My letter to Hugh Hewitt

My letter to Hugh Hewitt, conservative LA talk-radio host regarding Joel Stein's article in the LA Times Op-Ed section reads as follows:
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Dear Mr. Hewitt,

I was recently exposed to your talk show via RadioBlogger.com where your interview with LA Times columnists, Joel Stein was posted both as an MP3 audio file as well as a typewritten transcript. Unfortunately, I don't get your show up here in the San Francisco Bay Area, so what I know of you and your show is limited to what I read from your blog and heard from the excerpt. Nevertheless, I wanted to make a few observations about Mr. Stein's point of view that I think you might find interesting at worst – challenging at best.

First, let me give you a little bit of background about me. I am a conservative that strongly supports the military and our Global War on Terror in Iraq and… well, wherever it might take us. I am not some radio talk show Jihadist who claims to be a conservative, Red State, gun-toting Republican in order to get past the phone screener, just to blow myself up via your great big red 'eject' button after I spew some leftist rants. (There is no Paradise after getting dumped from the radio, is there? Perhaps this is a metaphor with lessons the Muhajideen can take to heart; acting crazy and getting yourself 'blown up' will not bring others to your system of beliefs – it will only make people think you are crazy and blew yourself up. I digress…)

To further my point that I am not some leftist punk trying to undermine your mostly right Right point of view, you can see my personal blog at andrewhsu.blogspot.com where many of the featured links and articles serve evidence for my conservative views.

Assuming that you believe that I am a pro-military, pro-war, conservative, Christian, immigrant, minority small-business owner, I'd like to see what your thoughts are on my take on Mr. Joel Stein's column (I'm not the most articulate speaker nor am I the most creative writer, but I speak best in analogies so bear with me):

Stein says that he does not support our troops because he does not believe in the War in Iraq. He says that dissenters of the war do no small harm to our soldiers by 'supporting the troops' via bumper stickers and other means of trite, overly simplistic 'symbols of support' and unnecessarily prolong the war. In fact, he likens this behavior to hypocrisy1.

Now, is it an insane stance to say you DON'T support our troops? Most of the ire stirred by Stein's article comes from this camp. "How can you not support soldiers that are risking their lives for you?" they'll ask*. Well, that's not really a valid question because the supposition here is that the soldiers ARE risking their lives for you and that their cause is virtuous. However, if you don't believe that they are, then what is the support all about?

Hypothetical: Suppose our troops were engaged in a military take-over of Taiwan or something equally absurd and criminally wrong. Neither you nor I would support our troops in a campaign such as this. Regardless of how many of their lives are being sacrificed or risked on "our behalf". Why is this scenario different from the War in Iraq? Well, you and I both see that it is because the War in Iraq, in summary, is good and this hypothetical takeover of Taiwan as our relations currently stands would be nothing but "Imperialism".

Another hypothetical: What about the militants in the Earth First movement or the extremists on the far left spectrum of the Greenpeace folks? Suppose they launch a campaign to blow up fuel tankers as they cross our nation's highways in an effort to press congress into writing legislation furthering the development of solar and alternative fuel sources. Would those of use who think their cause is already a little bit nutty support their "troops" just because they're putting their own lives in danger for what they assume is the betterment of America and Americans? Of course not. We would condemn their actions as criminal and send them off to break rocks somewhere. Even those who DO support the environmental cause would probably still think the enviro-terrorists are criminals and muster no support for their actions. Likewise, if an individual like Mr. Stein strenuously disagrees with the War in Iraq (a stance worth debating on it's own and admittedly so by Mr. Stein himself2) we should not expect him to "support the troops", should we?

So the REASON why the troops are doing what they are doing is paramount in determining one's heartfelt support. To blindly support the troops isn't really what we're all about. In fact, by endorsing the idea of "supporting-the-troops-no-matter-what" we've marginalized what they are doing and taken their risk for granted by minimizing or totally disregarding why they are there. Besides, I don't really want Mr. Berkeley Liberal telling me Bush is a war criminal but that he supports the troops as much as I do. It steals the strength and conviction away from those of us that really do love and support our Armed Forces.

So summarize – or rather, to reiterate – I love our troops. I love that we are smashing first those who would try to smash us. But if our troops engaged in a cause that I strongly disagreed with - as Stein claims to about the War in Iraq - I wouldn't support our troops either. And, I suspect, neither would you. The REAL question here is why Stein would view our efforts in Iraq with as much distain as he does (or claims to, anyway. After all, it is kinda trendy to be anti-war in the circles he runs in, so who knows how sincere or educated his position on the war is anyway?)

Please tell me what you think of my line of reasoning. As much as I enjoyed listening to the excerpt of your show and as much as I like to instill reason into those who have none, I have a hard time drawing a line in the sand that says, "you MUST support our troops and honor their sacrifices – NO MATTER WHAT."



*Except for the Americandigest.com article that makes fun of and accurately describes Stein's and Gen-Xers' inability to grasp reality and maintain passion for anything of virtue.

1"Yeah, I'm just simply saying that as a person whose against the Iraq war, I think all these I support the troop statements, I support the troops magnets, are a little hypocritical."

2 "Whether I'm wrong about not suporting Iraq or not is a legitimate question, and maybe I can be convinced that I was wrong about not supporting Iraq. But I think if you're not going to support Iraq, you shouldn't support the troops."