Speaking of Henry V, it occurs to me that (in an outlandish parallel universe anyway) John Kerry could have answered his "dying for a mistake" question in Thursday night's debate rather better with a quote from Act 4, Scene 1:
"... If the cause be not good, the king himself hath a heavy reckoning to make, when all those legs and arms and heads, chopped off in battle, shall join together at the latter day and cry all 'We died at such a place;' some swearing, some crying for a surgeon, some upon their wives left poor behind them, some upon the debts they owe, some upon their children rawly left. I am afeard there are few die well that die in a battle; for how can they charitably dispose of any thing, when blood is their argument? Now, if these men do not die well, it will be a black matter for the king that led them to it; whom to disobey were against all proportion of subjection."
Posted by Alan Allport at October 2, 2004 05:36 PMand in this parallel universe, Bush answers with:
'tis true that we are in great danger;
The greater therefore should our courage be.
or
the king is not bound to answer the particular endings of his soldiers, the father of his son, nor the master of his servant; for they purpose not their death, when they purpose their services.
This is, obviously, a very different parallel universe.
I have read that just before the war began Anthony Zinni was being called a traitor in the Pentagon for criticizing the war plan, this apparently corroborated by more than one source.
Posted by: Alan Hogue at October 3, 2004 10:47 PMIf these reports are true, as Kerry suggests, then it was all a mistake. How can we ask our troops to die for a mistake? We can't. Therefore, these reports must be rejected. They must be judged not by evidence, but by their offensiveness to the assumptions we embraced when we went to war.
I agree with this article. It has occurred to me recently that the same kind of indignant censure of criticism surrounds this war as with, for instance, the teen suicide touters or the "recovered memory" child abuse accusers. In other words, when Bush says or implies that Kerry is "dishonoring" the troops, etc, by criticizing the war, he is in a sense treating American soldiers as if they were victims.
Posted by: Alan Hogue at October 4, 2004 10:11 AM