Bub.

As far as I'm concerned, if it walks like a troll and quacks like a troll, it's a troll.

[tabasco]

36. Did you really need help refuting utter nonsense?

I agree with smoogatz.

I am very tired of seeing "Help me refute this freeper email" crap on here too. Especially ridiculous ones like this that have been reposted over and over.

Anyone with a decent high school education should easily be able to debunk this crap on their own. If you are a 9th grader, forgive me.

[wellst0nev0ter]

38. Actually, Its 137

And the fact the emailer didn't mention how Germany declared war on the us prompting our conflict with that country tipped me off on the complete horseshit of the email.

I hope the poster gives us something a little more challenging next time.

[King Coal]

18. Be nice, Snoogatz.

[AllegroRondo]

12. Just type "John Glenn" in the search bar on Snopes

the first 3 hits are relevant

[timber84]

16. Thanks for taking the time to help it's very much

appreciated.

[ET Awful]

15. Here . . .

http://www.snopes.com/politics/quotes/glenn.asp

It's also worth pointing out to your friend that Glenn ran as a DEMOCRAT.

[sabbat hunter]

3. well first off

john glenn is no longer a senator, having retired in 1999.

that right there blows everything away


http://www.truthorfiction.com/rumors/g/glenn-metzenbaum.htm


go to that link for the truth.

[timber84]

11. Thanks!

[smoogatz]

4. This again.

Why would any reasonably knowledgeable, thoughtful person have any trouble "debunking" this bit of propaganda? Is this the best you/they can do?

[Cactus44]

5. Why would you bother?

Really.

Anybody who is enough of a dead-ender that they're still sending out tripe like this isn't going to be swayed by mere facts. They're really not.

[AllegroRondo]

8. The "I have held a job" quote is from 1974

http://www.snopes.com/politics/quotes/glenn.asp

[MsUnderstood]

10. the statement by john glenn is from 74

When you are looking to debunk an e-mail, you can do it by putting a phrase from the e-mail into google's search engine. You'll usually get plenty of reposts of the e-mail and several debunks of it too.

[timber84]

19. Great thanks

[Bridget Burke]

17. Fire this back to the brain-dead idiot who sent it.

Include the link to Snopes--always the first place to check for Right Wing spam.

Be sure to copy anybody else who received it.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

20. Heh. I'll file this thread under the

"Didn't quite work out as planned" folder.

[jobycom]

24. Reply with "Quit thinking a little, and try thinking a lot."

Then link Snopes. Might want to point out that Glenn is a Democrat.

Also, ask if the number of casualties in Iraq should justify the murder rate in Detroit.

In each of the wars used to justify Bush's illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq, the point is overlooked that each time a war was already happening, and the US intervened. Iraq was not at war, and had only a token military force, because we had forced them to disarm. After they disarmed, we invaded. How often do you think nations will trust us in the future when we ask them to disarm?

Germany didn't attack us in WWII but they did declare war on us before we attacked them.

As for the silliness about how quick and successful Bush's invasion and occupation of Iraq has been, the email is proof of why thinking "a little" is exactly why Republicans fail at everything they try. Those of us who thought a lot understood that the mission wasn't accomplished back when this thing was first written.

[TheWraith]

30. The simplest way to answer.

"b. Germany never attacked us; Japan did."

Germany did attack us. Nazi Germany declared war against the United States on December 11th, 1941. The declaration of war is no different than an attack, as it represents the intention to engage in combat--an act of war.

"North Korea never attacked us.."

North Korea did attack us. North Korea invaded South Korea, which was defended by a United Nations peacekeeping force, consisting primarily of soldiers from the United States. That constitutes an act of war.

"John F. Kennedy started the Vietnam conflict in 1962."

Kennedy offered limited numbers of military advisors to an allied nation. When things started to get ugly, Kennedy committed to a complete pullout by 1964--a move that, if completed, would have saved the lives of 58,000 Americans and over 2,000,000 Vietnamese.

"e. Johnson turned Vietnam into a quagmire.
>From 1965-1975, 58,000 lives were lost ..
an average of 5,800 per year."

