Bill Kristol Makes Me Angry

by hilzoy

Via Steve Benen in TPM, Bill Kristol:

"With the ongoing progress of the surge, and the obvious fact that the vast majority of the troops want to fight and win the war, the "support-the-troops-but-oppose-what-they're-doing" position has become increasingly untenable. How can you say with a straight face that you support the troops while advancing legislation that would undercut their mission and strengthen their enemies?

You can't. (...)

Having turned against a war that some of them supported, the left is now turning against the troops they claim still to support. They sense that history is progressing away from them--that these soldiers, fighting courageously in a just cause, could still win the war, that they are proud of their service, and that they will be future leaders of this country. (...) They are our best and bravest, fighting for all of us against a brutal enemy in a difficult and frustrating war. They are the 9/11 generation. The left slanders them. We support them. More than that, we admire them."

This isn't just wrong; it's venomous and destructive. However, let's deal with 'wrong' first:

To support someone is to try to be there for her, to have her back, to help her out when you can, and to try to make sure that she has what she needs. Democrats have consistently tried to do this, and we have tried a lot harder than the administration that sent the men and women in our armed forces off to fight without a plan for the occupation, without enough troops to secure the Iraqi weapons dumps from which explosives that have been used to kill our troops have almost certainly been stolen, and without taking some of the most elementary steps to ensure their safety.

Support does not necessarily involve agreement. A father, for instance, can and should support his child whether or not he agrees with (for instance) his child's choice of a career or a spouse. If, for instance, he doesn't really see what she finds so appealing about being an architect, that should in no way affect his support for her. It is harder when one doesn't just disagree with a given choice, but finds it deeply wrong. A father can support his child under these circumstances: he can try to do what he can to get her off her heroin habit, or try to make sure he gives her enough backup and emotional strength that when she decides to leave her abusive spouse, she will know that she can always come home. But this kind of support is much harder, and more equivocal, than the kind he can offer when he just doesn't see what made her fall in love with the (perfectly nice but uninspiring) guy she married, or what it is she finds so interesting about quilting. Perhaps, then, Kristol's point is that we can support the troops only in the way we might support a child or a sibling who had made a choice we found profoundly wrong.

But this isn't true either. George W. Bush and those members of Congress who support him have to decide whether we should continue to fight in Iraq, and if so, what our strategy should be. Those of us who support withdrawing from Iraq obviously disagree with them; some of us might disagree in a way that makes any support we might offer less like the support we might offer a sibling who has married someone we are indifferent to, and more like the support we might offer a sibling who has become a Kleagle in the KKK: we might hope for the best for him, and want not to see him come to harm, while finding his present choices abhorrent. But our relation to the troops in Iraq is different. Unlike members of the administration and of Congress, members of the armed forces who are now in Iraq never got to decide whether there should be a war at all. They had to decide whether, given that the Congress had authorized a war and the President had decided to prosecute one, they should obey the order to deploy to Iraq. This is a completely different decision, and there are all sorts of reasons for deciding to go to Iraq, under those circumstances, for which I have enormous respect. See, for instance, Andrew's reasons:

"It is not for individual soldiers to refuse such orders. A soldier has a duty to refuse unlawful orders, but individual soldiers simply cannot reasonably argue that a war itself is unlawful; that is a question that must be decided at the highest levels. If individual soldiers may decline to participate in a war, that is an invitation for mob rule: we agree to serve our country, not to serve when we agree with the decisions our leaders make. The system would not work otherwise. (...)

Finally, and most importantly, someone is going to take this MiTT into combat. If I were to somehow escape this duty, the requirement would not vanish, it would merely devolve on another officer. It would be beyond inappropriate for me to push off that burden onto another person after having enjoyed the benefits of my rank for so long."

There is absolutely no contradiction between disagreeing with the President and agreeing with Andrew, at least none that I can see. Moreover, if I did disagree with a soldier's reason for deploying to Iraq I would at worst be in the position of someone whose friend takes up a career whose attractions are lost on me: I would not myself have made the same choice, but that in no way prevents me from offering my friend all the support I have to give.

