L.A. Times writer defends incendiary Iraq column ("Warriors and Wusses")

[sabra]

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N24212064.htm

L.A. Times writer defends incendiary Iraq column

<snip>

Joel Stein said he has been "bombarded" by hate mail over the incendiary article -- which was headlined "Warriors and Wusses" and held that U.S. soldiers in Iraq were "ignoring their morality" -- but does not regret writing it and stands by the premise.

"I don't support what they are doing, and I don't the see point of putting a big yellow magnet on your car if you don't," Stein told Reuters in an interview. "I don't think (soldiers) are necessarily bad people. I do plenty of things that are wrong too. But I don't agree with what they are doing so I don't see the logic of supporting it."

The article, which ran on the Times opinion page on Tuesday, was quickly linked on conservative sites across the Internet, where readers poured scorn on Stein, on the newspaper and on liberals in general.

"If I ever run into the a**hole, I'm going to knock his frickin' block off," one man wrote on the Little Green Footballs (www.littlegreenfootballs.com) Web site, one of nearly 500 people who had commented on the article by mid-afternoon.

[wtmusic]

1. Mr. Knock His Frickin' Block Off isn't brave enough to enlist, however nt

[saigon68]

7. He is what we call " A CHICKEN HAWK"

There are lots of them around.

They will send your kid off to bleed and die and their kid will go out, to get a college education, and join a corporation, because they have ("OTHER THINGS TO DO-- IE MAKE $$$$$")

[wordpix]

10. chicken hawk$ want tax break$ to get richer and NOT help soldiers

returning home without limbs or with mental problems. Nor do they want to help out families who have lost their loved ones and bread winners.

[agincourt]

2. Presidents of America's past,

would not approve of conquering Iraq's oil fields while setting up a psuedo-democracy. Guess the Walmart trolls get their rocks off on the US being an empire. This operation is against American principles. Desert Storm was fought to show the world that you stay within your borders. Bush erased that.

[joefree1]

3. Why do they hate the constitution?

And I would love to be there when the freeper tries to knock anyone's block off. He would first have to go through me.

[MakeItSo]

4. I have to say the columnist comes off as an elitist

A lot of the troops are working class and poor kids who didn't know what hit them. The college crowd made the mistake of dumping on the troops during Vietnam. I think they are the Dems best hope. We need to embrace them and let them know we DO care about them. In turn, there are troops over there who one day will be able to tell us what really happened over there. War veterans are an asset to a country because only they know the true horrors of war. Chickenhawk draft dodgers like Cheney and Bush treat it like a video game.

[anotherdrew]

11. old saying: hate the sin, love the sinner

need I say more?

[Kelvin Mace]

13. I think he comes off as a Bush apologist

But blaming the president is a little too easy. The truth is that people who pull triggers are ultimately responsible, whether they're following orders or not. An army of people making individual moral choices may be inefficient, but an army of people ignoring their morality is horrifying. An army of people ignoring their morality, by the way, is also Jack Abramoff's pet name for the House of Representatives.

After we've decided that we made a mistake, we don't want to blame the soldiers who were ordered to fight. Or even our representatives, who were deceived by false intelligence. And certainly not ourselves, who failed to object to a war we barely understood.

Speak for yourself, boy-o. Quite a few of us DID object to a war we understood quite well, only to be excoriated by prissy pundits for being "disloyal", or "naive" or "disingenious".

[coalition_unwilling]

14. I support troops who resist, whether small or large.

[brentspeak]

15. 'Elitist' maybe not too far off

I read several of Joel Stein's columns when he wrote for Time. A majority of them involved his bragging the name of his alma mater (Stanford), or the high SAT score he received. I took it to be some kind of running joke - a joke running kind of short on humor.

[Borgnine]

23. I've gotten that impression from Stein a number of times.

I'm not knocking the guy (or threatening to "knock his block off"), but his personality just seems to ooze with self-love.

[LibDemAlways]

5. I agree with Stein. I do not support the actions

of the US military in Iraq. I think the "mission" is immoral and illegal. I do not fault the individual soldiers who signed up out of a sense of patriotism, love of country, the desire to protect America, or to find a way out of poverty, earn extra income in the Guard, learn a trade - whatever. I do fault the evil SOBs who sent them over there to kill and maim the civilian population of a country which posed no threat to us in order to steal its resources and impose our will. These bastards are misusing the military for their own warped agenda and should be shown no mercy in an international court - war criminals all.

[wordpix]

12. I agree. Also, Stein is a young man, hasn't learned to "make nice" with

the sheeple and neocons yet.

[yurbud]

27. it is not a matter of making nice but being accurate. soldiers don't

start our wars, elected civilians do.

It is buying into the right wing talking points that use the troops as human shields.

[bemildred]

6. I knew that one would cause a riot.

I don't care for Mr. Stein that much, but he is right here. This is the issue that the Nuremburg Trials were all about.

