Glenn Greenwald has an excellent deconstruction of the nonsensical rhetoric of the mainstream framing of the war/occupation debate, with the Democrats seeking to "end the war", while the Republicans wish only to "support the troops". Having a couple experiences of this kind of false dichotomy (to my mind, most dichotomies are false; this one is actively pernicious to our public discourse, being both logically nonsensical and existentially dishonest), I thought I might share them with you, if for no other reason than to find out if you think this dichotomy is as false as I think it to be.
In February of 2003, I was asked to speak at a "Fourth Day Gathering" of the Northern Illinois Conference Walk to Emmaus. For those not in the know, Walk to Emmaus is spiritual retreat in which participants are moved through personal exploration and various talks on matters United Methodist to a deeper understanding of the specific gifts of United Methodist Christianity. The retreat is three days - from Thursday evening through Sunday afternoon - which is why reunions are called "Fourth Day" events.
My own experience of Emmaus came more out of curiosity than anything else. My wife, and many of my friends, had attended, and they all seemed to come away with a favorable impression. I found the atmosphere a bit clubby and chummy, with former Walkers (as they are known) greeting each other with the odd Spanish phrase "De Colores", which is one of the theme songs of an Emmaus Walk. The phrase comes from a Spanish-language revival song written by a former participant who was describing the way he saw the world differently - more brilliantly - after the walk than before. I must admit that, for the most part, I found the walk a nice retreat but hardly earth- or faith-shattering.
At the Fourth Day Dinner, I used "De Colores" as an opening in which I spoke out against the upcoming war in Iraq. Before I did so, I talked with my wife, who would be attending, and asked her opinion. She only said that if I felt moved to do so, then I had to follow where I felt moved to go. Among the things I asserted in my speech, I said that we were being fed lies; that as Christians dedicated to the Prince of Peace, we should oppose the war at every turn; that as those whose eyes no longer had scales, we had an obligation to speak out on what we saw more clearly.
It was a proverbial fart in church, albeit a verbal one. One of those present, a gentleman, accosted me afterward, and was so angered he actually had to step away from me, and I was afraid he might hit me or something. His son was in Kuwait, awaiting the order for invasion. I offered my prayer, and hope that he would be OK. The man was so apoplectic, so out of control, he didn't hear me. He kept ranting about September 11th, about WMDs, etc. The gist, it seems to me, was that I was not supporting his son by demanding an end to the threat of war. I said, as clearly as I could, that I couldn't understand how demanding we stand down before we started any hostilities, which would guarantee his son would not face the threat of combat, was somehow not supporting his son. If he didn't face combat, there would be no threat to his life, etc., etc. He didn't hear me, just kept rattling on about September 11th, and I just left with him ranting at me to "come back and get a dose of his medicine." As it left me with a funny aftertase, I declined.
A week later, at a Community College Forum held at Illinois Valley Community College in Oglesby, IL, I was confronted by a panel of idiots who all spouted the same tired lines - be it pro- or anti-war - and I found myself confronted by a philosophy professor who insisted that one could not "support the troops" and be against the war, because the troops qua troops were there to engage in combat, so therefore support for the troops meant supporting the war. This was hardly among the more stupid things said that day (a Vietnam veteran rambled about Jane Fonda and the alleged plot of Ho Chi Minh to throw the 1968 Presidential election; I pointed out that Ho had died months before, so this might have been difficult for his to do; he laughed at me and called me naive).
In both instances, I was confronted by the patently false idea that one can only support the troops by supporting a war, the very nature of which was and continues to be a threat to their lives and tests the limits of their mental and professional abilities. The breathtaking stupidity of the entire false contrast between "support the troops" and "end the war" should be clear to anyone who gives it even a moment's thought. Alas, that is far too long for some people (something approaching 30% of Americans, it seems pretty clear), and enough of those thought-challenged individuals reside in Congress and are running for President to continue this debacle four long after any good came from it.
Virtual Tin Cup
