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06/20/2005: Fight at Your own Risk...
Someone Else’s Child by Bob Herbert (NY Times), reflects on “how you win a war that your country doesn't want to fight.”.
And makes one “wonder” how eager G.W. would have been to invade Iraq if he had not two college aged daughters, but two sons - (Jim and Bill instead of Jenna and Barbara):”…. [F]rom the very start of this war the loudest of the flag-waving hawks were those who were safely beyond military age themselves and were unwilling to send their own children off to fight.
It's easy to be macho when you have nothing at risk. The hawks want the war to be fought with other people's children, while their own children go safely off to college, or to the mall. The number of influential American officials who have children in uniform in Iraq is minuscule.
Most Americans want no part of Mr. Bush's war, which is why Army recruiters are failing so miserably at meeting their monthly enlistment quotas. Desperate, the Army is lowering its standards, shortening tours, increasing bonuses and violating its own recruitment regulations and ethical guidelines.
Americans do not want to fight this war.
…
The president and these home-front warriors got us into this war and now they don't know how to get us out. Nor do they have a satisfactory answer to the important ethical question: how do you justify sending other people's children off to fight while keeping a cloak of protection around your own kids?…”
Karen on 06.20.05 @ 05:36 AM CST
