CBS News is reporting Anti-War Mom Opposition Mounting, that people are objecting to Cindy Sheehan’s message that President Bush should be honest with Americans and pull our troops out of Iraq; one local TV station refused to air a (paid) commercial featuring Sheehan because the message “could very well be offensive to our community in Utah.” The President is traveling to Salt Lake City tomorrow to speak to a VFW convention and Rocky Anderson, the city’s mayor is calling for a huge anti-war demonstration, causing one local VFW post officer to call Anderson unpatriotic.
I’d really like to understand the logic behind the position of these Bush supporters. American soldiers have sacrificed and died in Iraq and, if I get what they’re saying, to withdraw now without accomplishing the mission than we’d be disrespecting our military. My question is why rethinking our efforts in light of new information in any way shows disrespect or ingratitude towards the people in uniform, especially those who’ve given their life in Iraq. The pattern of behavior, that government decisions must be the best and any disagreement is unpatriotic and wrong, has been repeated constantly in America and other nations; I thought after Vietnam we might learn the lesson that critical debate and dissent makes us stronger but sadly this is not so.
If continuing analysis of the true situation on the ground in Iraq, Afghanistan or elsewhere concludes that the use of force is the best practical option to reach our goals, then America should use it regardless of opposition at home or abroad. I do want to be clear that I’m not objecting on, say, a general pacifist principal. I do object to the actions of those who’d be the first to scream about any infringement of, say, the Second Amendment but want to curtail the First Amendment rights of Cindy Sheehan, Rocky Anderson or myself to debate, question and even insult the policy decisions of the Bush Administration.
For me, the best thing we can do, for ourselves and our loved ones, is to make decisions that offer the highest probability that fewer horrific sacrifices–American or Iraqi–will happen from today on and that increase the likelihood of stable, less belligerent governments and populace in the region. The idea that even one more person should be put at risk unnecessarily, through unquestioned obedience to authority is precisely what many Americans claim as a major defect of non-domocratic countries. Attempts to stifle policy discussions through ad hominem personal attacks and rhetorical shortcuts are actually far worse insults to the memory of the servicemen and women dead, maimed and disabled.
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