There is one defining characteristic that separates antiwar activists from prowar activists: Antiwars are more likely to walk their talk. Many of them are military veterans and/or activists who don’t hesitate to plunge into war zones. Prowars, on the other hand, are often content to sit back at home and let others (usually lower-income kids) do their dirty work for them. I offer here a beginning list in support of my thesis.
Antiwar Hall of Fame:
Gen. Anthony Zinni. Tommy Franks’s predecessor at U.S. Central Command, a Vietnam veteran, and one of the most decorated soldiers alive. Accurately predicted what would happen in Iraq after our splendid little war.
David Hackworth. Another Vietnam veteran, Hackworth regularly exposes the Pentagon’s shameful treatment of its own soldiers.
Eric Margolis. A U.S. veteran and antiwar conservative, Margolis works as a military analyst for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. He has extensive covert ops experience, which gives him unique insight into our current predicament. (While apparently undercover, he was once on a commercial plane hijacked by terrorists.) Many of his writings focus on the grotesquely bloated U.S. military.
Scott Ritter. Yet another military veteran vindicated by postwar events in Iraq. The former U.N. weapons inspector has weathered relentless character assassinations from the stay-at-homes.
Edward Said. The late, great Palestinian scholar traveled extensively throughout the Middle East. He regularly visited the occupied territories, even while Arafat condemned him and banned his books. Could have stayed at home in his comfortable upper class apartment, like many of his prowar opponents do.
Noam Chomsky. The famed linguist and political activist recently jetted off to Turkey to defend a supporter arrested for circulating his books. Spoke at least once in Nicaragua during the U.S. assault on that country. As an added bonus, Chomsky is routinely subject to hysterical attacks by prowars who don’t have the slightest understanding of his political theories. An immensely entertaining spectacle.
Article comments
1 - David Flanagan
You forgot as part of your "Pro-War Hall of Shame" the vast majority of Americans now serving in Iraq. I have a LOT of friends in the military, including several who served during the Gulf War and a few who have or will be serving over there to secure peace now that Saddam is gone forever. They all agree that it was about time. The only complaint they had was that they weren't allowed to finish the job last time.
And by the way, Jesus was not an opponent of Roman imperialism. Wasn't it Jesus who said, "render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's; and to God the things that are God's." Matthew 22:21
Thanks.
David Flanagan
Viewpointjournal.com
2 - mike
By "prowars," I meant activists in the U.S. leading the charge, not the reservists and kids essentially kidnapped by the military to serve its vile ends. It is just a fact that "sitting around on your buttness while others do the fighting" is a distinguishing characteristic of the prowar herd. Look around on this blog.
3 - Brian Flemming
Chickenhawks? On Blogcritics?
Naah...
4 - Jason
An incredibly weak 'thesis' that can be rubbished in its entirity all too effortlessly. Not alone were the names 'off the top of your head', the whole article seems like it was.
One of the fundamentals of a democracy is civilian control of the military. You are directly implying that those who have never seen combat themselves or have not visited war zones are simply not in a position to advocate miliary action. In turn this implies that those who never served in the military - including of course those who were excluded only the grounds of physical handicap for example - are unentitled to hold the office of, say, the presidency of the US, since it necessarily involves the power to direct the military. It also implies that those too poor or old or unwell to spend two weeks in the Baghdad Hilton drumming away on their laptops are equally unqualified to have an opinion. This is plainly undemocratic bullshit.
Of course, in the final analysis, if you knew anything about logic, you'd know that the strength or weakness of an argument is entirely unrelated to whether or not its advocate fought in war, or has red hair, or drinks Coke or Pepsi or anything else. Infantile tosh.
5 - mike
The thesis, beautiful boy, is not that civilians shouldn't run the military; the thesis is that people who advocate war should be willing to put their money where their mouths are.
The most outspoken leaders of the anitwar movement, like Scott Ritter, often don't hesitate to go to places like Iraq to protest or report back. Either that or they have a wealth of military experience to back up their views. Or both.
You look around this board and around this country: Eric Olsen, David Brooks, Andrew Sullivan, ad puke, wouldn't go to Iraq unescorted by a huge army. They're content to sit at home issuing gusts of rhetorical hot air. And so, apparently, are you.
I think that's very relevant to the arguement, especially since prowars are contantly talking about the purifying effects of war. Physician, purify thyself.
6 - Joe
But then why wouldn't the converse be true as well? You aren't rushing out and providing some kind of counterbalance to the brutality of war, you're just stomping your foot and whining about how unjust it all is. Very courageous.
7 - mike
I knew someone was going to take the bait on that. In fact, I am arranging to go to Israel later this year, to travel among the bus stops where suicide bombers often strike, and to venture into the occupied terrorities, where Israelis and Palestinians shoot each other for sport. I'll send you a postcard.
8 - Joe
That's very good for you, I'm sure it improves the chances for peace in the area immensely.
9 - Jason
I repeat: your thesis directly implies that people who advocate war should not be running the miltary. If the minimum qualifying standard for becoming entitled to advocate war is that you 'put your money where your mouth is', it is logically inescapable that this - among other things - is what you are implying. I note that you don't even bother to try to explain your way around this manifest fact, you instead try to assert your way through it. Nothing at all either about the fact that, for example, disabled people who cannot serve even if they want to, must by your rule shut their mouths forever on the subject, while shit-in-the-street-for-peace loonies (the vast majority of whom have gone nowhere near Iraq either, pal) are allowed to bark away to their hearts content.
