Unfortunate Sons; Who's really supporting our troops?

Unfortunate Sons
Who's really supporting our troops?
by Paul Waldman, Editor-in-Chief - The Gad Flier
4.19.04

The latest television ad from the Bush campaign is another attempt to convince people that John Kerry is an enemy of our soldiers. Like a similar one already on the air, this ad takes a single one of Kerry's votes - his opposition to the $87 billion supplemental appropriation funding operations in Iraq and Afghanistan - and with a little Senate roll call re-enactment makes it appear as though Kerry actually cast three separate votes, one against "funding our troops," one against body armor and higher combat pay for soldiers, and one against improved health benefits for reservists.

This is what my people call "chutzpah," and not just because it makes one vote seem like three. George W. Bush, who, the ad tells us, "approved this message," sent those troops to war without proper body armor, tried to cut combat pay for soldiers, and cut veterans' health benefits.

But wait - isn't George W. Bush a friend to the man and woman in uniform? The man who told them in 2000, as he criticized the alleged failures of the Clinton administration, that "help is on the way"?

But exactly why is that we believe Bush is a friend to the man and woman in uniform? The answer can be found in the "National Security Photo Album" on the Bush campaign web site. There's Bush in an Army jacket! There's Bush eating lunch with soldiers! There's Bush speaking to soldiers! There's Bush in another Army jacket! And hey, there's Bush with more soldiers!

The soldiers in these pictures look happy to participate in a photo-op for their Commander-in-Chief. Most of them are unaware that just before announcing that the Iraq war had begun - and thus that he would be sending them into a conflict in which many of them would die or be gravely wounded - Bush was caught by a camera pumping his fist in glee, as though he had just scored a touchdown. "Feels good," he said to an aide.

Most of the soldiers - like most Americans - have never heard this story, because the American press decided that it was a glimpse of the President that was just too vulgar for us to know about. So what remains is the image of the Bush the reluctant warrior, the friend of soldiers who surely stays up at night worrying about their safety and trying to devise ways to stabilize Iraq and bring them home.

But all the photo-ops in the world cannot change the fact that morale among the troops is going nowhere but down. Not surprisingly, the military is failing to meet its reenlistment goals. If you had spent the last year walking the streets of Fallujah, wondering whether around the next corner was a roadside bomb or an insurgent hiding in a doorway with an RPG, chances are you wouldn't be too eager to sign up for another hitch, either.

And when you consider that enlisted soldiers' pay starts off at around $1100 a month, it comes as little shock that more and more servicemembers find themselves turning to food banks in order to provide for their families.

And now many of those families, excitedly making preparations for the return of their loved ones after year-long tours in Iraq, are informed that no, they won't be coming home quite yet. Some, in fact, were literally boarding the planes they believed would return them to their families when they were told to turn around; they'll be staying for three more months to endure more danger and the blistering Iraqi summer.

At his last press conference, President Bush told the story of a wounded soldier he had met who told him that he couldn't wait to get back to his unit. The obvious lesson Bush was trying to impart was that though soldiers may experience the occasional "rough week," they're only too eager to be serving in Iraq, and can't wait to get back once they're gone.

As they have throughout history, soldiers pay the price in life, limb and psyche for the hubris and callousness of those who issue orders a safe distance from the messiness of battle. Paul Bremer decides to shut down a newspaper run by supporters of a minor cleric, and with utter predictability the cleric becomes a hero and an uprising is touched off. Within a few weeks, dozens of American soldiers who would otherwise have completed their tours and returned home are dead, their futures gone, their families in agony. The number of American soldiers under the age of 25 who breathed their last breath in Iraq now approaches 300.

And we are told again and again by the administration and its supporters that it is not those who sent these young men and women to their deaths who should be hanging their heads in shame, who should fall to their knees before wives, husbands, sons and daughters and mothers and fathers to beg for forgiveness. No, it those who raise questions, who do not pump their fists and proclaim "feels good" at the thought of sending these men and women to war, those who express concern about official lies and profiteering and unintended consequences - it is they who are accused of failing to "support our troops."

So when Bush is asked whether the deepening morass of Iraq bears any resemblance to that prototypical quagmire of Vietnam, he does not explain how the two might differ. Instead he says, "that analogy sends the wrong message to our troops, and sends the wrong message to the enemy." Express pessimism about the future of the Iraq occupation and you betray the troops and give succor to the enemy; allow your infantile optimism to blind you to the possibility that things might not go smoothly so one might consider planning for the worst - thereby insuring that chaos will reign and more of those troops will die - and your commitment to the troops and the country lies beyond reproach.

This is a technique of argument Bush is always ready to employ: criticize him on matters military, and you are attacking not him but brave American soldiers. When Tim Russert asked Bush to explain gaps in his National Guard service (one more non-scandal Bush escaped without ever giving a satisfactory explanation of his actions), Bush narrowed his eyes and said, "I would be careful to not denigrate the Guard. It's fine to go after me, which I expect the other side will do. I wouldn't denigrate service to the Guard, though, and the reason I wouldn't, is because there are a lot of really fine people who have served in the National Guard and who are serving in the National Guard today in Iraq." Of course, no one had denigrated the Guard, particularly not the Guard of 2004, a service whose members face far greater risk than Bush did when he served in the "Champagne Unit."

But transforming a criticism of an administration policy or a mendacious president into an attack on those facing bullets and bombs is sure to render the opposition frightened and mute. And as we march toward November, we will be treated again and again to more of the same: endless photos of Bush in another Army jacket, with another group of soldiers, each one accompanied by another attack on Kerry for his insufficient enthusiasm for sending those troops toward the possibility of death and disfigurement.

And while its ultimate success remains in doubt, this campaign will no doubt convince many that war hero though he may be, Kerry cares less about our troops than Bush, Cheney, and the rest of the chickenhawk army that assured us with such conviction that the war in Iraq, the rebuilding of Iraq, and the democratization of Iraq would be quick, cheap, and easy. They, of course, feel no need to explain to the troops why they were so wrong and why the price for their particular blend of dogmatism and stupidity is so high. But as Bush once said, "I do not need to explain why I say things. That's the interesting thing about being the President. Maybe somebody needs to explain to me why they say something, but I don't feel like I owe anybody an explanation."