chicken hawk
n.
Informal A person who favors military force or action to carry out a foreign policy but has never served in the military.
One of the Left's favorite comebacks to slam supporters of the War on Terror, and specifically the war in Iraq, is to cry, "Chickenhawk!"
It's a silly moniker.
Never having served in the military shouldn't prohibit one from having an opinion on foreign policy involving military force.
It's particularly stupid for the Left to rely on the chickenhawk defense since so many of the Democrats have never been in the military.
Accordingly, all those Dems would not be entitled to wield the powers of the presidency. They'd have to forfeit the responsibilities of commander-in-chief.
The Associated Press points out that most of the 2008 presidential candidates lack military service.
WASHINGTON -- The 2008 presidential campaign is long on war rhetoric and short on warriors.
Despite the high-profile roles of the battle against terrorism and conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan in the presidential campaign, few of the candidates can claim military experience on their resumes.
Of the top tier of 2008 candidates, only Republican John McCain has been to war and served in uniform.
Yet, while the demand for a president with a military background might be expected to run high in the post-Sept. 11 era, few see that as a determining factor in the 2008 race.
...Polls indicate that while having a military background can be helpful to presidential candidates, a majority of adults don't see it as essential. Many people say candidates who've served as a governor, member of Congress or business executive are better prepared for the Oval Office than a general or admiral.
More broadly, an AP-Ipsos poll last month indicates leadership traits or experience are far less important to voters than character attributes such as honesty.
The 2008 lineup of candidates also makes clear that a new generation of political leaders has stepped forward, some too young to have been eligible for the Vietnam-era draft. Beyond that, fatigue with the Iraq war may have dulled the appetite for a warrior in the White House.
That doesn't make sense -- "fatigue with the Iraq war may have dulled the appetite for a warrior in the White House."
Fatigue with Iraq wasn't a factor when Bill Clinton was elected.
Fatigue with Iraq didn't play into Bush's 2000 election defeat of Al Gore, a military journalist for five months in Vietnam.
Moreover, I thought Bush wasn't a warrior. Didn't CBS try to concoct evidence to prove that. How can Bush be seen as warrior when the lib media have spent years saying that his military service is irrelevant or nonexistent?
It's clear that people don't think it's necessary for one to have seen combat or have been in a war zone to become president.
Here's a rundown of the 2008 candidates and their military service, or their reasons for not serving:
Of the current Democratic front-runners, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, 45, was too young to have been drafted during the Vietnam War. Former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards, 53, had a draft number that was never called. And, Sen. Hillary Clinton, 59, like most women her age, would not have been expected to serve. Women weren't subject to the draft.
Among the other candidates in the Democratic race, Sen. Chris Dodd, 62, of Connecticut, served in the Army Reserve from 1969 to 1975. Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico received student and medical classifications that probably spared him from service in Vietnam, including one for a deviated septum. Richardson had a draft lottery number of 131 in 1970, a year when men with numbers as high as 195 were called.
Delaware Sen. Joe Biden, 64, and Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich, 60, also had medical conditions that kept them from serving in Vietnam.
Among the leading Republican candidates, only McCain, 70, has a military record. The Arizona senator spent more than 20 years in the Navy, almost a quarter of it in a Vietnamese prisoner of war camp.
Draft deferments kept Giuliani, 62, of out Vietnam while he attended law school. In 1968, as the Vietnam War was escalating, he was classified 1-A, or draft eligible. After going to work for a federal judge, he received an occupational deferment. He was classified 1-A again in 1970, but had a high lottery number.
Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, 60, received a draft deferment while serving as a Mormon missionary in France during the war. He was eligible for the draft later, but was not selected. Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback, 50, and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, 51, came of age after the draft ended in 1973. Neither has military experience.
Another Republican, Colorado Rep. Tom Tancredo, received student deferments. He was available for service in 1969, but was reclassified in 1970 because of stress-related anxiety.
On the other hand, longshot GOP hopeful Rep. Duncan Hunter 58, who describes himself as "the national security candidate," was an Army paratrooper and Ranger in the Vietnam War and has a personal connection to the Iraq war. His son, a Marine, has completed two tours of duty there.
Obama is too young to have served in Vietnam, but that doesn't mean he couldn't have volunteered to serve his country.
Edwards' draft number was never called. That didn't keep him from volunteering.
As a woman, Hillary Clinton didn't need to dodge the draft the way her husband did. She wasn't expected to serve, but she could have volunteered.
Other candidates had medical excuses or got deferments.
The AP notes:
President George W. Bush's National Guard duty helped keep him out of Vietnam, yet he defeated three veterans of that conflict — McCain in the 2000 GOP primaries, Democrat Al Gore in the 2000 election and Democrat John Kerry in 2004.
Bush didn't go to Vietnam, but he did serve. That's more than what many candidates of his era did. I think that's worth noting.
This chickenhawk thing bugs me.
Libs will say that the chickenhawk label isn't applicable to Obama because he didn't support the war in Iraq. He's not being hypocritical. Some libs give Edwards and Clinton a pass because they've apologized or distanced themselves from the war. They'd be classified as recovering hypocrites, I suppose.
For a moment, let's say that's valid. They aren't chickenhawks because they are pushing a cut and run strategy. They aren't supporting military action in Iraq so there's no disingenuousness there.
Now let's say that one of them (God forbid) did become president and sent troops into battle.
Such a president would by definition be a chickenhawk.
If a president hasn't served in the military, does it follow that he or she cannot fulfill the duties of commander-in-chief and make the difficult decision to send troops into harm's way?
That's what libs suggest, at least when it comes to President Bush and Republicans.
Would a President Obama or Edwards or Hillary Clinton vow to not call the U.S. military into service simply because they never served?
