<<Cindy Sheehan, mother of a soldier who was killed in Iraq, emerged on the American political scene two years ago. Distraught and unstable . . . >>
I can certainly understand that a mother who lost a son in war would be distraught. In what way was she "unstable?" What does the word "unstable" mean? What does the writer intend it to mean?
<< . . . she was shamelessly exploited by opponents of George W. Bush and the war >>
Who specifically "exploited" her? What did the "exploitation" consist of?
<< . . . while such exploitation seemed to pay political benefits. >>
What political benefits did the "exploitation" pay? Was anyone who was "exploiting" Cindy Sheehan realizing political goals which were opposed to Cindy's own political goals, if so whose goals were being promoted at the expense of Cindy's own goals in the course of this "exploitation?"
<< When she became an embarrassment, she, like others before her, was tossed onto the trash heap of history by her progressive minders.>>
Who were Cindy's "progressive minders" and how did she embarrass them? What specifically did they do to "toss her onto the trash heap of histoyr?"
<<Sheehan was useful to the antiwar left in a particular way. As Jonathan Cohn put it in the September 12, 2005, New Republic, "Sheehan's value isn't as a barometer of public opinion or as a source of foreign policy wisdom. It's as proof of one very simple point: that a person can criticize the war and still support the troops.">>
<<It's unclear that Sheehan was particularly interested in "supporting the troops"--unless one means by that lamenting the fate of the troops as victims. >>
Utter nonsense - - she was supporting the troops by asking for them to be brought home before they got hurt.
<<The fact that relatively few soldiers see themselves as victims, the fact that few families understand their loved ones' service and sacrifices in that light--that didn't matter. >>
I would think that most of them realize that very few of the children of those legislators who support the war are serving in their ranks. I would think that most of them recognize that they entered the service through low-income, limited-opportunity families and that the simple expedient of being born into a middle-class or higher-status family would have spared them the whole ordeal.
<<What mattered to the left was that it was dangerous politically not to "support the troops." >>
Only because the right had turned the issue of supporting the war into one of supporting the troops.
<<Of course the antiwar left hated what the troops were doing, fighting the enemy in Iraq . . . >>
Well, they had a problem with the idea that the Iraqi people were "the enemy" and that all those hundreds of thousands of civilian casualties were the product of "fighting the enemy."
<< . . . and they hated the troops' goal, victory in Iraq. >>
Well, in the same sense that a German liberal would have hated the goal of German troops, "Victory in Poland." Let's face it, an illegal act of aggression followed by a victory is like the success of an armed robbery. It should not be something to wish for.
<<So "supporting the troops" meant feeling sorry for them, or pretending to--something antiwar politicians and media did with great hand-wringing and hoopla.>>
Uh, no, it meant bringing them back in one piece.
<<With the ongoing progress of the surge, and the obvious fact that the vast majority of the troops want to fight and win the war. . . >>
I don't think the troops' desire to fight and conquer - - even if it's as strong as Kristol claims it is, without any evidence that I can see - - should determine the amount of civilian support they get for the mission. I'm sure that Hitler's S.S. troops had at least as much desire to fight and win, but why that should be any inducement for the people to support the war they were engaged in is a mystery to me.
<< the "support-the-troops-but-oppose-what-they're-doing" position has become increasingly untenable. How can you say with a straight face that you support the troops while advancing legislation that would undercut their mission and strengthen their enemies?>>
I'd say with a straight face that the legislation was going to save more of their lives than all the pro-war legislation and all of the "President's" actions combined.
<<You can't [say with a straight face that you support the troops while advancing legislation that would undercut their mission and strengthen their enemies?>>
I just did. Only I don't even "support the troops." Cindy Sheehan does, and I just showed you how SHE can say it with a straight face.
<< So those on the cutting edge of progressive opinion are beginning to give up on even pretending to support the troops. Instead, they now slander the troops.
<<Two progressive magazines have taken complementary approaches in this effort. In its July 30 issue, the Nation has a 24-page article based on interviews with 50 Iraq veterans. The piece allegedly reveals "disturbing patterns of behavior by American troops in Iraq"--indeed, it claims that the war has "led many troops to declare an open war on all Iraqis." Needless to say, the anecdotal evidence in the article comes nowhere close to supporting this claim. There are a few instances of out-of-control behavior, some routine fog-of-war and brutality-of-war incidents, and much that is simply trivial. The picture is unpleasant, as one would expect--but it comes nowhere close to living up to the authors' billing: "The war the vets described is a dark and even depraved enterprise.">>
Obviously, if The Nation couldn't prove U.S. war crimes and atrocities in Iraq, that must mean they didn't happen.