***

To support the troops, I think, chiefly means two things. The first is that we should make sure that they have whatever they need when they are in harm's way and when they come home. Opponents of the war generally try to do this; it is that very fact that makes some of us extremely reluctant to defund the war, since we suspect that George Bush might then leave the troops short of supplies to make a political point. The second is that we should try our hardest to be the best and most informed citizens that we can be, and to use our power as voters to ensure that our troops are not sent off to fight without a very good reason. As I have said before: civilian control of the military is an extraordinary thing, and it gives those of us who are civilians an enormous responsibility to ensure that that control is exercised wisely.

This is one of the most important ways of supporting the troops that I can think of, and it is antithetical to the idea that supporting them requires that we believe that the war is justified. We have to be the very best citizens that we can be if we are to support them fully, and we cannot be the very best citizens that we can be if we do not think as hard and as clearly as we can about what we are asking members of the armed forces to do in our name.

Supporting the troops does not mean sharing their opinions on whether the war is right. Unlike Bill Kristol, I do not claim to know what "the vast majority of the troops" think, and so I have no idea whether I disagree with them about the war or not. I do know that I have tried to think it through to the best of my ability, and that while I think that anyone is entitled to argue with me about whether or not my views are correct, no one, military or civilian, is entitled to ask me to accept some particular belief about the war not because the evidence supports it, but as a way of proving that I care, any more than a child could ask a parent not just to support her in her decisions, but to believe that all of her decisions are absolutely right. To require that others prove their love or concern or support by accepting beliefs regardless of the evidence is to make a demand that no person can legitimately make of another.

***

I said above that Kristol's argument is not just wrong, but venomous and destructive. Here's why. If a random citizen accepts Kristol's argument and that citizen wants to support the troops, then that citizen will feel compelled to support the war. That is destructive in its own right: we do best by our troops if we debate the wisdom of our policies openly, rather than feeling bound to stifle our objections. That in itself can be harmful to the troops. Still, since most of us do not have much effect on national policy, that harm can seem negligible.

Consider, however, what happens when the mother of someone serving in Iraq comes to believe that supporting the troops means supporting the war. If she started to have doubts about the wisdom of the war, she might think her doubts about the war were also doubts about her child, or that any tendency to wonder whether the war was actually a good idea was a failure of her love. It is a terrible thing to doubt your own love for your child, and it is all the more terrible in this case because it is completely unnecessary.

Likewise, consider what happens when a soldier serving in Iraq comes to believe Kristol's argument. That soldier would then think that those who do not support the war in Iraq do not support her, and all the men and women she serves with. If she read that 69% of Americans think that the war should either be defunded or funded only with a timetable, she would conclude that 69% of Americans do not support her and her comrades. She might then start asking questions like: why should I sit here, in the middle of a hot and uncomfortable country, surrounded by people who want to kill me, risking my life for the sake of a country that doesn't even support me? What kind of ingrates would send me over here to risk getting killed in a mortar attack, or blown up by an IED, and then not even have the decency to care what happens to me? This would also be a terrible thing to think: it would alienate her from her country, and would, I would imagine, be very, very hurtful. And, again, it is completely unnecessary.

And it would be all the more painful for such a soldier if her mother or father or spouse or sibling or friend were among the majority of Americans who oppose continuing the war. For that soldier, accepting Kristol's argument would mean not just coming to question whether her compatriots supported her and her comrades, but whether the people she loves support her. That would be a hard thought under any circumstances; I cannot imagine what it would be like to have it if I were fighting a war in a distant, hostile country far from home.

If the people who argue that you cannot support the troops without supporting the war make it because they genuinely believe it to be true, then they are just mistaken. But if they are making it for political purposes -- to try to enlist the concern that the vast majority of Americans have for the men and women in Iraq so that they can use it for partisan political ends -- then they are themselves doing something that is profoundly damaging to anyone who actually does care about the troops, and to any of those troops to whom it matters that the American people support them. No one who cares about the people serving in Iraq should have to choose between her intellectual integrity and her love for her son or daughter or spouse or brother or sister or friend. And no one serving in Iraq should have to question the support of his or her compatriots, let alone of his or her loved ones. Anyone who makes this argument for partisan reasons is trying to convince those people that they should do those things. And that is itself a tremendous disservice both to our country and to the men and women who are fighting in Iraq.

