Reply #18: broken hearts and broken lives [View All]

[Malva Zebrina]

the country is broken and the system is broken.

I cannot imagine the pain of a mother who loses her baby to the whims of Bush.

But as far as villification of the troops, that "support the troops" slogan has got to be erased from the memes of people opposed to the war. We know that few are blaming the soldiers--that "support the troops" thing is a fallacy--a false dilemma and it's tacit meaning has been changed by those who would use language spuriously to get their way to smear the anti-war people who they really fear. Pay no attention to the "support the troops" false dilemma--

The reality is: I know of few people who would recommend spitting on the soldiers and I have seen little evidence here on DU of the same. If there is one or two posts, then "gotcha" or diverting, sneering anger to them instead of to the real perpetrator, Bush, is non productive at this point. It has not reached gigantic proportions as in the Vietnam era.

Someone started a thread today that referred to an article written by Barry Grey on the World Socialist Web. The piece dealt with Thomas Freidman's recent column in which he makes pitiful, weak excuses for Bush's lies. One paragraph in that very fine essay, stood out for me re the troops. I wondered how Grey would get around the "support the troops" false dilemma. His one word stood out and served the purpose of bridgeing that mind gap that I stumble on when cricizing the invasion and the Bush wars--that word was "dragooned".

That is exactly what I feel has happened to our youth and our children, actually, who are now serving in the Iraq quagmire. That is how I think of our soldiers. Here is the entire paragraph:

"The Iraqi people have the right to resist the American occupation of their country in any way they choose. The responsibility for the deaths of innocent civilians—as well as for American youth dragooned into this vile imperialist project—rests with those who conspired to launch an illegal war of aggression and promoted the most cynical lies to justify it."