I think it's important to understand historically that during the Vietnam war, the American anti-war left which was trying to stop the fighting pleaded with young people not to go fight. There were underground railroads even, to smuggle them out of America to Canada. You can't have a war if there aren't enough soldiers to go willingly. There was a horrible cultural clash back then, because the people who wanted to fight were much more likely to be less educated, less affluent, more conservative politically, more patriotic in a very traditional, flag-flying, we'll do whatever our president wants us to kind of way. Sadly, when the soldiers finally came home, if they came home, the country was so divided that a lot of people took it out on the soldiers, and the wounds obviously have never healed.
This time, in the Iraqi conflict, the anti-war left had nothing for sympathy for the soldiers, who they thought had been duped by Bush into going to war. Actually many soldiers do vote, and their families vote too, and it was extremely hard for the anti-war Democrats to comprehend the election news reports that two thirds of the soldiers and their families had voted for Bush.
There really is another horrible divide in our country, between Americans who do not believe in the Iraqi war and are horrified that U.S. soldiers and Iraqis are dying there, they feel needlessly. It is hard for the left to maintain feelings of sympathy for the military if the military overwhelmingly supports the war effort.
However, those feelings of frustration are not at all what you are implying, that anyone at all wishes the death of some 18-year-old. I don't have any friends like that. I just have friends who can't understand why so many people are so stupid about this Iraqi entanglement, which really looks like it is turning into a nightmare like Vietnam.
And I would add that the anti-war left feels that it is MORE patriotic to oppose the war and the regime in Washington than to participate in a cause that is not good and was totally unnecessary, and maybe kill Iraqi civilians like the probably over 100,000 who have died. It is a little tiring when the flag-wavers claim all the patriotism. |