Would they fail to defend liberty and protect the nation because they have no personal military background?
If that's the case, then a prerequisite for running for president would have to be a record of military service.
The bottom line: This chickenhawk crap that the Left has been flinging at President Bush, Vice President Cheney, and others in the administration for years is ridiculous.
7 comments:
One other episode for which McCain is rarely remembered is the infamous USS Forrestal Fire in 1967. McCain, a pilot at the time, was getting ready to launch in a A-4 Skyhawk when a missle was launched from across the flight deck of the Forrestal from another aircraft, an F-4 Phantom, and struck his aircraft's fuel tank, igniting a fire around the aircraft in which he barely escaped. Subsequent explosions nearly destroyed the ship. The video of the incident is REQUIRED damage control viewing (or was) when I was in the Navy. I'm sure it still is. It is now out on Discovery home video entitled "Situation Critical - USS Forrestal".
I think that a military career means that a candidate will be a good president. A non military candidate in the 2008 presidential racecan still become a good president. A person also do need to have any military experience to see that the invasion of Iraq is costing us too much.
Interesting, Pete. Thanks.
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merjoem32,
You can't put a price on the precious lives lost in the Iraq war, but the real issue isn't the cost of staying in Iraq to stabilize the country.
It's the much higher price of surrendering -- Somalia and its consequences revisisted.
Still, I don't think Bill Clinton's horrible decision to retreat can be blamed on his lack of service.
I think the term "chickenhawk" refers to someone who is rabidly pro-war and over-willing to send troops into combat when they themselves were not willing to take that same risk. It's the hypocracy in their stance which earns the label.
Just because someone has not served in a war doesn't mean they can't be a great commander n chief even during war time, and such a person is not necessarily a chickenhawk.
To be a chickenhawk IMO they had to have gone out of their way to avoid serving in combat AND then express very pro-war policies.
GWB is the perfect example of a chickenhawk. You say he "served"... but did he? He (with help from his fathers influence) got into the National Guard solely as a means to avoid the possibility of being sent to Vietnam. And now he has turned into the biggest warmonger President we've had in a long time.
Bill Clinton could also be seen as a chickenhawk, though just not on the same scale as Bush... maybe Clinton should be called a chickhawk? Not quite a full grown chicken, but heading in that direction...?
I think you're rewriting definitions to suit your anti-Bush agenda.
If you were being fair, you'd scrutinize the medical and student deferments of the Dems, and question their failure to volunteer to serve in the military.
If GWB wanted to avoid Vietnam, there were many other avenues he could probably have taken. Being an F-102 pilot even during peacetime, was risky business.
I think I got this, via Mudville Gazette around the time of the 60 Minutes RatherGate:
According to the Air Force Safety Center, the lifetime Class A accident rate for the F-102 was 13.69 mishaps per 100,000 flight hours, much higher than the average for today's combat aircraft. For example, the F-16 has an accident rate of 4.14, the F-15 is at 2.47, the F-117 at 4.07, the S-3 at 2.6, and the F-18 at 4.9. Even the Marine Corps' AV-8B, regarded as the most dangerous aircraft in US service today, has a lifetime accident rate of only 11.44 mishaps per 100,000 flight hours. The F-102 claimed the lives of many pilots, including a number stationed at Ellington during Bush's tenure. Of the 875 F-102A production models that entered service, 259 were lost in accidents that killed 70 Air Force and ANG pilots.
"Hiding out" in a unit that had a chance of getting called up, is hardly an intelligent approach to avoiding Vietnam military service.
And as far as the "chickenhawk" label, as one milblogger had put it, it's not an argument. It's designed to shut down debate, and nothing more.
We might as well call Al Gore a chickenhawk on the war against global warming when he is rah, rah, rah you folks cut back on your emissions, while I pollute in excess and use up 20 times the average household, because I buy carbon-offsets from a company I have investment in; John Edwards a chickenhawk in the war against poverty. Oh wait....I keep forgetting how much he likes to remind us that he was the son of a mill worker. Nevermind...he's just chickensh*t.
Anyway, if someone who is pro-war is cowardly to serve himself, I say, "so what?" Not everyone is cut out to be a soldier. One does not have to be in uniform to see the necessity of a war being fought; and to be able to provide service in support role positions. It is for this reason, that so many who don't serve are supportive and GRATEFUL to those who do serve and sacrifice.
Another thing: do the political opinions of those who serve in the military in support positions- like an intelligence analyst or mechanic- somehow gets trumped by the opinion of someone serving in a combat role? Many soldiers, afterall, never even fire a shot at the enemy. Are they somehow more "cowardly" for not being on the frontlines? Everyone involved in proactively winning a war, plays a role that is important. Industrialists during WWII did as much as the soldiers did, in winning the war; in fact, they served their country better by NOT being out on the frontlines of it.
One more point: If you believe in fighting crime or fighting fires, why aren't you out there in police uniform? Or signing your son and daughter up for the fire dept?
While there is something to be said about appreciating the risks taken by those who endanger their lives on behalf of others....and while there is something to be said about having perspective from experience in a certain field (and remember, something like the military has a variety of fields, and simply having served doesn't make one an expert at all things military-related, and policy-making), going by the chickenhawk line of reasoning, we are all chickenhawks at something, in a sense.
A lot of us fear going into politics. So, should we not have an opinion on policies, on judging our Congressmen harshly? Like I said, experience does count for something; but it does not invalidate an opinion.
Bottomline:
The chickenhawk "argument" is crap.
Thanks for sharing those great points, WS.
I'm surprised that the "chickenhawk" argument is still being used by libs.
It's so thoroughly lame!
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