Limbaugh, Bootrz, Hannity et al have all tried to express what the troops want. I have heard conservatives talk about winning the war in Iraq. The conservative speakers that I hear seem to believe that a loss of 800+ lives a year is acceptable. Yet none of the top talk show speakers has any military experience. So why are they allowed to sway opinion on the war never having been there? If Rush is fine with the numbers killed, then why is he not broadcasting from the Sunni Triangle?
Sgt Schwartz
Hello, Sgt!
I’m certainly no fan of Limbaugh or Hannity and I don’t know the other guy. And of course no one has the right to speak for the troops except the troops. But this war doesn’t belong just to the women and men who are fighting it. All of us have a right to express our opinions about what should be done – even when those opinions are uninformed and originate in constipated, bigoted, burned-out Faux brains.
I guess one test of your belief in the First Amendment is whether you would fight for Rush Limbaugh’s freedom of speech.
I hope you stay put in N.C. for a while and that all of the troops return home soon. Just keep on speaking up and stay safe.
Agreeing with Zoe as regards war as an expression of a nation’s will.
And I agree that, if you are currently serving, etc. However, as a person who was happy to not be put in a position to choose my future during the Vietnam War (the draft ended before I was eligible), while I can see your point, our elected leaders are the ones we, as a group, allow to choose. In 2000 we, as the voters of Florida who could have changed the future of the Big-N-Nation, chose poorly.
Those are good points but I don’t see how they address the OP’s question. Sgt Schwartz didn’t ask if people have a right to speak to a general issue, he’s asking if people who didn’t serve should (morally) speak on behalf of a specific group they have never belonged to.
I once read a well-cited post on this board that these pundits are very popular with the military, and that AFRTS is very rigorous in selecting who gets on the air based on actual listener/viewer preference (in contrast to my service in the age of sail as a Navy journlaist when the captain decided what we thought - or so he at least thought).
But, having never served, one mistake they could make is that the opinions of people in the military are somehow simpler than that of people in the general poulation, and are not subject to shifting.
How about this:
They can say what they like.
You can decide whether they are credible.
You can believe what you like.
This has worked for about two hundred years, and I see no reason to mess around with it now.
I suppose civilians like Hannity have as much right to say 800+ soldiers killed a year is acceptable as other civilians have to say that figure is not acceptable, and neither group has any more or less right than the other to “speak for the troops.”
And even we who are against the war must admit 3,000 dead is a paltry butcher’s bill for a military operation of this scale – conquering and occupying an industrialized country the size of California for going on four years now. There have been battles in earlier wars where more American soldiers than that were killed in a single day. But the figure isn’t what matters. What we resent, and what must make it even harder for their families to bear, is that this particular war was not necessary, not just, and begun under false pretenses. John Kerry recently repeated the question he asked in 1971: “How can you ask a man to be the last one to die for a mistake?” But this is worse than a mistake, it’s a crime. Every one of those KIA died for a lie.
It’s got nothing to do with having served or having not served. Anyone who claims to speak for me without my permission is a fraud. And that same principle holds for all them other 'me’s out there.
The troops themselves, according to the polls, are divided on many things - on the wisdom and winnability of this war, foremost. It’s irrational for anyone to suggest that “the troops” are for this or against that.
One can* cite* what “the troops” feel on issues they’ve been recently polled on (i.e. where they’ve had a chance to speak for themselves), but that’s about it.
Well, yeah. And that’s what we’re engaged in here.
Because our Constitutional system is about more than each of us, in our individual boxes, deciding for ourselves who’s credible and who isn’t.
We actually get out (literally or metaphorically) and discuss these things, y’know,
with each other in order to help make up our minds.
Been working well for 200+ years.
Feel free to join in and take a side. Or you can engage in meaningless, pseudo-oracular posts.
The problem isn’t that they say these things, it’s that they claim to be able to speak on behalf of the military, right?
I think really the only people who have cause to do something about this is the military themselves. If they think a pundit is misrepresenting them significantly, some high-up guy should complain. If they don’t complain, who are we to say that the pundit’s views are not shared by the troops? As far as permission goes, I would say that not complaining is essentially tacit approval in this case.
I think you have that backwards. People, including talk-show listeners, are responsible for their *own * opinions. Entertainers are just doing their job by providing entertainment; they don’t need to be “allowed” to do so. Anybody who gives actual credence to views expressed for the purpose of entertainment is entirely responsible for the consequences.
