Salon: Soldiers Are Not Always Heroes

"No American freedom is currently at stake in Afghanistan. It is impossible to imagine an argument to the contrary, just as the war in Iraq was clearly fought for the interests of empire, the profits of defense contractors, and the edification of neoconservative theorists. It had nothing to do with the safety or freedom of the American people. The last time the U.S. military deployed to fight for the protection of American life was in World War II – an inconvenient fact that reduces clichés about 'thanking a soldier' for free speech to rubble. If a soldier deserves gratitude, so does the litigator who argued key First Amendment cases in court, the legislators who voted for the protection of free speech, and thousands of external agitators who rallied for more speech rights, less censorship and broader access to media. Wars that are not heroic have no real heroes, except for the people who oppose those wars. Far from being the heroes of recent wars, American troops are among their victims." - David Masciotra, in a Salon essay titled "You don’t protect my freedom: Our childish insistence on calling soldiers heroes deadens real democracy."

RELATED: The Salon piece has generated predictable outrage from the right wing. Yesterday Todd Starnes began contacting Salon's advertisers.