Troops To Pro-War Pols: No Thanks
“Support The Troops!” The old neoconservative battle cry that at once is intended to also shut up any kind of dissent when it comes to opinions on the US engagement in the Iraq War. It is a schism in American society that still persists that the only way to support the troops is by supporting the war they are fighting.
Rush Limbaugh exhibited the height of this mania (I know… he seems to be coming up a lot today), when he more than implied that any anti-war soldier was actually a “phony soldier”.
Well, it seems as though there’s a pretty good amount of “phony soldiers” out there.
From Think Progress, the two candidates who have received the most campaign donations from the military were anti war candidates Ron Paul, and Barack Obama. Paul pulled in over 200K, while Obama almost netted a 100K from soldiers, sailors and airmen.
That’s a pretty sizeable sum, especially when you stop to consider that these folks aren’t exactly the richest in the world (I know this from first hand. It’s a good salary, just not a stellar one).
So, if all the hawks are saying that you have to support the war to support the troops, I think the message returned from the troops is “No thanks.”
[...] While this is definitely an aberration from what I’m used to, I wouldn’t exactly call it a surprise. Our first indicator came back in February when it was revealed that Ron Paul and Barack Obama were netting far more campaign contributions than their more hawkish rival…. [...]