I find this to be some crack coming from a crowd who whinge and moan about the Patriot Act while opposing everything that would materially improve the infinitely more tyrannical rule that was Saddam Husseins. Or who claim that their hearts bleed for the civilians accidentally killed in Afghanistan and Iraq, but who remain silent on the far higher numbers killed in far more reckless cicumstances in (to mention just a few locations) the Congo, Grozny, or Kabul in the mid-nineties. Or who screamed about UN approval for the invasion of Iraq while ignoring Clinton's Kosovo campaign. Or who think US deaths in Iraq are a reason to "Pull out now!!" but haven't suggested anytime lately that the far higher figure for Russian deaths in Chechnya should be a reason for them to go home. Or who allege (inaccurately of course) that the vast majority of Iraqi's want the US out, but ignore figures from Lebanon that demand withdrawal of Syrian troops who've been there for years with *no* suggestion of imminet elections.
Hey, if I have to have been in the army at some stage in order to support military action, why not ask anti-war types to display a 'veretan whinger's card' before they can open their mouth, i.e. proof that they gave a shit what happened anywhere to anyone the day before yesterday?
Basically all you are saying is: I'm holier than thou. Well, come again some time, cos you're not. We're all entitled to our point of view regardless of where we've been or who we are.
10 - Eric Olsen
Jason, you have well summed up the falacy at the heart of the entire "chicken hawk" canard - the right policy is the right policy and the background of the advocates of said policy has less than zero to do with the merits of that policy.
11 - George Carty
Eric Margolis was one of the greatest cheerleaders for the US war in Kosovo, comparing Milosevic to Hitler! I think he is really more pro-Muslim than anti-war.
When I see the denizens of Free Republic call him a 'leftist' or even a 'Marxist' (despite his support for Reagan, Thatcher and even Pinochet), I wonder how much today's US right is dominated by a single issue - hatred of Islam.
12 - Bob A. Booey
I agree that people shouldn't be criticized ad hominem for their public policy advocacy, but EVERYONE (regardless of background) needs to take war and the loss of life more seriously before advocating such public policies. Especially on Internet commentary like on this site, too much of it is childish, ill-informed, overly abstract video-game and action film rhetoric that has no basis in public policy or foreign affairs.
I think we'd all do well to watch "Dr. Strangelove" one more time, even those who are incapable of grasping irony.
That is all.
13 - Bob A. Booey
Edward Said was one of the most brilliant scholars of our time.
David Brooks is very, very bright and very intellectually rigorous in his own way. I don't agree with most of his politics, but he's fair in criticizing the administration when he deserves it and you can't label him a partisan shill. He and Andrew Sullivan are both right-wing intellectuals whom I respect and read regularly.
The squirrel joke about Senator Al Barger is funny, but think big, billowing hippie mumu and French beret more than GI Joe get-up. Al doesn't pretend to be a tough guy redneck other than on the Internet -- he's just slightly more self-aware than that.
That is all.
14 - Bob A. Booey
Sullivan, by the way, HATED Passion of the Christ and gave one of the most astute critiques of the film. He might have been as sharp as anyone other than Hitchens in dissecting the film:
Sullivan's scathing critique of Mel Gibson
"I repeat that there is something deeply disturbed about this film. Its extreme and un-Biblical fascination with human torture reflects, to my mind, not devotion to the message of the Cross but a kind of psycho-sexual obsession with extreme violence that Gibson has indulged in many of his other movies and is now trying to insinuate into Christianity itself. [...] But the extremity is Gibson's obvious point. I can understand why traditionalist Catholics might be grateful that there is some Hollywood representation of their faith. But they shouldn't let their gratitude blind them to the psychotic vision of this disturbed director - and the deeper, creepier, heterodox theology that he is trying to espouse."
"PURE PORNOGRAPHY: At the same time, the movie was to me deeply disturbing. In a word, it is pornography. By pornography, I mean the reduction of all human thought and feeling and personhood to mere flesh. The center-piece of the movie is an absolutely disgusting and despicable piece of sadism that has no real basis in any of the Gospels. It shows a man being flayed alive - slowly, methodically and with increasing savagery. We first of all witness the use of sticks, then whips, then multiple whips with barbed glass or metal. We see flesh being torn out of a man's body. Just so that we can appreciate the pain, we see the whip first tear chunks out of a wooden table. Then we see pieces of human skin flying through the air. We see Jesus come back for more. We see blood spattering on the torturers' faces. We see muscled thugs exhausted from shredding every inch of this man's body. And then they turn him over and do it all again. It goes on for ever. And then we see his mother wiping up masses and masses of blood. It is an absolutely unforgivable, vile, disgusting scene. No human being could sruvive it. Yet for Gibson, it is the h'ors d'oeuvre for his porn movie. The whole movie is some kind of sick combination of the theology of Opus Dei and the film-making of Quentin Tarantino. There is nothing in the Gospels that indicates this level of extreme, endless savagery and there is no theological reason for it. It doesn't even evoke emotion in the audience. It is designed to prompt the crudest human pity and emotional blackmail - which it obviously does. But then it seems to me designed to evoke a sick kind of fascination. Of over two hours, about half the movie is simple wordless sadism on a level and with a relentlessness that I have never witnessed in a movie before. [...] Toward the end, unsatisfied with showing a man flayed alive, nailed gruesomely to a cross, one eye shut from being smashed in, blood covering his entire body, Gibson has a large crow perch on the neighboring cross and peck another man's eyes out. Why? Because the porn needed yet another money shot."
"I wouldn't say that this movie is motivated by anti-Semitism. It's motivated by psychotic sadism. But Gibson does nothing to mitigate the dangerous anti-Semitic elements of the story and goes some way toward exaggerating and highlighting them. To my mind, that is categorically unforgivable. Anti-Semitism is the original sin of Christianity. Far from expiating it, this movie clearly enjoys taunting those Catholics as well as Jews who are determined to confront that legacy. In that sense alone, it is a deeply immoral work of art."
Sullivan can really be brilliant when he's not taking difficult positions for the sake of being difficult.
That is all.