There are plenty of non-partisan reasons to oppose this war that have nothing to do with the men and women who actually have ot fight it.
Whether GWB gets another 4 years or winds up on trial for war crimes, the men and women in uniform are our sons and daughters, brothers and sister, mothers and fathers.
And will always be welcomed home regardless of the political and military outcome of this “war.”
Sometimes a yellow ribbon is just a yellow ribbon.
ExTank, I think you’re turning this on its head. None of the posters you quote is suggesting, even for a moment, that you are eager to kill and maim our soldiers, just to support Bush’s political agenda. What they’re all suggesting is that those who say that criticizing Bush’s agenda is the same thing as being callous about our soldiers are being intellectually dishonest. They’re saying that it is entirely possible, despite right-wing rhetoric, to support the troops, yet be vehemently opposed to this administration’s policies.
And sometimes it’s a political slogan meaning any criticism of Bush is a criticism of the troops, which is of course unpatriotic and shameful, which means you must re-elect Bush. :rolleyes:
As you probably know, Blair sent British troops to Iraq because ‘Saddam had WMD’s aimed at British bases ready to fire in 45 minutes’.
And some of those troops have died there, despite the fact that Saddam didn’t have WMD’s and wasn’t able to reach any British bases anyway.
So what we have is a lying politician sending brave men to die (just like you do).
This was dramatically pointed out by a father of one of the dead soldiers, who threatened to commit suicide at a political conference Blair was running:
‘The father of a soldier killed in Iraq threatened to hang himself on the West Pier in Brighton yesterday, moments before Tony Blair’s speech at the Labour Party conference.’
The Tony Orlando song was about a prisoner, but yellow ribbons as a symbol for departed loved ones (including to military service) predate Tony by a considerable margin.
This post will probably be a waste of time, considering the tone of the majority of the posters on this thread, but I’ll give it a shot.
At the moment you read this, there is an aircraft carrier sitting just below the opening to the Persian Gulf. There has been one there every day for decades. The men and women aboard it have not seen their families in months and will not see them for about three months more.
At this moment, there are sailors under the water on Ballistic Missle Submarines, making someone think twice before lobbing a missile at the United States. They, too, have been doing that for nearly fifty years.
Those are just two examples. Many of you are rolling your eyes now because you think you know where I’m going with this…and you are correct. If you just can’t take a viewpoint that does not mirror your own any further, I invite you to stop reading. I would add a sarcastic aside at this point, but I want to respect the forum rules.
The point is that there are thousands of young men and women out there at this very moment that are doing things that many of you are incapable or unwilling to do. You may disagree with the goals of the authority that commands them, but they are there just the same. They were there when President Clinton was in power and everything was sweetness and light, and they are there now while Satan rules from his Oval Office lair.
Millions of people have a connection to the troops that are currently serving…be it familial, fraternal, emotional. Millions of people are unapologetically patriotic. And I’m willing to bet that those stickers are meant to say just what they do. “Support our Troops”. True, some people may display them to say “Shut up, you commies…”…but remember…diversity of thought is what makes this country great. It would be awful for everyone to be in idealogical lockstep, now wouldn’t it…
Aw, bullshit. “SUPPORT THE TROOPS” means “SUPPORT THE WAR” and I don’t, and I won’t, and the bathos invoked by citing sailors in submarines really only works as a reason not to support the war.
People who actually give a crap about the troops want them to come home not to remain in harm’s way for no reason.
Also, I have to say I do not support the mission or the goals of this war. I do not believe we had the right to invade Iraq and I do not believe we have the right to continue occupying it. It’s not the fault of those military personel who were sent there, in fact I actually consider them to be victims of this war, but IMO,the only way to “support” them is to oppose their mission.
And when the Abraham Lincoln came home to San Diego over a year ago, George W. Bush kept them at sea one additional day just so he could play dress-up and land on the flight deck. Keep hundreds of sailors away from their families an extra night so that Bush can have a photo op. If that is Supporting Our Troops, they don’t need it.
If you were to ask the sailors involved, I’m sure some of them would agree with your sentiment…especially those who were up all night polishing the brass. I’m sure others were proud to host the President and didn’t mind a bit.
Come on, Dio. You are above such blanket statements. I used the examples that I did to illustrate that the sacrifices made by the military are not a new phenomenon. Neither is the support and sympathy felt by those who have gone before or have a family member on active duty.
No, people who would rather help out a politician with a photo-op than be reunited with the families they haven’t seen in months = douchebags. Party affiliation isn’t relevant.
For the record, I was the original D’bag of this thread, and why I ask you? Scroll back and notice that it was for interpreting “Support Our Troops” in a way which was interpreted as unpatriotic.
I like Cranky’s assessment of what it should mean.
After that we run into murky waters.
While individuals who purchase the stickers will undoubtedly have a spectrum of reasons, what I think we are looking for here is what most of the people who purchase the stickers think they mean.
Since they feel the need to advertise their support, I presume that means that they think such support is not universal. (I am not likely to put a bumper sticker on my car that says “Ice is cold!”).
The wording is even a little interesting. It is not an affirmation that “I, the sticker owner, support our troops.”, but rather a command that “You, the reader should support our troops.” (I doubt most purchasers put that much thought into it, but that is what the “You, understood” form in English means.)
So, the typical purchaser feels that a) it is important to support the troops and b) that some people are not doing so sufficiently. Since I don’t recall anyone publicly stating anything but utmost respect for the soldiers*, it would seem that public respect is not enough support.
Which leads me to believe that for most sticker purchasers, the intended message is “support the troops and their endeavour”. It implies that by not supporting the war, you are not supporting the troops.
