Joel Stein: I don’t support the troops but I do sort of support torture
posted at 10:26 am on October 10, 2006 by Allahpundit
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You remember Joel Stein. Sure you do.
As much as righties loathe him, I think most of us grudgingly respect him for his honesty. He proceeds logically about these things: if you don’t support the war, you can’t really support the troops. And if you do support the war, why wouldn’t you support the occasional waterboarding?
And why would you want to bring democracy to a bunch of Arabs?
Although we have killed more than 50,000 Iraqis for reasons that no one is able to explain other than that letting crazy, anti-Western, death-cult Arabs vote for their own crazy, anti-Western, death-cult Arab leaders is awesome, we have decided that we cannot accept mistreating captured enemies. Apparently we are under the impression that countries fond of using “shock and awe” are actually judged on how many Michelin stars their prisons get.
Exit question: is Joel Stein part of the “nuke Mecca” crowd?
Bonus anti-war enlightenment! Terry Jones (yeah, from Python) welcomes George Bush to the World League of Despots, something he’s been working up towards since, oh, about ten weeks after 9/11.
Update: LA Times readers react to the multi-page profile the paper ran last week about Medal of Honor nominee Christopher Adlesperger. Sample:
If an individual were to kill 11 people in house-to-house gang warfare in South Los Angeles, we wouldn’t call him a hero; we’d call him a bloodthirsty, homicidal maniac. We would fear for the future of our city…
The 11 people we dismiss as insurgents are mourned by their own families, some of whom consider their actions a logical response to a foreign power occupying their land, while others grieve at the senselessness of it all.
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I can’t say that I ever loathed Joel Stein. I can respect someone on the left who is at least consistent and honest in their belief. There are many on the left who really do recognize the world for what it is – a dog-eat-dog struggle for survival – instead of the fantastical land where everyone is innately good and a product of evil society. It’s these kinds of people that I can respect on the left, because while they may say similar things to the bizarrely blind far-left, they at least have reasoned responses and thoughtful counterargument. I imagine people like this being somewhat like me: prophesying doom but somewhat relieved if it doesn’t come to pass. Unfortunately for us all, a lot of Joel Stein’s criticism of the Bush White House has started to ring true even in Republican ears of late.
I much perfer his thoughtful opposition to hysterical theatrics, dishonest preaching, and blind faith of the (sadly) most vocal left.
____
Case in point, the update above (while I was writing this)…
If those 11 people were part of Charles Manson’s “family” and were sitting on a dozen corpses of murdered young girls, I think we’d sing a heroic tune for their killer.
^^Allusion to crazy death-cults? You better believe it.
Lehosh on October 10, 2006 at 11:00 AM
Man, I love trying to follow the addle-pated logic of the left. They can cheerfully call a soldier, awarded the highest military honor in this country, a maniac, deliberately misconstrue what he did, and hurl venom at him. This same paper will then slobber all over the shoes over a rabid dog like Tookie Williams who killed 4 people in cold blood for about 120 dollars. First they’ll deny he did it; then they’ll say, he should be forgiven because he wrote some books saying how it’s wrong to shoot people in the face with a shotgun to steal their money. Love that LA times.
austinnelly on October 10, 2006 at 11:05 AM
How wonderful that the only comments at the LA Times website are from people who wouldn’t lift a finger to repel an invasion of their own country because “it would be a senseless war” instead of a police action. How sterling the sentiments of the commenters in believing that nothing, including sneak attacks, WMD proliferation, and actions worthy of National Socialism performed in the name of God and perpetrated against all non-believers, would ever justify “modern warfare”. How beautiful their pacific thoughts would be before the knife would sever their heads from their necks at the hands of our enemies. They just can’t see ever executing a defense against savages because they are so noble and no culture is ever better than any other.
Perhaps we should just go back to “old fashioned” warfare, where we bomb them back to the Stone Age, and then hit our enemies over the head with rocks from 5000 feet, and then kick dirt in their dead faces while the buzzards feast. Because “modern warfare” is just so “uncivilized”.
The Hell this ain’t the Most Important Foxhole in the World. I’m in it!
Subsunk
Subsunk on October 10, 2006 at 11:22 AM
Stein is a dolt, no doubt. But he is consistent and he’s logical in his own demented way and you have to admire that.
I can’t argue with any of that.
Pablo on October 10, 2006 at 11:28 AM
That would require context. Anti-war folk don’t much like context.
I have an ER doc friend that has done 1 tour in Afghanistan and 2 tours in Iraq (3/4 time in military hospital 1/4 time in the field because he’s an adreniline junkie). He told the story of entering a school/slaughterhouse held by 50 insurgents. Inside the school were 100+ bodies that had been mutilated/tortured. They killed 30 and wounded 20.
Context.
natesnake on October 10, 2006 at 11:31 AM
I do loath that son of a bitch.
All this talk of his honesty and well reasoned arguements?
