MSM: Is It Ok To Question Their Patriotism Yet?

[Annie]

Well it is only one man's opinion, right? He does manage to out-Kerry Kerry on the stupidity and STFU orders for troops. WaPo is getting more than an earful. Not only is this conveying the stupid service meme, it's so poorly written it argues against blogs from MSM-they truly NEED editors:

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/earlywarning/2007/01/the_troops_also_need_to_suppor.html

William M. Arkin on National and Homeland Security
The Troops Also Need to Support the American People

I've been mulling over an NBC Nightly News report from Iraq last Friday in which a number of soldiers expressed frustration with opposition to war in the United States.

I'm sure the soldiers were expressing a majority opinion common amongst the ranks - that's why it is news - and I'm also sure no one in the military leadership or the administration put the soldiers up to expressing their views, nor steered NBC reporter Richard Engel to the story.

I'm all for everyone expressing their opinion, even those who wear the uniform of the United States Army. But I also hope that military commanders took the soldiers aside after the story and explained to them why it wasn't for them to disapprove of the American people.

Friday's NBC Nightly News included a story from my colleague and friend Richard Engel, who was embedded with an active duty Army infantry battalion from Fort Lewis, Washington.

Engel relayed how "troops here say they are increasingly frustrated by American criticism of the war. Many take it personally, believing it is also criticism of what they've been fighting for."

...


Through every Abu Ghraib and Haditha, through every rape and murder, the American public has indulged those in uniform, accepting that the incidents were the product of bad apples or even of some administration or command order.

Sure it is the junior enlisted men who go to jail, but even at anti-war protests, the focus is firmly on the White House and the policy. We just don't see very man "baby killer" epithets being thrown around these days, no one in uniform is being spit upon.

So, we pay the soldiers a decent wage, take care of their families, provide them with housing and medical care and vast social support systems and ship obscene amenities into the war zone for them, we support them in every possible way, and their attitude is that we should in addition roll over and play dead, defer to the military and the generals and let them fight their war, and give up our rights and responsibilities to speak up because they are above society?

...

But it is the United States and instead this NBC report is just an ugly reminder of the price we pay for a mercenary - oops sorry, volunteer - force that thinks it is doing the dirty work.

The notion of dirty work is that, like laundry, it is something that has to be done but no one else wants to do it. But Iraq is not dirty work: it is not some necessary endeavor; the people just don't believe that anymore.

I'll accept that the soldiers, in order to soldier on, have to believe that they are manning the parapet, and that's where their frustrations come in. I'll accept as well that they are young and naïve and are frustrated with their own lack of progress and the never changing situation in Iraq. Cut off from society and constantly told that everyone supports them, no wonder the debate back home confuses them.

America needs to ponder what it is we really owe those in uniform. I don't believe America needs a draft though I imagine we'd be having a different discussion if we had one.

 

[Adam's Apple]

Occasionally their real feelings just slip out. They are as hollow at being patriots as they are at "supporting" the troops.

 

[glockmail]

Ann Coulter proved them to be traitors in her book she wrote seevral years ago. Not enough people listened. Americans are just too fat and happy to see reality.

It will take a few nukes in their backyard before they see the light.

 

[Adam's Apple]

As scary as it is, I think your assessment is right on, Glock.

 

[glockmail]

As scary as it is, I think your assessment is right on, Glock.

Thanks, and I firmly believe this. That's why I live out here in the hinterlands, and don't plan on even visiting a large coastal city anytime soon.

 

[Annie]

Smackdown:

http://blogs.dailymail.com/donsurber/2007/02/02/where-arkin-screwed-up/Where

Arkin screwed up

I don’t want to write about this again, but here is where military/homeland security blogger Bill Arkin of the Washington Post went wrong: He picked on a kid.

Ernie Pyle never did. The American reporter takes on the brass, never the troops.

Arkin’s woes began when Spec. Tyler Johnson, 21, was asked by NBC News what he thought of the war protesters. He said:

“You may support or say we support the troops, so you’re not supporting what they do, what they’re here sweating for, what we bleed for, what we die for. It just don’t make sense to me.”

