McCain calls for deployment of more troops to Iraq
By Daniel Black
Originally published November 30, 2006 in The Circle, Marist College.
The possibility that John McCain may have chosen his words poorly when he called for the deployment of more troops to Iraq is hardly a subject of dispute.
The Arizona Senator has likely reduced his prospects of becoming president by saying so. Last Wednesday, through subtle shifts of expression, McCain attempted to recover at least some of what he had lost with masterfully touched-up language. His new (though claiming to be unchanged) words identify the difference between sending more troops overseas to win the war, vice continuing normal troop numbers with no clear end in sight. He tells us victory is attainable, that he can ask a "Young Marine to go back to Iraq" if he's doing so to win, and even calls the act of doing otherwise "immoral".
An eye-opener, to put it mildly, these words surely are. The implicit confessions in McCain's words reveal far more than his newly overhauled language ever could. "Immoral" aptly defines the ethical substance of sending troops, with no proper motive, off to their deaths; we know this because McCain tells us so, but if this is wrong now, surely it was wrong in the beginning of the conflict. Why didn't McCain speak up then? He was doing what he does, doing what they all do: looking out for himself. That factor, the instinctual sense of political self-preservation, is the only thing that inspires our politicians to speak or act.
"Young Marines", using McCain's words, are free to die in far off foreign lands, distant from the thoughts and concerns of politicians, until their perishing directly affects politicians' careers. They suddenly care; and they do things like rephrase their positions and scramble to appear concerned because they must appeal to the people of this nation- those that authentically care. That is what must direct this conflict if ever it is to end. The families in small American communities who have a brother, a cousin, a paperboy out in Iraq are the only citizens that a soldier can depend on to stand up for his rights while he/she is abroad.
If what I say is untrue, then why has it taken so long (the U.S. has been in Iraq now longer than it had been involved in WWII) for a formerly war-supporting senator to say it's immoral to send troops to their deaths if not for a specific, worthy cause? These sorts of ostensibly radical positions correspond to things like electoral activity, pending shifts of party distribution in government, political climate and public opinion, and things of that nature. They've got nothing to do with moral right and wrong because those are not time-specific; they don't shift as does public approval of the war. Mind you, McCain never says what the cause actually is; he asserts that there must be a bipartisan definition of what, exactly, is our mission in Iraq.
It is enlightening, in many disheartening ways, that it has taken nearly four years of fighting a war for one of its most ardent original supporters to arrive at the belief that there should be a mission we are pursuing while fighting it -and to presume that arrival was the result of some 'moral epiphany' and not politically motivated is laughable and insulting.
The sorts of war-related issues that I feel are more pressing than party loyalty or ascending the ranks of our political system include servicemen's rights, for example: the right of Iraq War veteran Agustin Aguayo to an honorable discharge from the armed forces as a conscientious objector; rights of native citizens, for example: those Iraqis who consider the American military an occupying force and desire its departure so that they may live lives in accordance with their own values; and overarching social concerns as they are often ignored by our leaders, for example: that 16,000 single mothers are deployed in Iraq, an unprecedented reality that is literally unvoiced in mainstream media.
Is it that we do not care about these issues? Surely citizens occupy every inch of the spectrum between conscious involvement and apathetic dissociation with regard to the war, but that these issues are not even raised and addressed in the news programs we watch or debated and acted upon by the representatives we elect should inform us as to what sort of government/society we live in. Concerns like those I've listed would be highly prioritized in an authentic democracy; if indeed this nation was governed by its people (you know, democratically), than clearly those people who go off to war would at least be acknowledged as empowered citizens rather than prosecuted as criminals. Kyle Snyder's actions to aid Hurricane Katrina victims over this past Thanksgiving holiday might have been applauded, but he is condemned for his activism because it conflicts with the authoritarian ambitions of our cosmetic democracy. Snyder's going AWOL would not have been necessary if his rights as a citizen came before the motives of his government; he would have been discharged and able to provide help to those citizens that the Department of Homeland Security continues to disregard a full 15 months after the disaster. But unfortunately, as we are able to discern from misguidance of the current political dialogue, the rights of the individual citizens and soldiers are not even worthy of government attention, an odd reality for a "democratic society."
© Copyright 2006 The Circle
Reprinted with permission.
