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Banned
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Originally Posted by host
....Owing to the sensitive nature of his "specialty", he asked us, when he received his deployment orders, not to mention where he is or what he does.
With that in mind, I carefully limited my questions to details of his well being and living conditions, I relayed news to him about other family members, reminded him that we were very proud of him and of his service, how much we miss him, and that we were praying for him.....
....I haven't felt as sincere as I would like to be when I've praised my stepson for his service. I know that he is wrong about what he thinks that he is fighting for. He buys into the same line of shit....hook, line, and sinker, that many of you here have posted your support for. He trusts Mr. Bush and his policy pronouncements, and the government.
I'm feeling sick to my stomach, and I'm wishing that my stepson didn't call, this weekend....that I didn't reflexively recite what are becoming empty platitudes to him.
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Thank you, Shakran, if not for posts like yours, I might be convinced that thinking it and saying it are somehow synonymous.
I didn't say it.... and he doesn't read this board....he made no effort to record or bookmark the TFP forum url on the one occasion when I asked him to read, over my shoulder, one of my posts here, displayed on the screen of my laptop.
I pray for my stepson, and I love him, and I'm concerned for his safety, and about his relationship with God, just as sincerely and without any reservation as I always have....it's just that I am not as proud and supportive of what he is doing, primarily because of his attitude about it, than I was the day that he graduated from training.
I wish that I <b>felt as sincere as I would like to be when I've praised my stepson for his service.</b>
I read some of the posts on this thread and the thoughts expressed in them convince me that the authors of those posts, have no idea of what it is like to be conflicted about the morality and the merits of the US military presence and actions on the "frontlines" in the GWOT. I'm convinced that our soldiers dying and killing is not making us safer or preserving our "freedom", they are not killing the people who attacked us on 9/11, or who aided the people who attacked us. Almost all of the people our soldiers kill are folks fighting to remove foreign troops from their own countries, just as anyone who reads this would want to do if circumstances were reversed.
The conclusions that I've reached, influence my sentiments and interfere with the reflexive, total commitment to my stepson and his foreign military service, that the stepfather part of me naturally would want to commit to and convey. I can't simply "switch on"
reflexive, total commitment to my stepson and his foreign military service, and recognition of that, made me feel "sick to my stomach"....
Quote:
http://www.darrenbarefoot.com/archiv...-without-suppo
rting-the-war.html
Can You Support the Troops Without Supporting the War?
Rob <a href="http://www.robcottingham.ca/20060929/supporting-our-troops/">recently quoted</a>
our Prime Minister:
“You cannot say you are for our military and then not stand behind the things they do,”
said Harper. “We don’t start fights, but we finish them and we won’t leave until they’re done.”
It’s extremely common for liberal politicians to spout some variation on “I don’t support this war, but I do support the troops.” That always struck me as wishy-washy, and <b>seemed to render these troops as unthinking automatons or poor saps who are just doing their job.</b> The latter, of course, is kind of true.
Prime Minster Harper’s comment seems directly levelled at those in the opposition who are floating this idea. I’ve gotta tell you, I kind of agree with him.
<b>What do we really mean when we say ‘I support the troops’? Something like “hey, good job over there, engaging in a conflict I totally disagree with. I’m really proud.”</b> That doesn’t make a lot of sense, does it? It’s a bit like being a Mets fan yet supporting the Yankees as well, because they come from the same city.
How can something be bad at the macro level but supportable at the micro level? It doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. Yes, our troops are over-taxed and under-equipped in Afghanistan...
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Quote:
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0407-08.htm
Support the Troops
Excerpt from Citizens of the Empire: The Struggle to Claim Our Humanity
by Robert Jensen
.....Here's a concrete example: The semester before the Iraq war I had in one of my classes a
student, let's call her Jane, who often stopped by my office to talk about material from the
course, especially concerning media and politics. We shared some views but differed on a
number of issues, and I enjoyed the exchanges. Jane also was an officer in the Army Reserve,
and she expected to be called up for the war. Late in the semester she stopped by to tell me
she would not be back the next term.