Arkin lit into him on Tuesday:

So, we pay the soldiers a decent wage, take care of their families, provide them with housing and medical care and vast social support systems and ship obscene amenities into the war zone for them, we support them in every possible way, and their attitude is that we should in addition roll over and play dead, defer to the military and the generals and let them fight their war, and give up our rights and responsibilities to speak up because they are above society?I can imagine some post-9/11 moment, when the American people say enough already with the wars against terrorism and those in the national security establishment feel these same frustrations. In my little parable, those in leadership positions shake their heads that the people don’t get it, that they don’t understand that the threat from terrorism, while difficult to defeat, demands commitment and sacrifice and is very real because it is so shadowy, that the very survival of the United States is at stake. Those Hoovers and Nixons will use these kids in uniform as their soldiers. If it weren’t about the United States, I’d say the story would end with a military coup where those in the know, and those with fire in their bellies, would save the nation from the people.

But it is the United States, and the recent NBC report is just an ugly reminder of the price we pay for a mercenary - oops sorry, volunteer - force that thinks it is doing the dirty work.

Whoa. The kid was asked a question. He answered it honestly. Arkin should back off...

 

[Annie]

And many Vietnam Vets are more than rational:

http://www.oldwardogs.us/2007/02/wapo_weasels_ii.html

WaPo Weasels II
Contributed by Russ Vaughn

Want to slam our soldiers, Arkin?
Well here is one to slam.
I got used to Lefty slamming
When I came back from Vietnam.
So you want to put a muzzle
On our brave fighting men?
Well try muzzling me you jerk,
Just tell me where and when.

Your profession needs a lesson
In basic free speech rights,
For those you worms all hide behind,
For those who fight your fights.
Like all your soft and smarmy kind,
You really have no clue,
Who American warriors truly are,
What our warriors truly do.

How many times in your four years
As a chair-borne analyst,
Were you within an ocean’s width
Of combat’s hard mailed fist?
How many medals did you earn
In those warrens at Fort Meade?
In four years of four-eyed service,
Just what was your bravest deed?

FOX news has combat warriors
To help us understand the score,
While MSM uses clerks like you,
Who have never been to war.
Your resentment of your betters,
Seeps through your bitter writing,
And shows you have no clue or care
Of those who do the fighting.

Like your ivy-cloistered Comrades, your war’s between the classes,
Dialectics, speeches, theory, your heads firmly up your asses.

Russ Vaughn
2d Bn, 327th Parachute Infantry Regiment
101st Airborne Division
Vietnam 65-66

 

[Annie]

and about 'no spitting on vets':

http://crushliberalism.blogspot.com/2007/01/joshua-sparling-spit-at-by-peace.html

Monday, January 29, 2007
Joshua Sparling spit at by "peace" protestors

From the Old Gray Hag:

In Washington, counterprotesters also converged on the mall in smaller numbers, but the antiwar demonstration was largely peaceful.
There were a few tense moments, however, including an encounter involving Joshua Sparling, 25, who was on crutches and who said he was a corporal with the 82nd Airborne Division and lost his right leg below the knee in Ramadi, Iraq. Mr. Sparling spoke at a smaller rally held earlier in the day at the United States Navy Memorial, and voiced his support for the administration’s policies in Iraq.

Later, as antiwar protesters passed where he and his group were standing, words were exchanged and one of the antiwar protestors spit at the ground near Mr. Sparling; he spit back.

Capitol police made the antiwar protestors walk farther away from the counterprotesters.

“These are not Americans as far as I’m concerned,” Mr. Sparling said.

But hey...they "support the troops", right? ...

