An excellent essay by Michael Kelly on the dishonest, reactionary insult favored by the “anti-war” crowd: Return of the Chicken Hawks.

Nothing could seem more immediately unanswerable than “my country right or wrong.” Of course: It is your country, and it remains your country no matter what, and at first blush this seems the morally admirable position. But nothing could be more disastrous, or less morally supportable, than the philosophy this tautology represents: “My country right or wrong,” wrote G.K. Chesterton, is on a moral par with “my mother drunk or sober.” This is an idea that ends you up with Napoleon’s France, Hitler’s Germany and Mao’s China.

So it is with “chicken hawk.” Its power lies in the simplicity that comes with being completely wrong. The central implication here is that only men who have professionally endured war have the moral standing and the experiential authority to advocate war. That is, in this country at least, a radical and ahistorical view. The Founders, who knew quite well the dangers of a military class supreme, were clear in their conviction that the judgment of professional warmakers must be subordinated to the command of ignorant amateurs — civilian leaders who were in turn subordinated to the command of civilian voters. Such has given us the leadership in war of such notable “chicken hawks” as Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

Further, the inescapable logic of “chicken hawk”-calling is that only military men have standing to pronounce in any way on war — to advocate it or to advocate against it. The decision not to go to war involves exactly the same issues of experiential and moral authority as does the decision to go to war. If a past of soldiering is required for one, it is required for the other. Chicken doves have no more standing than “chicken hawks.” We must leave all the decisions to the generals and the veterans.