Words are defined by how people use them, they don’t pop out of the ether as exactly defined quantities and we do not have some institute of language which centrally decides definitions. So the most accurate definition of Chicken-hawk is:

A person who favors more military intervention than I do and has not served in the military.

You can see exactly that definition parroted (in many more words) in posts in this very thread. One defender of Obama states that Obama is not a chicken hawk because he favors measured policies in Afghanistan – so basically – Obama is not a chicken hawk because he favors the right amount of war. Bush and Limbaugh favor too much war, and didn’t serve, so they are chicken-hawks.

The are some people that lack even this consistency. They don’t favor the war in Afghanistan but they don’t consider Obama a chicken-hawk, because they like Obama. These people are true loons.

And just to make it clear, there are plenty of wars and deployments that Obama could have served in had he been so inclined. The army always has a shortage of recruits (especially of his caliber). If the army had stopped recruiting after Vietnam, then those who argue only Vietnam counts would have something going, but that argument is not based in fact.

A few deployments Obama could have taken part in: Lebanon (82-84), Grenada (83-85), Panama (88-90), Desert Storm / Desert Shield (90-91), Kurdish Relief (91-96), Somalia “Restore Hope” (92-93), Haiti Operation “Support Democracy” (93-95), Rwanda (93-95), Vigilant Warrior in Persian Gulf (94), Somalia “United Shield” (95), Bosnia (95-96), SFOR in Bosnia (98), Desert Fox (98), Kosovo “Joint Gaurdian” (99), East Timor (99).

There are many more, those are the major ones with at least a few thousand troops. It’s pretty clear that, despite what some might have you believe, the Iraq war was not the first war since the Vietnam war which required American’s to serve. But it is awfully convinient to say only service in Vietnam defines being a Chickenhawk, because that exempts Obama. Curious that everyone defending this definition is a fan of Obama. Must be a coincinidence.

One has to parse the Afghanistan intervention with the Iraq intervention. Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11, Iraq had no weapons of Mass destruction, Iraq had nothing to do with supporting Al Qeada. And the war with Iraq removed resources from the war against Al Qaeda and its supporters in Afghanistan who directly attacked us and against whom we had an actual non AstroTurfed international coalition of traditional and new allies.

I dont see any irony, conflict, dissonance or difficulty in Obamas decision to move out of Iraq as quickly as possible while attempting to turn the tide in Afghanistan, if needed with more troops in order to attempt a successful outcome there.

The hawk in chickhawk label has to do the general aggressiveness and resort to US troops and involvement. One must place some metric on the war itself. The Iraq war was a discretionary war, one that needed propping up by a slew of false and tenuous causus belli, and its advocates were “hawks” thereby making advocates who had not themselves sacrificed or offered to: chickenhawks. The war in Afghanistan resulted from anf act and actions by the Taliban that were in fact a causus belli not only for most Americans but for most of our allies.

In short, the US action in Afghanistan and currently placing the necessary troops were and are not a hawkish acts.

I think the key to the “chicken-hawk” issue is more about the attitude than history. The problem with people like Rush Limbaugh or Dick Cheney is not that they did not serve then and want war now, the problem is that they question the patriotism of others who do not want war now. Their hypocrisy is that they have claimed to support the Vietnam War but were careful to avoid any risk of going there themselves but now deride the character of those who had questioned (and continue to question) the latest military debacles. Mr. Obama has yet to question the courage or patriotism of those who take a different position on Afghanistan so I would say that he is not yet a chicken-hawk.

The question is, is Obama doing what he thinks is best, or is he just following political expediency? If the latter, then he’s not being a chickenhawk. He’s being a political coward.