Wednesday, May 09, 2007

The Silent Majority counts

By Libby

Patrick Ruffini's desperation is showing. Having only managed to corral 9500 out of hundreds of thousands of "tipping point" readers from the 466 armchair warrior's blogs that have signed on to publicly call for somebody else's sacrifice, he now pulls out his trump card. He's found a new site, Appeal for Courage that has gathered 3,000 signatures among active duty personnel to petition Congress to stay the same failed course in Iraq for the foreseeable future. Ruffini paints this some kind of stupendous act of courage on the soldiers' part.

With due respect for their service to our country to the troops who signed on, it doesn't take any courage to agree with your commanders and put up a petition adhering to the company line. Real courage was shown by the active duty troops who risked their careers when they petitioned Congress to end the Iraq folly. Actually I'd say it's pretty telling that the Act for Courage site only managed to get 3,000 signatures from almost 200,000 soldiers who would obviously score some brownie points by signing on.

Ruffini should take his own advice. Before he endows Absolute Moral Authority to a handful of troops with a real stake in the outcome, he should total those who speak with their silence before he starts flogging his imagined mandate.

No comments: