One Utah

For far too long now, conservatives have desperately shielded themselves behind the facade of the soldiers’ morale, arguing that any criticism of the Iraq war damages the soldiers’ morale.  The big lie of “supporting the troops” is the belief that supporting the troops means never criticizing anything done by the military for any reason.  Stated another way, a full throated public debate about the war in Iraq would undermine the soldiers’ morale because it would question the validity of the invasion and occupation of that country. 

This model of thinking presumes that every war is winnable if only we believe hard enough.  By this thinking, criticizing the mission - in this case pointing out that Iraq is the wrong war, against the wrong enemy, for all the wrong reasons - destroys the soldiers’ morale and damages their ability to blow up shit and kill people - and thus demonstrate how powerful we are and thus “win” the war.  War becomes nothing more than a contest of will - weapons, strategy, logistics are irrelevant because it is our will to win that matters.

By arguing that criticism of the military will destroy morale, Iraq war cheerleaders are also assuming that American soldiers are blindly dedicated to whatever mission the President dreams up and that they are so very fragile and incapable of independent thought that simply hearing criticism will change their minds.  I may not have ever had any interest in a military career, but I’ve met enough military men and women to know that they are far from stupid.  The soldiers I’ve known are smart people, more than capable of taking one good look at the situation in which they find themselves and realizing it’s deeply messed up.  More damaging to the soldiers’ morale than criticism of the war is the realization that the President lied his lips off to talk America into the war.  No weapons of mass destruction, Saddam no behind 9/11, not being greeted by flowers, in fact being bitterly resented by the people of Iraq - seeing the ugly and unfortunate truth behind the President’s glorious and empty lies is far more damaging than any anti-war criticism from the home front.

It doesn’t take long for soldiers in the field to realize that they are fighting for a lost or pointless cause, or that they have inadequate supplies (for instance body armor).  A hungry army won’t fight long or successfully, no matter how strong their will or how good their morale.  Large, well-organized armies have a bad track record against insurgencies.  Failing to use actual counter-insurgency measures (see Iraq) is a recipe for failure - the wrong strategy does massive, irreparable damage.  Think of showing up to a gunfight with a knife, even if you have the biggest, best, sharpest knife in history, you’re using the wrong tools to fight the wrong kind of battles and you will lose faster and faster and faster as chaos engulfs your army and leaves you with fewer and fewer options.

The 101st Fighting Keyboardist, with their bland fantasies of war as a Rambo-esque adventure of heroism and flexing and poses their well-oiled muscles, can’t see our soldiers as individuals and instead believe in a fantasy of military life in which absolute conformity, unshakeable “will” and jingoism motivate soldiers, who will give their all if only they’re believed in strong enough by the folks at home.

In the end, the biggest lie of all is that we can only support the troops by blindly supporting their mission.  Informed by the mistaken belief that we would have won Vietnam if only all the dirty fucking hippies and spineless politicians hadn’t stabbed the troops in the back, this belief leads to situations in which facing the facts and honestly saying that there is no conceivable victory in Iraq becomes treason.  Good old-fashioned Americans smarts have to be rejected because believing means ignoring the facts and believing so hard that you make whatever you believe in come true.

And so, when Harry Reid pointed out that Iraq is not winnable, the wingnuts went wild.  His statement represented the most extreme aspostasy from their faith in America Triumphant.  Unable to tolerate the notion of a lost war, of not having the biggest meanest military in the world, they have attacked.  Screaming for blood, the Iraq War Cheerleaders have gone back to their bag of tricks and decided that Harry Reid isn’t a real patriot - and neither is anyone who agrees with him.

As Jeffrey Feldman points out, the assumption here is that criticism of a (Republican) President during a time of war is automatially a crime.  Unable to face the reality that the disaster in Iraq is of our own making, that we invaded for all the worng reasons, that we made war against the wrong enemy and no way out exists, the Iraq War Cheerleaders have only one choice lef t- believe harder and harder and conduct ever move vicious, ever more passionate jeremiads against those who don’t believe hard enough.

This entry was posted Thursday, April 26th, 2007 at 12:21 pm and is filed under George W. Bush, Iraq, National Politics, This Blog, Tribalism & Blind Obedience to Authority. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.