MOsanthrope

Posted by Chris on January 25, 2006 at 1:19 pm.

Joel Stein’s column in yesterday’s LA Times, “Warriors and Wusses,” is worth a read. He’s a funny guy, but I’d hate to be the staffer filtering his reader email after this:

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.

Stein argues that wusses support the troops despite opposition to the war because we feel remorse for allowing them to be sent to Iraq without much rational debate or any significant sacrifice on the home front. He contends that our soldiers knew what they were getting into when they enlisted (”willingly signing up to be a fighting tool of American imperialism, for better or worse”) and

[t]he truth is that people who pull triggers are ultimately responsible, whether they’re following orders or not.

There is some truth in all of that, but also as much dogma as anything ever uttered by Bill O’Reilly. The problem with the “you either support the troops or you don’t” crowds on both sides is that the issues are more nuanced than either camp would have us believe.

If nothing else, Stein’s column illustrates our tendency to carelessly toss around phrases like “support the troops” until they become meaningless. Rather than engaging in meaningful discussion, we invariably resort to rhetoric; and no battle was ever won or lost because of a slogan. Stein brings nothing more to the discussion by stating that he doesn’t support the troops but “like[s] the troops” or “sympathize[s] with people who joined up to protect our country” than someone who says he does but means nothing more than spending $1.99 for one of those idiotic yellow ribbon magnets.

If “support the troops” means encouraging my son to enlist, I don’t support the troops, and 99% of the yellow ribbon crowd doesn’t either. If it means donating to the USO or sending Christmas cards to our servicemen, thats commendable, if only symbolic. If it means feeling empathy when we hear the latest casualty figures, put me in the pro-troops column. If it means avoiding unnecessary conflicts and deployments without adequate equipment and troop strength, then I support the troops but the President and Secretary of Defense apparently don’t. I don’t care whether you support the troops. That phrase doesn’t mean anything.

I’m not a pacifist. Use of military force is sometimes necessary; other times it’s unnecessary but appropriate. However, like many on both sides of the political spectrum I opposed the idea of this war before the first American boot hit the ground. We didn’t gain some profound new insight when the “liberal media” let loose the ugly truth about the lack of WMD’s or Al-Qaeda connections in Iraq. The fantasy that our soldiers might sweep in and bring peace and democracy to a region populated by religious fanatics who have hated each other for centuries was absurd from day one. I’m not spending a lot of time beating myself up about it, and neither should our troops. Responsibility for our casualties in Iraq lies squarely with the Commander in Chief and the coattail-nipping brood of ideologues who orchestrated the pro-war spin. Call me a wuss, but not because I feel guilty for buying into that nonsense.

The idea that a soldier is ultimately responsible for following legal orders is the stuff of high school debate competitions and conversations occurring after the barmaid has stacked the stools and turned on the lights. It’s easy to suggest that PFC Smith bears ultimate responsibility unless you’re the one facing the prospect of a court martial or the scorn of your peers. A soldier can serve honorably in an unjustified war, and there is virtue in a desire to serve one’s country regardless of whether the policymakers always make the right call. I suspect that many soldiers enlist for reasons having nothing to do with personal philosophy or international politics. Many kids lack the sort of options available to Stein and me as we walked out of our well-kept high schools to those droning renditions of “Pomp and Circumstance.”

Stein may call me a wuss if he’d like, but I’ll show up for the parade. The sooner the better. At least we agree about those damned yellow ribbon magnets.

Filed under: Politics, U.S.