New Chickenhawks?
by James Glaser
December 1, 2009

"Chickenhawk" (also chicken hawk and chicken-hawk) is a political epithet used in the United States to criticize a politician, bureaucrat, or commentator who strongly supports a war or other military action, yet who actively avoided military service when of age.

The term is meant to indicate that the person in question is cowardly or hypocritical for personally avoiding combat in the past while advocating that others go to war in the present. Generally, the implication is that "chickenhawks" lack the experience, judgment, or moral standing to make decisions about going to war.

In the run-up to George Bush's wars in Iraq and Afghanistan it was reported that most of the leadership of our country had no idea of what war or combat entailed. Most of Bush's White House staff and most Republicans who pushed for these conflicts had no military experience, but they wanted war any way.

Today, the White House is filled with the same type of people—people who want war, but who have never wanted to experience it personally. That is except for White House Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel. Emanuel never served in the American armed forces, but did serve as a civilian volunteer in the Israeli Army. Yes, that is true. No, he never volunteered for our military.

It has been reported that President Barack Obama, who also never served in our military, is going to put on his Commander-in-Chief uniform tomorrow night, and charge into the Afghanistan war that George Bush started. Well, not really or legally a war, but much like every blood-letting America has started in the last fifty years, an unconstitutionally presidential imposed attack on some pitiful third world nation.

I have to wonder what it feels like to be the commander of the most powerful military in the history of mankind, while attacking the most pitiful foe you can find. That is what we did when we decided to attack Afghanistan. Maybe there were some South Seas nations with less of a military than what Afghanistan had when we attacked, but it would be a close call.

We are now in our ninth year of fighting in Afghanistan, and by all reports we are not winning. Barack Obama, with no military experience of any kind is leading us in this fight. No, he won't be on the front lines or any lines for that matter, but he will be the man deciding the fate of millions of Afghans and tens of thousands of American troops.

Much like George Bush, Barack Obama refuses to bring the troops home without a victory. (Victory? What or who will we be victorious over?) Regardless, that nebulously defined "victory" will be pursued with no concern for the amount of blood spilled or the lives lost.

In Obama's eyes, victory in Afghanistan means a Presidential victory for him in the 2012 election for his second term. So like water off a duck's back, President Obama will weather the calls of being a "chicken hawk," if he can retain power for a few more years.

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