Friday, June 08, 2007
Claque Louder
The poorest being that crawls on earth, contending to save itself from injustice and oppression, is an object respectable in the eyes of God and man. But I cannot conceive any existence under heaven (which in the depths of its wisdom tolerates all sorts of things) that is more truly odious and disgusting than an impotent, helpless creature, without civil wisdom or military skill, without a consciousness of any other qualification for power but his servility to it, bloated with pride and arrogance, calling for battles which he is not to fight, contending for a violent dominion which he can never exercise, and satisfied to be himself mean and miserable, in order to render others contemptible and wretched.
This abdication of responsibility masquerading as sanctimoniousness is also on display in this Journal Op-Ed flagged by Mona (Scott Lemiuex too):
In “The Soldier’s Creed,” there is a particularly compelling principle: “I will never leave a fallen comrade.” This is a cherished belief, and it has been so since soldiers and chroniclers and philosophers thought about wars and great, common endeavors. Across time and space, cultures, each in its own way, have given voice to this most basic of beliefs. They have done it, we know, to give heart to those who embark on a common mission, to give them confidence that they will not be given up under duress. A process that yields up Scooter Libby to a zealous prosecutor is justice gone awry….
He can’t be left behind as a casualty of a war our country had once proudly claimed as its own. [her emphasis]
Her reaction is warranted:
Interesting way to support the troops - by cheapening the breadth and scope of their sacrifice and courage. Only a claque of draft dodging, silver spooners who fought tooth and nail to avoid fighting tooth and nail would thus attempt to harvest the reflected glory of actual soldiers.These people are sheerly repulsive. There are some photographs available online of hideously maimed Iraq war vets. Then there are the dead ones. I’m not going to include such a graphic because I am not comfortable with the morality of using such depictions in a political rant. But use your imagination, and ponder they who rhapsodize about “Soldier’s Creeds” and etc. for Scooter effing Libby in the context of the Iraq war, with its actual dead and disabled.
Using this standard, Cheney would be Audie Murphy. After all, unlike the rest, he's actually shot a man.
