'L.A. Times' Columnist: 'I Don't Support Our Troops'

[ECH1969]

In a piece sure to draw controversy or worse (he notes that he is listed in the phone book), Joel Stein opens his Los Angeles Times column with: "I don't support our troops."

He feels "being against the war and saying you support the troops" suggests that "the one lesson they took away from Vietnam wasn't to avoid foreign conflicts with no pressing national interest but to remember to throw a parade afterward."

Stein adds: "I understand the guilt. We know we're sending recruits to do our dirty work, and we want to seem grateful."

"Blindly lending support to our soldiers, I fear, will keep them overseas longer by giving soft acquiescence to the hawks who sent them there — and who might one day want to send them somewhere else."

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001883886

[yurbud]

1. for the sake of getting attention, he shot anti-war movement in the head

what a fucking idiot.

Why not say you're gay and trying to convert heterosexuals?

Or a scientist out to prove their is no god and destroy religion?

I almost can't think of a dumber fucking thing someone could say except that we should invade Iran.

[benddem]

14. he's just one person

not the whole anti-war movement.

[yurbud]

17. which anti-war column is the right going to refer to?

[RufusEarl]

2. Good point!

[Yollam]

3. My thread on the topic...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x226913


Slightly different perspective...

[ieoeja]

11. "Spat on" is a metaphor for mistreatment.

And many an antiwar protestors during 'Nam certainly treated military personnel extremely poorly with shouts of "baby-killer!" and the like.

Although I did have to remind a Vietnam vet of something they keep forgetting: WW-II vets treated Vietnam vets shabbily as well with their "you're not fighting a real war", "if you guys would fight we'd win this war", "we sure as hell didn't get to hide from the fighting for 12 months then get to come home" and "we didn't have a helicopter drop in to grab us every time we got a scratch".

And this treatment from WW-II vets hurt a heck of a lot more than some hippie screaming "baby-killer".

[Yollam]

13. It's widely believed to be historical fact, so it bears pointing it out...

Thanks for bringing up the point about the older soldiers' ragging on Viet soldiers' performance.

[BikeWriter]

4. Fuck him!

[yurbud]

6. are you a vet? you should write a letter to the LA Times (LINK)

[e-mail]

[BikeWriter]

18. Yes, I'm a VietNam vet. I've already written the bastards.

[BikeWriter]

20. Sent: I don't support ignorant #### like Joel Stein!

I don't support ignorant #### like Joel Stein! He should critique Bush, the perpetrator of this war!
A VietNam vet,

[yurbud]

5. this is like an anti-war column dictated by Karl Rove

[Fleshdancer]

7. and what about those of us who have loved ones serving over there?

This is complete bullshit. The soldiers didn't choose to go there. They didn't choose for Congress to give Bush a blank check and they didn't choose to serve APAC's imperial wet dreams. They don't choose to protect Halliburton and they aren't choosing to rape Iraq of her oil and they didn't choose to risk their lives because the assholes in DC lied to the American public about the "threat" of Saddam Hussein.

I love my brother and will support him in what he does. He is a man of honor and does his job with dignity. He has a wonderful wife and two amazing kids to think of so his decision to do his job is important to many people. He can't just bail out no matter what anyone here might think. I support him and everyone else over there. My hatred for this war and for the criminals in DC who made it all possible aren't worth me not supporting my own flesh and blood. They have taken away so much already. I won't give them this. Not now, not ever.

[wryter2000]

9. You should write to him, Gloria

What a moron the guy is.

[Fleshdancer]

12. I think I will

this infuriates me. I agree with the person up thread who said this could have been written by Rove himself.

:grr:

[wryter2000]

8. What an assinine, idiotic, ignorant thing to say

What this asshole should be doing is pointing out that supporting the war is the exact opposite of supporting the people who've been sent to fight it for no good reason and without the equipment and support they need to fight it.

He ought to say, "I don't support the war and the chickenhawks precisely because I do support our brave fighting men and women."

[mmonk]

10. Horse hockey.

The troops don't make policy. They are our sons and daughters, nephews and nieces, husbands and wives, and neighbors.

[atreides1]

19. No soldier makes policy

But by following orders blindly, they condone the policy, by not speaking out when they see something that their parents always told them was wrong, they condone the policy, by looking the other way when immoral things occur, they condone the policy. And if you allow evil to happen, then you silently condone that evil by failing to speak.

Yes they are sons, daughters, nephews, nieces, husbands, wives, and neighbors. So why are they held to a different standard. Should they not be held to the highest standards,should they not be told that they fighting, not for our freedoms, but to fill the pockets of Halliburton, should they not be told that they are insuring that America becomes an Oligarchy or even worse a Theocracy. Should they not be told that by their actions, they are helping a potential dictator to achieve his dream?

Perhaps those who have loved ones, familiy members, and friends, should ask them what they swore allegiance to when they raised their right hands. I will tell you that it wasn't to the President,
the Congress, or to the SCOTUS. They swore their allegiance to the Constitution of the United States
of America, they swore to defend that sacred document.

They failed.

Remember these words from Edmund Burke:

"The only thing neccessary for the triumph of is for good men to do nothing"

And as long as good men and women, especially those in uniform do nothing, evil will continue to triumph

[yurbud]

21. most soldiers don't realize this until they get there

and 99% of what they are asked to do are not clear cut atrocities, but more like the brutal consequences of a bad policy.

As I said in my letter to the times, if faced with a My Lai or Abu Ghraib situation, a soldier can't say they were only following orders--but the primary guilt lies with those who gave the orders.

[mmonk]

22. I'm not advocating supporting illegal orders,

but when a soldier is put in these situations, its about survival and protection of your buddies, not policy.

[yurbud]

15. A snip probably as bad as that opening line:

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.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-stein24jan24,0,3682678.column?coll=la-util-op-ed

[yurbud]

16. my letter to the LA Times:

I oppose the war in Iraq, but could not disagree with him more when he says he doesn't support the troops and holds them more responsible for the war than President Bush. I enlisted in the military at 18, and trusted that my country would only send me to war if our security was truly at stake. Then and now, most high school graduates don't have the intellectual tools to see through the propaganda used to justify this war that went unchallenged by the mainstream media and they likely believed they were really defending their country when they went.

I do agree that if a soldier finds himself in a My Lai or Abu Ghraib situation, he cannot entirely absolve his guilt by saying he was only following orders, but I do not want to see one soldier punished until those who gave the immoral orders and started the immoral war to enrich very, very few Americans are punished first.

I have never heard of this Joel Stein before, but there are many more talented and widely known progressive columnists who would draw readers to your paper like Molly Ivins, Paul Krugman, Maureen Dowd, Arianna Huffington, Thom Hartmann, Frank Rich, Greg Palast, and of course the one you fired, Robert Scheer , to name just a few. Stein is frankly a right wing caricature of a liberal and should be an embarrassment to your paper.

[KingFlorez]

23. He writes with right-wing logic

You know, not supporting the war means not supporting the troops