He blowed up REAL good!
Posted on 09/04/2002 7:06:05 AM PDT by family and nation
We are being dragged toward war with Iraq by such chickenhawks. The loudest voices demanding war are those of men who once upon a time quietly skipped out on the fun in Vietnam.
Men like Dick Cheney, who famously explained, "I had other priorities in the '60s than military service."
Cheney received draft deferments as a college student until he got married in 1964; marriage removed him from the draft. But the next year, the government announced married men would be drafted, unless they were also fathers. Nine months and two days after that announcement, the Cheneys had their first child.
A list of chickenhawks -- including many who are eager for war with Iraq, yet who had "other priorities" when Vietnam came a-calling -- has been compiled by Steven Fowle, a Vietnam veteran who edits The New Hampshire Gazette. (It's at www.nhgazette.com/chickenhawks.html).
It starts with the president himself. George W. Bush waited out the war from a post with light duties in the Texas Air National Guard. And, apparently, even that cushy deal was too onerous: There's an unexplained one-year gap, from May 1972 to May 1973, in Bush's service record. That year he was supposed to have reported for duty at the Alabama Air National Guard, but apparently never showed. Bush's reply is that he was honorably discharged and is proud of his service -- but also that he can't recall the specifics.
Specifics are also in short supply for Defense Department Iraq hawks like Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle; for White House adviser Karl Rove; for professional blabbers George Will, William Kristol, Rush Limbaugh and Pat Buchanan; for Republican congressional leaders Trent Lott, Dennis Hastert, Dick Armey and Tom DeLay; and for many others -- right down to Rambo himself, Sylvester Stallone.
Some of the explanations offered by those who avoided Vietnam sound hilarious today. Pundit and politician Buchanan got out for "bad knees," but went on to become an avid jogger. DeLay, who was working as a pest exterminator during Vietnam, is reported to have complained that he would have served but all the places were taken up by black people. (Blacks in the 1960s had no "other priorities?")
And then there's rabid radio personality Limbaugh's excuse: "Anal cysts." As Matthew Engel noted in the Guardian, "It is not my custom to mock others' ailments, but anyone who has listened to Limbaugh's program can imagine the dripping scorn he would bring to the revelation that a prominent Democrat had skipped a war over something like that."
The poster boy for draft-dodging, to hear the media tell it, has long been Bill Clinton. But Clinton also organized anti-war protests in the late 1960s, and years later, while running for office, was thoroughly grilled by the media and the public for his Vietnam-era conduct.
By contrast, the chickenhawks weaseled out of Vietnam while loudly proclaiming their support for it; they've never once been called to account for doing so; and now, they want to send a new generation of Americans into a Middle Eastern ground war.
First post here, eh?
I believe you've wandered into the wrong forum.
For the record, Matt Bivens writes for the Nation. He is best remembered for the George-Bush-owns-the-Astros article where he linked Bush, through the Astros and Enron Field, to Ken Lay. The problem is that GWB owned the Texas Rangers.
Grilled by the media.
Right.
I guess the Moscow Times missed the part about Bill Clinton writing the letter in which he claimed to 'loathe' the military.
No mention of Al Gore's stunning record of bravery either...
Or Bubba's great escape from the draft.
He blowed up REAL good!
As far as his knees were concerned, he was 4-F; this was a medical decision and policy by the Army which made him ineligible for service. He was in ROTC at the time. The implication is that Buchanan "faked" bad knees; as someone who has also been denied the opportunity to serve because of bad knees, I know that there was not anything he could do to avoid it. It was just a lousy break.
If I hadn't already known that the author was a man, this sentence would have enlightened me. Matt Bivens--communist and ignorant flaming misogynist.
It was sure nice of Lynn Cheney's uterus to cooperate on such short notice, wasn't it? And this back in the days before ovulation predictor kits.
(Hint for Matt--she was already pregnant, you total idiot...)
Good God, you mean that clown couldn't even get his baseball teams straight?
Oh well.
The "Chickenhawk" angle is a thoroughly dishonest attempt to silence debate on the part of the left. This is a thoroughly disingenuous attempt by the left to elevate military opinion and military experience over civilian control. It's not that leftists actually value military experience; they loathe the military and the class of men who serve therein. However, the Left finds it expedient to use the military to peddle the following specious line of argument: only people with military experience have a thorough knowledge of what war is really like, therefore it is they who should have to decide on who lives and who dies. It follows from that line of reasoning that those who have never served should never be allowed to make the decision to send men and women into battle.
Neither George W. Bush nor Dick Cheney ever saw combat, ergo, they should not be allowed to make the decision to send men to war.
The Situational Ethics of the Left rears its head once again: were a Democrat sitting in the Oval Office, and he had no military experience (such as Franklin D. Roosevelt, for instance), the Left would be ready to back him up. As it stands, the Left is quite willing to stand the Constitution on its head, and go the Bonapartist route.
Situational Ethics in politics can lead one to Fascism. But that is understandable: the Left has always been far more comfortable with fascism than they have ever been willing to admit.
Be Seeing You,
Chris
This critter shows up regularly with names like God_Flag_and_Apple_Pie, Love_It_Or_Leave_It, John_Wayne_is_my_Hero, and so forth. He doesn't seem to fool anyone.
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