Short-sighted
support
Thomas
Hartnett
I
am officially declaring war on the College
Republicans. I remember fondly last spring
when I was participating in a campus peace
rally against the pre-emptive war in Iraq.
I was often greeted by several shouting
groups of the new "Hitler's youth"
who enthusiastically held up signs saying,
"Support our Troops." And how
could I forget the laughable "pro-American"
rally, sponsored again by the college republicans,
which also contained a plethora of signs
arguing again to "support our troops."
My question to all of you is simply this
-- where are you guys now?
The
time has come to expose the hypocrisy of
the Republican Party and more importantly,
the Bush administration. In a recent editorial
in the Army Times, which rarely criticizes
the Pentagon or the President, the Bush
Administration was attacked for requesting
to cut the combat pay for troops by $75
a month. That's right kids, the Bush administration
wanted to cut the pay of troops fighting
in Iraq claiming that it was too expensive
to keep (because that money is far better
spent on tax cuts for the rich, but that
is a different tale altogether). The Army
Times went on to criticize the administration
concerning its reduction of family dependence
pay as well as GOP senators deliberately
leaving the children of combat troops out
of the child tax credit. My goodness, if
the Army Times keeps this up, the editorial
staff could find itself in beautiful Camp
X-Ray, Cuba gleefully awaiting a secret
military tribunal for aiding and abetting
terrorists!
Many
"un-American" Democrats blasted
the president for even thinking of such
a measure and as a result of their pressure,
combined with the public relations fiasco
that was quickly materializing, the proposal
was withdrawn.
It
seems to me that the whole support the troops
campaign waged by the administration and
the College Republicans was nothing more
then a means to avoid the real question,
which was "should we go to war?"
The answer was then, and is now, no. It
appears that a large part of the fears expressed
by the anti-war left are quickly coming
to fruition. We went into Iraq with no clear
exit strategy and are now becoming bogged
down in a quagmire. This is because this
administration squandered any hope of international
assistance in shouldering the security and
financial burden in Iraq and openly refuses
to send in more troops that are desperately
needed to secure the peace. Then on top
of all of this, he wanted to give our men
and women a pay-cut.
So
who is supporting our troops? I am not exactly
sure anymore but I know who isn't, President
George W. Bush and the rest of his administration.
Now where are your hordes of signs, College
Republicans? Maybe you should concern yourselves
less with towing the party line and more
about what you proclaim to be advocates
of.
But
hey, no hard feelings, at least we found
all those weapons of mass destruction and
captured Saddam Hussein, right?
Thomas
Hartnett is a political science major at
Cal State Long Beach.
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