In his LAT column today, Joel Stein makes some coherent points about the guilty, knee-jerk reaction that kicks in for so many Americans who oppose the Iraq war (particularly given the successful Republican effort to equate any dissent from the war with unpatriotic tendencies):
Blindly lending support to our soldiers, I fear, will keep them overseas longer by giving soft acquiescence to the hawks who sent them there — and who might one day want to send them somewhere else. Trust me, a guy who thought 50.7% was a mandate isn't going to pick up on the subtleties of a parade for just service in an unjust war. He's going to be looking for funnel cake.
Besides, those little yellow ribbons aren't really for the troops. They need body armor, shorter stays and a USO show by the cast of "Laguna Beach."
The real purpose of those ribbons is to ease some of the guilt we feel for voting to send them to war and then making absolutely no sacrifices other than enduring two Wolf Blitzer shows a day. Though there should be a ribbon for that.
I understand the guilt. We know we're sending recruits to do our dirty work, and we want to seem grateful.
After we've decided that we made a mistake, we don't want to blame the soldiers who were ordered to fight. Or even our representatives, who were deceived by false intelligence. And certainly not ourselves, who failed to object to a war we barely understood.
But then he goes on to offer a wholly unsupportable case against those same Laguna Beach peep show-needed jarheads, because, as he says, he doesn't support the war, so saying he supports the troops is downright "wussy" ...
The truth is that people who pull triggers are ultimately responsible, whether they're following orders or not. An army of people making individual moral choices may be inefficient, but an army of people ignoring their morality is horrifying. An army of people ignoring their morality, by the way, is also Jack Abramoff's pet name for the House of Representatives.
I do sympathize with people who joined up to protect our country, especially after 9/11, and were tricked into fighting in Iraq. I get mad when I'm tricked into clicking on a pop-up ad, so I can only imagine how they feel.
But when you volunteer for the U.S. military, you pretty much know you're not going to be fending off invasions from Mexico and Canada. So you're willingly signing up to be a fighting tool of American imperialism, for better or worse. Sometimes you get lucky and get to fight ethnic genocide in Kosovo, but other times it's Vietnam.
And sometimes, for reasons I don't understand, you get to just hang out in Germany.
Ineffecient...? So people in the military who don't support the policy of their civilian leadership -- which is their boss, by the way -- should simply make the moral choice on the battlefield not to fight? Otherwise they're serving as "willing tools of American imperialism?" That makes about as much sense as telling cops who don't like the new mayor to ignore those dispatch calls (aren't they really just dispatches from the Enemy?) or telling firefighters to hold the hoses in objection to the administration's policies on clean water. Except in the case of clearly illegal orders -- to commit genocide or torture -- soldiers have to follow orders. [That's why the Abu Ghraib grunts are in prison (and why the officers in charge of them, and the Pentagon wackos in the Office of Special Plans should be).]
Dude, soldiers don't make policy. They make war. They serve administrations they like, and president's they don't like so much, and they do their jobs for Democrats or Republicans, regardless of their own party affiliation. And let's get real for a second -- most of these guys weren't "tricked" into fighting in Iraq. If you talk to them, most will give you the gung ho line in support of the war. Almost to a man. It can be maddening, but it's also reality. I'd guess that most of the guys in uniform over there believe in the mission, maybe because of partisan politics or perhaps because they listen to too much Rush Limbaugh, but more likely because they believe in themselves and each other -- whatever the odds, in Somalia or in Iraq or wherever they are, soldiers will tell you that they believe that if you give them the time and the tools, they can get it done. Personally, I can't help but admire their determination.
Those in the military who don't support the war -- and there are more of them are out there han the right wants you to know -- will often still say they want to stay in the fight, in order to support their brothers who are over there. And then there are those who just want out. Fortunately, they have several means of registering their objections to administration policy: they can resign their commissions (or try to) and they can publicly criticize the policy from the outside (as Anthony Zinni, Mr. Shinseki, the guys from Operation Truth and others have). (They can't blog, or criticize from inside, or they can get in real trouble...) They can raise collective objections to specific policies or missions (though there are consequences to that if they're still in uniform) or try collective action to avoid serial service, as some Guardsmen have done regarding stop-loss. Would-be recruits who object to Bush's foreign policy can choose not to enlist (or re-enlist) while this crowd is in power, as many have. And they can vote for the other party in the next election (assuming their votes are counted and not tampered with, of course...) Stein should have pointed out some of those options, rather than throwing out his flippant and unexplicated call to "just say no."
And why no parades? These guys are going through hell over there in the 130 degree heat, with no decent leadership or strategizing in Washington, not enough healthcare and other resources when they get home, not enough pay while their protecting $1,000-a-day Halliburton contractors, and not enough body armour. When they get home, assuming they come home alive and in one piece, they've got to live with the images in their heads -- the cheating death every minute, being wary of women and children at checkpoints, the shooting people and seeing their friends blown up -- for the rest of their lives. You're damned right they deserve a parade. Those who oppose the war certainly don't have to attend if they don't want to, but they shouldn't object to the idea. And if that makes me a wussie who objects to the war but supports the troops, roll me out some ticker tape and a bumper sticker. (HT to Dr. Rusty at Jawa, even though we don't entirely agree... and as for Ms. Malkin -- sorry, lady, but you are pretty loathesome... I don't know if you can hold a candle to Geraldo, but then, who can...)
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"[T]he practice of arbitrary imprisonments, have been, in all ages, the favorite and most formidable instruments of tyranny.' Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 84, August, 1788