So, Bill Kristol: I don't care so much that you're trying to tell me who I can and cannot support, and on what terms. I can deal with that. But I do care that you're doing something that makes the already difficult lives of people whose loved ones are serving in Iraq, or who are themselves serving there, even harder. That's just wrong.

Comments

[OCSteve]

Well said. Great post.

Assuming you’ll accept that from a GOP shill. ;)

[Jesurgislac]

There is absolutely no contradiction between disagreeing with the President and agreeing with Andrew, at least none that I can see.

Nor me either.

This puts Bill Kristol into the Ann Coulter category for me: someone I've never read except in quotes, and now have no intention of ever reading. Stupid and venomous.

[hilzoy]

OCSteve: thanks for reminding me to go unban J Thomas. And if you were a GOP shill, I would have to completely rethink my views of shill-dom.

Jes: he's not as completely round the bend as Coulter -- e.g., he has yet to call for blowing up the NYT building -- but he's correspondingly much, much closer to actual power. [shudders]

[Jay Jerome]

hilzoy: "Consider, however, what happens when the mother of someone serving in Iraq comes to believe that supporting the troops means supporting the war."

By now, most of the mothers with children in Iraq are probably thinking more along these">http://scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/sheetmusic/a/a06/a0665/a0665-1-72dpi.jpeg&imgrefurl=http://scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/sheetmusic/a/a06/a0665/&h=984&w=762&sz=360&hl=en&start=1&sig2=0JcDEpGt1jaAS4lsGpYb_g&um=1&tbnid=3S7SxFq9tDfiYM:&tbnh=149&tbnw=115&ei=Jb-jRoW_EYnsgQOgosXXDQ&prev=/images%3Fq%3DI%2BDidn%2527t%2BRaise%2BMy%2BBoy%2BTo%2BBe%2BA%2BSoldier%26svnum%3D10%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26rlz%3D1B2GGGL_enUS176US202%26sa%3DN">these lines:

I Didn't Raise My Boy To Be A Soldier
1915- lyrics: Alfred Bryan - music: Al Piantadosi

Ten million soldiers to the war have gone
who may never return again.
Ten million mother's hearts
must break for the ones who died in vain
Head bowed down in sorrow in her lonely years,
I heard a mother murmur through her tears:

chorus:
"I didn't raise my boy to be a soldier,
I brought him up to be my pride and joy.
Who dares to place a musket on his shoulder
to shoot some other mother's darling boy?"

Let nations arbitrate their future troubles.
It's time to lay the sword and gun away.
There'd be no war today if mothers all would say,
"I didn't raise my boy to be a soldier"

What victory can cheer a mother's heart
when she looks at her blighted home?
What victory can bring her back
all she cared to call her own?

Let each mother answer in the year to be,
"Remember that my boy belongs to me!"

repeat chorus

Someone should tell Krystol that the Mothers of America thinks he's a baaaaad boy, and send him to bed without his supper!!

[Nell]

The definitive post on the subject, I'd say. Many thanks.

[cleek]

in another world, Kristol would be a Death Eater

[Jesurgislac]

In another world, Kristol would write lengthy columns for the Prophet explaining why the Death Eaters are a Good Thing. And as soon as Voldemort was defeated, would claim he'd written them all under Imperius.

[john miller]

Forget for a moment that Kristol is a hack of the first order. Forget that he is into mud slinging with the best of them.

Let us assume that one of us had written what you quote, someone who we all respect, like OCSteve. I would not want to dismiss it out of hand, because I consider him to be an extremely reasonable and thinking member of the human race. Therefore I would look only at the argument.

Obviously this is not the full article, but at least in what you have quoted, everything rests on one sentence:

""With the ongoing progress of the surge, and the obvious fact that the vast majority of the troops want to fight and win the war, the "support-the-troops-but-oppose-what-they're-doing" position has become increasingly untenable."

There are 3 main issues with this. The first, and what is your main thrust, hilzoy, is that the conclusion does not follow logically from the first two statements.