Now, a smaller subset of sticker purchasers will be those who feel that “supporting our troops without supporting the war” is under assault from the “support our troops and their endeavour” folks. They will probably accompany the yellow ribbon with a peace symbol or a Kerry/Edwards sticker.
I may be overthinking this, but that’s what the straightdope is for!
*except, of course, for the particular soldiers involved in Abu Graib.
Beautiful post, Evil One. Despite the admonishment that can come out of the rabid left, I believe that when they consider how harsh the conditions are for the typical soldier, the vast majority of the lefties will appreciate our troops as well. I know I do. Though I don’t paint every serviceman automatically as a “hero,” my general impression is that they’re performing one of the most demanding jobs you could ask of anyone and should be appreciated as such.
The thing about these stickers, however, that causes me to raise an eyebrow is that I suspect that they are little more than slacktivism. That some — not all of these people feel that putting a sticker on their automobile* gives them credit for doing something without really doing anything.
putting a sticker supporting troops fighting in oil-rich Iraq on a gasoline-consuming object — ironic or appropriate? Hmm.
Ex-Tank, I don’t see what you’re getting at either, but whatever you’re seeing might be a reaction on the part of liberals who feel raw and sensitive after about 30 years of being battered by the labels as weak, effeminate, unpatriotic, un-American, or traitors when we take the position that:
Deadly force (i.e., military action) ought to be used only in extreme cases.
There must be a compelling reason to use military action. This means a significant, imminent security risk that threatens the physical well-being of the country or its citizens, not an economic or other kind of risk. Needless to say, in order to judge whether this is the case, we must demand absolute honesty and openness from the government regarding the facts of the alleged threat and the intent of the administration.
There must be no other effective means to avoid the expected harm. All reasonable, non-military means must be exhausted.
All efforts must be made to mitigate harm to innocents of whatever nationality.
Those we empower to take military action, from the president at the top down to the private on the field, must exercise the highest integrity and must not violate the strictest standards of honesty and prudence. Any transgression of such standards must be quickly, effectively, and publicly punished. Incidents of transgressions must never be covered up.
Military action must be taken with an attitude of humility, gravity, sobriety, and duty, not with an attitude of triumphalism. Killing people is a tragedy, not a sport; it should not be celebrated as such.
The fact of military action must never be used to attempt to silence criticism or opposition on the basis of policy disagreement.
In fact, from the point of view of many of us liberals, every single one of these principles has been violated in the course of the Iraq war, some to an extent that we never could have imagined could be perpetrated by those who act in our name. Furthermore, we see not only a violation of all the above moral standards but also an orgy of plain incompetence and serial bungling. That has been accompanied by a massive campaign of dishonest propaganda to distract the public from these points.
In short, my point of view is that sometimes military force is necessary, but usually isn’t, and when it’s not, responsible people should stand up and say so and do what they can to stop it. Furthermore, if it’s the case that those in power have abused their trust, then they should be the subject of the highest criticism.
In fact, it is the experience of liberals like me that people who are likely to publicly display “support our troops” type messages are the kinds of people who are going to call us traitors or weaklings when we express disagreement with a decision to use military force or dismay at abuse of authority taking place under the aegis of military force. That’s why a “support the troops” ribbon is in my mind not associated with some kind of generalized good feeling towards “our boys” but rather a hostile and unreasonable attitude towards my point of view.
It’s in the same line as “America: Love it or leave it,” which really means “you’re not allowed to disagree with me.”
I don’t disagree with anything you say here. Who could? There are people (today they volunteer; in the past, many were forced) who take positions of danger and deprivation to engage in unspeakable acts for the benefit of the nation. That’s an awesome sacrifice.
But it’s also in the “no duh” territory. It takes an exceedingly unaware person not to know this.
The very fact that you feel you have to take such great pains to explain this to us is more telling than the obvious facts that you point out.
The point is that “support our troops” and other expressions that on their face are simply literal statements of empathy or love of country or whatever have taken on what in trademark law might be known as secondary meaning. There’s a hidden message there, beyond the literal statement, and after decades of being intellectually bullied by that message, we can’t pretend it’s not there. We’re not stupid.
There’s another thread here about whether Kerry really did “vote for the war” or not. That ties in here. Because what Kerry literally did was grant the president the authority to decide whether to go to war, which on its face does not equal literal support for going to war. However, we all knew that President Bush fully intended to go to war, regardless of any circumstance; so, in that sense, Kerry’s vote was a vote for war. So if Kerry believed we shouldn’t go to war, why did he vote for it? Because if he didn’t, hed’ be labeled as weak, un-American, and unwilling to protect the country in time of need.
It’s a result of the same intellectual bullying that makes some people try to tell us that “sometimes a ribbon is just a ribbon.” We’ve been intellectually abused for long enough and we’re not stupid enough to fall for that.
ascenray: I give fuck-all about the politics behind the war. FWIW, I agree with most of the “liberals” that:
We shouldn’t be there,
Bush & Co. fucked it up,
It’s degenerated from “Total Mess” to “Fucking Catastrophe,”
3a. It’s Bush & Co.'s fault
It’s a distraction for the War on Terror,
It’s made us less safe from terrorists,
You get the drift, continue on from here on your own…
None of that changes the fact that I will never denigrate or verbally abuse any soldier, sailor, airman or Marine (they get capitalized so I don’t get my ass kicked); that regardless of poltics, those who serve with honor will always be my countrymen (and women!), will always be welcome home, and neve rmade by me to feel less than my equal as a citizen for their honorable service.
To me, that’s what “Support Our Troops” means, and regardless of whatever moneymaking scheme someone else came up with, it’s what I signify by displaying a yellow ribbon.