<<Since the Nation has held this view of every American war (except when we were fighting side-by-side with Stalin's Soviet Union), and loves nothing more than accounts of American war crimes, its story is no surprise.>>
Since The Nation is against wars of unprovoked aggression, it should certainly come as no surprise that it opposes this war. And many other U.S. wars after WWII. The U.S. has engaged in many wars of unprovoked aggression.
<< At least they interviewed real soldiers on the record. The New Republic, in its July 23 issue, takes a different tack. Its slander of American soldiers appears to be fiction presented as fact, behind a convenient screen of anonymity.
<<A column entitled "Shock Troops" is said to be the work of "Scott Thomas"--"the pseudonym for a soldier currently serving in Baghdad." "Thomas" colorfully describes three sets of alleged misdeeds he and his buddies committed in Baghdad: They humiliate a woman in a military dining hall who has been disfigured in an IED explosion (the woman "wore an unrecognizable tan uniform, so I couldn't really tell whether she was a soldier or a civilian contractor"); they discover human remains and one private spends a day and night playing around with a child's skull ("which even had chunks of hair"), amusing his fellow soldiers; and one private routinely drives a Bradley Fighting Vehicle recklessly and uses the vehicle to kill stray dogs.
<<My colleague Michael Goldfarb raised questions about this account in a July 18 post on THE WEEKLY STANDARD website, asking for assistance from soldiers and veterans in assessing the truth of the stories told by "Scott Thomas." Within a day, dozens of active duty soldiers and veterans had come forward to point out errors, implausibility, and indeed the well-nigh-impossibility (in the case of the Bradley) of what was claimed. The editors of the New Republic provided to Goldfarb a couple of allegedly corroborating details--for example, the name of the Forward Operating Base, FOB Falcon, where the taunting of the badly disfigured female IED victim was said to have taken place. Soldiers who served at the base have come forward to say no such woman has been seen there. As we go to press on July 20, the New Republic has said they are investigating their own story, and the mainstream media seem to be hoping against hope that they won't have to cover yet another embarrassing episode of journalistic malpractice.>>
This has to be a huge joke. How, in an army where planned rapes and murders take place and go undiscovered for months or years, is anyone going to prove it was "implausible" that a G.I. played with a child's skull? How are a handful of soldiers from a base where tens of thousands of soldiers have served for months going to be able to testify whether a badly disfigured woman soldier or contractor was ever seen there? How is anyone going to prove that a G.I. couldn't have driven a Bradley fightnig vehicle recklessly or used it to kill a few stray dogs? This is just totally off-the-wall ludicrous.
<<We at THE WEEKLY STANDARD are well aware that editors make mistakes. We have made our share. But what is revealing about this mistake is that the editors must have wanted to suspend their disbelief in tales of gross misconduct by American troops. How else could they have published such a farrago of dubious tales?>>
The editors of the Weekly Standard have in fact made mistakes. So far, it has not been proven that the New Republic has made any mistake at all in reporting American misconduct. The attempt to show the articles were "implausible" is ludicrous.
<<Having turned against a war that some of them supported, the left is now turning against the troops they claim still to support. >>
So what? They're criminal aggressors. SOMEBODY sure as hell better turn against them. The Iraqis sure as hell have. Nobody is greeting them as liberators, that's for God-damn sure."
<<They sense that history is progressing away from them--that these soldiers, fighting courageously in a just cause, could still win the war . . . >>
Stealing another country's oil is a just cause? Invading without any lawful provocation is just?
<< . . . that they are proud of their service>>
So were the S.S. Pride in service in a criminal war of aggression proves nothing much, beyond a certain lack of insight.
<< . . . and that they will be future leaders of this country. >>
More's the pity.
<<They are not "Shock Troops." They are our best and bravest . . . >>
Get out the hankies. Better yet, get real. They're a bunch of low-rent rejects, lacking any opportunity for a better life and torturing and murdering their way across somebody else's country hoping to come back and reap some financial benefit from their thuggery. Let's hope they just get what they deserve from the aggrieved families of the people they have tortured, killed and maimed.
<< . . .fighting for all of us against a brutal enemy in a difficult and frustrating war. They are the 9/11 generation. The left slanders them. We support them. More than that, we admire them.>>
Support them. Praise them. Admire them. ANYTHING but fight with them. THAT stupid, you are definitely not.
Hilarious editorial - - from one of the co-founders of the
Project for a New American Century, in case you didn't know that. Mr. Kristol is a very modest man.
