Condescension From The Left
By Michael R. Bowen (05/04/04)
Contempt and condescension are the hallmarks of the American Left, never more obvious than when Leftists talk about American servicemen. They know that America has not forgotten how they spat on our returning Vietnam veterans, so they choose their words carefully, but their true feelings cannot be hidden.
Since America will no longer tolerate calling our soldiers baby killers, the Left falls back on another favorite canard: that our fighting men and women are suckers and dupes, risking life and limb to enrich Big Oil. Antiwar liberals simply cannot conceive that a sane, intelligent person would enlist in the belief that he is defending America. Odd, then, how earnestly the war protesters strive to understand the motives of the jihadists. No possibility, is there, that the foot soldiers of al Qaeda are being used?
Mr. Emmanuel Krasner's guest column in the Union Leader is a case in point. There is no use reasoning with a man who thinks the war's casualties are being hidden from us, when every newspaper and broadcast loudly proclaims the day's toll. And if a man doesn't think "liberated" is the way to describe a people who yesterday were being fed into shredding machines and today are rebuilding their country and setting up their own government, then he cannot be reached by argument. He is merely reciting the words of others, people who respect what they should despise, and love what they should hate. Instead, let's assume that Mr. Krasner is right: that our soldiers, airmen, and Marines are no more than pawns, shedding their blood for Halliburton and oil tycoons.
If that's the case, then this former stooge and lackey of Big Oil has a question for Mr. Krasner: how did you get to work today? How do you heat your house? How do your clients get to your office? Whence came the ink with which your facile commentary was printed, and how did it reach your readers?
Because if you do not commute on horseback, and heat your home with wood you cut yourself; if you do not dress in skins and write by tallow lamp; if you do not earn your daily bread without relying on paved roads and electricity: then our soldiers are dying for you, Mr. Krasner.
They are also dying for me, unworthy as I am. But while Mr. Krasner tells the soldiers that they are dying for nothing more than Dick Cheney, and tells their mothers that their sons are being sacrificed for the Almighty Dollar, I will tell them something different:
Thank you, American fighting men and women. Thank you for your courage, your service, and your sacrifice. I am grateful to live in a nation which can produce people like you. You make me proud to call myself American.
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