By Daniel Black
Originally published November 30, 2006 in The Circle, Marist College.
The possibility that John McCain may have chosen his words poorly when he called for the deployment of more troops to Iraq is hardly a subject of dispute.
The Arizona Senator has likely reduced his prospects of becoming president by saying so. Last Wednesday, through subtle shifts of expression, McCain attempted to recover at least some of what he had lost with masterfully touched-up language. His new (though claiming to be unchanged) words identify the difference between sending more troops overseas to win the war, vice continuing normal troop numbers with no clear end in sight. He tells us victory is attainable, that he can ask a "Young Marine to go back to Iraq" if he's doing so to win, and even calls the act of doing otherwise "immoral".
An eye-opener, to put it mildly, these words surely are. The implicit confessions in McCain's words reveal far more than his newly overhauled language ever could. "Immoral" aptly defines the ethical substance of sending troops, with no proper motive, off to their deaths; we know this because McCain tells us so, but if this is wrong now, surely it was wrong in the beginning of the conflict. Why didn't McCain speak up then? He was doing what he does, doing what they all do: looking out for himself. That factor, the instinctual sense of political self-preservation, is the only thing that inspires our politicians to speak or act.
"Young Marines", using McCain's words, are free to die in far off foreign lands, distant from the thoughts and concerns of politicians, until their perishing directly affects politicians' careers. They suddenly care; and they do things like rephrase their positions and scramble to appear concerned because they must appeal to the people of this nation- those that authentically care. That is what must direct this conflict if ever it is to end. The families in small American communities who have a brother, a cousin, a paperboy out in Iraq are the only citizens that a soldier can depend on to stand up for his rights while he/she is abroad.
If what I say is untrue, then why has it taken so long (the U.S. has been in Iraq now longer than it had been involved in WWII) for a formerly war-supporting senator to say it's immoral to send troops to their deaths if not for a specific, worthy cause? These sorts of ostensibly radical positions correspond to things like electoral activity, pending shifts of party distribution in government, political climate and public opinion, and things of that nature. They've got nothing to do with moral right and wrong because those are not time-specific; they don't shift as does public approval of the war. Mind you, McCain never says what the cause actually is; he asserts that there must be a bipartisan definition of what, exactly, is our mission in Iraq.
It is enlightening, in many disheartening ways, that it has taken nearly four years of fighting a war for one of its most ardent original supporters to arrive at the belief that there should be a mission we are pursuing while fighting it -and to presume that arrival was the result of some 'moral epiphany' and not politically motivated is laughable and insulting.
The sorts of war-related issues that I feel are more pressing than party loyalty or ascending the ranks of our political system include servicemen's rights, for example: the right of Iraq War veteran Agustin Aguayo to an honorable discharge from the armed forces as a conscientious objector; rights of native citizens, for example: those Iraqis who consider the American military an occupying force and desire its departure so that they may live lives in accordance with their own values; and overarching social concerns as they are often ignored by our leaders, for example: that 16,000 single mothers are deployed in Iraq, an unprecedented reality that is literally unvoiced in mainstream media.
Is it that we do not care about these issues? Surely citizens occupy every inch of the spectrum between conscious involvement and apathetic dissociation with regard to the war, but that these issues are not even raised and addressed in the news programs we watch or debated and acted upon by the representatives we elect should inform us as to what sort of government/society we live in. Concerns like those I've listed would be highly prioritized in an authentic democracy; if indeed this nation was governed by its people (you know, democratically), than clearly those people who go off to war would at least be acknowledged as empowered citizens rather than prosecuted as criminals. Kyle Snyder's actions to aid Hurricane Katrina victims over this past Thanksgiving holiday might have been applauded, but he is condemned for his activism because it conflicts with the authoritarian ambitions of our cosmetic democracy. Snyder's going AWOL would not have been necessary if his rights as a citizen came before the motives of his government; he would have been discharged and able to provide help to those citizens that the Department of Homeland Security continues to disregard a full 15 months after the disaster. But unfortunately, as we are able to discern from misguidance of the current political dialogue, the rights of the individual citizens and soldiers are not even worthy of government attention, an odd reality for a "democratic society."
© Copyright 2006 The Circle
Reprinted with permission.
posted by Augie's Parents | 10:37 AM
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