WAPO Blogger: The Mercenaries In Iraq Should Be Grateful That The American Public Still Supports Them.

William Arkin’s blog post over at the WAPO just drips with contempt for the troops that are over in Iraq risking their lives.

You see, Arkin is frustrated that there are soldiers who actually want to win the fight in Iraq and aren’t happy about the left undercutting everything they’ve fought, sweated, and bled for over the last 3 1/2 years.

Here’s the video that got Arkin riled up (You may have already seen it on RWN yesterday).

What follows are some of Arkin’s comments and my comments afterwards:

“I’m sure the soldiers were expressing a majority opinion common amongst the ranks – that’s why it is news – and I’m also sure no one in the military leadership or the administration put the soldiers up to expressing their views, nor steered NBC reporter Richard Engel to the story.

I’m all for everyone expressing their opinion, even those who wear the uniform of the United States Army. But I also hope that military commanders took the soldiers aside after the story and explained to them why it wasn’t for them to disapprove of the American people.”

Well, he’s all for people, “expressing their opinion, even those who wear the uniform of the United States Army.” Isn’t it generous of him to grant the “common grunt” out in the field the right to have an opinion.

But, setting that aside, the standard liberal anti-war rap is that we need to end the war because it’s so hard on the troops. In other words, they’re the ones who really support the troops because they don’t want them to have to risk their lives in a needless war. Arkin goes in exactly the opposite direction and says, “Screw what the people actually fighting the war in Iraq think. Whether they think we can win or not is irrelevant!”

And, yes, that’s exactly what he means as you’ll see in this next excerpt:

“These soldiers should be grateful that the American public, which by all polls overwhelmingly disapproves of the Iraq war and the President’s handling of it, do still offer their support to them, and their respect.

Through every Abu Ghraib and Haditha, through every rape and murder, the American public has indulged those in uniform, accepting that the incidents were the product of bad apples or even of some administration or command order.

Sure it is the junior enlisted men who go to jail, but even at anti-war protests, the focus is firmly on the White House and the policy. We just don’t see very man “baby killer” epithets being thrown around these days, no one in uniform is being spit upon.

So, we pay the soldiers a decent wage, take care of their families, provide them with housing and medical care and vast social support systems and ship obscene amenities into the war zone for them, we support them in every possible way, and their attitude is that we should in addition roll over and play dead, defer to the military and the generals and let them fight their war, and give up our rights and responsibilities to speak up because they are above society?”

The troops who are fighting in Iraq should be GRATEFUL that the American public still supports them? Gee, isn’t that exactly backwards? Shouldn’t we be GRATEFUL TO THEM for doing dangerous, dirty work, far away from their families in order to protect all of us at home?

You’ve also got to love this line:

“Through every Abu Ghraib and Haditha, through every rape and murder, the American public has indulged those in uniform, accepting that the incidents were the product of bad apples or even of some administration or command order.”

So, the American people are just “indulging” the troops, but really, we know that the real bad apples don’t fall far from the tree and their behavior is actually typical? That is what a lot of the liberals in this country actually think, folks.

Then, we go to,

“We just don’t see very man “baby killer” epithets being thrown around these days, no one in uniform is being spit upon.”

Do you know why that’s the case? It’s not because liberals don’t WANT to do that. It’s because they’ve already done it once, during the Vietnam War, and they paid such a huge political price for it over the years that they know better than to go down that same route again.

That last paragraph about what we do for the soldiers…

So, we pay the soldiers a decent wage, take care of their families, provide them with housing and medical care and vast social support systems and ship obscene amenities into the war zone…etc., etc.,

…is again, like much of this piece, a bizarre way of looking at things.

These soldiers have sweated, bled, suffered, and watched their friends die in this fight and now, there are a bunch of politicians and people like William Arkin, who are saying, “All your sacrifices were for nothing and stop your whining about it because we gave you 3 hots and a cot for the last 3 1/2 years.”

Next, there’s this little crack:

“But it is the United States and instead this NBC report is just an ugly reminder of the price we pay for a mercenary – oops sorry, volunteer – force that thinks it is doing the dirty work.”

So, our troops are “mercenaries” in Arkin’s eyes, huh? And we all know how liberals feel about mercenaries. Like Kos said, “…I feel nothing over the death of merceneries. They aren’t in Iraq because of orders, or because they are there trying to help the people make Iraq a better place. They are there to wage war for profit. Screw them.”

Arkin concludes with this,

“America needs to ponder what it is we really owe those in uniform. I don’t believe America needs a draft though I imagine we’d be having a different discussion if we had one.”

Yes, how dare those dumb, uneducated drones that are putting their necks on the line in Iraq express an opinion about the war that might interfere with the political aspirations of liberals back home in America. Don’t they understand that they’re too dumb to think for themselves and they need to just shut up and let liberals like William Arkin think for them back in the states?

This was really a disgraceful post by Arkin and about the only good thing that can be said about it is that he actually said it, instead of thinking it and keeping his mouth shut, like most liberals do. The more the American people see of what liberals like William Arkin really think, the better.

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