Countless people seem to believe that it is possible to support our troops in Iraq without supporting the war effort. Undoubtedly, most who are against the war would claim that they support the troops; an excellent example of this is Chris Rhodenbaugh, author of the Mar. 26 editorial "Support the troops, not the war." However, such a claim is complete nonsense. One cannot possibly support the troops without supporting the war effort, because to do so is self-contradictory. How can someone claim to support the troops if he or she does not support their goals, effort, and continuing effort? Clearly, war protesters call for immediate pullout of Iraq, but an immediate pullout would not give troops sufficient time to achieve their goal, namely establishing stability in the country. Imagine a pre-med student had the goal of getting into a great medical school; the war protesters would be like a friend of this student who claimed to support him or her, but openly wished he or she would not accomplish this aspiration. Obviously, this is not true support. Certainly, the war protesters are not hoping for success in Iraq, but failure.
This premature pullout they call for shows that they are hoping to see our troops fall short of their goals. Support for a person requires desire for their success. On the other hand, hope for their failure is called "opposition," not "support." If war protesters "support" our troops, they must not know the definition of the word "support."
Daniel Gonzalez
sophomore
Knott Hall
Mar. 26
