So they can honor the dead on Memorial Day as they see fit, and I can honor them by understanding that it’s the moral obligation of people not to permit the political class to continue to send more young people to die in a war that was waged on the thinnest of pretexts.

BTW, I still believe in Santa Claus. I can discriminate between a harmful myth and an empowering one.

Now, with regard to all this phony fake-offended whining (eric, ray, oren, “lurker,” etc., etc., ad nauseam): Kieran Healy is not an American.

Haven’t looked into the supposed chemical weapons delivery technology (‘less you talkin’ ‘bout those weedwacker UAV’s agin?) But as for the “illegal missile technology”, I seem to remember the beef being that, WITHOUT warheads, certain of these missiles exceeded the allowed range for missiles WITH warheads. (I’m no rocket scientist, but I do know that rockets go much further without payloads.)

Well, that was still too rich for some people’s blood, so Iraq began a monitored program of destroying those missiles. As I remember it. Correct me if I’m wrong. I guess it was some kind of perverse, evil, deceptive attempt to be appear to be acting in good faith—which only proo-oo-ooves that they really had WMD somewhere.

No, he “inquired” (see the article) about a program offering flight time in Vietnam (according to some who served with him when he happened to be around in the Air National Guard.) He didn’t qualify, and there’s no evidence that he then set about trying to qualify. Talk about your seriousness of purpose.

“Perhaps if he’d left the National Guard and joined the infantry he would then have been qualified by your critiria to stand for the office of Commander in Chief.”

That’s not a criterion of mine for being President. But if I have a criterion for having seriously tried to go fight in a war, it would be … having seriously tried to go fight in a war. Sounds like Dubya didn’t. An idle inquiry doesn’t cut it.

Better call the White House immediately, James. Apparently you have access to some convincing evidence that several rounds of weapons inspectors missed—and you’re holding out on them! That’s damn near treasonous. Why do you hate America and want it to fail?

Oh, was it you keeping him in power all that time? You sound a bit like a megalomaniac, James.

He didn’t have weapons of mass destruction. Except for the ones he had (Chemical, Biological). He didn’t have illegal weapons programs. Except for the ones he had (missile technology, chemical weapon delivery technology). Exactly how many people is a leader required to murder before war becomes justified? Then of coarse UN approval is mandatory for any country to invade another country. Except for when it doesn’t matter (Bosnia, Ivory Coast, Hati, etc).

Am I the only one missing some obvious lack of consistency in the arguments for keeping Saddam in power?

http://www.amconmag.com/2005_05_23/article1.html

Bacevich is a self-proclaimed conservative (and had a long career in the military before getting his PhD at Princeton and becoming a professor at Boston University) but his arguments have great appeal I think to liberals as well as conservatives.

Bush volunteered to serve in Vietnam but was turned away.

National Review
Newsweek via MSNBC

Perhaps if he’d left the National Guard and joined the infantry he would then have been qualified by your critiria to stand for the office of Commander in Chief. Should we have an amendment to add “military combat veteran” to the requirements to hold that office?

Mr. Healy, Please accept my apologies for polluting this thread further.

There’s a difference between a statement being:

(a) accurate;
(b) appropriate; and
(c) productive.

I agree that Kieran’s was accurate. My quarrel is mostly with the terms in which he expressed it. Even then, it’s not really a personal quarrel, in the sense that I myself find the statement inappropriate, but more just that it should have been obvious that a lot of people would.

Now, obviously the fact that some people find something inappropriate isn’t much of a reason not to say it if there is a greater good to be served. But in this case, the exact opposite seems true: you’re unlikely to bring people around to your point of view by offending them.

NB: None of this is to say that Kieran is somehow a ‘bad person’ for making the comment. We all say thinks that offend people without doing much good coming of it. It’s simply to say that perhaps it could have been done a little better.

“The sensitivity on the topic reflects the fact that is does indeed slighlty diminish the value of the sacrifice of the dead if the validity of the cause they died for is questioned …”

Yes, but Memorial Day isn’t about the value of the sacrifice. It’s about those who made the sacrifice.

War is the continuation of diplomacy by violent means. And diplomacy is the art of manipulative messages in international affairs. Acts of war are actions that speak louder than words. But they are still messages, and political messages at that. Those who direct these international political messages are seldom making the actual sacrifices. Especially these days. Time was, the political class sent their kids off to war (when those kids didn’t join up entirely of their own volition.) We probably got JFK only because Joe Jr went down with his plane. Participation in risking the ultimate sacrifice was considered a source of legitimation for the privilege of potential access to the authority to send lethal messages to other countries (lethal to our own soldiers as well as the soldiers of others). There’s something to be said for that. Whatever happened to it, anyway?

Someone should put it to George Bush: would he avoid combat service if he were in his twenties again, and continuing in Iraq meant a draft? Of course he’d say he’d sign up in heartbeat, but I’d like to be reading his face on the TV monitor. Is he urging his daughters to join up, now? Somehow I don’t think so. Sorry to drag out the old “Chicken Hawk” chestnut, but if it’s all about going abroad to fight for other people’s freedom, wasn’t that what Vietnam was supposedly about, “making the world safe for democracy”? And yet, he didn’t go. So who is he to sit in relative safety and use the letters of the dead from a war of his choice as a propaganda shield for his choice of international political messages on Memorial Day? Talk about your defensive position …. and talk about politicizing Memorial Day! Did he bother with more than glancing mention of the dead from any other war of ours (most of which have been considerably more lethal)? I’d go read his speech, but I’m too disgusted at the moment.

What a bunch of emotionally manipulative hooey. Thank you, mona, for coming in and demonstrating that what all this bitching and moaning is really all about is saying ‘this should be a day on which nobody challenges my biases.’ If Memorial Day is really just a time for everybody who doesn’t support the war to shut up, then it is about politics rather than about soldiers’ lives. You can’t have it both ways.

I am open to the idea that challenging the concept of the war might reopen old wounds among military families who have gotten over their losses by telling themselves that their son died saving the world. But I certainly don’t think it’s my responsibility to tiptoe around these delusions of grandeur. On Memorial Day we honor all soldiers for their bravery and sacrifice—not for their individual achievements or wisdom of their civilian leadership.

Shame on the jingoists who have hijacked this thread to tell everyone that the honor of soldiers depends on the integrity of their leaders.