Joel Stein: Bush apologist

L.A. Times writer defends incendiary Iraq column
Reuters

A Los Angeles Times columnist who infuriated conservatives by writing that he does not support American troops fighting in Iraq -- and calling those who do "wusses" -- stood by the article on Tuesday.

Joel Stein said he has been "bombarded" by hate mail over the incendiary article -- which was headlined "Warriors and Wusses" and held that U.S. soldiers in Iraq were "ignoring their morality" -- but does not regret writing it and stands by the premise.

"I don't support what they are doing, and I don't the see point of putting a big yellow magnet on your car if you don't," Stein told Reuters in an interview. "I don't think (soldiers) are necessarily bad people. I do plenty of things that are wrong too. But I don't agree with what they are doing so I don't see the logic of supporting it."

Bully for you.

You wonder why American soldiers are doing things you don't like, how about because they are doing what OUR elected officials sent them to do and they had no choice in the matter? Because they were lied to like we were?

You lost me at "I don't think (soldiers) are necessarily bad people."

Some soldiers do bad things, no question. Condemn them, and demand that the leader who sent them their to prove his dick was bigger than his daddy's be impeached. Who ordered these troops to Iraq? Who ordered them to drop napalm on civilians? Who ordered them to imprison Iraqis and torture them?

Make no mistake, the soldiers who committed war crimes should be punished, but that is a small percentage of the troops there. The real people in need of prison are Pentagon generals, civillian leaders, i.e. Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Powell, Rice, Wolfowitz, etc, and the members of the media who shilled for the government.

But you don't want to do that. You want to write stupid shit like this:

But blaming the president is a little too easy. The truth is that people who pull triggers are ultimately responsible, whether they're following orders or not. An army of people making individual moral choices may be inefficient, but an army of people ignoring their morality is horrifying. An army of people ignoring their morality, by the way, is also Jack Abramoff's pet name for the House of Representatives.

People pulling the trigger are, in many instances, children. Eighteen and nineteen year-olds who haven't yet learned that people like George Bush will use them for his own glory, will see them dead or ground down into scraps of meat to be cast aside until the next photo op. Then he will trot them out to use as props he can strut around, pretending to be just like them.

These kids have youth to blame for their ignorance about how the world really works. What is your excuse, Joel? Why do you excuse George Bush for his crimes?

How arrogant!

Have you gone to jail for actions taken in protest of the war? If these kids disobey orders, they are going to go to jail for a LONG time. You condemn them for their moral choices, but what about yours? Have you paid your taxes? That money supports this war and a truly "moral" person by your definition would simply refuse to fund an illegal act.

Why do you expect youngsters to "do the right thing" when you refuse to do it yourself?

After we've decided that we made a mistake, we don't want to blame the soldiers who were ordered to fight. Or even our representatives, who were deceived by false intelligence. And certainly not ourselves, who failed to object to a war we barely understood.

Speak for yourself, dickhead. Some of us opposed the war from the start, and we found ourselves excoriated by people like you for our "naivety" or "disloyalty".

The war was not a "mistake", it was a deliberate war crime perpetrated by people who KNEW they were lying. People like you were too goddamned lazy and meek to do your job, which was to point out the obvious lies. And now that the lies are so obvious that a blind man can see them with a cane, you fall all over yourself minimizing the war crimes committed by our leaders.

I do sympathize with people who joined up to protect our country, especially after 9/11, and were tricked into fighting in Iraq. I get mad when I'm tricked into clicking on a pop-up ad, so I can only imagine how they feel.

When was the last time you got your fucking legs blown off by a pop-up ad, you snotty little shit?

I'm not advocating that we spit on returning veterans like they did after the Vietnam War

Especially since this never happened.

but we shouldn't be celebrating people for doing something we don't think was a good idea. All I'm asking is that we give our returning soldiers what they need: hospitals, pensions, mental health and a safe, immediate return. But, please, no parades.

Seriously, the traffic is insufferable.

Oh, bravo! What a wickedly amusing wordsmith you are. You should write for the newspapers.

This is not to say that Stein didn't make a few good points, he did:

Besides, those little yellow ribbons aren't really for the troops. They need body armor, shorter stays and a USO show by the cast of "Laguna Beach."

The real purpose of those ribbons is to ease some of the guilt we feel for voting to send them to war and then making absolutely no sacrifices other than enduring two Wolf Blitzer shows a day. Though there should be a ribbon for that.

I understand the guilt. We know we're sending recruits to do our dirty work, and we want to seem grateful.

He needs to have followed that theme and resisted the desire to appear erudite and "witty".

That said, I have little use for his barely sentient critics on the Right.

"If I ever run into the asshole, I'm going to knock his frickin' block off," one man wrote on the Little Green Footballs Web site, one of nearly 500 people who had commented on the article by mid-afternoon.

Sure you will, little man. Sure you will.