Back in March of 2003, I wrote
an
article for NRO excoriating the claim put forth by a
number of statesmen, journalists, and intellectuals, that
they support the troops but not the mission. I argued that
such people treated other humans as means, and not as ends,
by using the troops as a tool to cloud their position with
emotion and feigned compassion. Imagine my surprise, then,
at reading a
piece by Joel Stein in the Los Angeles Times last
week, boldly stating that he is tired of his fellow liberals
claiming to support the troops while they oppose continued
American operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. As he writes,
"...I'm not for the war. And being against the war and
saying you support the troops is one of the wussiest
positions the pacifists have ever taken — and they're wussy
by definition. It's as if the one lesson they took away from
Vietnam wasn't to avoid foreign conflicts with no pressing
national interest but to remember to throw a parade
afterward."
If you are able to get past the arrogant tone and
flippant remarks, you are left with the proposition that if
one opposes the war in Iraq, then one should not also claim
to support the troops prosecuting the war, since the
soldiers are independent moral agents capable of making
rational decisions based on their own moral principles. If
you believe this is not a just war, then how can you support
those who wage it?
If Joel Stein had presented his argument in a more
thoughtful fashion, he might have seen a very different
response. But he didn't. Instead he tried to soften the
harshness of his position by saturating the piece with humor
and demonstrating that even he doesn't take himself too
seriously. This tone, carried over into the radio and
television interviews that ensued, reveals an emptiness to
his argument that comes from Mr. Stein's distance and
detachment from the events he is judging.
He is so far removed from any real risk or danger that he
can afford to be glib, arrogant, and sarcastic about the
moral significance of the ongoing fighting in Iraq and
Afghanistan. He recognizes the flimsiness of his foundation,
and says of it, "I know this is all easy to say for a guy
who grew up with money, did well in school and hasn't so
much as served on jury duty for his country."
For Stein to advocate opposition to American soldiers
while nonchalantly admitting his own lack of service is a
remarkable display of arrogance — a "wussy" thing to do, one
might say. To one who comes from similar circumstances as
Stein, but has chosen to serve his country, the thought of
such a spineless argument provokes disgust. As noted
elsewhere on the web, Theodore Roosevelt wrote an
exceptional response to Joel Stein in The Atlantic
in 1894.
"It is proper to demand more from the man with
exceptional advantages than from the man without them. A
heavy moral obligation rests upon the man of means and
upon the man of education to do their full duty by their
country. On no class does this obligation rest more
heavily than upon the men with a collegiate education,
the men who are graduates of our universities. Their
education gives them no right to feel the least
superiority over any of their fellow-citizens..."
Stein is one of many pseudo-intellectuals who feel that
their education and socio-economic status excuse them of the
responsibility to serve. They act as if they were entitled
to freedom's blessings, just in order to indulge themselves.
Roosevelt does not let Stein and his ilk go easily:
"For educated men of weak fibre, there lies a real
danger in that species of literary work which appeals to
their cultivated senses because of its scholarly and
pleasant tone, but which enjoins as the proper attitude
to assume in public life one of mere criticism and
negation; which teaches the adoption toward public men
and public affairs of that sneering tone which so surely
denotes a mean and small mind."
The sneering tone of which Roosevelt speaks is readily
apparent in so many of our leading intellectuals and
politicians. It bespeaks a condescension born of elitism,
which is only fostered by an isolated and privileged
upbringing, untouched by the weighty ideals of duty, honor,
and selflessness. Roosevelt drives in the final nail:
"Again, there is a certain tendency in college life...to
make educated men shrink from contact with the rough
people who do the world's work, and associate only with
one another and with those who think as they do. This is
a most dangerous tendency...Let him learn that he must
deal with the mass of men; that he must go out and stand
shoulder to shoulder with his friends of every rank, and
face to face with his foes of every rank, and must bear
himself well in the hurly-burly. He must not be
frightened by the many unpleasant features of the
contest...He will meet with checks and make many
mistakes; but if he perseveres, he will achieve a
measure of success and will do a measure of good such as
is never possible to the refined, cultivated,
intellectual men who shrink aside from the actual fray."
With these words Roosevelt draws a line in the sand between
those who, like Stein, use their education as a way around
hardship, duty, and sacrifice, and those who see their
education and privilege as a debt that must be repaid.
Individuals like Joel Stein fear Roosevelt's test,
precisely because they know that it will expose them for the
frauds that they are. Soulless and devoid of true enthusiasm
and devotion, they work to amplify their image and never
stray far from the popular culture that brings them together
and gives them their status. Stein stepped outside the
comfortable shelter generally extended around these pop-culturites
and has engaged in this dispute the "rough people who do the
world's work." By all accounts, it has been unpleasant for
him.
We must take advantage of such opportunities to force
him, and all who defend his ideas, into betraying the
emptiness of this position. Too often in the myriad debates
about operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, the facts are left
out, in favor of feelings, almost always based on bad
information. The only fact that seems to come out in these
discussions is the number of American casualties. We rarely
hear about the number of schools and hospitals opened, the
infrastructure established, or the number of free Iraqis
participating in democratic elections. Why not use reports
from journalists actually embedded with American forces,
such as Karl Zinsmeister, author of
Boots on the Ground, who recently returned from
his
fourth tour in Iraq?
Unless we are willing to engage this increasingly bold
and ever-more-common arrogance among our self-proclaimed
intellectuals, they will continue to wage a war of attrition
against our men and women in uniform. Our nation's warriors
should not have to defend themselves against shallow and
manipulative enemies here at home while they are sacrificing
so much, so often.
— Gabriel Ledeen is a United
States Marine and a graduate of Rice University.