Is there no good news in the world? There's precious little in this thread.

[Alex]

I'm not saying you want him dead, that if you oppose the war you want our soldiers dead. I'm saying that if you oppose the war then you should find our soldiers being dead preferable to the people on the other side being dead. It is easy to say that you'd prefer that neither end up being dead but that is not based on the reality of it. You can not simultaneously condemn an act and support the success of that act.

It was on the news today that the U.S. Army this morning engaged in a firefight and killed six Iraqi insurgents. If you truly oppose this war and feel that we are unjustly in Iraq and that the whole endeavor is morally wrong, then who should have emerged victorious from that firefight? You don't get to say "I'd prefer that they all put down their guns and then had a beer." That is not the way firefights get resolved. You can wish it but it doesn't remove the moral question from what really happened.

I don't want a single person in Iraq to die today due to battle. But since I do think this war is just if peoplare are going to die despite what I prefer it should be in a way that furthers the goals of the war (meaning it should more be the people on the other side that die). If I felt this war to be unjust I'd still prefer that nobody die, but if they are going to die despite what I prefer then I would feel it should be in a way that further the victory of the opposition.

I'm not saying that anybody wants anybody to die. But to support our troops requires that you hope that they are more successful than the opposition. If you hope that, then you are not truly opposed to the war as it is happening, you just find it to be less than ideal.

I know you consider all of this hot air. But I consider what you're doing an attempt to vaccinate yourself by playing both sides of the coin and not really having to take moral responsibility for what you're supporting.

Unless you are really ok with saying "If push comes to shove I'd prefer that Johnny from next door kill 50 Iraqis unjustly than 50 Iraqis justly kill Johnny." Because that is what supporting Johnny while considering the war to be a moral wrong means.

[Prudence]

I see. So individuals are allowed to select one of only two possible opinions. If they dislike the war, they therefore must hope our soliders die. If they dislike our soldiers dying, they must therefore yee-haw support the war. Well, at least it makes for a neat and orderly world view...

[Alex]

I fail to see where I said that. You certainly don't have to cease attempts to bring the war to a conclusion.

But if you support our troops individually in their endeavors then you are also supporting the larger endeavor. That while you want the war to end, until it does it should be successful. Can you think of another activity where you'd claim that you considered an act to be immoral but that you support success of the person doing it? It's nonsensical.

Also, it is completely possible to consider the war to be morally right but to be politically wrong. But I've never heard anybody on the anti-war left (though I have heard it from the anti-war right, which does exist) make that argument so I haven't included it here.

[innerSpaceman]

Withdrawal may be defeat, but it's defeat without our soldiers' deaths. Scrooge went on to terrifically rebut Alex's assertion about defeat being death or nothing, so I won't belabor the point.

Originally Posted by SacTown Chronic

I've never understood how people can support sending other people off to see the horrors of war when going to fight in the war themselves is the last thing they would ever do. ... Claiming to support our troops while being against the war is no more impossible than claiming to support the war from behind the safety a keyboard.

It doesn't much matter if you're ineligible to serve, I agree with what SacTown wrote. Folks who are ineligble to serve can do plenty in terms of material and active support.

Supporting the troops with zero action to actually do so is kinda like all those people who "own" sports teams because they watch them on TV (The "my team" syndrome).


The only team that's "yours" is one you play on or own shares in, and there's precious little "supporting" our troops by simply saying so.

[Alex]

Originally Posted by innerSpaceman

Withdrawal may be defeat, but it's defeat without our soldiers' deaths. Scrooge went on to terrifically rebut Alex's assertion about defeat being death or nothing, so I won't belabor the point.

Considering I never said that I would assume it easily rebutted.

[innerSpaceman]

Actually, you have been a little more nuanced than I give you credit for.

I do have a moral pecking order of death that I would prefer. In an unavoidable battle that is going to happen despite my omniscient powers to control who lives or dies, I want Americans to kill insurgents who are indiscriminent Iraqi-and-American killers, and actual freedom-figher rebels to kill Americans.

If there were only two sides in these battles, it would be a little easier to choose preferred death tolls in advance. Frankly, since the result I'd like is for Americans to leave, the American death toll should be lowered. And I'd be willing to have some more true rebels die so that the situation might be considered stable enough for our troops to withdraw. The death vs. result equation is simply not very simple.

[scaeagles]

Originally Posted by innerSpaceman

It doesn't much matter if you're ineligible to serve, I agree with what SacTown wrote.

Except that Sac wrote that it is impossible to support the war if you are not fighting it yourself.

Originally Posted by sactown chronic

How can one "support" the war if one hasn't actually enlisted to go fight in it?

I assume he is asking the question rhetorically.

And to address your team analogy, I do have part "ownership" in this "team" of soldiers. Regardless of what else I may do, I pay taxes. Acting as if you are not part "owner" is, by default, disowning them. They are the US Military. I am a taxpaying US citizen.

[wendybeth]

Oh, people who can't serve do plenty to help the effort! They support sending other people's kids, spouses and parents in as cannon fodder for the war, they support using other people's money to pay for the war, they vote the people into office that will pass laws to continue the war, keep the homeland safe and dismantle the Constitution in the process, and they are active in making sure that public funds aren't diverted into such nonesense as welfare, housing and medical care for those who can't afford it.

It's hard work being a true patriot!

[Alex]

There are many ways to win a war without killing somebody. There are many ways to lose a war without having had any people killed. There are many ways to avoid a war in the first place. We can all wish for those to have happened (I think the war is a just one but one that shouldn't have been started for non-moral reasons). But we're not talking about a general concept, we're talking about a specific situation.

The specific situation is that right now two groups of people are killing each other. How do you support American troops in that endeavor while simultaneously opposing, as immoral, the purpose for which they are doing it? Yes, you can also advocate that we simply leave right now and fight no more. But until that happens, how do you support the soldiers in their efforts to do that which you consider immoral, especially when they are doing it of their own volitoin?

That support is not the same thing as simply saying "I don't want you to die."

If we are wrong to be in Iraq, then Iraqis are justified in commiting violence against our soldiers to force us out (and third-parties are right to help them). Unless you are purely a pacifist.

Maybe it would be instructive to me in trying to understand how you can hold such contradictory ideas to ask this:

what does "support the troops" mean to you?

what does "oppose the war" mean to you?

[Alex]

Also, by SacTown's definition the only people who can support the war in Iraq are the 300,000 people currently over their fighting it. And since each of them is over there when they had the opportunity to not be, I think they can be counted as supporting (by action if not by oratory).

Also, by his defiition I am also unable to support the removal of dams on the Klamath River simply because I am not going to go there and knock them down myself.