Refuting the "Chickenhawk" Argument - 2005-10-20 8:32 PM
American Spectator:
- By far the most common and silliest debate about the war in Iraq is the old send-your-child-to-Iraq-or-shut-up sophism. This so-called line of reasoning maintains that a government only has the moral authority to commit troops to an armed conflict if its leaders first pack their own kids off to the front.
Not only must the offspring of administration hawks enlist -- as the left's argument goes -- but the commander-in-chief and his advisers must also be battle-tested.
If progressives had their way the only persons with the moral authority (never mind the skill or expertise) to lead the Iraq conflict are those who have fought in the trenches. And service in the Texas Air National Guard, or surviving the attacks on the Pentagon or Twin Towers on 9-11, doesn't count.
Such a policy would likely exclude most of the current federal government.
Had there been some kind of asinine military service litmus test in place at the nation's founding, Ben Franklin, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, John Jay, George "Father of the Bill of Rights" Mason, and Thomas Paine would have been ineligible for government service (or in Paine's case his views ignored) since not one of them wore the uniform of the continental army, and not one of them had a child serve. (George Mason's son John, a bank president and foundry owner, was appointed brigadier general of the District of Columbia militia, a unit much like the contemporary National Guard, which as we know from George W. Bush's service in that branch, doesn't count.) Only Washington, Monroe, and Hamilton would have been eligible for office.
Apparently, what liberals want is a military junta running the government.
But the left's idiotic ideas would go beyond mere policymakers. Not only must government officials and their offspring enlist, but civilians who support the war either have to sign up or shut up.
When history's great military thinkers -- the Sun Tzus, the Clauswitzes, the Jominis and Napoleons -- created military strategy, they did not deem it necessary to waste time on whether the adult children of government leaders joined the armed forces. They knew that such distractions divide the country and take our eye off the real target. It simply is not an issue when battling Taliban forces or Saddam's Republican Guard. It is a shallow partisan political ploy and thus has no bearing on military strategy.
Here's a basic civics lesson for the Left: when the U.S. Congress votes to commit troops, it is speaking for the nation as a whole, malcontents too, and not just those that happen to agree with the outcome. The American people voted through their representatives to take out Saddam Hussein.
It is not the pro-war Americans that are being hypocritical. That description goes -- in George Will's words -- to the Americans who think "the world is too good for America."