December 07, 2007
What Did McConnell Mean?
TPM wants to know what Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell meant when he said the following during a re-election campaign stop in Grayson County, Ky., last week.
Unfortunately, most of our friends on the other aisle are having a hard time admitting things are getting better; some days I almost think the critics of this war don't want us to win. Nobody is happy about losing lives but remember these are not draftees, these are full-time professional soldiers.
Emphasis ours. Was McConnell really shrugging off the deaths of nearly 3,890 American soldiers since the Iraq war began four-and-a-half years ago, as TPM implies? It depends on where you are on the war.
Death is an occupational hazard for U.S. soldiers in a way that it is not for, say, holiday gift-wrappers. In moral terms, a soldier dying on the job is simply less tragic than other deaths. In that sense, McConnell wasn't necessarily being callous; he was stating a somewhat unpleasant fact. He also seems to have been implying that anti-war Democrats are using the high casualty toll in Iraq for political advantage.
As a society, though, we take extra care to mark the passing of soldiers, firefighters and police officers, because while death is an on-the-job risk, these are jobs that involve protecting the rest of us from harm. McConnell obviously agrees, judging by his previous statements on troops serving in Iraq. So why qualify his point that "nobody is happy about losing lives" with the fact that the lives lost belong to men and women who voluntarily signed on for combat?
Ignore the fringe elements -- the anti-war movement is not about the U.S. having a robust defense apparatus and the occasional need to deploy it. This movement is about this specific war, the one that was supposed to be about WMDs that turned out not to be there. The mission objective has changed to stabilizing a country whose ruling factions are at war with one another. Compounding doubts that Americans already had about the Iraq war is the revelation that we might have invaded the wrong country.
If you are of the belief that we never should have invaded Iraq and that we are simply incapable of making Iraq whole again, then every soldier's death takes on extra tragedy. McConnell supports the war effort, though he is definitely aware that many of his constituents -- and the military at large -- no longer share his support. He's already gone up with two ads for his 2008 re-election campaign. Considering he's the No. 1 Republican in the Senate and has never faced a serious challenge before, that's a sure sign of nervousness on his part.
All the more reason, one might think, to be a little extra careful with his words.
Posted at 3:04 PM
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Campaigns, Congress, Iraq, Middle East, Military, Senate
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