Reply #18: Just sent this email to Shapiro [View All]

[_ed_]

Mr. Shapiro,

I just finished reading your recent article concerning "chickenhawks." I'm an Iraq War Veteran and a West Point Graduate. I left the Army with the rank of Captain, spent a year of ground combat in the Sunni Triangle, and was awarded the Bronze Star.

Your article is logically fallacious and is simply another attempt by a republican to justify his role as cheerleader for a war he refuses to fight. The fact that you are a young man of military age only makes it more disgusting.

You claim, "According to the American left, only pacifists, military members who have served in combat and direct relatives of those slain in combat or in acts of terrorism. The rest of us -- about 80 percent of voters -- must simply sit by silently. Our opinions do not matter. You want disenfranchisement? Talk to the political left, which seeks to exclude the vast majority of the American populace from the national debate about foreign policy."

That's simply wrong. Disenfranchisement refers specifically to withdrawing one's "franchise." Are you prohibited from voting or expressing your beliefs? Obviously not, since you are allowed to write nonsense such as this. No one is denying you the right to convey your right-wing diatribes. No one on "the left" has used the mechanism of law or government to deny you rights. Your victim-syndrome argument is just silly.

You go on to explain how the "left" uses ad hominem attacks, and calling those who clamor for war, but are unwilling to fight, "chickenhawks." You then say that this argument is "dishonest" because "the principle of republicanism is based on freedom of choice about behavior (as long as that behavior is legal) as well as freedom of speech about political issues."

You're exactly right. You have the freedom of choice to decide whether or not you will defend your nation in time of war. You have chosen not to, and I am equally free to judge your choice. You have chosen to sit idly by and watch better men defend your nation, even as you sit behind the comfort of your computer screen and clamor for a war you are too good to fight and die for. There's a word for people who rely on others to die for things they believe in - that word is coward. Substitute "chickenhawk" if that fits.

You go on to link this to some sort of Constitutional issue and then call people who question you "irrational." This is not an irrational argument. This is not some sort of obtuse policy issue, such as Social Security. War is something that should affect the citizens of a nation equally. Why should a few bear such a great burden? In our previous wars, sacrifice was borne by the nation as a whole. Take World War Two as the prime example of this. Imagine yourself writing your partisan article at the height of our war against fascism! What devices would you employ to justify not fighting in that war?

You finished your justification for cowardice by claiming that the soldiers fight and die for the "right of civilian hawks to speak up in favor of the highest level of moral and material support for their heroism." This final statement shows your true colors. "Supporting the Troops" goes far beyond slapping a magnet on your car or writing for a far right wing website. Moral and material support? You've got to be kidding me. My unit rolled into Iraq with no body armor, and most of our vehicles armed with nothing more than canvas. There was a point where we had to ration water! Veterans benefits are cut by your party all the time. Republicans smear real war heroes like John Kerry and Max Cleland. Members of your party even had the audacity to wear Purple Heart band-aids at your National Convention, mocking every soldier wounded on the fields of battle. Partisan hack Rush Limbaugh denounced a recent Iraq Vet running for Congress as a “staff puke.” Support? Hardly.

You say, “Representative democracy necessarily means that millions of us vote on issues with which we have had little practical experience. The "chickenhawk" argument -- which states that if you haven't served in the military, you can't have an opinion on foreign policy -- explicitly rejects basic principles of representative democracy.” Again, you’re playing logic games. You quickly change the argument from “voting” to “opinions,” another dishonest ploy. As I said above, no one denies your right to vote on foreign policy issues, or even hold an opinion. However, I have every right to denounce your opinions as invalid, because you have no idea what you’re talking about. Do you really think you know what war is like? Have you ever had blood on your effete hands? No? Then don’t pretend to know what war is like, and don’t pretend you are some sort of victim of the “left.”

In the first line of your article, you ask, “Who is qualified to speak on matters of national security?” Qualified… that’s a loaded word. It means “having the appropriate qualifications.” Mr. Shapiro, you are not “qualified” to speak about war. Perhaps if our elected officials were “qualified,” then nearly 1900 of my brothers and sisters in arms wouldn’t have been sacrificed in a war we didn’t need to fight.