ODD SUPPORT

"Peace, love out."

As I've shown over the last year or more, the support many on the anti-war movement show our troops is at best mere affection and not support at all. Some have come out and openly said they do not support the troops, in a dazzling display of honesty. For example this Kos diarist pointed out what many of us have said all along:

During WWII, French resistance fighters were also called terrorists and insurgents by their German occupiers. Can an anti-war proponent look at these Iraqi resistance fighters with the same admiration, even though they worship differently than us and when they eventually win are likely to install a distasteful (to Americans) theocratic tinged state. Can a person who doesn't believe in violence support that people's right to govern themselves, perhaps violently.

I am sorry but supporting the troops means supporting this illegal war.

Supporting the troops means supporting their mission, this guy is not the first on the left to understand this, he's one of the first to openly admit it with refreshing honesty. Yet there are many still who try to cling to the "troops are great but mission is wrong" brain twister (if what they are doing is bad and wrong how does that make them good?). Jules Crittenden pointed out a more recent example from Senator Obama (D-IL), after depicting the invasion and rebuilding of Iraq as a mess caused by buffoonish and sinister Republicans:

Yes, it’s easy to be cynical. But right now, somewhere in Iraq, there’s someone about your age. He’s maybe on his second or third tour. It’s hot. He would rather be at home. But he’s in his uniform, got his combat gear on. He’s getting in a Humvee. He’s going out on patrol. He’s lost a buddy in this war, maybe more. He risked his life yesterday, he’s risking his life today, and he’s going to risk it tomorrow.

So why do we reject the cynicism? We reject it because of men and women like him. We reject it because the legacy of their sacrifice must be a better America. We reject it because they embody the spirit of those who fought to free the slaves and free a continent from a madman; who rebuilt Europe and sent Peace Corps volunteers around the globe; because they are fighting for a better America and a better world.

And here's the punchline:

And I reject it because I wouldn’t be on this stage if, throughout our history, America had not made the right choice over the easy choice, the ambitious choice over the cautious choice.

Yes, those soldiers are fighting not only for a better America, but a better world, they are noble men and women we should admire, men who fought for freedom around the world. And yet despite this, despite their "fighting for a better America and a better world" we should stop them from what they are doing? We should oppose their efforts? We should surrender and retreat from this battle?

That's the problem in a nutshell, and why the anti-war left's bleating about supporting the troops comes across so very hollow and implausible. You cant support them without supporting their efforts. Commenters responded:

DePaul is now filled with students who have not spent a single day on campus without the reality of a war in Iraq.

To paraphrase a Marin, “DePaul is not at war. DePaul is at the mall, the Marines are at war.”

Obama is a vain fool. Not just because of how he’s trying to sell himself as President, but because he has the chutzpah to believe he can be an effective President, when he is nothing more than an inexperienced junior politician with delusions of grandeur.
-by The_Real_Jeff_S


Barack Obama keeps trying to sound grandiose.

Every time he says something dumb or wrong, he retreats to the “above the fray” posture. It’s part of his shtick for a different kind of politics in DC, not to mention the country at large.

I wouldn’t waste too much time parsing the emptiness (and dumbness) of his would be grandiose statements. It’s very appealing to the “base” to think about the poor beleaguered DePaul students as he characterized them instead of how they actually are.

(hankie, please)

Obama’s greatest gift as a politician might be the capacity to pander.
-by tanstaafl


I don’t know, I pass by the DePaul campus every day and the students don’t appear to be too overburdened with the Iraq war. I suspect they’re primarily concerned with footing their steep private school tuition. Not that I’m criticizing, since I did it myself a, er, long time ago.

Reread through the content of this speech a couple of times. Never have so many words been spoken to say so little.
-by the wolf

Senator Obama has a reputation of being so well spoken but to be honest when I hear him speak I'm not struck by the rhetorical skill and flourish of someone like Dr King. He's not as hapless as President Bush, but he's a fairly capable politician at best. I've noticed this with a lot of writers in the past, you read some men and they don't come across all that powerfully. Others, the words themselves explode off the page with vitality and energy. Patrick Henry, for example, has speeches and statements so dynamic that you wonder how anyone could stand to hear them in person.

Senator Obama increasingly is coming across as an idealistic but foolish youngster. He looks young, but his speeches sound even younger, like the earnest writings of a 14 year old. We'll just get rid of all the nukes! We should love peace and hate war! If we just talk to the bad guys, they'll understand us and we'll understand them and we can stop all the killing! I used to think like that too - when I was in high school.

Yet the clear paradox between declaring soldiers as warriors for a better world then declaring that they should stop doing that seems too obvious for anyone to miss. Isn't what they are doing good if they are fighting for a better world? Of course it is - but that's not the point, defeating Republicans is the point, and whatever you say and do to that end is the higher good, the greater truth, and who cares how much sense it makes.

This is why I believe the Democratic Party is unworthy of political power today. Until they can clear out these intellectual children and dinosaurs, the party will continue to be unworthy.

Barack Obama, Iraq, Supporting the Troops