Hello all,
I've been a long-time reader of Daily Kos, but until now, never a diarist. I just didn't think I had anything to contribute that the fine people on this site hadn't already expressed far more eloquently than I ever could have. However, about two weeks ago, I had a run-in with a truly despicable individual over the issue of American combat deaths in Iraq. If you're not all suffering from outrage fatigue already, I thought it might be worth writing about.
This exchange occurred on a right-wing Christian blog called the Evangelical Outpost, in the comment thread for a post in which the site's author complained about the "contempt" liberals have for the members of the US military - just to give you an idea of the intellectual caliber we're talking about here. The major issue under debate was the needless deaths of American soldiers due to this administration's refusal to supply them with adequate armor; here's the thread. (The comment thread's a bit long, but search for "Ebonmuse" - me - and "ucfengr" - him - to see the posts.)
When I brought up that point, here was his response, unedited:
This armor issue is so 2003. What is adequate armor? There is no shortage of advanced body armor or armored vehicles, you need some new talking points.
This assertion was, of course, totally unsubstantiated by the facts; there is still a severe shortage of adequate armor in Iraq, and I made sure to let him know that, citing a recent military study that found that 80% of American combat deaths up through June 2005 could have been prevented by better armor, and that American soldiers were still buying their own body armor from home, and in some cases, being threatened with loss of benefits for it. (Check out the thread to watch him bluster and squirm. My proudest moment was when he claimed that the threat Iraq posed was so great that we had no choice but to rush into war without taking the time to equip our military better, and in response, I pointed out that this boiled down to a claim that he was afraid of Saddam. He never responded to that; it pays to turn the right-wingers' own tactics against them.)
However, in my mind, the most important point was this "so 2003" remark, which demonstrates the unbelievable contempt for the lives of our soldiers that people like this have. For all their shrill cries about liberals not "supporting the troops", they are the ones who view our troops not as human beings but as disposable things, instruments of policy to be hauled out when needed and thrown away when no longer necessary. This tendency is not confined to the rank-and-file right-wingers, either; witness Bush's comically overscripted public appearances in which he habitually uses members of the military as living scenery, while at the same time his administration and the Republican Congress have conspired to cheat veterans out of their benefits and wounded soldiers out of the physical and psychological care they need.
As usual, right-wingers don't know how to do anything except reflexively slander the patriotism of anyone who disagrees with them. But when you actually stand up to them, they almost always back down, and when you present actual facts, they scurry away into the shadows.