Don't you support the troops?

Background

 I just read a note by a young man I count a friend. The note was on his thoughts about his father coming home from Iraq, and what it has meant having his father overseas and the resultant investment he has in Iraq. I've watched this young man grow up. I've been friends with his father for 10 years.

I can understand how this young man is invested in Iraq. I was similarly, and incorrectly as I see it now, invested in our last multi-year non-war in Vietnam.

My father was in Vietnam for several tours. He flew CH-46 troop transport helicopters full of Marines into battle, and their dead, dying and wounded bodies back out again. My father has a box of medals for bravery, risking himself to get our young men to doctors while there was still hope of saving their lives. CH-46s fly low and slow. When loading troops in an hot landing zone there isn't any dodging you can do. He was shot down five times. There was a very real risk my father wouldn't make it home from any given mission.

I was too young to understand anything except Dad was away flying, he was a hero, and he'd be back someday. Mom hid the danger from me (not that I could really understand it anyway). Dad would read books onto a tape recording so I could hear his voice while he was gone. Sometimes you could hear the air raid sirens blaring in the background. When he'd come back we'd go camping and fishing together to make up for lost time -- school waited. My father is among my very closest friends.

So, when I picture our young men in the field, this is what I picture. Men like my father. And I see the people they leave behind like my mother and me as a very young child. In the case of my friend and his father it isn't far off the mark. As I grow older, I picture the young men whose lives I have invested my time in as a scout leader who want to be troops. These are not abstractions. These are people I love.

Do I support the troops?

"Don't you support the troops?"

In my final interaction with the Republican party, acting as Precinct Chair this past spring, I put forward planks to end our involvement in Iraq. I was immediately asked, "Don't you support the troops?" This question is designed to forestall any meaningful discussion. The question redirects the conversation from the issue, from the wisdom of how the troops' lives and the nation's limited resources are being spent to a defense of my motives. "Aren't you for education?" "Don't you want clean water?" "Don't you care about the children?" The question is also a rather blatant accusation and insult. It assumes anyone questioning the current action must necessarily lightly regard the lives of the troops; that I am either a knave or a coward, possibly both.

Among its other problems the question seeks to enshrine the "sunk costs" fallacy. There is a saying, "don't throw good money after bad." Another way of saying it is "sunk costs are sunk." If you do something foolish it isn't honorable or good or wise to throw MORE of something good after it to preserve the "honor" or memory of what you already spent. This is particularly so if what you are spending isn't yours to begin with, but others' lives, health, youth, wealth.

Suppose Bob gets it in his head that if enough people willingly risk their lives for the cause he can create a square circle, and he thinks the creation of the square circle will attain for Bob's neighborhood security and prosperity for a lifetime. Bob then gets a group of young men all enthusiastic about the cause. "Prosperity and security!" they yell. They then proceed to risk their lives to attain the square circle. Slowly the young men expire and Bob has to recruit more to take their place. If someone questions Bob about what he is doing, perhaps how round squares relate to prosperity and security, or if the incremental prosperity and security are worth the cost of so many young men and he replies, "Don't you want prosperity and security?" or "Don't you support the young men who have already died?" then wouldn't one have reason to question Bob's motives since he dodged the question and replied with an accusation?

Why would Bob want to stop these questions from being honestly discussed? Why would he seek to impugn from the outset the motivations of the questioner and therefore the legitimacy of the questions?

If Bob is using only volunteers in his effort, young men presumed to be of sufficient age and maturity to evaluate for themselves the risks verses the anticipated rewards, and Bob is also funding his program entirely from money of his own earning or from voluntary donations, and if the squares being acted upon are inanimate objects which he also owns, then there isn't much to debate. People will do strange and seemingly incoherent things for any number of reasons, sometimes at great cost, and other than try to persuade them not to, there isn't much to do about it. However, that isn't the case when one talks about a war, and particularly this war.

A few reasons we must have an honest debate about this war:

1. The soldiers are all volunteers and therefore willingly put their lives at risk, but the government is unilaterally extending their contracts through the "stop loss" program. Doubtless there is verbiage in the enlistment contract explaining that the government may change the terms of the contract at any time to its benefit and to the enlistee's detriment, however there is no similar analog in private life which would stand up to judicial scrutiny by this same government.
2. The funds being used to finance this are all taken from the current and future production of the populace of the country by force, they are not voluntarily donated. They are not honestly accounted for to those being compelled to supply them. Additionally, those who will be compelled to supply them are increasingly not yet born, working into two and three generations of not yet born.
3. The Iraqi people are NOT inanimate objects owned by the government.

This is most definitely an area of concern which deserves more consideration than a dishonest "don't you support the troops?"

Whose honor is being protected?

Gustave Gilbert was a German speaking intelligence officer and psychologist who interviewed the defendants at Nuremberg. He spent a good bit of time with Hermann Goering, one of Hitler's designated successors and commander of the Luftwaffe. On April 18, 1946 Gilbert recorded this conversation with Goering while the trials were in recess for Easter:

We got around to the subject of war again and I said that, contrary to his attitude, I did not think that the common people are very thankful for leaders who bring them war and destruction.

"Why, of course, the people don't want war," Goering shrugged. "Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece. Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship."

There is one difference," I pointed out. "In a democracy the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars."

"Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country."

The soldiers who have died already, or been wounded or otherwise damaged have already either fought honorably or dishonorably. Their honor is a matter of what they did when they were faced with tough choices. The honor of the soldiers is therefore not in question in my mind.

Whose honor is it that is being protected by short circuiting the discussion? There are two groups whose honor is at stake, and neither of them are the troops. The first group is the people who decided to put the troops in harms way. Their honor IS at stake. So also is the honor of those who encouraged and supported those politicians in the general population. However, by being unwilling to address the issue honestly we see that the issue of honor is already lost. There is no honor. There is only pride. Honor accepts responsibility and consequences. Pride refuses to consider being wrong, much less admit to it.

Mobs will do what individuals won't because the individuals in the mob know that they'll not be called upon to pay the full consequences of what they supported when in the mob. Mobs avoid individual responsibility therefore mobs have no honor, only fear and pride. Politicians count on the combination of fear and pride which is easily manipulated in mobs. When a war supporter is confronted with difficult questions about the war he wants to avoid them because he doesn't want to face his individual responsibility in the actions that resulted. He avoids that responsibility by saying, "Don't you support the troops? Are you anti-American?" In other words, "Don't you support the mob? You want me to be responsible for what I supported as part of a mob?"

"America must have victory." That isn't honor, that is pride. Pride goes before a destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall, Pro. 16:18. If America has done something wrong or foolish then success in the completion is even more wrong or foolish. Pride is unwilling to correct itself when faced with its mistakes, it demonstrates a haughty spirit and the result is a fall and destruction because it continues in mistakes instead of learning from them and correcting for them.

Does America have honor, or just pride?