Text 17538, 92 rader
Skriven 2006-01-24 18:16:00 av Jeff Binkley (1:226/600)
Ärende: Media
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We want these people to keep talking.  The left should be so proud...

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http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-
stein24jan24,0,4137172.column?coll=la-news-comment-opinions

Warriors and wusses

I DON'T SUPPORT our troops. This is a particularly difficult opinion to 
have, especially if you are the kind of person who likes to put bumper 
stickers on his car. Supporting the troops is a position that even 
Calvin is unwilling to urinate on.

I'm sure I'd like the troops. They seem gutsy, young and up for 
anything. If you're wandering into a recruiter's office and signing up 
for eight years of unknown danger, I want to hang with you in Vegas. 

And I've got no problem with other people — the ones who were for the 
Iraq war — supporting the troops. If you think invading Iraq was a good 
idea, then by all means, support away. Load up on those patriotic 
magnets and bracelets and other trinkets the Chinese are making money 
off of.

But I'm not for the war. And being against the war and saying you 
support the troops is one of the wussiest positions the pacifists have 
ever taken — and they're wussy by definition. It's as if the one lesson 
they took away from Vietnam wasn't to avoid foreign conflicts with no 
pressing national interest but to remember to throw a parade afterward.

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 blaming the president is a little too easy. 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. 

I know this is all easy to say for a guy who grew up with money, did 
well in school and hasn't so much as served on jury duty for his 
country. But it's really not that easy to say because anyone remotely 
affiliated with the military could easily beat me up, and I'm listed in 
the phone book. 

I'm not advocating that we spit on returning veterans like they did 
after the Vietnam War, but we shouldn't be celebrating people for doing 
something we don't think was a good idea. All I'm asking is that we give 
our returning soldiers what they need: hospitals, pensions, mental 
health and a safe, immediate return. But, please, no parades.

Seriously, the traffic is insufferable. 

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