Over at Clownhall today, the Virgin Ben has an essay up telling us all why we should not call him and all the other Yellow Elephants "Chickenhawks". Because, according to VBen, it's UnAmerican. Before your cognitive dissonance engine (Dissent is UnPatriotic!) kicks in, let's give VBen the benefit of the doubt for a nanosecond and look at his argument. He says that to support a foreign policy of which includes Preemptive War, you really, really don't have to have served. And I'll grant him that. I'll also grant him that the perjorative Chickenhawk is an ad hominem attack of the highest order. And to that I have one thing to say: Tough Shit. So let's take Ben out of the "Chickenhawk" pool for a moment, shall we. There is a better place for him, the Dishonorable Society of Yellow Elephants.
All the components of the Army are falling behind on their recruiting goals this year, and it's not looking like the Army, which is carrying the brunt of operations in Iraq will be a viable force much longer if tours are extended again, and soldiers are sent back for a third vacation tour to Baghdad. That's just a cold hard fact. The soldiers are getting tired; even in the cases where the spirit is willing, the flesh can't stand the strain.
What to do? Encourage VBen and his colleagues to join up. Augment our forces so that men and women who have been there twice won't be forced to go back again. But VBen will deny his obligation to do even this task. He's in Law School. At Hahvahd, you see. Like so many of his twenty-something republican peers, there's more profit in encouraging someone else to fill their spot, there is little that they will get other than an open-ended contract and a sense of an obligation fulfilled to their country. But his personal gain, comfort and hectoring Americans about Michael Moore's waistline are much more important obligations than those to his fellow citizens carrying out a dangerous and lethally flawed foreign policy because they said they would. Largely without complaint their very existance in daily jeopardy, never knowing if they will see the sunset on the day they wake up and head off to do their duty.
For those young twenty-something peers of VBen every day is trial by fire. For VBen, every day is just another opportunity to prove why he's a Chickenhawk: he's allowing his peers to cover the checks his mouth writes with their blood. That's a Chickenhawk.
posted by Jo Fish on 08.17.05 at 03:48 PM
Comments:
Nice post.
It wouldn't be so bad if Ben didnt have to bend the definition of "chickenhawk" on Moore's site all out of shape to make it fit his argument.
The argument is not that those who haven't served have no right to talk, its that those who have not served should perhaps think twice about erring on the side of caution when opening their adolescent (at any age) gobs to put serving troops in the way of danger.
It is not them being hawks that have not joined up that makes them chickenhawks, it is their unseemly rush to aggresion - aggresion that will be carried out far from them and not by them personally. The unseemly rush is that of the school playground troublemaker who stands behind the other kids shouting "fight, fight" and "go on, hit himn!" while having never been involved in any kind of fistfight themselves.
The reason the appelation has stuck so well is that we all remember that type so very well and recognise it at an instinctual level when we see it.
Poor VBen, like Dear Leader, thinks along these lines: "I think it's also important for me to go on with my life, to keep a balanced life."
Now does that sound like a Chickenhawk squawking? But of course!
posted by: Nina on 08.17.05 at 05:28 PM [permalink]
Poor, poor little Ben. Mommy and Daddy probably protected him from all those mean schoolkids and from taking responsibility for anything he said or did while he was growing into the spineless New Republican he is today. Ben, if you really believed the stuff you spout, then finally be a man and put YOUR OWN ass on the line for once. We don't need more lawyers, we need more men. If you ask the guys who do this stuff professionally, they all have said that there must be more men on the ground in Iraq to do the job, without saying to clean up after Mr. Bush and his irresponsible plan, because they have careers in serving our country. They said that even before Mr. Bush declared mission accomplished. Rumsfeld sacked the guy who said the plan lacked the soldiers necessary. Who do you go to for a professional opinion on your cardiac condition Ben? Your local Neocon pol or a board certified, practicing cardiologist? Shinseki was right, Rummy was wrong. You have to at least acknowledge that the guys who have actually done it know more about it that those who shirked, deserted, and dodged serving their country.