But, even if it did follow in a logical sense, it would only have validity if the first two parts of the sentence had legitimacy.

So therefore, is the surge making progress? This is a very debatable question, with no definitive answer, yet Kristol makes it sound as indisputable fact.

Secondly, doe the vast majority of troops want to fight and win the war? Well I doubt if any want to lose, but that just begs the question. Again, he makes it sound as indisputable that the troops support the "war", but he provides no evidence for this. For example, if what he believes is true, why would 50% of the contributions from the military for Republican presidential candidates be for Ron Paul, an outspoken critic of the war.

These kind of definitive statements, made as if they are indisputable, is what got us into this war.

BTW, as usual, an excellent post as we can tell from the fact that our resident GOP shill liked it.

[GOPShill]

John: "With the ongoing progress of the surge, and the obvious fact that the vast majority of the troops want to fight and win the war, the "support-the-troops-but-oppose-what-they're-doing" position has become increasingly untenable."

This is where I twist in the wind: back and forth every day. Is is working? Supporting these guys vs. wasting their lives over politics. My liver is going to be one casualty of this war anyway...

[OCSteve]

Whoops – darn cookie.

[OCSteve]

Bill Kristol Makes Me Angry

Just to do the obvious here…

Don’t make the hilzoy angry – you won’t like her when she is angry…

Hilzoy angry! Hilzoy smash!

[DCA]

You can see the narrative being developed here, and indeed it has already taken root: a few months ago, when ideas for withdrawal were starting to be expressed by the Congressional leadership, I was talking to a *very* conservative friend (with whom I rarely discuss politics) about some of the Presidential nominees. I knew it was time to stop when she said "Well, I know one thing--I have a nephew about to deploy to Iraq, and I don't want my government to stab him in the back." Kristol isn't making a real argument--he's just producing a set of words that can be fitted into a future story of who to blame.

[Tony Prentakis]

Let's get to the bottom line of Kristol's smarmy argument: the nation exists to serve its army, not the other way around. If Kristol really thinks that "the troops support the mission", and thinks that's a good reason for the nation to support it, then he views the American military as a sort of Republican Militia, and the US as a banana republic. Someone should ask Kristol directly:

What support do we owe to "the troops" if this war, or any war, is _their_ idea?

[Tom]

I like hilzoy when she's angry.

[G'Kar]

I'll add my own small words to applaud hilzoy for this. Supporting the troops doesn't mean supporting what they're doing unquestioningly. Some troops, to be blunt, deserve censure: in any war some people do horrible things, and it is in no way a betrayal of our soldiers (indeed, it is the opposite) to punish and shun those soldiers.

As for the majority of the troops who are just trying to do their best under difficult circumstances, all they can ask of their countrymen is the knowledge that their service will be acknowledged and that those who oppose the war do not hold the soldiers responsible for it. I see no evidence that this is not the case. (Yes, I'm sure that a careful search could produce exceptions, such as that delightful sign a few years back 'We support the troops when they shoot their officers,' but it's quite difficult at this point to paint those people are the norm.) If, in fact, the majority of the troops believe that the mission is worthwhile and that they should stay, that carries no more weight than if a majority of the troops believed that the war should be over now. Those decisions are political decisions, and when you put on a uniform you agree to become an instrument of national policy whether or not you agree with it. (I will note here that most people who swear the oath assume that the U.S. will stand for certain things, therefore relieving them of serious ethical dilemmas regarding whether or not they should fulfill their oaths.)

The war should be supported or opposed on the merits. Individual soldiers have every right to argue for or against the war in their capacity as private citizens, but their opinions should carry no more weight than anyone else's. To suggest otherwise is to suggest the existence of an America I don't believe anyone would truly like to see come into existence.

[john miller]

G'Kar, that may have been the very best description I have ever read, even better (dare I say) than hilzoy's.

[Quiddity]

Kristol says:

How can you say with a straight face that you support the troops while advancing legislation that would undercut their mission ...

It's not "their" mission. It's (currently) Bush's mission.

[russell]

I think the "war on drugs" as public policy is a wrongheaded farce, but I support the police and the court system.

