JustinLogan.com: Why Chickenhawkery Matters

January 2008

July 06, 2005

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Why Chickenhawkery Matters

Chickenhawkery has been making the rounds in the blogosphere lately, tipped off mostly by Max Blumenthal's reporting from the College Republicans' National Convention for the Nation:

I chatted for a while with Collin Kelley, a senior at Washington State with a vague resemblance to the studly actor Orlando Bloom. Kelley told me he's "sick and tired of people saying our troops are dying in vain" and added, "This isn't an invasion of Iraq, it's a liberation--as David Horowitz said." When I asked him why he was staying on campus rather than fighting the good fight, he rubbed his shoulder and described a nagging football injury from high school. Plus, his parents didn't want him to go. "They're old hippies," Kelley said.

Munching on a chicken quesadilla at a table nearby was Edward Hauser, a senior at St. Edwards University in Austin, Texas--a liberal school in a liberal town in the ultimate red state of Texas. "Austin is ninety square miles insulated from reality," Hauser said. When I broached the issue of Iraq, he replied, "I support our country. I support our troops." So why isn't he there?

"I know that I'm going to be better staying here and working to convince people why we're there [in Iraq]," Hauser explained, pausing in thought. "I'm a fighter, but with words."

[...]

...sipping a glass of rose wine, University of Georgia Republican member Kiera Ranke said she played her part as well. She and her sorority sisters sent care packages to troops in Iraq along with letters and pictures of themselves. "They wrote back and told us we boosted their morale," she said.

By the time I encountered Cory Bray, a towering senior from the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business, the beer was flowing freely. "The people opposed to the war aren't putting their asses on the line," Bray boomed from beside the bar. Then why isn't he putting his ass on the line? "I'm not putting my ass on the line because I had the opportunity to go to the number-one business school in the country," he declared, his voice rising in defensive anger, "and I wasn't going to pass that up."

And besides, being a College Republican is so much more fun than counterinsurgency warfare. Bray recounted the pride he and his buddies had felt walking through the center of campus last fall waving a giant American flag, wearing cowboy boots and hats with the letters B-U-S-H painted on their bare chests. "We're the big guys," he said. "We're the ones who stand up for what we believe in. The College Democrats just sit around talking about how much they hate Bush. We actually do shit."

Atrios has been flogging this one for a while, pointing out that:

according to the head of the Young Republicans:

Most of our members either serve, have served, or plan to serve in the United States Armed Forces, or have participated in events or projects supporting the United States Armed Forces. We will not be intimidated.

There you go. Most serve, have served, plan to serve, OR HAVE PARTICIPATED IN EVENTS OR PROJECTS, such as Operation Drink a Beer for the Troops, Operation Burn a Dixie Chick CD, or Operation Put a Yellow Ribbon on my SUV, supporting the United States Armed Forces.

Clark Stooksbury weighs in today, pointing to this positively brilliant Tom Tomorrow cartoon. Stooksbury:

In my callow youth, I was very much a jingoistic neocon. National Review was my bible. Under the influence of John Wayne movies and a controversy over hawkish "war wimps" like George Will and Richard Perle; who hadn't served in Vietnam, I joined the Marine Corps Reserve. Of course, I was young and there was no war at the time. If I had a son of military age today, I would lock him in the basement before allowing him to serve in the current war under the present administration.

There's a thread in all of this. When you call a chickenhawk a chickenhawk, it's not uncommon to get the response, "Well, I expect there to be firemen, but I don't have to volunteer to be one in order to support having firemen." Which is true enough. But if you think that both setting fires all across a city as well as having an ample fire department are elements of good public policy, and if the fires you keep setting keep getting the firemen killed to the point where we're short of firemen, then you should, in fact, have to either give up the pro-fire-setting policy or else volunteer.

Which brings home, of course, the fact that the war in Iraq is nothing close to a war for our national survival, a war to defend ourselves, or anything close to either. The chickenhawks should at least be asked to acknowledge that fact. Then we could at least have an honest debate.

On a related note, neolibertarian Max Borders starts his newest "New Libertarian" article with the following revelation:

I admit it. I want Iraq to succeed. I'm one of those people who wake up in the morning and think about ways to improve Iraq while I'm in the shower. Geeky, I know. But short of going there and getting a limb blown off, I'd like to see the country become peaceful and prosperous-especially since success is infectious. So here's my first installment of "Ideas for a New Iraq":

Operative words? "Short of." I'm sure it's at least some solace to the troops that while Borders is soaping his pits, he's thinking of ways to improve Iraq. I'd probably rather have those pictures of the Republican chicks...

July 06, 2005 | Permalink

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JustinLogan.com

"Throughout the nation's history, the national destiny of the United States has been understood in antimilitaristic, libertarian terms." -Hans J. Morgenthau

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