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January 24, 2006
L.A. Times columnist unloads on America's GIs
L.A. Times columnist Joel Stein has written a repugnant article, Warriors and wusses, wherein he tells us what he thinks about American troops fighting and dying for freedom:
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. . . .
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. . . .
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.
Where to begin? I think we can, as Glenn Reynolds has, begin to question his patriotism; that is to say, we may now safely say that Stein is as un-American, as un-patriotic as a citizen-in-name-only can be.
Outside the Beltway has a good roundup of the reaction. Hugh Hewitt conducted a lengthy interview with Stein this afternoon that resulted in the feckless scribbler appearing even less informed, more repugnant, than should be possible.
Hewitt does his readers another service by posting this vital info:
To cancel your subscription, call: 1-888-565-2323. (Back-up cancellation number: 310-608-0111.)
I'm proud to say that Papa Lief cancelled his home delivery years ago; that he still takes the Sunday edition is a disappointment, although after this, I suspect even that will soon end.
Radio Blogger has a transcript of the interview posted, as well as the audio, if you want to subject yourself to Stein's whines.
Posted by Mike Lief at January 24, 2006 06:19 PM