Don't shout 'victory' at your postwar parade
Can we at least call them "parades"??
Call it a celebration or say it's honoring soldiers, but please don't put the "victory" label on your war parade.
That's what Bush administration officials are telling New York City, where Mayor Michael Bloomberg wants to hold a blockbuster parade to salute veterans of the war in Iraq, the New York Times reports today.
Fearing such ticker-tape events would seem to the Arab world like gloating, the Pentagon would prefer recognizing soldiers' accomplishment of bringing down a dictator, the Times said. The Defense Department may even set up a task force to coordinate postwar parades, in New York or elsewhere.
Look, our military just took out one of the most reviled dictators known to mankind. If that is not a victory, then what is? If the Arab world chooses to interpret that sort of celebration as gloating, then that is their issue. While I was never rabidly pro-war, I do believe that what our military accomplished in Iraq is worth celebrating, and yes, it WAS a victory. Deal with it or not, but can we please leave the semantics out of this? Since when is the Shrub Administratioin concerned with political correctness?