 

[Annie]

Only fitting. Lots of links:

http://eddriscoll.com/archives/010359.php

William Arkin's Fire And Brimstone World
By Ed Driscoll · February 06, 2007 11:42 AM · Oh, That Liberal Media! · War And Anti-War

In 2003, William Arkin, then writing for the L.A. Times, accused then-Lt. Gen. Jerry Boykin of being a man "who believes in Christian 'jihad'"; today in his Washington Post blog, Arkin writes that he's being "demonized":

In that process, I have ceased being a person, an individual, or a human being, all essential to justify the campaign to annihilate me. I'm not trying to offer myself up as victim here, nor do I expect the critics to change their view. I'm merely pointing out the process and the implications of the dehumanization.
​

Dehumanization? That's rather rich from a man who accuses American soldiers of being mercenaries to which America ships "obscene amenities into the war zone", and who's post last week which kicked off all of the controversy began as a rebuttal to a 21 year old soldier.

But it's an amazing role reversal when a journalist employed by the Washington Post plays the victim card (despite his best protestations to the contrary) and brays against an angry mob furiously engaged in a "campaign to annihilate me".

Somewhere, Richard Nixon is chuckling at the new media world.

 

[Annie]

On those 'obscene amenities' enjoyed by the troops:

http://hotair.com/archives/2007/02/09/obscene-amenities/

 

[Adam's Apple]

The real patriots.

Those Who Serve
By Michael Ledeen, National Review
February 8, 2007

http://author.nationalreview.com/latest?q=MjE2Nw==

 

[Annie]

The real patriots.

Those Who Serve
By Michael Ledeen, National Review
February 8, 2007

http://author.nationalreview.com/latest?q=MjE2Nw==

Truly excellent perspective, thanks AA!

 

[CTRLALTDEL]

The real patriots.

Those Who Serve
By Michael Ledeen, National Review
February 8, 2007

http://author.nationalreview.com/latest?q=MjE2Nw==

So the "real partriots" are those who serve. Are these people considered "PATRIOTS" then???


G.W. Bush - decided that a six-year Nat'l Guard commitment really means four years. Still says that he's "been to war." Huh? http://www.awolbush.com

Rush Limbaugh, did not serve. Was 4-F due to an anal cyst. Must have hurt. http://www.toostupidtobepresident.com/shockwave/chickenhawks.htm

VP Cheney – Five(5) deferments, the last by marriage (in his own words, "had other priorities than military service"). http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ideas_opinions/story/82490p-75535c.html

Majority Whip Tom Delay - avoided the draft, did not serve. "So many minority youths had volunteered ... that there was literally no room for patriotic folks” like himself. Do you smell something?

Representative Saxby Chambliss, Georgia - did not serve, had a "bad knee" (yet somehow feels he has a right to attack Max Cleland's patriotism. Max doesn't have any knees.)
Att'y Gen. John Ashcroft - sought deferment to teach business ed at SW Missouri State.
* Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert - avoided the draft, did not serve.
* Majority Leader Dick Armey- avoided the draft, did not serve.
Trent Lott - avoided the draft, did not serve.
* Karl Rove - avoided the draft, did not serve, too busy being a Republican.
* Former Speaker Newt Gingrich - avoided the draft, did not serve
* Former President Ronald Reagan - served in a noncombat role. He later seems to have confused his role as an actor playing a tail gunner with the real thing.
* Bob “B-1 Bob” Dornan - avoided Korean War combat duty by enrolling in college acting classes (Orange County Register article)
*Jesse Ventura – What? He was a SEAL in Vietnam fer' Christ's sake. Well, maybe not: http://www.cursor.org/stories/seal_or_udt.htm
Phil Gramm - avoided the draft, did not serve, four (?) student deferments
* Don Nickles, Senate Minority Whip - Did not serve
* Senator Richard Shelby, did not serve
Jack Kemp, did not serve (was fit enough for pro football, but "failed" the physical?)
* Dan Quayle, avoided Vietnam service, got a slot in the journalism unit of the Indiana National Guard when the unit was at 150% capacity
* Eliot Abrams, did not serve
* Richard Perle, architect of Gulf War II, did not serve.
* Rudy Giuliani, did not serve
* George Will, did not serve
* Bill O'Reilly, did not serve
* Bill Bennett, did not serve. Didn't want to gamble on fate?
* Pat Buchanan, did not serve, lots of bar fights though.
Pat Robertson - did not serve, apparently used Daddy's connections to get off the ship in Tokyo while his buddies went on to Korea. Praise the Lord!