And by Bush's "logic," we should still be there trying to "stabilize" the rubble. If you're going to try and nation-build, you've got to be professional. When something goes bad, you have to see it coming and know when to let it go. Kennedy knew this, Johnson didn't. If you blame Johnson for failing in Vietnam, then you also have to blame Bush for the same thing in Iraq: they didn't know when to quit, and ended up screwing the pooch.

"f. Clinton went to war in Bosnia without UN or French consent.
Bosnia never attacked us."

NATO was the flag command in the Kosovo operation, Allied Force. NATO, by the way, includes France. All NATO members participated in the op, although the US was obviously the major force component. And the 1947 United Nations convention on genocide requires member states--including the USA--to intervene when it's determined that genocide is being committed. In other words, it would have been illegal for the US to not participate in the campaign.

"He was offered Osama bin Laden's head on a platter three
times by Sudan and did nothing."

This is simply not true. It's a myth, a lie repeated so often that people have started to believe it. The United States was never offered Bin Laden at any point, by any nation or party. If he had been offered, there would have been no need to strike training camps in Afghanistan in 1998 in an attempt to kill him.

[jmowreader]

32. Folks, let's debunk this one piece at a time

I will take...

There were 39 combat related killings in Iraq in January. In the fair city of Detroit there were 35 murders in the month of January. That's just one American city, about as deadly as the entire war-torn country of Iraq.

The message has been around for quite some time, so let's assume that in the year it was originated there were 39 American KIAs in Iraq against 35 murders in Detroit.

This "39 combat related killings" discounts two significant numbers: US WIAs who died after they were removed from the battlefield, and Iraqis who died from either US fire or Iraqi fire. Put the two together and you're probably looking at about a thousand total combat-related killings in Iraq in that January. As opposed to the 35 murders in Detroit.

About a thousand against 35? Now which is a more deadly place?

Germany never "attacked" us but, on December 8, 1941, they declared war against the United States.

Let me see...in World War II we were attacked and had war declared against us.
The Korean War started because North Korea invaded our ally South Korea.
The Vietnam War is too complex to figure out.

As for Iraq...both Iraq wars are absolutely the fault of someone named Bush. In the Bush 41 administraion, Bush basically goaded Saddam into invading Kuwait, and in the Bush 43 administration, we went to war for absolutely no reason whatsoever.

[smoogatz]

33. The Iraq/Detroit thing is totally bogus

Look at it this way: Detroit is a city of almost a million people. There are approximately 150,000 U.S. troops in Iraq. If we accept the 35 murders vs. 39 KIA stat, then for that month each citizen of Detroit had a 1/25,641 chance of ending up dead as a result of murder. But a U.S. serviceperson in Iraq stood a 1/3846 chance of getting killed by hostile fire--which makes Iraq SIX TIMES more deadly for a U.S. serviceperson than Detroit is for citizens of Detroit. It's really, really simple math. Why do the wingnuts keep trying to denigrate the risks our troops are facing? Why do freepers hate our troops?

[jmowreader]

35. I know the Iraq/Detroit thing is bogus

Hell, I know the whole message is bogus.

But consider this: Before Bush decided to attack Iraq for No Reason At All, there was NO ground combat in Iraq. Iraqis were not being blown up by suicide bombers. They were not being caught in crossfires. They were not being killed by American infantry. They were getting an occasional bomb dropped on them (which happens now too, but now we drop a lot more ordinance than we did before Operation Iraqi Liberation kicked off) and they were dying, albeit at a much slower rate, as a result of the sanctions whose effects are STILL killing Iraqis.

Hence, if you're going to talk combat deaths, you must also count Iraqis--none of whom would be dying from ground combat if Bush wouldn't have invaded, because there was no ground combat before he invaded.

* * * * *

I figure that in about three days, they're going to pull out the e-mail about the soldier who came back from Iraq, did the smackdown on a couple of liberals talking shit about the war, and got his meal paid for because he was so brave.

[smoogatz]

37. Hard to compare Iraqi body counts to anything

since we haven't considered them important enough to keep track of. But your point is valid, of course.

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

34. Just say "SHIT, THEY USED WHITE PHOSPHOROUS ON CIVILILANS IN DETROIT?

I had no idea???? :eyes:

then see what they have to say :)