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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