Ridiculous +++
Did Maureen Dowd's point fly over your head? NO She wrote "Men who had refused to go to an untenable war themselves were now refusing to find an end to another untenable war that they had recklessly started." Your reply is: "Most American men did serve in Vietnam, and remain pround [sic] to this day that they did." SORRY ABOUT TYPO, UH, TEEPOH...
Huh?
The point Dowd was trying to make was that many of the planners of the Iraq war had no military experience. For several of them, that's absolutely true. Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, none of them served in any war. AND SEVERAL NOT --- THE PRESIDENT, EVEN IF HE MISSED SOME LATER SESSIONS, FLEW FIGHTER AIRCRAFT, WHICH IS NOT FOR CHICKENS. THE KILL RATE IS VERY HIGH.
What is your response to that point? I don't like Maureen Dowd, but I do think it's a legitimate point. Can people who know nothing about war be trusted to lead the nation into war, and more importantly, have the knowhow to WIN it?
I THINK YOU MIS-SPELLED " knowhow" ALTHOUGH I DON'T EXACTLY KNOW HOW TO SPELL IT.
TODAY, UNLIKE THE VIETNAM SITUATION, MANY OF THE SONS, AND SOME DAUGHTERS, OF NEO-CONS, HAVE SERVED IN THE VOLUNTEER MILITARY. THEY BELIEVE IN WHAT THEIR PARENTS HAVE TAUGHT THEM,AND THEIR PARENTS PRAY FOR THEM.
Ben
Publish this comment.
posted by Ben Wattenberg at 5:16 PM
6 Comments:
TODAY, UNLIKE THE VIETNAM SITUATION, MANY OF THE SONS, AND SOME DAUGHTERS, OF NEO-CONS, HAVE SERVED IN THE VOLUNTEER MILITARY. THEY BELIEVE IN WHAT THEIR PARENTS HAVE TAUGHT THEM,AND THEIR PARENTS PRAY FOR THEM.
Prove it, Wattenberg.
For example: get together a list of, say, 10 prominent neocons -- names someone who follows the controversy about their role in the Iraq war will recognize -- and then enumerate which ones have kids who've served in the military, especially combat duty in Iraq or Afghanistan. To back up your claim of "many", which I will generously allow does not mean most (i.e. more than half -- although some people would disagree), at least 4 of them must have kids who've served in the military.
Your readers will be waiting.
Stop pointing out the minor misspellings in your readers' posts. Are you a schoolmarm or a policy scholar? You're not any better at spelling than your readers anyway, and people do not come to your blog for remedial grammar lessons.
George W. Bush may have served in the National Guard, and he may have flown "fighter aircraft," as you point out. However, it should be noted that he never spent one day in Vietnam, where the "kill rate" for pilots of fighter aircraft would have been many times higher than what he faced.
Ben writes: "MANY OF THE SONS, AND SOME DAUGHTERS, OF NEO-CONS, HAVE SERVED IN THE VOLUNTEER MILITARY. THEY BELIEVE IN WHAT THEIR PARENTS HAVE TAUGHT THEM,AND THEIR PARENTS PRAY FOR THEM"
What kind of sentimental clap-trap is this? What a cop-out, Ben. You still manage to avoid the key assertion: that Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, et al didn't serve in the military and that they have unrealistic expectations about what the military can do.
I don't care if the "sons and daughters" of neo-cons are in the military now, and I certainly don't give a damn about whether their parents are "praying" for them (whose parents wouldn't pray for their kids in combat? What does that have to do with anything at all?)
I care about what neo-cons who DID NOT serve in the military are doing in regard to our country's foreign policy and the use of our military.
Still waiting for some proof that the kids of 'neocons' who promoted the Iraq war serve in the military.
BTW, I wrote only the first anonymous comment (one problem with anonymous comments, to be sure), but I largely agree with the others.
TODAY, UNLIKE THE VIETNAM SITUATION, MANY OF THE SONS, AND SOME DAUGHTERS, OF NEO-CONS, HAVE SERVED IN THE VOLUNTEER MILITARY.
You still have not provided any evidence for this claim, despite repeatedly being asked to do so.
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