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Ralph Peters is a regular columnist with the New
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PETERS |
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Antiwar Hypocrites
by Ralph
Peters [author,
novelist] 8/1/08
Am I the only one who's noticed the silence? Mere months ago, left-wing bloggers and demonstrators were wailing Support our troops, bring them home! seven days a week.
Now their presidential candidate has announced that he won't bring all those troops home, but will simply transfer combat forces from Iraq to Afghanistan - expanding that war. (He's discussed possibly invading Pakistan, too.)
And the left's quiet as a graveyard at midnight.
Where are the outraged protests from MoveOn or the DailyKos? I thought the extreme left felt sorry for our service members in harm's way and wanted to reunite them with their families.
What happened?
Contributor
Ralph Peters - Contributor
Ralph
Peters is a retired Army officer and the author of 19 books,
as well as of hundreds of essays and articles, written both
under his own name and as Owen Parry. He is a frequent columnist
for the New York Post and other publications. [go to Peters Index] |
We all know exactly what happened. The left has nothing against foreign wars (as long as they don't have to fight in person). They just want to pick our wars themselves.
The problem with Iraq wasn't that America toppled Saddam Hussein, but that George W. Bush did it. I've been saying it for years: Had Bill Clinton done the job, the left would've celebrated him as the greatest liberator since Abraham Lincoln.
While we're on the subject of Bush-Cheney, am I the only one who's noticed that Sen. Barack Obama's stolen the key pages from their playbook? He refuses to admit any serious mistakes, skips over uncomfortable facts and won't let the media get danger-close.
And it's interesting that, while Obama remains committed to abandoning Iraq for partisan political reasons, he otherwise sounds more aggressive about using force than anyone since Bush's "Bring it on" days.
Those who know nothing of war - and who decline to serve - kind of like a nice little invasion of their own. Forget those pesky human and financial costs - as long as the left can have its own war, war's great!
"Support our troops, bring them home" just may go down as the second-most-cynical slogan in history, right behind Arbeit macht frei.
Now that the (truly base) Democratic base has decided our troops really aren't all that stressed, don't need a break and should move out sharply to fight Obama's wars (before the guy's even elected), I'm starting to feel like a peacenik.
Yes, we could use more combat forces in Afghanistan. And we do have to come to terms with what a senior officer in-country calls "our Pakistan ulcer." But I'm not quite ready to invade Pakistan without weighing the consequences and costs. (Can't we just send Ariana Huffington?)
Those who want war should do their part at some point in their lives - and that doesn't mean sitting in your basement blogging in your underwear at 3 a.m.
So here are three straightforward questions for all the march-in-step lefties who howled, "Support our troops, bring them home!" before their new messiah decided that war's not so bad, after all:
* Given that your candidate acknowledges the need for more combat troops in Afghanistan, will you enlist and do your part? Or do you expect other young Americans to continue to bleed in your place?
* If your man is elected president and orders ground troops into Pakistan - which could lead to a much wider conflict - will you enlist and do your part? We'll need a lot more troops to occupy those badlands.
* If the next president yanks our troops out of Iraq, all the progress disintegrates, Iran moves in and we have to re-invade to clean up the mess, will you enlist and do your part?
I know, I know: Educated people like you are too smart and too important to serve in uniform. The military's for dummies, for losers. Serious players stay home and blog and bitch over double espressos.
Inhabitants of the left-wing blogosphere, have you no shame? Was your pacifism nothing more than a hipster pose? Bush is on the way out - are your principles leaving with him? Have you stopped to wonder if BHO might not be your LBJ?
You told us that "War doesn't change anything," and "War is never the answer." Shouldn't you be lobbying your candidate to give peace a chance?
Shame, shame, shame. You've elevated hypocrisy to an art form.
How about a new slogan: "Support our troops: Enlist!" ExileStreet
Ralph Peters' latest book is Looking for Trouble
This
piece first appeared in the New York Post
copyright 2008 - NY Post
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