Editor,
Whatever their views of President Bush's new surge of 20,000 soldiers, both liberals and conservatives continue to claim that they support our troops. Liberals say they support our troops by criticizing or opposing Operation Iraqi Freedom, which they claim has unnecessarily killed 3,000 soldiers. Conservatives say they support our troops by supporting the mission that most of our troops believe in.
In fact, neither liberals nor conservatives truly support the brave men and women who risk their lives to defend America. For both, "Support our troops" is a cheap, undeserved claim to patriotism - one that obscures their unwillingness to do what is truly necessary. For our government to truly support our troops, it must do far more than help them do their jobs. Our government must place soldiers' lives at risk only when American freedom is threatened, and during war, it must give them the objectives and tactics that will defeat the enemy as quickly as possible.
The conservatives' Iraq war does not meet this standard. It could have, if the war had been undertaken as a step in defeating the anti-American, terrorist-sponsoring regimes of the Middle East. Instead, Bush made the war's primary focus the welfare of Iraqis - above all, their freedom to elect whatever regime they wished. Further sacrificing Americans to Iraqis, both conservatives and liberals agreed to impose crippling rules of engagement that place the lives of civilians in enemy territory above our soldiers. Our hamstrung troops in Iraq have not been allowed to smash a weak insurgency. Instead, they have been forced to suffer an endless series of deaths by an undefeated enemy, while Islamic totalitarians worldwide rejoice in our defeat.
One does not support our troops by sending them to fight wars of self-sacrifice and then thanking their corpses. The conservatives' call to stay the course in Iraq - or to add 20,000 troops to that course - is harmful to America and its troops, because the mission has been conceived and conducted in defiance of American interests.
If the conservatives do not support our troops, then do the liberals? Absolutely not.
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Observe that while liberals criticize the Iraq war for killing our troops, they propose no alternative policy that would protect America against Islamic totalitarianism and its state supporters, including the militant, terrorist theocracy of Iran.
Liberals' only policy proposal is that we not take military action in Iraq or in any other country beyond Afghanistan, because they believe that America has no right to defy the international community or impose its will on the rest of the world - that is, to aggressively pursue its self-defense. They, like the conservatives, advocate self-sacrifice in foreign policy. Denying our right to an all-out military defense, liberals say we must engage committed enemies like Iran with endless diplomacy, which implies bribery, appeasement and inaction.
If liberals were truly concerned with our troops in Iraq and the freedom our soldiers should be fighting for, they would call for our soldiers to smash the insurgency and move on to defeat our other enemies. Instead, they call for a self-effacing retreat from Iraq, followed by further kowtowing to the anti-Americans at the United Nations - actions that would greatly embolden the Islamic totalitarians.
We must adopt a foreign policy of self-interest and commit to defend ourselves using our full, unmatched military might. Neither the conservatives nor the liberals support this, and thus, they end up sacrificing our troops and our freedom.
Damian Erasmus
UNM alumnus
