- "A chickenhawk [describes] public persons -- generally
male -- who (1) tend to advocate, or are fervent supporters of those who
advocate, military solutions to political problems, and who have personally
(2) declined to take advantage of a significant opportunity to serve in
uniform during wartime." --The New Hampshire Gazette
-
- WASHINGTON -- We are being
dragged toward war with Iraq by such chickenhawks. The loudest voices demanding
war are those of men who once upon a time quietly skipped out on the fun
in Vietnam.
-
- Men like Dick Cheney, who famously explained, "I
had other priorities in the '60s than military service."
-
- Cheney received draft deferments as a college student
until he got married in 1964; marriage removed him from the draft. But
the next year, the government announced married men would be drafted, unless
they were also fathers. Nine months and two days after that announcement,
the Cheneys had their first child.
-
- A list of chickenhawks -- including many who are eager
for war with Iraq, yet who had "other priorities" when Vietnam
came a-calling -- has been compiled by Steven Fowle, a Vietnam veteran
who edits The New Hampshire Gazette. (It's at http://www.nhgazette.com/chickenhawks.html
).
-
- It starts with the president himself. George W. Bush
waited out the war from a post with light duties in the Texas Air National
Guard. And, apparently, even that cushy deal was too onerous: There's an
unexplained one-year gap, from May 1972 to May 1973, in Bush's service
record. That year he was supposed to have reported for duty at the Alabama
Air National Guard, but apparently never showed. Bush's reply is that he
was honorably discharged and is proud of his service -- but also that he
can't recall the specifics.
-
- Specifics are also in short supply for Defense Department
Iraq hawks like Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle; for White House adviser
Karl Rove; for professional blabbers George Will, William Kristol, Rush
Limbaugh and Pat Buchanan; for Republican congressional leaders Trent Lott,
Dennis Hastert, Dick Armey and Tom DeLay; and for many others -- right
down to Rambo himself, Sylvester Stallone.
-
- Some of the explanations offered by those who avoided
Vietnam sound hilarious today. Pundit and politician Buchanan got out for
"bad knees," but went on to become an avid jogger. DeLay, who
was working as a pest exterminator during Vietnam, is reported to have
complained that he would have served but all the places were taken up by
black people. (Blacks in the 1960s had no "other priorities?")
-
- And then there's rabid radio personality Limbaugh's excuse:
"Anal cysts." As Matthew Engel noted in the Guardian, "It
is not my custom to mock others' ailments, but anyone who has listened
to Limbaugh's program can imagine the dripping scorn he would bring to
the revelation that a prominent Democrat had skipped a war over something
like that."
-
- The poster boy for draft-dodging, to hear the media tell
it, has long been Bill Clinton. But Clinton also organized anti-war protests
in the late 1960s, and years later, while running for office, was thoroughly
grilled by the media and the public for his Vietnam-era conduct.
-
- By contrast, the chickenhawks weaseled out of Vietnam
while loudly proclaiming their support for it; they've never once been
called to account for doing so; and now, they want to send a new generation
of Americans into a Middle Eastern ground war. ___
-
- Matt Bivens, a former editor of The Moscow Times, is
a Washington-based fellow of The Nation Institute [www.thenation.com].
|