Letters to the Editor
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Bo re: chickenhawks
Trying to destroy the chickenhawk label as legitimate is a nice ploy, but no fucking dice.
Bo said:
Ergo 1: those who did not serve can never be in favor of any war.
Only follows for a strawman definition of "Chickenhawk." This one tries to assume people who advocate offensive wars are in the same category as people who do not advocate war unless they feel directly threatened. This is ridiculous.
Ergo 2: on matters of war, only those who have served are entitled to have the merits of their opinions addressed, as opposed to being subjected to junior high ad hominems.
Ditto.
Ergo 3: when two person who both have served differ on the merits of a matter of war, the person who served the longest automatically wins (this is called pulling rank, for those of you who haven't served).
Another strawman. Any honorable service is just that - honorable service. Does not follow. Your hidden assumptions mark you as a dishonorable debater, regardless of your military service.
The only traction you have is that "Chickenhawk" is too difficult to define, since it has been used (wrongly) by enough people.
So how about this - I'll make up a term. I'll call it "awofbulod." It stands for "asshole won't fight, but likes others' death."
The awofbulod is the person most people here are using ad hominems against. This person advocates war, but will not fight in that war even though not crippled, and often has contempt for those who are serving.
I will absolutely make this claim: the awofbulod has no moral, ethical, or logical grounds on which to advocate war, ever. Not even if his/her country is in the process of being invaded. As noted in the comment referring to the Merchant Marine, people rejected for the military due to 4-F status served in the MM, and with distinction. So the person who will not fight and is agitating for war is an awofbulod. They are scum, and are utterly contemptible. This person wants other people to suffer mental and physical trauma on his/her behalf, and actively tries to induce conditions that make the country go to war.
Just to be clear, I have no real issue with pacifists. I disagree with them, but I would never insist they fight. The awofbulod I would draft in a half a heartbeat and send into the thick of combat immediately, if I could. But I wouldn't put them into units of real soldiers. I wouldn't want their cowardice to get good soldiers killed. They'd be units of awofbulod. With luck, they wouldn't last a full hour. A fitting end to the worst of all possible hypocrites. The one who says people should die for a cause, but refuses to practice what s/he preaches.
There is your awofbulod. Or can we simply agree to go back and call them "chickenhawks"?
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thomas c @ Armenian Statement
Thomas, I'm not subscribed to WaPo, can't seem to hook to the article, but take your word for it, regarding Secs. of State. It's unfortunate that we can be so bold and courageous in classifying Darfur as genocide, but can't seem to come to grips with this event, even though it happened almost a century ago.
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Thanks, SusanMc
For the link to The Startle Reflex. Yep. That's how it goes. Panic attacks. I've only experienced one in my life. The clients I worked with at one point experienced them all the time. Having survived exactly one, I can see why cascading attacks would make one suicidal. I wish her well.
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Orbit boy and cheap rhetoric.
Words mean different things to different people, but to me, an essential portion of the chickenhawk equation is the gulf between the extreme enthusiasm for a war that is wrong, vs. the extreme lack of enthusiasm for ever wanting to fight in a war himself.
If you like bacon, how do you feel about killing pigs?
If you like clean water, how do you feel about working in a sewage treatment plant?
If you want peace in the Middle East, how do you feel about doing what the UN can't?The point is that some things in life that are worthwhile require ugly work. The conventional wisdom is that leaving quickly would lead to sectarian violence, civil war, regional war, and potentially the loss of all the oil we take for granted. How do you feel about another Great Depression?
Meanwhile back at the ranch, no one has to put their life at risk in order to voice an opinion. Call someone a "chickenhawk" all you like, but be prepared to be called a "traitor" willing to abandon the Iraqi people to real war, in return. Don't like it? Too bad. Free speech is not a one way street.
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@Sysprog
Yeah, what Glenn said!
It's the same thing as someone tying his self-esteem to the success or failures of his favorite sports team, isn't it? Only this way, you get to name the score, and there's always a moral victory, too.
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You forgot about ...
emaydon:
Lowry is a fully paid up member of the punditocracy. He speaks on their behalf. The idea that Iraq is "little understood" is a judgement he may pass on his own milieu. Anthony Zinni, Brent Scowcroft, Juan Cole, amongst many experts foresaw the problems of occupying Iraq.
You left out Dick "shooter" Cheney, who during his relatively brief "Sane Period" in 1992 explained in explicit detail and described with terrifying accuracy the present situation in Iraq (http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/192908_cheney29.html).
I'm sure psychiatrists have a name for this. No sane person could surely make such a fool of himself.
I don't know if they have a name for it, but a study by Justin Kruger and David Dunning of Cornell University published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology in 1999 (http://www.apa.org/journals/features/psp7761121.pdf) was entitled "Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One's Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments". I quote here the abstract:
People tend to hold overly favorable views of their abilities in many social and intellectual domains. The authors suggest that this overestimation occurs, in part, because people who are unskilled in these domains suffer a dual burden: Not only do these people reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the metacognitive ability to realize it. Across 4 studies, the authors found that participants scoring in the bottom quartile on tests of humor, grammar, and logic grossly overestimated their test performance and ability. Although their test scores put them in the 12th percentile, they estimated themselves to be in the 62nd. Several analyses linked this miscalibration to deficits in metacognitive skill, or the capacity to distinguish accuracy from error. Paradoxically, improving the skills of participants, and thus increasing their metacognitive competence, helped them recognize the limitations of their abilities.
This would seem to be a perfect description of many of Washington's leading pundits (as well as our very own shooter).
If it has a name, it would most likely be "Too stupid to realize how stupid they are."