Listening to Markos “Kos” Moulitsas wax
indignant on his Daily Kos blog about critics of the Taliban “prisoner”
swap is like déjà vu all over again
says
Benny Huang.
Two thousand four is back, y’all!
Kos, who has never been as relevant since those early days of the
Iraq War, dragged out the old “chickenhawk” epithet again to describe
anyone who thinks it’s kind of a raw deal, not to mention illegal under
the circumstances, to swap five Taliban heavy-hitters for one traitorous
soldier who risked the lives of his brothers in arms on several
occasions. Said Kos on his blog: “It’s been a while since we’ve heard
the squawking of those chickenhawks, always eager to send our people
into combat, yet unwilling to serve their nation themselves.”
… His “chickenhawk” comeback is really just a warmed over version of
every liberal’s response to well-considered arguments. Though it may
take different forms at different times the gist is always the same: Shut up!
Shut up about the administration’s evolving rationale for the trade.
Shut up about the illegality of releasing prisoners from Gitmo without
congressional oversight. Shut up about an apparent attempt to cover up
the fishy circumstances of Bergdahl’s disappearance. Shut up about the
likelihood of these Taliban commanders returning the battlefield. Just
shut up already, you chickenhawk!
Kos is not a combat veteran. There’s nothing wrong with that; he
claimed to have “missed deploying to the Gulf War by a hair.” He stayed
behind in Europe because that’s where the Army wanted him to be.
You know who didn’t miss deploying by a hair? John McCain. He’s been a
critic of the Obama-instigated Taliban jailbreak. Said McCain: “Do not
trade one person for five hardcore, the hardest of the hardcore
murdering war criminals who will clearly reenter the fight and send them
to Qatar, of all places, where they will be free to roam, including to
the Taliban headquarters there, and then after a year they will be
allowed to go back into the fight in Afghanistan.”
… Markos Moulitsas became one of the world’s biggest bloggers when he
did precisely because the Left needed a war hero on their team to call
other people cowards and traitors. It is a sad commentary on the Left
that the best they could come up with was Kos and, of course, John
“Christmas in Cambodia” Kerry. Moulitsas’s service was honorable but not
particularly remarkable or heroic, which makes his ten year marathon of
macho posturing rather painful to watch, mostly for his sake.
Obviously, no one has told him yet that he looks foolish.
Ten years ago, No Pasarán featured a major in-depth post on the subject :
Shape Up, Shut Up, or Ship Out
