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| Copperhead Columnist Laments Lack of Sacrifice |
| 18.8.05 |
Bob Herbert, in the 18 August 2005, New York Times, Blood Runs Red, not Blue (avoid registration UserID: pidmeoff, password: pidmeoff1234) writes and I respond;
You have to wonder whether reality ever comes knocking on George W. Bush's door. If it did, would the president with the unsettling demeanor of a boy king even bother to answer? Mr. Bush is the commander in chief who launched a savage war in Iraq and now spends his days happily riding his bicycle in Texas.
This is eerie. Scary. Surreal.
Standard set up of an emotional argument. Key phrases like “boy king� alert us early that there will be no rational content. Unless I’m looking for something to write about, this an excellent example of a first paragraph designed to prevent me reading the rest.
The war is going badly and lives have been lost by the thousands, but there is no real sense, either at the highest levels of government or in the nation at large, that anything momentous is at stake. The announcement on Sunday that five more American soldiers had been blown to eternity by roadside bombs was treated by the press as a yawner. It got very little attention.
It’s an article of faith that the war is going badly, that the people who are actually there keep saying otherwise doesn’t matter. The supposition is that if they keep saying this it will become true, or at least that you and I will buy into it and then it’ll be ‘true enough.’
You can turn on the television any evening and tune in to the bizarre extended coverage of the search for Natalee Holloway, the Alabama teenager who disappeared in Aruba in May. But we hear very little about the men and women who have given up their lives in Iraq, or are living with horrific injuries suffered in that conflict. I get frustrated with the lack of substantive coverage too, Bob, but you aren’t part of the solution with this one, are you? This paragraph is the set up for the next, if you aren’t already wondering what Bob would like to see, you soon will.
If only the war were more entertaining. Less of a downer. Perhaps then we could meet the people who are suffering and dying in it. Bob, you should go to a VA hospital. There is one near you. While you are there, rather than just gawking and shaking your head, you should also talk to the men and women there. Better yet, don’t talk. Just listen.
For all the talk of supporting the troops, they are a low priority for most Americans. If the nation really cared, the president would not be frolicking at his ranch for the entire month of August. He'd be back in Washington burning the midnight oil, trying to figure out how to get the troops out of the terrible fix he put them in.
Bob, do you really not know, do you really have to be told, again, that the President’s office travels with him? There’s nothing he can’t do in Crawford that he could do in D.C. This is just a standard partisan hack point, trotted out despite that it can carry no weight when confronted by facts.
Instead, Mr. Bush is bicycling as soldiers and marines are dying. Dozens have been killed since he went off on his vacation. Because President Bush (not Mr. Bush, Sir) should be deep in self flagellation seated on the floor of the Oval Office with ashes on his head and wearing sackcloth. Do you, Bob, avoid all pleasure and enjoyment because we are at war? It’d be a crummy way to live.
As for the rest of the nation, it's not doing much for the troops, either. There was a time, long ago, when war required sacrifices that were shared by most of the population. That's over.
Yes. Technology, communications, and our economy have all converged in this time to give us that ability. There is no need to ration milk or gasoline. What would doing so do to our economy? I suspect you’d enjoy the results that would bring, though, as it would give you a new plank to beat the President with.
I was in Jacksonville, Fla., a few days ago and watched in amusement as a young woman emerged from a restaurant into 95-degree heat and gleefully exclaimed, "All right, let's go shopping!" The war was the furthest thing from her mind. And of course no one ever went shopping, nor had the poor taste to look forward to it while we were fighting WWII. I am a Soldier. It is a badge of distinction for me that this young woman can be carefree. It means, sir, that we, I and my brothers and sisters in arms, are doing our job and doing it well.
For the most part, the only people sacrificing for this war are the troops and their families, and very few of them are coming from the privileged economic classes. That's why it's so easy to keep the troops out of sight and out of mind.
Forgive me interrupting mid-paragraph, but I can’t let that go by. I’d like to know what kind of sacrifice you require? What would set your weary mind at rest on this issue? One of the reforms put in place after Vietnam was the Total Force policy. It realigned the Army’s force structure in such a way that in the event of a protracted or large scale conflict, the National Guard and Reserves would have to be used. This would, it was reasoned, require a national commitment awareness and sacrifice and engage public opinion. It’s worked exactly as billed too. Surely you know a Guard member or Reservist who is, has or will deploy? If not, that’s a reflection on you and not on the nation. The fact is that most people do know someone. That’s the sacrifice. That’s the shared experience.
And it's why, in the third year of a war started by the richest nation on earth, we still get stories like the one in Sunday's Times that began: "For the second time since the Iraq war began, the Pentagon is struggling to replace body armor that is failing to protect American troops from the most lethal attacks by insurgents." And neither you nor the Times point out that the armor was sufficient early on, that the bombs being faced are getting bigger. In a race between more explosive and more armor, the explosive always wins. Better armor is not and never will be a cure, only better tactics can do that, but the better armor allows the breathing room for those new tactics to be developed and taught.
