Eric Massa, NY29 is live blogging now at kos:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/3/19/141457/520Dissent is Patrioticby Eric Massa
Sun Mar 19, 2006 at 12:14:57 PM PDT
This last week while President Bush was visiting New York's 29th district, a marine corporal who served in Afghanistan, Iraq and Ethiopia approached a group of protesters and said (link):
I just wanted to say that a lot of the guys coming back think that you guys don't appreciate our service... Well, when I went into the service, I took an oath to honor the office of the president, and it's disrespectful to hear you be so negative about him. It feels like a personal attack.
* Eric Massa's diary :: ::
Fortunately, the above-mentioned confrontation ended with hugs and handshakes. But it raised an important point that it is important to repeat over and over: It is possible to both support our soldiers and be critical of our president at the same time. Andrew Horne, who is joining me today, and I both feel very strongly about this.
It is sometimes difficult for non-veterans to understand the bond that veterans feel with each other and with those who are currently serving. It has something to do with the fact that soldiers often have to depend on each other just to survive. There is also a sense of a shared duty and obligation to protect our nation that soldiers and veterans have in common.
It is in fact this very sense of duty to country that motivates so many Democratic Veterans to run for Congress. We all feel that President Bush and the Republican congress are damaging and endangering the nation we fought to protect and that our fellow veterans are not getting the respect their service deserves.
General Wes Clark recently endorsed Andrew (link) and had this to say, which sums up how we feel:
Andrew rightly says that bad things happen when good people don't speak out. There is too much at stake for any of us to remain silent.
With that thought in mind, we want to talk specifically about President Bush's renewal of his stance on pre-emptive war, which is basically the same as his whole approach to governance: He wants to do what he wants to do when he wants to do it and he doesn't feel the need to answer to anyone for his actions. That seems to work for him when dealing with the Rubberstamp Republican Congress. But that approach has so damaged our international reputation that the world has lost much of the respect it once had for the United States. We have become, like our president, the petulant neighborhood bully who seems obsessed with proving his manhood and refuses to listen to reason.
This latest talk about pre-emptive war seems timed to coincide with a push for a new war with Iran. After all the lies we were told before the Iraq War, it is obvious that this administration is more than willing to deceive the American public into supporting an unnecessary war. Iran has the potential to become a dangerous enemy, especially if it gets nuclear weapons. But after the lies we were all told about Iraq prior to that war it is wise to be suspicious of the Bush administration's claims about those with whom it seems determined to go to war.
Recently there was some dialogue between the US and Iran that gave some hope that disagreements between the two nations might be resolved diplomatically. But with the Bush administration it is difficult to be sure when they are genuinely interested in diplomacy and when they are just pretending for the sake of appearances. We urge a genuine commitment to diplomacy that will avoid yet another unnecessary war. And we are concerned to avoid further overstretching the military resources of the United States.
Finally, we want to talk about the opportunity costs of all these unnecessary wars and saber rattling. The most glaring example is Darfur. If our president had not dragged us into an unnecessary war and stretched our military almost to the breaking point and if he were less concerned about proving our national manhood and more concerned about doing the right thing, there are any number of things we could have done to stop the carnage in Darfur. Here is a link to a recent effort to stop the genocide there.
Please visit our websites: http://horneforcongress.com/ and http://www.massaforcongress.com/
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