"I found myself in the unenviable position of being for the war but against the troops." - Bill Hicks
Okay, so you think it's the right decision, but you choose not to participate. My beef - among many in the previous meltdowns - is this "support our troops" garbage. You're not supporting our troops. You're supporting the decision to go to war. These are hardly the same thing. The "support our troops" mantra pounded into us by the media and the partisan bobbleheads everyday means nothing. And, as far as I'm concerned, if you support an agenda that necessarily involves the deaths of otherwise innocent people, then good for you. It makes no difference that you believe that, and that I don't. But you're not supporting the troops anymore than I am - we both pay taxes, and we're both civilians. End of story. You support the decision of the administration to go to war. You've extrapolated my stance on this war in particular to apply to everything, ever? You must have convinced yourself that my argument was simple right away, and then proceeded as if that were true. I'm not projecting anything anywhere - I am telling you that you know nothing more about this war, its motives, its day-to-day operations, and definitely its results, than I do, unless you choose to take the politicians at their word. In which case, there's a good chance you know even less. You're entitled to your opinion (as if this ever needs saying), and to your satisfaction with yourself in defending the war on this basketball board. It's good to be absolutely positive about something you may know nothing about. It's what keeps us in business. But, and this is something that's been present in most of these poorly formed and hastily worded posts I've made in this thread - it don't mean ****. So, while you are completely entitled to every ounce of self-satisfaction you can get from posting on this board and finding your own misunderstanding of my argument "laughable" (I agree, it is in fact laughable), don't presume that your decision is in any way "objective" - it's no more objective than my opinion. You and I have been banished from the halls of power. Choosing to support this war, or choosing to criticize it, doesn't mean a damn thing. You get your vote, I get mine - and then it's all over but the internet arguing.
To clear up anything (as if that's ever completely possible, and as if anyone cares); I find it difficult to post in these topics, because it inevitably becomes a for/against duality - even if one is neither, and particularly if one is neither by choice. In particular; the Orwellian use of language in terms like "support our troops," "no child left behind," and whatever the hell they want us to chant (though the whole SOT thing is probably the worst) should not be picked up and bandied about by people who are, in the long run, its victims. A political office, someone somewhere in the bowels of some campaign war room, constructs a simplistic and emotionally appealing phrase that is ultimately empty of meaning and throws it out in the backyard, a club for the cavemen - and we all grab it and use it to bash each other over the head! We're being suckered. By being for/against policies that we cannot possibly comprehend the entirety of. We get enough information to make our stands on the internet, enough so that we can collect the facts we're allowed and construct an "objective" argument. Objectivity, in this sense, is an aesthetic judgment - It either looks objective, or it doesn't. It all ends up getting codified into left/right - but the meat of these matters is nowhere near that simple, and the most stunning divide is not between left and right - it's between those at the top, and those at the bottom of the power hierarchy in the American system (with a good solid buffer zone in between made up of people who are just satisfied enough with their lives that they desperately don't want anything to change). Just because we haven't burnt our cities and plunged into the ocean doesn't mean the system is working. Hell, the partisanship of the 1790's was far more bitter than what it is now. We've become so fascinated with the theater of left/right (whether in major issues like the war, or minor issues like Hilary Clinton's haircut), so involved in carefully constructing our arguments and positions (or emotionally involved in our pre-existing beliefs), so invested in these sham dualities that we've been sold and told, that we're missing the underlying problems of this civilization - and our eagerness to take up flags and slogans of for/against one side or the other is not the answer - it's one of the problems. We're making the same (or similar) mistakes that almost every other civilization in the world previous has made. Maybe that's inevitable. It might be inevitable.
Ultimately, I would grudgingly serve if I was drafted in a sloppily constructed war as this, but I reserve the right to protest against it because I'm not a volunteer. The difference between this war and Vietnam is that some citizens didn't have a choice, with the poor having less a chance to get out of fighting the war. Once a draft comes into play, I'm not sure how the "supporting the troops" frame would turn out.
Seems to me that if you're in opposition to the invasion and continuing war in Iraq, then you have to be against the troops in their role as the instrument of Bush's muscular foreign policy. The distinction is in support of the troops in that role, on one hand, against their role as fellow Americans with family back home, who don't have much choice in the matter.
I don't agree that the only way to 'support the troops' is do BE the troops. That seems silly to me. I support their mission, I support an agenda to increase their financial and material condition, I support recognizing their sacrifice. There isn't anything partisan about the concept of 'supporting our troops' as that is being defined by the media today anyway. In fact its the opposite. Its a bipartisan understanding that no one wants to focus their ire at the troops serving if they have a disagreement with the policy. This arose directly out the Vietnam experience. Having a united consciousness on the issue in the public sphere does, IMO, mean something. Just as 'not supporting the troops' had actual measurable effect on Vietnam veterans, 'supporting the troops' can also reasonably be expected to have an effect. I don't believe this is the case. The public can affect policy if it so chooses.