Though she was conflicted about the war, Jane had legal obligations to the Reserve, and she
intended to fulfill them. I understood the position she was in, and it was clear she did not
intend to make a political statement by refusing active duty, nor did she intend to ask for
conscientious objector status or alternative duty. <b>She also knew that I opposed the war on
moral, legal, and political grounds. So, there we sat. At that moment, if someone had told me
that I must support the troops -- or in this case, support the one very specific troop who was
in front of me -- what would that mean? Should I have told her that I supported her decision
to go fight in a war I believed to be immoral, illegal, and unwise? Should I have supported
Jane by denying my own conscience? What good would that do her or me, the country or the
world? Certainly I could, and did, tell her that I understood the difficult position she was
in. But if the critique of the coming war that I had been voicing for several months had been
sincere, what would it mean for me to say to her, "I support your decision"? It would be a
transparent lie. I couldn't support her decision, no matter how much I understood the reasons
she was making her choice.</b>
The implicit demand in the "support the troops" rhetoric was -- and likely will be in future
wars -- that even if I am against the war, once troops are in the field I should shift my
focus from opposition to the war to support for my fellow Americans who are doing the
fighting. But to support the troops is, for all practical purposes, to support the war. Asking
people who oppose a war to support the troops in that war is simply a way of asking people to
drop their opposition. If I had believed this war would be wrong before it began, and if none
of the conditions on which I based that assessment had changed, why should I change my view
simply because the war had started?
In a democratic society, the question should not be whether one supports the troops. The
relevant question is whether one supports the policy. The demand that war opponents must
"support the troops" is nothing more than a way of demanding that we drop our opposition to
the policy.
Attempts at rhetorical resistance
Many war opponents responded to the challenge by arguing that they were supporting the troops, first by trying to derail a war so that troops would not have to fight, and later by bringing the war to a close as quickly as possible. The sentiment behind that response is understandable, but I believe it is the wrong approach, in part because it implicitly accepts the legitimacy of the "support the troops" framework. But more importantly, it's a disingenuous answer because it doesn't take seriously the decisions made by the troops themselves. .....
....First, my argument assumes that most people in the U.S. military believe they are serving in a morally sound institution. Of course they have their complaints about that institution, but that typically does not translate into fundamental questioning of the role and mission of the armed forces. The increasing dissension among the troops and their families during the occupation of Iraq, for example, seems to be rooted for most not in a deep critique of U.S. foreign and military policy but in exasperation about a confusing situation and difficult conditions on the ground. No doubt there are members of the military who have come to the conclusion that a specific war -- or perhaps even the fundamental nature of the contemporary U.S. armed forces -- cannot be justified, but that is a minority, and likely a tiny minority.<b>So, if I am to be sincere in my position and <h3>also respect the troops' capacity to make their own decisions</h3>, I can't support them. I can only say that as a fellow citizen, I believe their choice to be wrong, and that while I support them in some general sense -- that is, I don't wish to see harm come to them -- I do not, and cannot, support them in the choice they have made.</b> I can point out that I realize the decision to pursue war was made by others far above them in the hierarchy. I can express solidarity with those in the military who joined out of economic necessity. But because I believe that the consequences of the war will be harmful to others, I am morally obligated to continue my opposition. I do that fully aware that an ongoing opposition movement in the United States will be taken by many in the military as a betrayal, especially as they risk their lives in combat. I could offer a stirring defense of dissent in democracy, but that is unlikely to be compelling to the troops, given their circumstances. Given that, it is particularly empty to tell troops who believe I am not supporting them that I really am but they just don't understand it.
If we are to use the words "support" and "oppose" with their common meanings, I did not support the troops in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. I opposed the troops. And I will continue to do so when I believe they are engaged in immoral, illegal, and unwise conflicts.
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Last edited by host; 10-29-2006 at 08:24 AM..
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