This past Friday on the McLaughlin Group, Eleanor Clift of Newseek used the term “Chicken Hawks” to describe the people in our current administration. While this term might now be in common use, I had never heard it before. However, I can think of no better description for the current/recent administration.
Although George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and Donald Rumsfeld, are all more “hawkish” than the law should allow, they were all too “chicken” to fight in Viet Nam. While Bush hid in the Air National Guard to avoid active duty, Dick Cheney petitioned for and received five (count ‘em, five) deferments and told George C. Wilson when interviewed for an April 5, 1989 article for the Washington Post, I had other priorities in the '60s than military service.”
Similarly, while Donald Rumsfeld served in the U.S. Navy from 1954 to 1957 and in the Naval Reserve from 1957 until 1975, he avoided active duty Viet Nam.
Neither did Karl Rove, Paul Wolfowitz, the architect and chief advocate for the war in Iraq, or Scooter Libby serve in Viet Nam.
In the movie Troy, Odysseus says (to paraphrase): War is young men dying and old men talking. While I don’t believe serving in the military during a war makes you any more or less qualified to run a country, I do question if “Chicken Hawks” have the right to ask others to die.
Similarly, while both Bush and Cheney are venomous in their decision to increase troop strength in Iraq, I haven’t yet heard of any Bush or Cheney daughters enlisting. But then the “Chicken Hawk” gene is probably hereditary.
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Wednesday, January 31, 2007
Monday, January 29, 2007
NO ONE SPEAKS FOR EVERY SOLDIER:
From AOL News:
By LARRY MARGASAK, AP
“WASHINGTON (Jan. 27) - Convinced this is their moment, tens of thousands marched Saturday in an anti-war demonstration linking military families, ordinary people and an icon of the Vietnam protest movement in a spirited call to get out of Iraq.
“About 40 people staged a counter-protest, including Army Cpl. Joshua Sparling, 25, who lost his leg to a bomb in Iraq.
“He said the anti-war protesters, especially those who are veterans or who are on active duty, ‘need to remember the sacrifice we have made and what our fallen comrades would say if they are alive.’”
This truly rankles me to the core. Having spent five and a half years in the U.S. Army, I learned three things:
1/ The food’s rotten!
2/ Not everyone was born with a brain!
3/ There is nothing everyone, civilian or military, agrees on.
If it were possible to bring ten of our “fallen comrades” back to life, we would undoubtedly get six to ten different opinions on what should be done in Iraq—as well as six to ten opinions on everything else in the world. While some would unquestionably champion the war in Iraq, surely a few of them would question the lunacy of sending more young people to die in what some of them would have considered an unnecessary and futile war.
However, there is no trumpet more frequently blown than: “We owe this to those who fought and died for our country. This is what they would have wanted.” Or, as is more commonly heard: “This is, or is not, what our veterans fought and died for.”
While I wasn’t around to know for sure, perhaps, during WW II, there was some kind of consensus among the soldiers. The mission seemed rather clear cut. Since that time, however, those wars we fought were, and are, highly controversial, and seemingly more the whims of the powers that be than sincere efforts to defend our country. Each individual who enters the military enters with a different perspective, a different goal, and a different attitude. No single doctrine is held as a universal truth among them.
We will never be able to stop those self-anointed sages who thump their chests and insist on speaking for all military veterans past and present. We can, however, recognize it for the self-serving drivel it is.
By LARRY MARGASAK, AP
“WASHINGTON (Jan. 27) - Convinced this is their moment, tens of thousands marched Saturday in an anti-war demonstration linking military families, ordinary people and an icon of the Vietnam protest movement in a spirited call to get out of Iraq.
“About 40 people staged a counter-protest, including Army Cpl. Joshua Sparling, 25, who lost his leg to a bomb in Iraq.
“He said the anti-war protesters, especially those who are veterans or who are on active duty, ‘need to remember the sacrifice we have made and what our fallen comrades would say if they are alive.’”
This truly rankles me to the core. Having spent five and a half years in the U.S. Army, I learned three things:
1/ The food’s rotten!
2/ Not everyone was born with a brain!
3/ There is nothing everyone, civilian or military, agrees on.
If it were possible to bring ten of our “fallen comrades” back to life, we would undoubtedly get six to ten different opinions on what should be done in Iraq—as well as six to ten opinions on everything else in the world. While some would unquestionably champion the war in Iraq, surely a few of them would question the lunacy of sending more young people to die in what some of them would have considered an unnecessary and futile war.
However, there is no trumpet more frequently blown than: “We owe this to those who fought and died for our country. This is what they would have wanted.” Or, as is more commonly heard: “This is, or is not, what our veterans fought and died for.”
While I wasn’t around to know for sure, perhaps, during WW II, there was some kind of consensus among the soldiers. The mission seemed rather clear cut. Since that time, however, those wars we fought were, and are, highly controversial, and seemingly more the whims of the powers that be than sincere efforts to defend our country. Each individual who enters the military enters with a different perspective, a different goal, and a different attitude. No single doctrine is held as a universal truth among them.
We will never be able to stop those self-anointed sages who thump their chests and insist on speaking for all military veterans past and present. We can, however, recognize it for the self-serving drivel it is.
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
Are Catholic Nuns Mean?
I’m not Catholic and never attended a Catholic school. However, from everything I’ve heard from friends who did attend Catholic schools, many of the nuns were real terrors.
Is this true? Are some of those pious, angelic matrons of Christ truly devils incarnate?
Let me hear your nun stories.
Is this true? Are some of those pious, angelic matrons of Christ truly devils incarnate?
Let me hear your nun stories.
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