Sunshine Patriots and Winter Soldiers

Winter Soldier II (pic swiped from Ms. Robin)

The IVAW-sponsored Winter Soldier II is ongoing right now and you can catch some of the liveblogging action from TSO at the Sniper. Initially, there was much criticism as prelude to this event, since false embellishments of war crimes make for easy propaganda that our terrorist enemies can employ (to her credit, Active Duty Patriot took strides to ensure that there was no Jesse Macbeths, and opened the testimony to conservative-flavored bloggers). There's also the concern of domestic exploitation due to the fact that IVAW has taken to the streets with various Marxist organizations that still think it's the "Summer of Love". You know the type. Old blue-hairs donning berets and talking about the horrible capital-imperialist oppressors and passing out poorly written literature heavy on exclaimation points but lousy on content. All of these associations left me with an extreme sense of skepticism.

Following along with TSO's dispatches, it seems that there is some graphic depictions, but not much that would constitute an embellishment of a "war crime". The testifiers actually seemed to be proud that they served. Most of the nastiness that happened to these young men and women seem like the normal incidents that would occur during the course of warfare. Iraq appears to be unique, since soldiers describe the enemy disappearing like ghosts into the streets, while trying to perform diplomatic/humanitarian missions under dire circumstances. Frankly, I'm not surprised that a group of people returning from Iraq would get together and publicly display the anger and frustration that they harbor. I disagree with the way they are conducting this, since it seems they are vying for media attention and collaborating with those that are to the left of Noam Chomsky...but I think it makes a statement that shatters the illusion of the glory of war. Perhaps politicians will be more hesitant to recklessly send young men and women into perilous situations without understanding the consequences.

The Glory of Trench Warfare in WWI