- For other uses, see Chickenhawk (disambiguation)
Chickenhawk is an epithet used in United States politics to criticize a politician, bureaucrat, or commentator who votes for war, supports war, commands a war, or develops war policy, but has not personally served in the military. Generally, it is not a label applied to essentially "dovish" leaders who support defensive wars, "humanitarian interventions," or UN operations.
Origin
Chickenhawk is a compound of "chicken" as in "coward" and "hawk" as in "pro-war," thus a chickenhawk is someone who is in favor of a war as long as someone else does the fighting and dying. While the term may have been used as early as 1988, its first confirmable appearance is in a newsgroup post from 1992. The first appearance in the printed media appears to be a November 15, 2000 article by journalist Richard Roeper in the Chicago Sun-Times. He criticised what, in his opinion, was George W. Bush's "chickenhawk stance on the Vietnam War." The term may have been used before that date during campaigning for the 2000 U.S. Presidential election—opponents of Dick Cheney, who never served in the United States armed forces, were upset by his criticism of the Clinton Administration's military policies. (Ironically, President Clinton also did not serve).
Previously, the term "war wimp" was used, most notably by former Congressman Andrew Jacobs (Democrat–Indiana), a veteran of the United States Marine Corps and the Korean War, who labeled whom he saw as "overzealous" supporters of the Cold War as "war wimps," if they had not served in the Korean War or the Vietnam War.[1]
The association between chickenhawks and war may be related to the author Robert Mason 's 1983 bestselling autobiography, Chickenhawk ISBN 0140072187, about his wartime service in Vietnam during which he flew 1,000 helicopter missions. Mason published a sequel in 1993, Chickenhawk: Back in the World ISBN 0670848352, covering his difficult return to civilian life.
Although he did not use the word "chickenhawk", Civil War General William Tecumseh Sherman noted the phenomenon in his time:
- It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, more vengeance, more desolation. War is hell.
Political use
The term highlights that some of those who take interventionist (or militarist) policy positions have not themselves served in combat, or have used influence to avoid military service. Many politicians from the Baby Boomer generation, who avoided serving in Vietnam have faced this label.
The term entered popular vocabulary during the post-9/11 wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, in which many of the most prominent supporters of war had no history of uniformed military service. Among those criticized included prominent neoconservatives and members of the Bush Administration:
Chickenhawk counterarguments
War supporters who have not served in the military, primarily but not exclusively American Conservatives and neoconservatives, have made a number of counterarguments that, they claim, expose fallacies in the chickenhawk argument. Among these points are
- The Founding Fathers explicitly designed the government of the United States of America so that the military would be subordinate to the will of the people through their elected representatives and the President of the United States of America who are answerable to the ordinary citizenry.[2],[3]
- If only veterans can advocate war, then only veterans have the experience and moral standing to oppose war. This is ironically a militaristic argument made in the name of opposing militarism.
- That civilians who are explicitly targeted in war should have the right to voice their views on the conduct of war regardless of whether or not they have served. [4]
- That a majority of the voting public is ineligible or unlikely to serve in combat, as it includes women, the elderly, men over age 50, the disabled, and homosexuals. Using service as a litmus test for voicing a viewpoint would invalidate the views of most of the nation.[5]
- That Presidents such as Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Delano Roosevelt proved capable leaders of the military in times of national crisis, despite their lack of personal military service.
- That extending the Chickenhawk argument into other American political debates would mean that only women should comment on abortion, only crime victims on criminal justice, et al.
External links
Last updated: 05-22-2005 16:01:40
