Chickenhawk!

Ah, good, something decent emerges from the ugly Goldberg/Cole spat -- a reasonable discussion of the status of the "chickenhawk!" argument. Beyond the ad hominem issues Ogged raises, I'd like to make a further point. To wit: right now, unlike during the run-up to the Iraq War (or the Afghan War) the American military is facing an actual manpower shortage. The National Guard is experiencing a rather large recruiting shortfall and the Marine Corps a smaller one. Under circumstances where a sufficiently large number of people are willing to volunteer to do something that you would like to see done but are not willing to do yourself, it seems reasonable enough to support sending the volunteers in to do it. When the number of volunteers becomes -- as it has become -- insufficient to the task at hand, that changes things.

One point many chickenhawks have raised in their defense is that no one thinks it's odd that I support the practice of sending firefighters into dangerous situations to stop the District of Columbia from burning down even though I have no desire whatsoever to join the Fire Department. It is, I think, a pretty good point. But at the same time, if a house down the block from me was on fire, a truck pulled up to work on putting it out, and the firefighters on the scene started yelling that they needed some assistance from the various people standing around because there weren't enough of them on the scene, I like to think I would help out. Certainly, we would all think there was something wrong with refusing to lend a hand under those circumstances. It's one thing, in other words, to let others serve in your stead when a sufficient number of others are willing to do so. It's another thing entirely to let others be conscripted to serve in your place (as George W. Bush, Tom DeLay, and Dick Cheney all did during Vietnam) during a war you support, or to stand aside while it becomes clear that there aren't a sufficient number of volunteers to get the job done.