[richlevy]

There were to op-ed pieces in the Inquirer today.

Here is a view from the anti-war side.

A firestorm over U.S. forces in Iraq

Original column: Why he doesn't support troops or war

By Joel Stein

<!-- begin body-content --> I don't support our troops. This is a particularly difficult opinion to have, especially if you are the kind of person who likes to put bumper stickers on his car. Supporting the troops is a position that even Calvin is unwilling to urinate on.

I'm sure I'd like the troops. They seem gutsy, young and up for anything. If you're wandering into a recruiter's office and signing up for eight years of unknown danger, I want to hang with you in Vegas.

And I've got no problem with other people - the ones who were for the Iraq war - supporting the troops. If you think invading Iraq was a good idea then, by all means, support away. Load up on those patriotic magnets, and bracelets, and other trinkets the Chinese are making money off of.

But I'm not for the war. And being against the war and saying you support the troops is one of the wussiest positions the pacifists have ever taken - and they're wussy by definition. It's as if the one lesson they took away from Vietnam wasn't to avoid foreign conflicts with no pressing national interest, but to remember to throw a parade afterward.

Blindly lending support to our soldiers, I fear, will keep them overseas longer by giving soft acquiescence to the hawks who sent them there - and who might one day want to send them somewhere else. Trust me, a guy who thought 50.7 percent was a mandate isn't going to pick up on the subtleties of a parade for just service in an unjust war. He's going to be looking for funnel cake.

And here is a view from the pro-war side.

Yet, Stein and I have something in common. We both see the war and its warriors as inexorably joined. While I write letters to critically wounded soldiers at Walter Reed, Stein is asserting his disdain for yellow ribbons and, in his opinion, the sort of pollyanna support they represent. In each case, we resist the tide of whitewashing sentiment resulting in an unwillingness to establish a coherent stand on the Iraq war.

Stein says what many soft-core antiwar people are not willing to say. He has rejected euphemism, and, in doing so, cracked the granite of fainthearted dissent. In my case, while I have often been frustrated by how this war has been prosecuted (troop levels, torture accusations, and so on), I supported the removal of Saddam and the attempt at establishing democracy in the region. I had also come to see some kind of U.S. presence in that part of the world as an inevitability, whether now or 10 years from now, when - as we currently contemplate the meaning of a Hamas victory in Palestine - we can hardly imagine what the political landscape will be.

Thus, I do support the war - despite an administration that has squandered an historic opportunity to inspire and engage the civilians of this country in a campaign of service and duty during these uneasy times. I believe that if I support the troops, their morale might improve, leading to a swifter success and return to America. It's an extrapolation, but I stand by it, even as I listen to criticisms of the war. I realize I must assume responsibility for supporting the mission as well as the men. I want them to win. To deconstruct the issue in order to appear compassionate, patriotic and progressive at the same time is, at best, self-serving, and, at worst, dangerously misleading to the men and women charged with this duty. After all, what exactly does it mean to say you support one without the other? You want the troops to perform well, yet just short of victory?

His glibness aside, Stein is honest and direct, even at the risk of offending a lot of people, including the troops. He is perhaps not the kind of man who would subscribe to the "love the sinner, hate the sin" credo, but then he may not see the value in being so Jesuitical in his arguments against the war. In this case, I don't see the sin as a sin - but I admit I don't always love the "sinner" either.

So individuals from both the pro-war and anti-war side say that I or anyone cannot support soldiers without supporting the war? Bullshit.

By that reasoning, anyone sending care packages to Vietnam would have had to automatically support the troops staying there indefinitely.

Ms. Sciolla states that:

After all, what exactly does it mean to say you support one without the other? You want the troops to perform well, yet just short of victory?

No, but recognizing that troops need to come home at some point is necessary, as is recognizing when to walk away. Most of the troops came home from Korea without a 'win'. Technically, we have already 'won' in Iraq, and there will probably not be any clear point in the occupation where we can say "we're finished". Ms. Sciolla apparently has a vision of what victory in Iraq is, which is something even the adminstration cannot articulate. From her comments on a US 'presence', she seems to believe that we will find a country in that region that wants us to remain there in occupation, something even the Iraqi government opposes.

No, I for one can differentiate between giving aid and comfort to soldiers who have volunteered to 'support and defend the Constitution' without buying into any particular mission that they have been given.