I'm not crazy about "no child left behind" but I support public schools and teachers.

The issue is kind of a no brainer.

To the degree that Kristol has a rhetorical strategy, I agree with the analysis that he's furthering the "dolchstosslegende" theme.

It might also be as simple as Kristol looking to put the blame somewhere other than on himself.

Kristol is no hack, and is no mere cheerleader. In terms of our Iraq policy, he is something closer to a prime mover. The failure of that policy, IMO, reveals the scandalous bankruptcy of his view of the world, and of everything he's believed and worked for over more or less his entire professional life.

All of that can't be his responsibility, of course, so it has to someone else's.

American progressives, liberals, and lefties have nothing to apologize for regarding their opposition to our foreign policy. To my knowledge, and with vanishingly few exceptions, they've given their unstinting support to every concrete expression of support for the folks in uniform -- materiel, training, medical care, support for families at home, support for troops returning from combat. That is, frankly, more than can be said for the folks in charge at the moment.

In other times and contexts, Kristol's words would, correctly, prompt an invitation to step outside. Folks have been tarred and feathered for less. At the very least, sensible folks would ask him politely to shut up before he does any more damage.

Those options are not available, so I very much appreciate hilzoy's heartfelt and measured reply to his self-serving blather.

Thanks -

[hairshirthedonist]

Is there anyone who could, in Bill Kristol's mind, decide that we should begin troop withdrawals from Iraq at some point prior to a military revolt? Or is it only "the Left" that this is not possible for? Maybe I'm missing something, but by Kristol's logic, all wars must continue until they are either won or the military refuses to continue fighting. No one can rightly decide to end an unwon war but the soldiers. I must be missing something, right?

[Edward_]

I think you're being entirely too generous with Kristol, Hilzoy. By insisting intellectual honesty has no place in our mission to instill our values to Iraq, as he is, Kristol displays either ignorance of those values (you cannot bring American style freedom to another country by squashing the foundation of that freedom at home and still expect those you're trying to get to adopt them to believe they're worth having...valuing intellectual honesty is the only reason to even have freedom of speech) or contempt for the American way of life.

How can you say with a straight face that you support the troops while advancing legislation that would undercut their mission and strengthen their enemies?

I'd counter with this question: How can you say with a straight face that you support the troops while advancing arguments to undercut the values and way of life those soldiers are willing to die for?

[SamChevre]

No one can rightly decide to end an unwon war but the soldiers. I must be missing something, right?

Yes, the statement ends wrong: the correct answer is, "No one can rightly decide to end an unwon war while fighting is still an option."

That, hilzoy, is what I think you are missing. "Support the troops" doesn't just mean, "Support the people currently fighting in Iraq"; it means, "Support our troops, present AND future, by making it as unlikely as possible that anyone will want to fight them." Running when you could fight ensures that you'll either need to keep running, or have to fight later when the odds against you are worse.

I'm not sure I AGREE with this world-view, but it's common and coherent.

[hilzoy]

SamChevre: a decent argument for either not going to war, or doing what it takes to win initially. A less good argument for making up for one's failure to do either initially by continuing to throw people into harm's way indefinitely.

I'm sure there will be later occasions on which to demonstrate our resolve, and that if we do them right from the outset, we will recover from this one -- at least as far as our reputation for sticking it out is concerned.

[Gus]

Kristol needs to go on the Daily Show for one of his periodic rhetorical smackdowns at the hands of John Stewart.

[Garth]

if the administration didn't already have a bill kristol, why, they'd have to invent one.

digging deep in the memory vault i come up with the lyrics from a Hee Haw skit...

(i only recalled the first line, not the second)

Gloom, despair, and agony on me
Deep, dark depression, excessive misery

If it weren't for bad luck, I'd have no luck at all

Gloom, despair, and agony on me

We figured she was rich, loaded to the hilt

And we figured she had class like the Vanderbilts

'Cause we had heard for years how she was so well reared

How was we to know they meant the way she was built

[judson]

late comedian Bill Hicks on the first gulf war:

"I'm in the unenviable position of supporting the war and against the troops."

If you there at the time this was brilliant..