Post a Comment On: Internal Monologue

...not! Greenwald has a great post on this:
It is true that where there is an amply stocked volunteer military, it is natural and inevitable that many citizens will support a war in ways other than by enlisting. No additional troops were needed, for instance, at the time of the invasion of Afghanistan (or during the action in Kosovo), and there was thus no tension between supporting those wars and not fighting.

But the current situation is completely different. Even according to the war's remaining advocates -- particularly those who want to escalate in Iraq -- there is a serious and harmful shortage of willing volunteers to fight in Iraq and to enable a more aggressive application of U.S. military force generally. So we do now have a situation where those who are cheering on more war and escalation really are needed not at the computer screen but on the battlefield, in combat. And their refusal to fight is actually impeding the plans of those on whom the President is relying for "Victory."But I think Tom Tomorrow captures it best in this cartoon:

[Image]I think I'm guilty of the same kind of "armchair activism" satirized here, but I'm not pushing for young people to go off and kill other people in a counter-productive and immoral war. To put it another way: I'm not asking people to do anything I'm not perfectly willing to do myself (i.e. stay at home and oppose the war). The war cheerleaders are. I'd love for the troops who are currently in Iraq to be able to come home and take care of a baby and write the occasional blog post.