If I disagree with the Bush administration, I can do all manner of things to protest. Soldiers can't. They can raise their voices at certain, limited times (and many of them do) but for the most part they don't have a say. We ask them to do their duty and leave the decision-making to us. They don't choose whether to risk getting killed or whether or not to kill the enemy. They do it because we tell them to and they deserve to be thanked for that.
Of course the way this war has been waged is insane. The responsibility for that lies with the decision-makers, not the soldiers following legal orders. They don't get to say they only want to fight in "good" wars.
boddi
On 11/25/05, joanna <123hop at comcast.net> wrote:
> What are you thanking them for?
>
> "Thank you brother/sister for taking part in an aggressive war against a
> people that have not harmed a hair on my head.
> Thank you for carpet bombing the cradle of civilization
> Thank you for imprisoning, torturing, humiliating, terrorizing, and killing
> people whose language you don't even speak.
>
> is that it?
>
> ...or is it "Thank you for doing the horrible work of empire so I don't have
> to."
>
> I mean, what is it exactly that you are thanking them for?
>
> And I am asking about the thanks. I'm not implying that they should be spat
> upon, reviled, cursed, etc. I just want to know exactly and not abstractly
> what it is you want to personally thank them for?
>
> Joanna
>
>
> boddi satva wrote:
> I know I'm over-posting, but honestly you don't see a difference
between
> thanking active-duty soldiers for their service and
"establishing the
> military as some superior caste to which the rest of
us owe gratitude for
> all the freedoms and rights we possess." I mean,
you don't honestly equate
> these things, do you?
On 11/25/05, Gar Lipow <the.typo.boy at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> On 11/25/05, Louis Kontos <Louis.Kontos at liu.edu> wrote:
> If you have genuine respect for military personnel, for whatever
> reason,
then it makes sense to speak honestly with and about them. Thanking
> them for
a military adventure that you yourself call unjust seems rather
> hypocritical
-- and condescending -- to me. I feel no need to thank anybody
> for doing
something I consider unjust, notwithstanding everything you said
> about the
military code. While you seem to appreciate the military code (at
> least
those parts of it that mandate obedience and sacrifice, not anything
> else),
you seem to lack an understanding of hypocrisy.
> That is true as far as it goes. But "gratitude" towards the military
is not
> only hypocritical; it is truly dangerous as well. Zell
Miller repeated a
> well worn right wing meme when he said at the last
Republican Convention:
> It has been said truthfully that it is the soldier, not the reporter,
> who has given us the freedom of the press. [cheers] It is the soldier,
not
> the poet who has given us the freedom of speech. It is the
soldier, not the
> agitator, who has given us the freedom to protest. It
is the soldier who
> salutes the flag, serves beneath the flag, whose
coffin is draped by the
> flag, who gives that protester the freedom he
abuses to burn that flag.
> [cheers] No one should dare to even think
about being the commander in chief
> of this country if he doesn't
believe with all his heart that our soldiers
> are liberators abroad and
defenders of freedom at home
Do you see how
> dangerous this will be if it succeeds? Establishing
the military as some
> superior caste to which the rest of us owe
gratitude for all the freedoms
> and rights we possess? Seeing the
military in fact as the basis for those
> rights, and thus able to take
them away on whim? That is what lies behind
> the whole
> "gratitude"
line.
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