A simple glance at the responses to Louis Proyect’s prolific and frequently inspiring writings is enough to make me nervous about anyone who begins their response… “Mr. Proyect.” You almost expect the violent threat that follows, don’t you? Does anyone think to ask - what in hell is Norman Lee doing reading anything written by Proyect?

“Brother officer” indeed - sans ID. If you’re going to threaten someone shouldn’t you have the courage to properly identify yourself? When I was in the US Army, we were taught to give our name, rank and serial number if taken captive, or to include our rank with our name, as if it were part of our name, if speaking in normal company. If the thus far unranked Lee wishes to parade his “brother officer” credentials, which he plainly did, why not give them up? What’s his rank, his outfit and his military relationship to Mark Daily?

H. goes agonizingly public with a story which should, by any decent measure that I can think of, have been left a private matter. He seems to have Jennifer Lynched the guy; dragged him through a relentless retelling of Norman Rockwell meets Ernie Pyle meets the Weeping Pilgrim.

This guy is no more dead than anyone else. What distinguishes people like him is that they choose to imperil themselves, and in some cases entertain foreign policy views similar to Hitchens. Patriots. It’s a bad idea except in very, very rare times of real danger or genocide — and this piece attempts to glorify that bad idea in the current context.

Flacks for the war (like flacks opposing the war) can reasonably be described as responsible for outcomes – to the extent that they have influenced outcomes. You tell your little cousin it’s a good idea to help your big cousin rob the candy story and distribute candy to the neighborhood children and the old lady gets killed because your big cousin loses his temper and your little cousin goes to jail. Okay, it’s technically illegal. But how could you possibly know it would get so screwed up? Jeez.

Anyway, I think motives are wildly and destructively overrated. They are they staple fixation of paranoia and right wing politics – the evil intentions of others. Behavior is what counts. This nice kid behaved badly by serving in a vastly destructive war on a voluntary basis – for reasons which Hitchens admires. I honor his lovely personality. Fine. Who cares? Hitchens?

Interesting to read this veiled threat. Within the velvet glove of liberal platitudes is a clenched fist brandishing brass knuckles.

Normally I wouldn’t bother commenting on the obscure blog of a political extremist, but Mark Daily was my friend and brother officer, and your article besmirches his memory. There is no use in arguing politics with the likes of you. In any case, however peculiar I may find them, you are entitled to your opinions about the war, America, and the value (or lack thereof) of military service.

However, you are wrong, dead wrong, in impugning the worst possible motives to a good young man you don’t know, who was killed while trying to help others. You may have contempt for his method in doing so, you may despise the uniform he wore, and you may hate the government which sent him, but you are wrong to make him, of all people, a kind of scapegoat for your angst.

I am sure that there are lots of people who become American Soldiers or Marines for less than noble reasons, just as, I am sure, there are lots of people who become Marxists or Communists for less than noble reasons. Mark was not one of those people. Mark was a good man, one of the most thoughtful and virtuous men I ever knew. He was exceptionally idealistic, compassionate, and open-minded - a true liberal, in the best sense of the label. Most politically-motivated people, like yourself, are immovable, so cemented in their views that no amount of evidence will ever change their assumptions about things like the war. Mark, on the other hand, really did consider the possibility that the war might be a terrible mistake, but since the war was already in progress, wondered if it could somehow be redeemed. Maybe not, but rather than just writing about it in some blog, safe from the consequences of his ideals, he had the courage to go, see, and DO for himself, even though it might cost him his life. And it did.

Mark’s death was a terrible, terrible blow to everyone who actually knew him, regardless of their politics. I am not going to go through your article point-by-point to explode all of your grossly condescending and offensive remarks regarding this man. Suffice to say that you are an intolerable asshole for speaking so ill of him and, I darkly suspect, practically gloating in his death. I can only add, with exceptional restraint, shame on you, and heaven help you if you ever run into anyone who loved him.

The SI is a joke, and only someone so interested in the toy-town “solidarity” advocated by the Decent Left could mistake a group that contains Mubarak’s cronies, Democratic Action, the narco-politician Colombian Liberal Party, etc., with anything worthwhile.

Binh: Congratulations for taking exactly the same position as the Westboro Baptist Church.

What wonderful company you Yank “antiwar” people keep.

I find it hard to believe you can square your leftish views with your support for those who want to carve Iraq up into ethnic fiefdoms. This doesn’t just include the “Islamofascists” your lot so bravely blog against, but also the US-backed Islamist parties and yes, even the Kurdish warlord groups.