[wtmusic]

8. Crimes from Nuremburg

"Count One, Conspiracy to Wage Aggressive War, addressed crimes committed before the war began. Count Two, Waging an Aggressive War (or "crimes against peace"), addressed the undertaking of war in violation of international treaties and assurances. Count Three, War Crimes, addressed more traditional violations of the laws of war such as the killing or mistreatment of prisoners of war and the use of outlawed weapons."

http://www.bringhonorback.org

Sound familiar? They used to hang people for stuff like this.

[bemildred]

9. Right. They hung Eichmann too for criminal "obedience". nt

[Voice1]

16. It's time for a new web movement

We need to stand by brave people like Joel Stein, i've written a piece at my blog you can see at http://logicvoice.blogspot.com/2006/01/i-dont-support-our-troops-columnist.html

Please if you agree with Mr Stein, then please write about it at your own blogs, back him up on this, let's start an "I don't support our troops" movement.

Best wishes from "accross the pond" to my progressive friends.

[Kelvin Mace]

17. I found his column offensive

and flip.

He gives Bush and his gang a pass so he can blame Iraq on the soldiers.

He makes about two good points, then spends the rest of the time absolving the people in charge and the American Right while blaming kids barely out of their teens for not realizing they have been lied to and are being used, not to spread democracy and peace, but to insure high profits for BushCo stockholders.

I am not impressed with Mr. Stein.

http://www.thoughtcrimes.org/s9/index.php?/archives/442-Joel-Stein-Bush-apologist.html

[Voice1]

19. I thought in general the premise was right

That those of us who are against illegalities in the Bush regimes so called "battle of good against evil" cannot solely blame the regime, of course they are guilty of war crimes, but any soldiers guilty of committing any war crimes should also be punished, given that soldiers have a duty to disobey illegal orders.

Personally, I don't think that you can claim any sort of consistency without taking that stand. I would of course agree that both Bush and Blair are guilty of terrible crimes, but those who have actually committed them cannot make the excuse that "I was only following orders". It's gone too far past that point.

[Kelvin Mace]

25. I do not know anyone on the left

who is condoning soldiers who commit war crimes. I make this quite plain in my own rebuttal to Stein which I linked to:

http://www.thoughtcrimes.org/s9/index.php?/archives/442-Joel-Stein-Bush-apologist.html

If Bush, et al, had not waged an illegal war of aggression (a war crime), there would be no American soldiers of any sort in Iraq committing war crimes.

Stein placed the blame squarely on the minority of soldiers guilty of this (those who pull the trigger), not on the military/civillian leadership. In fact, Stein MINIMIZES Bush's guilt, dismissing it with the sentence "But blaming the president is a little too easy.", then going on to point the finger solely at the soldiers.

He then goes on to equate a young soldier (many of them barely out of their teens) being suckered into serving in Iraq by Bush's exploitation of 9/11, to being suckered into clicking on a pop-up ad.

Please read my full rebuttal.

[yurbud]

20. this is an asinine and counter-productive approach

Some soldiers may be involved in overt war crimes, but most naively thought they were defending their country and that the war had something to do with 9/11.

AFTER we remove and prosecute those at the top, and work our way down the chain of command, some soldiers may need to be tried, but only after.

This is a right wing trap to paint the anti-war movement as anti-military, just as they did the Vietnam War protesters.

[truthInCO]

18. Pop-ups

"I do sympathize with people who joined up to protect our country, especially after 9/11, and were tricked into fighting in Iraq. I get mad when I'm tricked into clicking on a pop-up ad, so I can only imagine how they feel."

That's all I need to know about this nimrod. Not funny.

[IndianaGreen]

21. Joel Stein refuses to become a "good German"

and so do I.

[wookie294]

22. Thank you, Mr. Stein

Millions of Americans agree with you.

[MakeItSo]

24. For what? His column feeds the Right Wing and he's a little snot

What the fuck is this supposed to mean?

"I do sympathize with people who joined up to protect our country, especially after 9/11, and were tricked into fighting in Iraq. I get mad when I'm tricked into clicking on a pop-up ad, so I can only imagine how they feel."

Kids are getting their bodies blown up over there and he's joking about pop-up ads?

The dude is a flake, big-time. His column serves no constructive purpose and gives Bush a pass to boot.

[goclark]

26. He is saying what his boss wants him to say

Recall they fired Robert Scheer, the best in the business.

[yurbud]

28. this story made yahoos headlines today. Seems more and more like

the Dan Rather, Swift Boat, ad nauseum smear campaigns.

[yurbud]

29. DU POLL on Stein's column (LINK)

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=249254&mesg_id=249254

[yurbud]

30. LA TIMES POLL on Stein: Can you oppose Iraq War and still support troops?

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-stein24jan24,0,4137172.column?coll=la-news-comment-opinions