Wholesale hats

Manish wrote

Perhaps I wasn’t clear: it’s stupid to not say thank you explicitly in their first public statement

This is bizarre. James Loney thanked the troops that freed him, and everyone else, in his first newsconference in Canada. This obsession with CPTs ‘not thanking the troops’ reminds me of the right-wing war bloggers eternal demands that ‘Muslims condemn terrorism’ while ignoring all condemnations.

(There’s been some real vituperation in the Canadian press against the CPTs by pro-war columnists. Some people hate pacifists.)

I like the CPTs a lot, I met one in Montreal that was going to Yugoslavia during that war. They practice what they preach and put their own lives at risk while doing so. And to be clear, they are not acting as missionaries, and you do not need to be a Christian to join them. I don’t think Sooden is a Christian, just an idealistic former Montrealer.

well… I’m generally pro-…BUT, I’d really rather that they expressed gratitude AND help out with rescuing other / future hostages.

Still, I suppose there’s a small, very wishful part of me that wanted them to come out of it with at least some recognition that there are other bad guys floating around in Iraq besides the American policy (& its implementors) they love to hate. But I suppose getting some folks over the hump that the choice is bad vs. worse rather than Good vs. bad is very wishful thinking….

I think the lesson is I should not leave serious comments when I am so preoccupied.:-)

and

Yet do we make similar contempt known to the leaders who didn’t care to count the civilian deaths accrued in our name?

Totally orthogonal. My stance on the war (contra) has nothing to do with the fact that these rescuees seem to have acted very ungraciously.

And sorry about that, bytewords.

you are saheli after all .

I will say it’s kind of astonishing how easily we can pile so much contempt on the minutae of behavior of a few not-particularly-privelaged people who were willing to risk everything to nonviolently fight for their ideals, however disagreeable those ideals are to us. Yet do we make similar contempt known to the leaders who didn’t care to count the civilian deaths accrued in our name? Rather ungracious of us not to thank all the dead Iraqis who had no choice about getting bombed to death because the leader we reelected either screwed up in his search for non-existent WMDS, unilaterally decided they needed liberation, or felt like buying very expensive flypaper (depending on what explanation we’re on now). Even with the most forgiving reading of why this war started, these dead civilians–many of them children–paid the ultimate price for the machinations and desires of our Republic, yet how many of us stand up to thank them?

And sorry about that, bytewords.