And Soldiers Think Obama's a Wimp

Our gritty men and women in uniform, with their boots on the ground, know better than anyone how out of touch Obama is about the Middle East.

     posted 20 July 2008 by Michael Scott Moore

  1. Nice spot of editing there by AP: Sen Chuck Nagel® talks of “the reality of who has to fight in the war, who has to die in the war” and the cut is to groups of exculsively black soldiers, both male and female. Maybe not because they’re black, but because they’re poor – if the make up of the US armed forces is like the British.

    — d.z. bodenberg    Jul 21, 02:56 pm    #

  2. Genau. Without a draft, that’s how the US military (and big Vietnam-style war protests) tend to work.

    — Mike    Jul 21, 04:08 pm    #

  3. In one sense, it’s an argument for conscription (for the ‘draft’), isn’t it? To make the army be something like representative of the country whose army it’s meant to be. Of course, the rich would then almost-automatically ‘coincidentally’ be part of the ‘officers’ class’ – but that doesn’t absolutely rule out them getting killed like the rest. And as the rich have more of a voice in politics, if it’s their sons (and daughters) on the front line, the chances are that there’ll be less such front lines in the future. I suspect somehow that there wouldn’t have been a Vietnam War (or most of the others) with a properly conscript armed forces (i.e. without get-out clauses, or without Canada to run away to). A fair proportion of those who became ‘draft dodgers’ would have been in the army, causing trouble, where it was probably needed most. And would have learnt how to use weapons.

    — d.z. bodenberg    Jul 21, 08:59 pm    #

  4. Maybe. Except most Americans—Kennedy and Daniel Ellsberg included—were in favor of the Vietnam War at first, the way most of the country was in favor of the Iraq invasion. (The reasons looked good at the time.) So I don’t think it could have been avoided with a tighter draft. But the draft is the reason it became so controversial, and one reason the Sixties were angrier than the last few years in the States.

    — Mike    Jul 21, 09:25 pm    #

  5. It’s quite easy though for most of the country, any country, to be in favour of a war if they (or their children or children’s children) aren’t going to be those doing the actual fighting (and getting blown up).

    — d.z. bodenberg    Jul 21, 09:49 pm    #

  6. It didn’t feel like “most” of the country (U.S.) was in favor of the Iraq invasion. More like half. You know, the half that voted for the current administration in the first place. Or did the polls tell something different? I heard talking heads speaking for it, and vehement protestation everywhere else.

    — na    Jul 23, 09:42 pm    #