The court scholar serving Hermann of Thuringia.

The court scholar serving Hermann of Thuringia.
The scholar

2004/09/04

More on how dedicated Republicans are to the Iraq War

The headline is:
Young Republicans support Iraq war, but not all are willing to join the fight


A typical comment from a young Republicanin the article:

"Frankly, I want to be a politician. I'd like to survive to see that," said Vivian Lee, 17, a war supporter visiting the convention from Los Angeles,

Lee said she supports the war but would volunteer only if the United States faced a dire troop shortage or "if there's another Sept. 11."


Well, first of all, one can be a politician after having been fighting overseas. Prime example, of course, is John Kerry. Surviving is all very fine and well, but what kind of example does that set if one asks young people to go off to war when one did not do so when one had the chance? If military service improves one (And as a veteran of the peacetime Navy, I can assure our young Republican friend it does.) what does it say to the people you'll, later in life, be directing to go off to war?
As to troop shortages, our president puts out the message that the number of troops is fine. For those who have paid attention to the news, it's been obvious since American troops were unable to properly secure Baghdad and mass looting broke out, that our forces there have been severely understrength. If US forces there were sufficient, what explains the dogged efforts to get allies to chip in with their own soldiers?

It was a very small article over a year ago, but I also remember seeing a statement on the President's difficulties in persuading people to go over to Iraq to be bureaucrats, administrators, whatever one wishes to call them.
Desk positions are also a vital part of the effort. People to do administrative-type tasks, writing up regulations, making ground-level decisions, signing up people for basic municipal tasks such as garbage collection, street repairs, directing traffic, etc., are vital to the effort over there. Right now, the military is said to be performing many running-the-country tasks that the Coalition Provisional Authority should have been handling. People are needed to serve as mayors and the like. Where are all the Republican volunteers for that kind of job? If the US is to maintain Iraq as more-or-less a colony, where's the colonial administrative service?

Yeah, it would be great if Republican youth were motivated to sign up and fight for their country, but we can't even seem to get young Republicans to get over there to be deskwork people. Of course it would be dangerous to do so, but that tells us how important the struggle is. If it's really important and there's a lot riding on it, then young Republicans should be rushing to the enlistment office to help out. In an earlier post, I suggested the President's daughters should be in Officer Candidate School (They could sign up to be carrier pilots, that would allow them to fly missions over Iraq while spending each night in comfort aboard a ship.) but I have no desire to see them forced to do that. My feeling instead is: if this struggle is so very important that other young people should be sent off to the meat grinder that is Iraq today, why are the President's daughters and other young Republicans not cheerfully signing up thenselves?

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