Scandalous incompetence? Appalling indifference? Try both. Who cares? This is a war fought mostly by other people's children. The loudest of the hawks are the least likely to send their sons or daughters off to Iraq.
Try neither. The implication here is that if someone else were in charge, they could do it better. I’m telling you that they can’t. The other implication here; well, Mr. Herbert, how willing are you to send your son or daughter off to Iraq? If the answer is not a resounding “100%!� I’d recommend dropping this argument. You aren’t qualified to make it.
The president has never been clear about why we're in Iraq. There's no plan, no strategy. In one of the many tragic echoes of Vietnam, U.S. troops have been fighting hellacious battles to seize areas controlled by insurgents, only to retreat and allow the insurgents to return. “No plan, no strategy?� You base this on your own vast military experience? Perhaps you’ve been allowed to sit on planning meetings at CENTCOM? The fact is that you probably won’t be told what the plans and strategies are, and that keeps people like me who carry them out safer, so I’m all for not telling you. You have been told the goals and the means. Again, what else do you require?
As for attack and retreat, we are walking a fine line in Iraq (and Afghanistan, remember Afghanistan?) between warfighting, civil and humanitarian operations and allowing the sovereign government of Iraq to assert itself. You can’t pass out food in a firefight. You can’t take over and administer a city like Najaf or Falujah when that job has been given back to Iraq. You also can’t kill the terrorists until they poke their heads out to give you a clean shot. Fortunately for us, they do a magnificent job of assisting us in this.
If Mr. Bush were willing to do something he has refused to do so far - speak plainly and honestly to the American people about this war - he might be able to explain why U.S. troops should continue with an effort that is, in large part at least, benefiting Iraqi factions that are murderous, corrupt and terminally hostile to women. If by some chance he could make that case, the next appropriate step would be to ask all Americans to do their part for the war effort. How about you start by making your case? You could try supporting your naked assertion that we are, “benefiting Iraqi factions that are murderous, corrupt and terminally hostile to women.� We are killing the factions that are murderous, corrupt and terminally hostile to women (advancing that terminal condition so to speak). I’ll admit that the administration has not done the job of communicating our goals as they should be. I know that, since they explained it and then did not continue explaining it, that you have interpreted the period at the end as a negation of all that came before. If you don’t know the goals and causes, that sir, simply shows you as ignorant. I believe you do know, which of course shows you as something else.
College kids in the U.S. are playing video games and looking forward to frat parties while their less fortunate peers are rattling around like moving targets in Baghdad and Mosul, trying to dodge improvised explosive devices and rocket-propelled grenades. I enjoyed college. Didn’t you? Do you require emptying the universities and 100% impressments into service? Would that calm you?
There is something very, very wrong with this picture. There is something wrong with every picture drawn to support a strawman argument. The alternative is not practical, is not desirable and would represent gross violations of personal liberty with not an iota of justification.
If the war in Iraq is worth fighting - if it's a noble venture, as the hawks insist it is - then it's worth fighting with the children of the privileged classes. They should be added to the combat mix. If it's not worth their blood, then we should bring the other troops home.
If you, your child, or the child of any other parent has to be coerced into civic responsibility, I do not want them sharing a foxhole with me. I do not want them in my Army. I do not even want them doing Army paperwork or mopping Army floors thousands of miles away. I only want the people around me and in my profession that share the same sense of duty and commitment that I possess.
If Mr. Bush's war in Iraq is worth dying for, then the children of the privileged should be doing some of the dying.
All are equal before the law and in foxholes, Mr. Herbert. The IED’s don’t even care what is in the harts of those they destroy, but I do. I wonder that you don’t.
UPDATE: Others talking about this (Left and Right)
http://www.lifelikepundits.com/archives/001318.php
http://political-football.blogspot.com/2005/08/blood-runs-red-not-blue.html
http://www.node707.com/archives/004867.shtml
http://thealguy.blogspot.com/2005/08/remember-war_18.html
http://floridablues.typepad.com/my_weblog/2005/08/bob_herbert_kic.html
http://zinniandemocracy.blogspot.com/2005/08/bob-herbert-nytimes-throws-it-down.html
http://www.chander.com/2005/08/blood_runs_red_.html
UPDATE 2: More on this
http://www.politicalbloviation.com/index.php/archives/148
http://lspol.blogspot.com/2005/08/blood-runs-red-not-blue-new-york-times.html
UPDATE 3: Still more
http://rofasix.blogspot.com/2005/08/playing-class-card-is-race-card-next.html
http://thatblacklesbianjew.blogspot.com/2005/08/blood-runs-red-not-blue.html |
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