As a pejorative referring to someone who supports a war but does not fight in it, might "chickenhawk" be perilously broad?
Because I am, as defined here, a chickenhawk myself, you may take the following cum grano salis, but I take it as something worth writing.
The armed forces are not for everyone, for reasons that may have nothing to do with cowardice or confidence in the fight. People have emotional limitations, or physical limitations, or obligations that, while no greater than their perceived duties as citizens, weigh too heavily on their wills. These people speak out precisely because they acknowledge that they are unable to be soldiers, or sailors, or airmen, or marines, but they do want to contribute. They spread the word, they arrange care packages, they secure the fort at home--all through the belief that this support is preferable to none. Those who put their lives on the line for what is right are the personification of nobility, and I cheer them and argue for them for doing what others, including me, can not or will not. But for what I do, I hope touches those men and women made of stronger stuff than me.
Update: Eve Garrard, writing at Normblog: For we can equally ask of those who were and remain against the war whether they were themselves, in their own or their children's persons, prepared to incur the consequences attendant on that war not having been waged.
1 comment:
You miss the rather important point that:
(a) we all PAY for the armed forces and thus why should we not have some say in how our money is used (by supporting war in Iraq, for example). We are not all teachers but does than mean we get no say how tax funded education is managed?
(b) no one is conscripted... the people who die on our behalf have my eternal and heartfelt gratitude, but no one MADE them go there, they volunteered.
The whole 'chickenhawk' meme is bullshit.
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