If those guys could see a bigger ratings niche by supporting a pullout instead, they would. But it still wouldn’t mean anything.
I have never served.
When I’ve heard military folk express their opinion, the prevailing one is not “it is bad to get us into a situation where XXXX soldiers per year die”, but rather “It is bad to get us into a situation where there’s no clearly stated goal or strategy for winning and where XXXX soldiers per year die”.
Some believe that the latter description applies to Iraq, some do not.
I can’t back this up with a cite, but my understanding is that there’s a fair amount of daylight between the views of the officer corps and those of the enlisted men and women on an array of issues. If this is so, the high-up guy might not feel there’s anything to complain about, even if the enlisted men and women are in fact being misrepresented.
Do the troops have as much leeway to engage in public debate as the rest of us do?
At any rate, to the extent that some political figures or commentators use the alleged views of the troops as a rhetorical weapon to move the debate on issues relating to war, we’re all involved and have reason to call foul if we think the troops are being misrepresented, or simply used inappropriately as a partisan tool.
No, I think Zoe got it exactly right wrt to the OP. It’s possible that the OP meant to say what you think he said, but look at what he actually did say:
That doesn’t sound like a moral argument to me.
To clarify, I did mean do they morally have the right to speak for the troops. I understand that these people are entertainers as ElvisL1ves has suggested. I also understand that most Dopers understand that these people may or may not believe what they state on their programs, but many people accept what is said as fact. (Listen to the Dittoheads sometimes.) So the real question is: Should these people feel that it is morally acceptable to spread the propaganda that they do knowing that they may influence public opinion? Especially considering that they have never been a member of the military.
Sgt Schwartz
When it comes to policy and politics eg. should we go to war?continue the war?,pull out of the war?and so on service people should NOT have the right to dictate or even amend policy even at General rank and above.
By all means specialist information (logistical,force levels etc.)should be unequivocally given to the government to assist them in their decisions ,but the decision is down to politicians alone.
Once military leaders are involved in the game then you’re on the slippery slope to military coups ,non compliance unless thesenior officers personal whims are indulged and much ,much more.
Further down the scale if the ordinary “grunt” starts to think he has some sort of say so in whether the war(any war)that he is fighting in, is justified or not then worst possible case you get mutiny and a refusal to fight at all ,or low morale troops (especially conscripts)deliberatly performing to the minimum standard allowable on the job.
Allow that situation to arise and then you start getting troops arguing that they should only fight in wars that they believe in and should be exempt from those that they dont .
Human nature being what it is many people would have "crisis 's of conscience about the conflict either genuinlly or cynically when they start becoming cold/hot ,wet, tired ,bored or missing their families.
Though my experience of the British army is that elite troops (Paras,marines,Spec. forces and the like) want to get into a war (any war without any interest in the political strategy behind their mobilisation ) and are bitterly disappointed if they are left out as you can ask ,I believe ,2Para their feelings at the start of Gulf 2.
But the poor sods from the logistical units who had to serve as infantry (to make the share of risk fair across the army)peace keepers to try and keep the two communities in Ulster from bombing and shooting the hell out of each other plodded on professionaly though they couldn’t care less about either of them.
Sorry to have waffled on so long, but finally even though a lot of politicians of whichever persuasion are usually dickheads, they’re the people we elected(including service personell)and they’re the people who tell us what we’re going to do and they speak for the civvy electorate but not the squaddies.(Mostly as they usually never bother asking us our opinions unless its a photo call ,but then again like we give a f~~~~)
Except that military personnel don’t have quite the same level of freedom of speech as civilians have.
When people can accept the fact that sometimes the pre-mature death of a loved one is pointless and meaningless, we will be alot closer to coming terms with the idea that this was all just one big mistake.
I think I see the problem right there in those sentences. If you are looking for morality from people who have the sort of moral compass of Limbaugh, Bortz, and Hannity, you are barking up the wrong tree. It is sort of like asking whether the devil should feel it morally acceptable to do what he does.
If you have never served should you speak for the troops?
For that matter, should you answer that question if you never served? The closest I got to military service was my draft physical in the Vietnam era; the doctor told me to go back home. I feel that I can’t speak for the troops, and I wonder if I’m even qualified to say that.
I think that the war is a collossal mistake that is costing us lives and money, while giving us absolutely nothing in return.
I have also never served in the military in any capacity.
Do I have the moral right to voice that opinion? If yes, why do Limbaugh et. al. not have the right to voice the opposite view?