That's nonsense, though. Glenn's point is that the right utilizes violent, extremist rhetoric. "Soldiers are schmutzes" is not an example of that. Violent, extremist rhetoric would be to say that "soldiers are schmutzes, and should be summarily shot."

It's a pretty glaring difference.

I dont quite follow your logic. Soldiers in our military are required to follow their orders, which means that they must fight in wars, irrespective of what they may or may not think of the wisdom of the policy. That is a fact. I dont think that makes them "dupes", but clearly their fate, in terms of whether they find themselves in combat or not, is not in their hands, once they sign up.

Responsible leaders and commenters understand this, and it usually operates as one of many factors in making leaders reluctant to start wars - i.e. making the military option the option of last resort. One doesnt want to take advantage of the loyalty, patriotism, and commitment of our soldiers by using them to solve problems when other tools are available.

Some types of irresponsible leaders, or commenters, are less concerned with that, and feel little or no hesitation to apply the military tool whenever they feel that it can be effective, often in preference to other available tools. Such an attitude can be fairly characterized as showing indifference to the burden this imposes on the troops, to say nothing of the consequences for the collateral civilians who get in the way. Another way of characterizing this attitude is one that views the soldiers as "the poor schmucks" who are tasked with doing the heavy lifting for the grand plans of the leaders.

Uygur is basically charging Kristol with being this type of a commenter. One who is somewhat intoxicated with our great military power, and who shows an eagerness to use it to achieve our goals, even when alternatives exist, and with little or no consideration of the consequences, including for our soldiers.

One may argue the validity of his charge (I think it rather accurate), but I dont see how one could argue that it is Uygur who is the one viewing our soldiers as dupes, or schmucks.

You do nothing to dispute Greenwaldâ??s basic claim, that the overall rhetoric of the right is far more violent, inciting, and revolting than what is found on the left - and it is carried out not by isolated loonies dredged up in comment sections, but by the most well-read, and â??respectedâ?? bloggers and authors. Greenwald is right.

Uhhhmmm no. Greg is pointing out that what one considers violent, inciting, and so forth is often in the eyes of the reader. As such, measuring which side is supposedly worse is somewhat a fools errand as the measures are likely going to be highly subjective.

Now maybe you are right, but you have no way of showing that. At least not by yourself or even with Greenwald. Propose a decent measure to measure vitriol on blogs/websites and you might be worth taking seriously. Till then you are just wasting bandwidth.

Case in point is the Uygur article, it sure seems (to me at least) like he sees the people who sign up for the armed forces as little more than Kristol's dupes. After all, it is a volunteer force, and they don't have to sign up, but they do, and then they have to go fight unjust/wrong wars. Ergo they are dupes.

See...it is all in the eyes of the reader.

You do nothing to dispute Greenwald's basic claim, that the overall rhetoric of the right is far more violent, inciting, and revolting than what is found on the left - and it is carried out not by isolated loonies dredged up in comment sections, but by the most well-read, and "respected" bloggers and authors. Greenwald is right.

Your comment about "poor schmucks" seems to be purposely deceptive. As I read it, its seems blindingly obvious that it is a snarky comment about Kristol's perspective, essentially saying "he [Kristol] sees himself as being on a superior plane, speaking to historical, strategic issues, while the soldiers in our armed forces are the mere pawns that he gets to move around the geopolitical chessboard". Seems to me to be a rather perverse reading of the passage to claim that the Uygur himself sees the soldiers as schmucks.