Our Soldiers
Are Victims
by James Kroeger
August 25th, 2005
Linette and I went to Crawford
last Saturday. It affected us more deeply than we thought it would.
We will be going back there again this weekend. If you’re opposed to
Bush’s War and you’ve been toying with the idea of coming to
Crawford this weekend, then you should. Something very
important is going on.
The Pro-Bush caravans will be arriving
on Saturday, bringing some extremely courageous Americans into town
who are eager to defend their President from the plaintive cries of
a grieving mother. They know that national media attention will be
focused on their dispute with Cindy and they are going to try to put
their own spin on what is happening. Opponents of the war need to
realize the great opportunity this confrontation is going to provide
them to answer that spin.
Bush’s defenders will refer to the
comments Cindy has made that accuse him of being responsible for the
needless deaths of thousands of American soldiers. She has
said that they died for nothing. The pro-Bush demonstrators
will say loudly and repeatedly that this kind of talk actually
dishonors the soldiers that Cindy is trying to save. Our
challenge is to point out the logical errors of this argument.
Soldiers who have been victimized by
inept leadership, who have been sent into harm’s way because of the
“faulty reasoning” and/or reckless actions of their
Commander-in-Chief, are not stripped of their honor when that
embarrassing truth is finally revealed. They are simply victims
who deserve our sympathy as well as our respect and
gratitude for their willingness to take risks for the sake of
others.
A soldier’s honor is never dependent on
the sanity or the rationality of his or her commanders. Soldiers
never deserve blame for the wars they fight or for the failure of
their efforts to achieve the fairy tale war aims of an incompetent
leader. They are completely dependent on their leaders for wise
direction. Given their willingness to put themselves in harm’s
way on command, they have a right to competent leadership,
leadership that will not put their lives at risk unnecessarily.
America’s soldiers have been deprived of that basic right by George
W. Bush.
During World War II, German soldiers
regularly served with honor in spite of the fact that their nation
and their personal lives were ruined by a Leader who spoke to them
often about Noble Causes. One of those soldiers would even become
Pope one day. Hitler may have been criminally misguided, but he was
just as adept as George Bush is at defining his foolish and
ultimately futile military adventures as a supremely Noble Cause.
Soldiers do not need to win wars in
order to serve with honor. Robert E. Lee earned great honor as a
soldier—-and the respect of those whom he fought against—-not
because his ‘country’ (Virginia) was fighting for a truly noble and
rational cause, but because of his performance as a soldier on the
battlefield. Lee ultimately fought all of his battles in vain, but
that fact did not strip him of the honor he deserved.
Cindy is no enemy of those who serve
their nation with noble intentions; she is in fact their friend.
When Cindy asks the President what the Noble Cause was that her son
died for, she is not dishonoring any soldier; she is simply trying
to help save them from continued victimization by their inept
Commander-in-Chief. Our soldiers cannot help the fact that they have
been misused and misled by their President, a man who has done more
to ruin America’s reputation in the world in recent years than any
other.
If our soldiers come to realize that
they have been sent into battle by an incompetent fool, then they
will lose no honor upon discovering that truth. Instead of losing
honor, they gain the sympathy of the American people. That
means that they will gain in stature when all of the truth
comes out. They are our heroes, but they are also victims who need
our help and support. They need our help to protect them from George
Bush.
In speaking the truth, we are helping to
restore some of the honor that George Bush took from them
when he ruined America’s reputation around the world with his
unwise, politically-motivated war.
The sign I’m going to be waving on
Saturday is going to say:
SUPPORT OUR TROOPS
SAVE THEM FROM THEIR INCOMPETENT LEADER
More trenchant
political analysis by James Kroeger:
Hillary, Bill, & the DLC
Reclaim the Moral High Ground
Democrat Image Makeover
When
the
Republicans steal an election
Our Soldiers Are Victims
Are You Proud To Be An American?
Economic Analysis...
Unemployment: Our Greatest Enemy
Trade Policy
and Jobs
Universal
Health Care
Government
Bureaucratic Waste vs. Private Sector Efficiency
The Relationship Between Savings &
Investment
Do Tax Cuts Stimulate The Economy?
