Not everyone who serves deserves honor and respect
Posted on 07/23/2006 6:38:41 PM PDT by West Coast Conservative
``IT'S TOUCHING that you're so concerned about the military in Iraq," a reader in Wyoming e-mails in response to one of my columns on the war. ``But I have a suspicion you're a phony. So tell me, what's your combat record? Ever serve?"
You hear a fair amount of that from the antiwar crowd if, like me, you support a war but have never seen combat yourself. That makes you a ``chicken hawk" -- one of those, as Senator Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey, defending John Kerry from his critics, put it during the 2004 presidential campaign, who ``shriek like a hawk, but have the backbone of a chicken." Kerry himself often played that card. ``I'd like to know what it is Republicans who didn't serve in Vietnam have against those of us who did," he would sniff, casting himself as the victim of unmanly hypocrites who never wore the uniform, yet had the gall to criticize him, a decorated veteran, for his stance on the war.
``Chicken hawk" isn't an argument. It is a slur -- a dishonest and incoherent slur. It is dishonest because those who invoke it don't really mean what they imply -- that only those with combat experience have the moral authority or the necessary understanding to advocate military force. After all, US foreign policy would be more hawkish, not less, if decisions about war and peace were left up to members of the armed forces. Soldiers tend to be politically conservative, hard-nosed about national security, and confident that American arms make the world safer and freer. On the question of Iraq -- stay-the-course or bring-the-troops-home? -- I would be willing to trust their judgment. Would Cindy Sheehan and Howard Dean?
(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...
I have no doubt that FDR's stint as Secretary of the Navy durng WWI in the Wilson Administration had to help him later in his life. However, the leftist definition is such that FDR would be considered a chickenhawk.
BTW, FDR was initially undersecretary of the Navy under Wilson, and he supposedly did everything he could to grease the skids for his boss at the Navy Department.
I'm sorry Marius3188. #21 was directed at you.
Ya didn't read the article did ya?
2 slang : a man who pursues boys or young men for sexual purposes
http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a37f3c6f228ca.htm
Actually Lincoln did serve in the Black Hawk War.
He was a totally ineffective militia captain. He claimed he spent most of the war getting his company lost. Also after his militia term was up he promptly volunteered to serve as a private but the war ended before the ink was dry.
Did I miss the part where Jeff Jacoby explains how with his nation at war he is too important or to valuable at home to serve?
Actually, Lincoln served in the militia durning the Blackhawk War.......
No one that never served deserves honor or respect for placing their personal safety at risk for their country.
Nope, what you missed was showing up with a coherent arguement for your points. The use of "chickenhawk" is just a distraction from any real discussion on Iraq.
Chickenhawk has long been the name for homosexuals who like young meat.
Odd that the left would try to recast this term.
Oh wait, commies lie. Never mind.
To hear the left spin it, you served to protect this nation and its constitution so that seditious anarchists could burn flags, NOT so conservatives could support the military actions and foreign policies of this administration.
"Strangely, those in the military are almost unanimous in their opinion that we're doing the right thing in Iraq and Afghanistan, "
Sources? I'd like to read about this.
Same for Thomas Jefferson, who more than doubled the U.S with the Louisiana Purchase.
Kerry was a memeber of a group of anti-war vets who had plans to kill US Senators. The term chicke hawk is slang for older men who prey on young boys.
sKerry was a chickdove.
should have been chickendove. It's getting late.
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