Hell, put child molester thru a couple of courses of speech and public debate and he’ll come out equally well reasoned and glib with honesty.
You can’t polish a turd, and Joel Stein is a turd.
Re-read his orginal article that HotAir posted if anyone has any doubts.
EFG on October 10, 2006 at 11:37 AM
Thank G_d I live in the south. Reading that little snippet of the LA Times article and the readers responses they chose to publish made me physically ill. I wonder what the letters they chose not to publish said? I cannot believe such people are given a forum for their opinions. I am not going to try and refute or shout down the expression of contempt shown by people who can only in their wildest fantasies hope to ever to ever attain the level of professionalism, and service to mankind that those who wear the uniform of this country exhibit every minute of every day. I think maybe there has become a pervasive sense of jealousy among those in this country who are feeling slightly inferior to our men and women of the Armed Forces. For all of their vaunted intellectual perceived superiority and fancy titles those whom they look down their noses and deride as the dredges of society are accomplishing more in their sometimes tragically short lives then any of their critics ever will even if given 3 lifetimes.
LakeRuins on October 10, 2006 at 11:48 AM
I recall having a few Stein columns emailed to me while I was deployed during the months just after 9-11. I don’t loathe him, exactly.
I think he is one of the best examples of what a thorough indoctrination by “progressive” education accomplishes. There’s a conscience buried in there somewhere, but it has been fairly well beaten down. He thinks himself honest because he sees a moral inconsistency between supporting the troops and not supporting a war. So he declares that he supports neither. I can accept that as a moral position. The logic up to that point is valid. The conclusion, to then insinuate that every serviceman who does his duty is a maniacal murderer, pulls out the disguised Ward Churchill in him.
Stein does know how to engage in a reasoned debate, unlike so many of his stripe, even if he is just as intractible in the face of fact, evidence, and logic as the loonier left. But overall I give him no points on style when he lacks substance to a nearly equal degree.
But I was proud to serve so that he and his could remain free to be a useful idiot.
How about we force the leftists to consider getting the result of their deepest wishes. Does any sane person believe that if the U.S. shut down our military, and proved to the entire world that we were committed to improving our international image, we would not be attacked and invaded within weeks? But surely those who come would only be interested in “regime change” here, and everyone with a “Bush lied, kids died” bumper sticker would be safe.
Right Joel?
Freelancer on October 10, 2006 at 12:11 PM
I did read it in fact, and his argument, though it begins with a false premise, is consistent and reasoned. If a war is immoral, then the soldiers are indeed part of that immorality. And being disengenuous about “support the troops” and “condemn the war” is an appropos observation: the two-faced rhetoric is cowardly and transparent. And his observation is correct that Washington recognizes the empty gesture but will capitalize on the verbage to shore up their agenda.
The points in his article are almost all spot-on and it would have been completely true if he had not begun with a false premise: that the war in Iraq was unjust.
Lehosh on October 10, 2006 at 12:20 PM
Girly man Joel is just following the template of that hero of the Left, slick Willie.
Here is an excerpt of Clinton’s notorious “draft-dodging,” “I loathe the military” letter to Colonel Holmes, of the University of Arkansas ROTC department. Clinton had tried to avoid the draft by lying that he would attend the U of Arkansas and enter the ROTC program. Then he ran overseas, and wrote this letter to Holmes.
“After I signed the ROTC letter of intent I began to wonder whether the compromises I had made with myself was not more objectionable than the draft would have been, because I had no interest in the ROTC program in itself and all I seemed to have done was to protect myself from physical harm. I doubt that I had the mental coherence to articulate them.
I am writing too in the hope that my telling this one story will help you understand more clearly how so many fine people have come to find themselves still loving their country but loathing the military,”
there it is on October 10, 2006 at 12:26 PM
Raw and primitively obvious question – how can you “love your (free) county” and loathe those who keep it free?
Entelechy on October 10, 2006 at 1:19 PM
Yes, and so are the arguements of many despicable people. Harris, one of the shooters at Columbine was a totally amoral psychopath. He had contempt for his fellow students and considered them to be worth nothing. By his reasoning, killing them made perfect sense. In his eyes, and using his value system, his decision to go on a kill spree was consistent and reasoned.
But he is still a psychopath. And a P.O.S.
Joel Stein is a turd. His essays, full of layers and nuance, logical and consistent though they may be, don’t change that fact.
Hell, Fred Phelps can string together some arguements as to why he should doing his schtick at funerals. He’s still a P.O.S.
And yeah, I still loathe Joel Stein.
EFG on October 10, 2006 at 2:17 PM
I really miss the days when people who stood against our military on our own soil were considered traitors. What happened to the rule of law?
One Angry Christian on October 10, 2006 at 2:26 PM
It’s easy, if you’re a dolt. I think that’s what we have here.
Pablo on October 10, 2006 at 3:52 PM
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