Start listening to Iraq War veterans...

In response to this particular blog I have to respond first by saying that there is a grand generalization made in this entry that is not only untrue, but unfair to make. “The anti-war people who go around priding themselves on supporting the troops and not the war, have hated the US military even before 9/11 even happened”. This statement is a good example of one of the types of accusations I mentioned in my first entry. Throwing accusations around like that is one way of starting problems in the process of defining the “anti-war, pro-troops” viewpoint. This blog entry refers to the anti-war left as the “anti-military left” because apparently you are unable to support the troops if you are not supporting the war.

You can be against the war, while being pro-troops. I can proudly say that I support the men in uniform but do not support the war that they have been sent to fight. I believe that there should be money spent to keep the troops safe while in Iraq and safe when they come home as vets. I do not think that more money should be spent trying to stabilize and rebuild Iraq. There. Anti-war, pro-troops.

This article from the University of Delaware, says about the Iraq War “Americans, including veterans, are deeply divided on the issues of why we became involved and how long we should stay there”. Vietnam veteran, Larry Colburn urges that “War should be used as a last resort, not the first resort. We need to listen to our returning vets and not make the same mistakes of not listening to them when they came home from Vietnam”. While I do not believe that the Vietnam War is exactly like the Iraq War, Colburn has a point. Anyone who says they are “pro-troops” should at least listen what the troops themselves have to say about the war. Hypocricy and complications can result from this as the “pro-troops, pro-war” activists might turn a deaf ear to Iraq vets like Jimmy Massey when they say “…[one of the] hardest parts of war is that you visually see the effects it has on the civilian population. It feels like your heart is being ripped out of your chest every time you see an innocent person die because of the war machine”. I believe that one can respect and support the troops and what they are doing without supporting the war itself.