Dead Tree Chicken Hawk Squawk

The San Francisco Chronicle editorial board thought it was doing its readers a favor on Tuesday when it published a bleeding-brained moon-bark, called Roast the Chicken Hawks, by John Sugg of the alternative weekly paper "Creative Loafing". Indeed.

Chicken hawks are defined as creatures who belligerently advocate violent military solutions to political problems, but who dodged opportunities to serve in uniform during wartime...

Chicken hawks believe that you should be willing, even grateful, to make the supreme sacrifice in spite of a crumbling economy, mega-billion-dollar thievery in corporate boardrooms and the gang-rape of the environment. Not to mention such ditties as the failure of the "war against terrorism" and little blemishes like the mass-murder war crimes of our Afghan allies

Among the "chicken hawks" it cites are George Bush, Ann Coulter and SEC chairman Harvey Pitt. In response I sent this letter to the editor of the Chronicle

I was confused by John Sugg’s op-ed piece about so-called “Chicken Hawks” (Oct. 8). I can see he is upset that some members of Congress, the Administration and the media have not served in the military. But I can’t figure out what he is proposing as an alternative. Perhaps he suggesting that only combat veterans should be allowed to formulate foreign policy or discuss it on TV. He might prefer to live in a country where only people like, say, Norman Schwarzkopf, Oliver North or Timothy McVeigh were permitted to make decisions about the military. As for me, I’m comfortable with the status quo where our civilian elected officials are in charge of our military and not the other way around.

Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at October 09, 2002 06:21 AM