...is
Atrios.
As much as it pains me to do this, because I truly think this may have been the first time I've strenuously and seriously disagreed with Atrios in the nearly 3 years since I've been reading his blog, there's no other word for his condemnation of Joel Stein's new LA Times column but "wankery."
"Support the troops" is perhaps the most meaningless, empty, useless phrase to enter the popular lexicon since "political correctness." Really, think about it...what does it mean? Support the troops...how?
The right wing loves their code words and phrases. Just today during the debate on Alito, George Allen referred to Plessy v. Ferguson as an example of a bad decision that was correctly overturned later. Fair enough, until you consider that when wingnut leaders publically refer to Plessy they're really talking about Roe v. Wade. (Keep this in mind, I'll be back to it in a second)
So it is with "Support the troops." To my mind, there are two ways you can "Support the troops":
1) Send them care packages or phone cards or the like.
2) Enlist and fight with them.
As for the first, while it may ease the homesickness and provide much needed creature comforts, it really doesn't help in the overall direction or strength of the war effort and is thus ultimately a very weak thing indeed when it comes to "support." As for the second, it cannot be reasonably expected that any person who does not believe in the justness of this entirely voluntary war ("voluntary" in the sense that it need not have ever been fought at all) should be expected to put his or her life on the line to fight in it.
Thus we're back to the inescapable truth that "Support the troops" is as hollow as George Bush's cranium. Remember what I said about right-wing code words? It has not escaped the notice of many that "Support the troops" is, in fact, nothing but another wingnut code phrase for "Support the president and blindly obey him in whatever he may take a notion to do." A common theme among the screamers on the right who denounce liberals as unpatriotic and downright un-American has been that we actively wish for the death of American soldiers. Which has lead to the predictable (but not less pathetic for being such) sight of every Democrat or liberal in the fucking country prefacing every remark with, "I strongly support our troops, but blah blah blah blah blah."
Stop it goddammit. You're playing their game. Their game is Lyndon Johnson's old one. To wit, it doesn't matter if we're fucking pigs or not, the point is we're denying it.
Which brings me at last full circle to Atrios and his wankerism on the topic.
Stein is exactly right to throw off shackles and refuse to play the right wing's game on this. He recognizes that this situation isn't time for patriotic homilies, but sad reflection. I'm not saying Atrios is some blind, patriotic schmuck, but he is implicitly buying into the knee-jerk Republican frame that saying "I don't support the troops" really means "I spit on them, hate them, and wish for their death."
I quote Stein's article at length, but hopefully not too much as to cross the Fair Use line.
I DON'T SUPPORT our troops. This is a particularly difficult opinion to have, especially if you are the kind of person who likes to put bumper stickers on his car. Supporting the troops is a position that even Calvin is unwilling to urinate on.
I'm sure I'd like the troops. They seem gutsy, young and up for anything. If you're wandering into a recruiter's office and signing up for eight years of unknown danger, I want to hang with you in Vegas.
...
But I'm not for the war. And being against the war and saying you support the troops is one of the wussiest positions the pacifists have ever taken -- and they're wussy by definition. It's as if the one lesson they took away from Vietnam wasn't to avoid foreign conflicts with no pressing national interest but to remember to throw a parade afterward.
Blindly lending support to our soldiers, I fear, will keep them overseas longer by giving soft acquiescence to the hawks who sent them there -- and who might one day want to send them somewhere else. Trust me, a guy who thought 50.7% was a mandate isn't going to pick up on the subtleties of a parade for just service in an unjust war. He's going to be looking for funnel cake.
Besides, those little yellow ribbons aren't really for the troops. They need body armor, shorter stays and a USO show by the cast of "Laguna Beach."
The real purpose of those ribbons is to ease some of the guilt we feel for voting to send them to war and then making absolutely no sacrifices other than enduring two Wolf Blitzer shows a day. Though there should be a ribbon for that.
I understand the guilt. We know we're sending recruits to do our dirty work, and we want to seem grateful.
Personally, I applaud Stein for being the first (to my knowledge) mainstream columnist in a major paper to stand up and say, "This is bullshit. This 'support the troops' nonsense is playing the Right's game."
He then goes on to say this, which undoubtedly ruffled even more feathers than the passage above:
The truth is that people who pull triggers are ultimately responsible, whether they're following orders or not. An army of people making individual moral choices may be inefficient, but an army of people ignoring their morality is horrifying.
That's a scary statement, filled with ugly implications...and sadly true. And we must face it. The Nuremburg Precedent clearly established that "I was just following orders" is not a valid defense. Period. You overstep the bounds of the rules of war, you deserve to dance at the end of a noose. No argument, no exceptions. Stein is exactly right.
The enforced ignoring of one's morality is, in large degree, what makes war so terrible. None but the truly psychologically disturbed really want to hurt and kill other humans. It's the suppression of that morality that leads to the PTSD, the alcoholism, the spousal abuse, the suicide in the aftermath of the war that is so horrifically common.
"Support the troops"? Good God, no. Because to support the troops, I'd be supporting all of that. I don't want that to happen to them. And if that means not "supporting" them, then so be it. Besides, by publically stating I don't support them, I get to poke a stick in the eye of the GOP, something I take every opportunity to do.
Essentially, for liberals, it seems "Supporting the troops" comes down to "Gee, I hope they make it back alive and unharmed." Well, no fucking shit, jack. That's so patently obvious that it's useless to even say it.
Stein wraps it up with this, the single best paragraph of the column:
I'm not advocating that we spit on returning veterans like they did after the Vietnam War, but we shouldn't be celebrating people for doing something we don't think was a good idea. All I'm asking is that we give our returning soldiers what they need: hospitals, pensions, mental health and a safe, immediate return. But, please, no parades.
That's far, far from the tenor of a "wanker" who hates American soldiers.
Which makes it all the more infuriating that Atrios had the gall to say this:
Bring on the parades. If our military rank and file have been betrayed by their civilian leadership they deserve our respect doubly.
Parades? To celebrate the accomplishments of this war? For fuck's sake. What accomplishments? What have the soldiers in Iraq accomplished worth celebrating? That's what the parades are for. Not so much for the soldiers themselves, but to celebrate what they did that was worth all the sacrifice.
Nothing that has been accomplished in Iraq has been worth 1/50th of the price paid. Not one single damn thing.
And how does the betrayl of the army by BushCo entitle them to more respect? If anything, it should be cause for greater sadness and reflection. I broke up with my ex when I found out she cheated on me...that didn't entitle me to respect. It made me an object of pity. It made me somebody people wanted to comfort and help. And so it is with the soldiers in Iraq.
But, then again, who am I to talk out of turn to a hero of the liberal blogosphere? He's a PhD in economics and works for Media Matters. I'm a dumb hick kid who can't even pronounce the word economics correctly let alone understand it.
But I do know wankery when I see it.
frontpaged at My Left Wing