Sheldon Rampton replied on Permalink
Hypocrisy?
Obviously "USMarinesTanker" doesn't know the meaning of the word "hypocrite." A hypocrite is someone who advocates one course of action and does the opposite. This soldier is imagining that a hypocrite is someone who "judges a situation if you've never been exposed to it." By that standard, everyone in the world is a hypocrite: if you judge a terrorist without having actually <i>been</i> one, you're a hypocrite; if you judge Ken Lay without having been the CEO of Enron, you're a hypocrite, etc., etc. That's nonsense.
As for the notion that soldiers are "risking their necks to keep us safe," I don't believe that. Soldiers may <i>believe</i> that's what they're doing, but the evidence tells us otherwise. The number of terrorist attacks worldwide has risen dramatically and exponentially since the war in Iraq began. The entire Middle East is in flames, and it's only a matter of time before this blows back to American shores. It's certainly true that soldiers are "risking their lives" (and sometimes losing them), but soldiers of every nationality risk and lose their lives. During the Iran-Iraq war, hundreds of thousands of soldiers on both sides risked and lost their lives, but rather than making anyone safer, they impoverished and brutalized both countries. That's what the current war in Iraq is doing, also. It's making us <i>less</i> safe, not more so.
For the record, I don't think that soldiers are primarily to blame for the evils of war. The politicians who start wars are the people who deserve the lion's share of blame. I even agree that soldiers have the right to make morbid jokes, given the horrors that they experience. However, I <i>don't</i> believe that soldiers should be bigots, and "Hadji Girl" is a song that reflects cultural ignorance and bigotry against Arabs and Muslims. Supporters of the war seem blind to this fact, and that's part of the reason the war is going so badly. If you can't understand or appreciate the culture of the country where you're fighting, how can you hope to win hearts and minds, or even to understand your enemy?
