Troop Bashing at its Most Degrading

Unfortunately for the Los Angeles Times, a once prominent news-filled periodical, people across America are no longer tuning into to their consistent mind-numbing dribble. Circulation is in the tank (down 6.5% from 3/2004 to 3/2005 according to former Times writer Ken Reich), as it is with the New York Times, but nonetheless the faithful hard-left is still plugged into the hate-machine. Circulation may have dropped by nearly 100,000 -- but that still leaves 900,000 daily subscribers.

And many of them read stories like yesterday's column by Joel Stein, entitled Warriors and Wusses, without so much as raising an eyebrow. The faithful readers of anti-America peddlers like the LA Times, the New York Times, the Boston Globe, and the Washington Post have been programmed to accept news that portrays this country so horribly. So as you can imagine, a story that calls out our nation's bravest men and women as being "tricked into fighting in Iraq" is nothing short of normalcy.

Let's take a short time to dissect the gutter-slop that this column represents. The first sentence, "I DON'T SUPPORT (sic) our troops" is just the tip of the putrid iceberg. It is the car-sized block of ice hiding the skyscraper-sized mass beneath. For a few sentences later, Stein continues with:

If you're wandering into a recruiter's office and signing up for eight years of unknown danger, I want to hang with you in Vegas.

He portrays the recruits as aimlessly signing up for danger they don't know lies ahead, and eight years of it! Well it's odd because most recruits to the armed forces rarely serve more than a few years tops. And most recruits signed up with the full knowledge that war was inevitable. They've taken high-school level United States History; they know what wars are like. Except that the "danger" he speaks of is volumes less than, say, the paratroopers landing in France on D-Day encountered. Or perhaps the dangers faced by the soldiers in Vietnam, the ones with a lifespan of a couple weeks.

No, many of these "wandering recruits" know what they're signing up for. Furthermore, while they are in Iraq, they gain an appreciation for why they're fighting. As we repeatedly hear from obscure conservative sources because the MSM is busy peddling the negative news of suicide bombings (that kill mostly Iraqis, police and army recruits primarily), soldiers support the war and their commander-in-chief, President Bush.

Moving on down the iceberg, Stein continues with this lovely bit of degradation:

The real purpose of those ribbons is to ease some of the guilt we feel for voting to send them to war and then making absolutely no sacrifices.

First off, I would like to point out that the "we" doesn't mean he's part of my demographic. I don't associate with arrogant, pompous pricks of his ilk. Nevertheless, he seems to be forgetting the sacrifices of the many thousands, perhaps millions, of relatives our soldiers left behind. Many of them want nothing more than to see their loved ones again, but they understand why they have to answer their country's call. It reminds me of a story my dentist told me at my last appointment.

She's a Democrat who detests Bush and the war. However, her family supports both. Her 19 year old son supported the cause so much so that he signed up to fight in 2003 during the heat of the Iraq War. Are you telling me, Mr. Stein, that this woman who is wholeheartedly against the war has made no sacrifices? If so, maybe you should pull your head out of the toilet and take a look at reality.

Following his rant of the typical liberal response to the war, Stein adds this gem of ignorance:

But when you volunteer for the U.S. military, you pretty much know you're not going to be fending off invasions from Mexico and Canada. So you're willingly signing up to be a fighting tool of American imperialism, for better or worse. Sometimes you get lucky and get to fight ethnic genocide in Kosovo, but other times it's Vietnam.

And sometimes, for reasons I don't understand, you get to just hang out in Germany.

Let us not forget that about half of our standing army is fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. Had we taken the First Gulf War plan of strength over speed, there'd be over half a million soldiers on the ground in the Middle East and our military budget would be much higher. Thanks to the ingenuity of former Centcom director Gen. Tommy Franks (ret.) the plan needed half the force for twice the speed and efficiency.

So this "fighting tool of American imperialism" you speak of, why have I the suspicion that this is a liberal invention? Maybe because it is just that -- a figment of the left's active imagination. The reference to the army as an "occupying force" pays lip-service to this belief of imperialism, even though it's hogwash.

Did we leave Germany after WWII ended? No. Did we leave Korea after the North was repelled back across the 38th parallel? No. We have outfits maintaining key bases in both Germany and South Korea this very day. Would we characterize either of those instances as "occupying forces"? No! Germany is run by the new chancellor, Angela Merkel. South Korea has its own leader as well. The United States is simply protecting its investment and ensuring readiness in case North Korea attacks again or a rogue state starts a conflict in Eastern Europe.

And Kosovo, don't even get me started on that. That wasn't a war so much as it was a bombing campaign. Guess who Clinton gave a contract to for rebuilding their infrastructure afterward. No idea? Halliburton was awarded a $77-billion contract to rebuild, virtually identical to the one they received in Iraq. Why? It's called "capability". In a capitalist market system, the most capable companies have the ability to perform required tasks most efficiently. Had another company been given the contracts, the costs would've been much greater and the job finished much later.

The final quote I have is quite the apt admission of arrogance:

I know this is all easy to say for a guy who grew up with money, did well in school and hasn't so much as served on jury duty for his country.

And therein lies the problem. Rich, spoiled, leftist brats who think the ability to write a few words in line with liberal rhetoric qualifies them to be journalists in charge of getting the news to the rest of the nation. I have a proposition for columnists like Mr. Stein: write a book and let those who want to read your crap buy it instead of forcing it down the throats of the readers of the LA Times. Or just shut up, decent Americans have no use for your hatred of this country and its values.