Who Really Supports the Troops?
by Jeff Siegel
One of my favorite politically charged but absolutely meaningless phrases, the kind that politicians, commentators of a certain stripe, and FOX News love to throw around, is “support our troops.” As in, if Congress does something untoward to military funding, or if the public turns against the Iraq War, we aren’t supporting our troops. An excellent example comes from Rep. David Dreier, (R-CA): “We cannot support our troops without supporting their mission. The resolution before us, unfortunately, undermines the ability of our troops to complete their mission.”
This is the sort of curious logic (we show our support by getting them killed) that is so much in vogue inside the Beltway -- and, sadly, among members of both parties. It pains me to write this, but even Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI), who fights every good fight imaginable, has succumbed to the phrase. On his website, visitors can click through to “Find out what you can do to support military personnel and their families.” And this is from a guy who has voted against the war from the beginning.
Obviously, using the phrase “supporting our troops” has nothing to do with actually supporting our troops. (Mike Luckovich of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution came to a similar conclusion and expressed it here.) It has its roots in the Vietnam War, when returning GIs were accused of being baby killers, spit on, and depicted as crazed loners on killing sprees in various movies (see Rolling Thunder and Black Sunday). So, when we went to Iraq the first time, the idea that we should be nicer to the troops caught on. But the first Iraq War ended so quickly and so successfully, we didn’t have to worry about what the phrase really meant.
What it really means is nothing: it is merely a way to give its adherents a chance to act patriotically without actually doing anything. For instance consider the disgusting news over the last couple of weeks that conditions for Iraq War patients at the flagship Walter Reed Army Medical Center are horrific. “The wounded were housed among mice, mold, rot and cockroaches,” The Washington Post reported, while breaking the story. But it’s not necessarily news, as anyone who has ever been to a Veterans Affairs (VA) hospital can attest. I did some interviews at a VA hospital in 1978 in Marion, Ill., and it was such an awful experience that I’m still ashamed of what I saw.
And what I saw hasn’t changed. The Department of Veterans Affairs gets its budget messed with so often that hardly anyone notices anymore. Last fall, when the Republican-controlled Congress was putting together the VA budget, the House approved $28.4 billion, the Senate approved $30.9 billion, and the White House requested $30.7 billion. Spending the previous year had been $31.4 billion, which meant everybody wanted to cut the VA’s budget in the middle of a war.
That’s real support, isn’t it?
(Political graphic courtesy of Xark! and used with permission. As noted, Xark! is one of the blogs we heartily endorse.)
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2 comments:
Understanding how sincere our political will is to support the military objectives of our leaders could be clarified with certainty if a mandatory draft of all able bodied 18 year old Americans were put into place.
Today we have good kids who are in our military but it makes me feel sad that the kids dying are very bright kids who come from middle class to poor families and cannot afford to go to University. Many come from families who have no voice in the political process.
It is easy for our leaders to wave the flag and manipulate the public with cheerleading when those with money and influence don't have their own offspring fighting and dying.
I believe there are only two members of the senate or congress with children in the war.
There are many people who believe the current strategy is a failed one but the sense of urgency to solve this is nowhere near as urgent as it would be if we were all involved in the sacrifices our nation must sometimes make.
On the point of strategies, if you want to be exposed to another thought process in how we might address some of the worlds problems try reading the late Italian author Tiziano Terzani's "Letters against the war".
Our anonymous commentator may have put their finger on something when they discuss political will. We do not have the political will for a real full-scale war. Our politicians have the will for us to fight smaller low-intensity conflicts and the public will put up with those until a certain juncture when too many lives have been lost and too much has been spent.
This is just wrong.
If we are in a war, we should support those who are fighting it on our behalf. I don’t mean the politicians who lied to get us there. I do mean the troops.
And it goes beyond the problems of the VA and what was exposed at Walter Reed.
How is it that our troops do not have adequate armor for their vehicles and it has taken years to respond to that issue?
How is it our troops do not have adequate body armor?
Why is it our leaders launched a reorganization of our armed forces amidst two wars? Who really needed us to do this? Could that not have waited until we successfully met all objectives in these conflicts? (Of course, that calls for having clear objectives.) Why is it we have tried to fight these conflicts on the cheap? Why haven’t we seen a deeper investigation into the misappropriations and corruption attached to the wars?
History shows us that the U.S. military managed to upgrade its equipment for soldiers in significant ways during World War II, a conflict in which the nation was fully committed. (And one that was actually shorter than the Iraq War.) Why haven’t we heard from the so-called “greatest generation” about our current performance? Where is the outrage among the older generations about how we have mismanaged the spending and support on this war and left our troops in a confused muddle in Baghdad?
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