posted by: MMichaelAK on 08.17.05 at 07:00 PM [permalink]
So, basically, what this sanctimonious goofball is saying is that, in his opinion, his patriotic obligation, along with that of the rest of his, uh, neo-chickenhawk colleagues is satisfied not by their putting their precious little asses on the line but, rather, by their ridiculing Cindy Sheehan and yukking it up with purple heart bandaids because none of them ever really bothered to understand how incredibly brave the sacrifices of John Kerry and his shipmates were in Vietnam? You'll have to forgive me, I was a member of a Marine Corps rifle company (Echo 2/3) that had around 130 KIA and I don't know how many WIA between 1965 and 1969 up in I Corps, and I'm still a little cranky about that. Moreover, I got "zapped" (as we used to say) during Tet, and I'm still trying to figure out why I've had to endure condescending civics lessons for the last three years from the likes of Chickenhawks such as Cheney, Bush, Perle, Wolfowitz, Limbaugh, O'Reilly and, most recently, that guy in the bus driver suit named Gallagher (and they are chickenhawks, for godsakes, not a single one of them would join the army, navy, air force, marine corps, coast guard or friggin girl scouts back when their contemporaries, and my friends and colleagues in the USMC, were all getting our asses shot off!). Now, in this current misguided debacle in Iraq, it is time for those of military age (which is up to 42, last time I checked) who support the war, and are stupid enough to think that "freedom is on the march" to either put up or shut up. If they don't have the integrity to serve in (what's left of) this mess then they should just go drink beer or kool-aid and stick pins in Bill Clinton dolls or whatever the hell it is they do when they're not worshiping at the altar of Ann Coulter, and exercise their right to remain silent. One last thing I should mention is that the ultimate reason I'm so pissed is because my son, a patriotic, dedicated USMC Captain who happens to be the son of a Vietnam veteran liberal democrat, is leaving for Iraq in two weeks. It has been said, and I cannot agree too emphatically, that anybody of draft age who supports the war should be told to either join up or shut up. Semper Fi, Terry Kindlon, 2187197, once a Sgt, USMC
posted by: TerryKindlon on 08.17.05 at 07:24 PM [permalink]
Well VBen I have to say that you get the pass from me on the "Chickenhawk" moniker this time around. I'm not going to tell you that I enlisted in the Marine Corps two months after graduating from high school because I was going to help rid Southeast Asia of Communism when it was really about me proving to myself that I was as tough as that sonofabitch ol' man of mine who fought in WWII with the 1st Mar Div ... and deserted the family when I was 12. Naw, my call, my ball.
But I read your essay, VB, and I WILL call you a Chickenshit ... a stupid ignorant college chickenshit whose knowledge of American History is limited to the faces on the dollar bills your daddy sends you on a regular basis. I saw your types developing when, years after I got out of the service, I went to college to earn a BA in History.
You pontificate about the Founding Fathers in such a lofty manner as to actually bullshit people into thinking you've actually read any comprehensive books about them.
You pathetic twit. Whereas Adams and Jefferson may have never served in the military, they willingly served their country their entire adult lives . Along with Franklin, they were under sentence of death by hanging during the American Revolution and each man braved the hazards of the North Atlantic on numerous crossings to Europe on diplomatic assignments.
Things got fairly "hot" in Washington D.C. during the War of 1812 (you can read about in a BOOK!) and President Madison was closer to any action than Preznit Fly-a-round was on 9/11.
As for Lincoln not serving in uniform ... well, do a Google search using the terms Lincoln and Black Hawk War and see what turns up.
The very fact that you would mention the names of the above esteemed Americans in the same paragraph with such gutless, self-absorbed political hacks as cheney and wolfowitz, clinton and bush shows just what a superficial Chickenshit you are.
posted by: Bill Arnold on 08.17.05 at 07:50 PM [permalink]
I can't for the life of me figure out how anyone in uniform can support the ChickenHawks in the administration.
Especially after they purged all the best Generals until they were left with a bunch of yes-men.
posted by: Cornered Dog on 08.17.05 at 08:10 PM [permalink]
Thank God for my fellow Marines!...oh, and the Sailors too! Chickenshit, Chickenhawk, the two things they share in common are the overwhelming desire to let someone else fight the wars, and the denial that they do.
Yea, I got the same "Calling me chickenhawk isn't fair!" treatment when charging Protein Wisdom (PW) about it on my oh-so-new blog. They really are sensitive to this.
But don't you know that the military is a calling... you are eithered called or you are not... like being a lawyer, it's a career choice. At least that's what I think the young neocons convienent take on it is. Personaly, I had just turned 18 years old in 1971 (graduated when I was 17) and enlisted for 2 years in combat arms (I drove an M-60 Main battle tank the first tour). I tried to enlist for 4 as an airborne infantryman, but my retired Navy, WW II vet father and Vietnam veteran brother had a lllllloooonnnnngggggg talk with me about my choices, finally informing me that a recruiter was nothing but a bounty hunter. 4 years later I joined straightleg infantry. I'm now retired Air Force. I also have a stepson that just returned last month from Iraq, PCSd to another unit, and is going right back to Iraq. How many tours must he serve before he's served enough? My point in telling you this is that I have stepped forward when my country asked. Now these CHICKENSHIT motherf.....s have all the excuses in the world why they needn't serve but claim that they are better patriots than liberals (which I'm definitely one). Well remember, the Nazis were good patriots too (and if this were Nazi Germany I suspect these jerks would be good Nazis, too). I really want to bitch slap them. They are cowards who see no real duty to their country, are more than willing to let others pay the price, will denigrate anyone who doesn't swallow their ideological garbage, but will expect to walk to the front of the line when power and privelege is handed out. BRING BACK THE DRAFT, LEAVE OUT THE EXEMPTIONS... only let's draft the rich and privelged FIRST!!! (In combat positions only, of course.)
