Hitchens: Don't "Son" Me - End this silly talk about sacrificing children

[Barrett808]

Don't "Son" Me
End this silly talk about sacrificing children.
By Christopher Hitchens
Posted Tuesday, June 28, 2005, at 8:27 AM PT

Oh, Jesus, another barrage of emotional tripe about sons. From every quarter, one hears that the willingness to donate a male child is the only test of integrity. It's as if some primitive Spartan or Roman ritual had been reconstituted, though this time without the patriotism or the physical bravery. Worse, it has a gruesome echo of the human sacrifice that underpins Christian fundamentalism.

The most recent cycle—not that this isn't a consistent undertone—began for me with a Washington Post column by Richard Cohen. In a reminiscence that he doubtless thought was affecting, he recalled a spat between himself and the late John Gregory Dunne. Declining to attend a Cohen dinner party in the year 1991 (and here we sense the real echoes of a life-and-death struggle), Dunne had said that he wouldn't break bread with a man who favored war but was not willing to sacrifice his own son. Cohen went back and forth in agony about the justice of all this, while never betraying any sense of disproportion or absurdity. Should Saddam Hussein have been allowed to add the wealth of Kuwait to his slave state at a time when he most certainly did possess a WMD program? Quite a good question for debate. But the debate comes to an end when one participant says that the other is disqualified because of a refusal of son-donation. (I pause to note what Cohen may have been too delicate to point out: John Gregory Dunne did not have a son.)

But what if he had had one? The fathering of a grown male child does not entitle you to exclude from the argument anybody who is not thus favored. A childless person is not prevented from speaking in time of war. Nor is a person whose children are too young to serve. Nor are those of enlistment age, who are unlikely to have sons of their own. Nor is a person who has disabled children. One could easily extend the list of citizens who have exactly the same right to opine on their country's right to fight—or not to fight.

Recent events in Fallujah mean that we shall have to add "or daughter" to the above hypotheses. And why not? Women have argued for many decades that they should have the right to a more equal participation in the U.S. armed forces, and the preceding struggle to desegregate the armed services was a precursor to the wider desegregation of society. Come to think of it, what happened to the loud and widespread demand that gays be allowed to serve in uniform? Surely that was not just a Clinton-era campaign to be dropped in favor of gay marriage at just the time when the country needed troops in Afghanistan (generally agreed) and in Iraq (much disputed)?

(more)

http://slate.msn.com/id/2121674/fr/rss/

[ClassWarrior]

1. When right wingers tell me about their "sons" in Iraq, I always...

...refer to them as their "children." Strikes a more resonant emotional chord.

Language does matter!

NGU.

[bluestateguy]

2. Hitchens and David Frum should be deported

As well as that Derbyshire character from National Review. I have no patience or tolerance for foreign neoconservatives trying to shape American foreign policy.

Now I will ask them very nicely to go back where they came from.

[The Crazy Canadian]

4. We don't want them here either.

[SoFlaJet]

3. these guys crack me up

so conveniently they get a conscience AFTER their votes are cast so they can feign credibility on Matthews or somewhere else.These guys knew exactly what we have all known here and still voted for this administration.Zero cred in my book.

[Catrina]

5. Another rant from

Christopher Hitchen. What was it Gorgeous George Galloway called him? Oh yes, 'a drink-soaked popinjay', I think is what he called him. :-)

So, Hitchens supported a war that was based on lies, is now being made to look like a fool as the truth comes out, and wonders why he is asked to think a little more deeply before throwing his support behind a war, any war which, like it or not, Christopher, DOES get other people's children killed!! Which is why we didn't need morons like him cheerleading the propaganda in the first place!

Maybe too, he might want to direct his pathetic whining at the right, who made a cottage industry out of claiming that unless you were on the frontlines (directed at Clinton) you needed to keep your mouth shut. According to Rush et al, Clinton should never have been CIC because he had not gone to war.

Now that we know that Republicans only send other people's children to fight their wars, suddenly he's complaining about this tactic? Sounds to me like he's trying to end it, just when it's been backfiring beautifully on Karl Rove and the rest of the chickenhawks.

Having said that, he's right, serving, or having anyone in the family serve, does not, and it should never have, been used against Clinton the way it was! But try telling them that, back when Clinton was in office!

But, hey, they made the rules, and they too had a point. It is easier to start wars when you have nothing to lose. And people have a way of wanting accountability when it is their son's or daughter's lives that are at stake. Maybe he would not have been so supportive if it was his child or brother, or wife or sister he was sending off to a war that was completely unnecessary ~

[phantom power]

7. At least one thing is very different now.

Now we have a big shortage of troops. The army needs recruits, and they aren't getting them.

So, now that the army is in it's hour of need, why aren't those war-supporters who *can* serve, lining up?

They can't just dismiss that question.

[Sasha Undercover]

6. I find

the notion that Salon keeps printing his drivel astonishing.

[newyawker99]

12. Hi Sasha Undercover!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[Sasha Undercover]

13. Thank you

What a surprise !

[phantom power]

8. Ask the parents of the 1700+ dead soldiers if its "silly talk."

This business of people sacrificing is pretty damned real, for anybody who is actually serving. Only a blowhard armchair warrior has the luxury of calling talk of sacrifing children "silly"

[phantom power]

9. And another thing.

He can call me silly, or traitor, or peacenik, or whatever the fuck he wants to. This war is bullshit, and I'm not fighting it.

And neither are a lot of other people. And more all the time. So, he can write all the essays he wants to, if he thinks that browbeating us is going to change our mind.

We're voting with our feet. So, if some people still want this war to be fought, they can either do it themselves, or not. End of story.

[dsc]

10. I posted this in the fray but can't find a LTTE link

Hitchens said he couldn't find the answer to the question of what was being done on behalf of gays serving in the military. He must be the laziest journalist in the history of the universe. Unlike him, I don't have lexis nexis. But in one, count it one, google search I found the following.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/17/AR2005061701582.html

Rep. Martin T. Meehan (D-Mass.) introduced the Military Readiness Enhancement Act in March seeking the repeal. Gilchrest is one of four Republicans and 81 Democrats co-sponsoring the legislation.

The date on the article is June 17th 2005.

The very same search produced this.

http://www.logcabin.org/logcabin/gays_military.html

Election 2006 | Workplace Discrimination


Issue: Gays in the Military

The United States military's Don't Ask, Don't Tell (DADT) policy must be changed. This blatant discrimination damages our military readiness and weakens national defense.

And finally there was this on the Human Rights Campaign website, http://www.hrc.org/, in case neither Hitchens nor your editor know that would be the premier gay and lesbian rights organization in the us.


Take Action
Tell Congress: Repeal "Don't Ask, Don't Tell"
Sign the Million for Marriage Petition


Note the positioning. Repeal Don't Ask Don't Tell is listed ABOVE the link about gay marriage.

Shame on Mr. Hitchens for being so lazy. Double shame on your editor for being so lazy. It took me about 5 minutes to find this stuff and about another 15 or so to present it to you. Do your jobs.

Does anyone know where a LTTE link may be?

[bemildred]

11. "You're a drink-soaked former Trotskyist popinjay"

"Your hands are shaking. You badly need another drink"
:rofl::rofl: