This is a follouw to a thread on one of Cindy's posts a few days ago, where someone
posted a letter to the editor that included the line (emphasis mine):
"If you can send a child to die in Iraq as a representative of this country you can take a few minutes to comfort and answer questions of their family and loved ones."
Now, I have an intense hatred for emotive and sensationalist language in the media, this also extends to activism. Note how this letter refers to soldiers as "children" - it does this to invoke an emotional response and gain political mileage. I take exception to this and consider it offensive. I said so, and it resulted in probably the largest thread in the post.
Society considers children to be a precious asset, and also innocent and in need of protection. With paternal instincts exhibited not only by the parents of any given child, but by most adults - especially those with children of their own - the potency for this social connotation is increased. Harming a child is always worse than harming an adult, children are always the first to be saved in any disaster, adults will put their body on the line to defend children. As a result, society has given emotional privilege to children.
So when George Bush is accused of killing children, the message is a lot more powerful than it would be otherwise. This would be fine if Bush was actually killing children, but soldiers are not children. Therefore this message is an exploitation aimed at more effectively whipping up outrage. It's a dishonest use of a buzzword.
This is not to trivialise the obviously traumatic experience of family members such as Sheehan losing a son, as some have suggested, nor should they be prohibited from calling them their children - no one is saying that. There is a difference between saying "you killed my child" and "you are killing children." The former is obviously acceptable as it is a statement of fact, but the latter is not. Referring to soldiers collectively as children is dishonest, offensive and used for no purpose other than to enhance a political message. The way to win the argument over Iraq is not with such emotional buzzwords, but with pragmatic assertions and facts.
Soldiers and not children, and should not be referred to as such. Nor should their age be used as a weapon to score political points. If you get to the stage where you feel you must resort to such tactics, then you have already lost.