It’s poppycock.
It's a phony argument, a defense mechanism, so war-believers don't have to hear anything that might challenge their faith.
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The hubris, the closed-mindedness, the incredible arrogance of assuming that anyone who disagrees with me must hate America defies comprehension.
Yet for many war-believers, that seems to be the beginning and end of any conversation.
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by Helen & Harry Highwater, Unknown News
June 4, 2004
“I hope American troops die. I hope American soldiers come home maimed or crippled or dead. Each and every American soldier is a war criminal.”
When the wisdom, ethics, or battle plan for this war are questioned, some war-believers respond as if that's what they've heard. They act as if only war-believers love their country, and any doubt about any war is the loud equivalent of hoping American troops die.
But have you ever heard any American actually say anything even vaguely like that?
It’s poppycock. It's a phony argument, a defense mechanism, so war-believers don't have to hear anything that might challenge their faith.
Of course, people who oppose the war are patriots. And of course, there’s no getting through to people who hear “I hate America” any time anyone disagrees with George W. Bush or Rush Limbaugh.
But I did once hear an American (at least, I assume he was an American) say the words that began this column.
It was at a rally against the first war on Iraq in 1991, where an overflow crowd sat on folding chairs or leaned on the walls in a middle-school gymnasium, late in the evening. Several speakers had already decried that war as unjustified, and after the speeches people in the audience were having their say.
I said a few words, because I have a big mouth and I always have something to say. Several others took their turns, speaking from their hearts against Bush and Quayle and against a war without reason. Someone announced that there would be a march on Monday, and I made a mental note to be there.
After about ten minutes of the rabble rousing themselves, a youngish man toward the back of the room stood up and said “Excuse me,” in a loud voice. “I hope American troops die,” he said. “I hope American soldiers come home maimed or crippled or dead. Each and every American soldier is a war criminal.”
There were immediate groans, then catcalls and hisses. From my vantage near the front, I turned my head and noticed two people, many rows apart in the crowd, both making circular finger-motions around their ears, the universal sign for “That guy’s bonkers.”
While this man was still talking, the crowd shouted him down. Before anyone really knew what was happening, a middle-aged woman walked along the aisle toward him, and wordlessly poured an open quart container of milk on his head. He looked like he wanted to punch her, but some submerged sense of decency much have risen in his innards, and he said nothing, did nothing.
The crowd broke into smatters of applause, and the loud-mouth man, dripping milk, skulked out the back door, while several people hollered that the troops were not the enemy. Someone else said “The war is the enemy, and our troops are the victims!” Another person shouted “God bless America,” and several amens rang out.
The woman held up her hands, one of which still held an empty milk carton. The crowd hushed, and she said, fighting back tears, that her son was fighting “in Bush’s god-awful stupid war” in Iraq. She asked for prayers for her son, and almost like a church meeting, several people shouted that they’d be praying, or they already were. "I'm agnostic," someone said from the back, "but I'll add your son to my worry-list."
Others spoke of their loved ones, fathers or friends at war. I remember one boy who couldn't have been 16, his voice wavering with emotion or nervousness as he spoke of his brother “who’s putting his life on the line, for nothing. For nothing ... nothing ... .”
In the hundreds of peace and political rallies I’ve attended, that was the one and only time I've heard anyone speak against American troops. It was one man, who let his anger at the war abscond with his common sense ... and I remember the response.
Every time another so-called “patriot” imagines that everyone who opposes the war -- this war, that war, any war -- must be a godless hippie scumbag traitor who hates the troops, hates the flag, and hates America, I remember that night.
Like virtually all Americans of any political stripe, my wife and I have great respect for the soldiers' sacrifice. These young men and women have decided that they’re willing to put their very lives on the line to defend my freedom to write these words, and your freedom to read them, or not.
It's a tremendous sacrifice they've made, not something to be forgotten or taken lightly.
Cheering war, without ever asking what the war is for, is profoundly disrespectful of that sacrifice. It does not honor the soldiers or say thank you, if their lives are squandered in battles of no vital interest to the United States. You don't "support the troops" by supporting the waste of troops' lives, or by questioning the patriotism of anyone who questions that waste.
The hubris, the closed-mindedness, the incredible arrogance of assuming that anyone who disagrees with me must hate America defies comprehension. Yet for many war-believers, that seems to be the beginning and end of any conversation.
When we've expressed doubt about why American troops are at war in Iraq, so-called patriots have told us we’re “anti-Bush anti-American” -- as if no-one can be anti-Bush without also being anti-American. Or we’re “against the troops and against the war” -- again, as if the two are synonyms.
Well, we don't hate America. We don't want American troops dead. We want them home -- alive and well, to defend America.
We have no patience for "patriots" who pledge allegiance to the flag while forgetting the nation's principles, who speak of the soldiers' sacrifice while sacrificing soldiers for nothing. These “patriots” don’t even know what America is ... and a lot of them need to have milk poured over their heads.
© 2004, by the author.
What do you think?
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Like virtually all Americans of any political stripe, my wife and I have great respect for the soldiers' sacrifice.
These young men and women have decided that they’re willing to put their very lives on the line to defend my freedom to write these words, and your freedom to read them, or not.
It's a tremendous sacrifice they've made, not something to be forgotten or taken lightly.
Cheering war, without ever asking what the war is for, is profoundly disrespectful of that sacrifice.
It does not honor the soldiers or say thank you when their lives are squandered in battles of no vital interest to the United States.
You don't "support the troops" by supporting the waste of troops' lives, or questioning the patriotism of anyone who questions that waste.
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