Montana conservative attacks fallen soldier over op-ed
Earlier this week, Sgt. Omar Mora and Sgt. Yance Gray, who recently co-wrote a New York Times op-ed critical of the Iraq debate, were killed in a vehicle accident in Western Baghdad. The two fallen soldiers have since been hailed for serving their country and speaking out on Iraq. But one former conservative state Senator in Sgt. Gray’s home state of Montana, Dave Rye, has chosen to attack him for the op-ed, claiming he and his fellow soldiers weren’t intelligent enough to write it on their own….
Well, of course Mora and Gray were too stupid to write the op-ed piece on their own. After all, they volunteered to serve in the Army, didn’t they? Really, how bright could these two have been if they were willing to go into harm’s way in Iraq? Any REAL American patriot would be serving their country on the cocktail circuit in Washington, building their Rolodexes while they eat, drink, and be merry as they profess their love of country and their support for our brave men and women in uniform.
I can think of few things more insulting than Rye’s diatribe, which proceeds from the assumption that American soldiers are somehow intellectually lacking and incapable of constructing coherent, intelligent arguments- especially when those arguments run counter to the accepted Right-wing propaganda/talking points.
Pardon my skepticism, and certainly no disrespect for the dead Montana soldier, but in my time in the Army I never heard such a word as “recalcitrant” escape the lips of any Staff Sergeant. I doubt if it’s spoken all that much in Ismay, either. The soldiers had the help and probably the encouragement of a writer with an agenda, from a newspaper which has always had one. Its continually declining circulation now mainly consists of those who want desperately to consider themselves sophisticated as well as compassionate, even if that means always branding the U.S. as the chief villain on the world stage‚Äö√Ñ√Æin fact, especially if it does.
If anyone should be able to speak to the futility of Our Glorious and Benevolent Leader’s © Iraq policy, it would be someone who’s stuck in the middle of dealing with the consequences of it. That Rye cannot accept the reality that American soldiers just might be intelligent, articulate souls capable of independent, rational thought and possessed of a functional vocabulary is both insulting, ignorant, and offensive almost beyond belief.
Jeebus, what a (&^%$#@ DUMB@$$….
