.gif)
Chickenhawk (politics)
Overview
Epithet
An epithet or byname is a descriptive term accompanying or occurring in place of a name and having entered common usage. It has various shades of meaning when applied to seemingly real or fictitious people, divinities, objects, and binomial nomenclature. It is also a descriptive title...
used in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
to criticize a politician, bureaucrat, or commentator who strongly supports a war
War
War is a state of organized, armed, and often prolonged conflict carried on between states, nations, or other parties typified by extreme aggression, social disruption, and usually high mortality. War should be understood as an actual, intentional and widespread armed conflict between political...
or other military action, yet who actively avoided military service when of age.
The term is meant to indicate that the person in question is cowardly
Cowardice
Cowardice is the perceived failure to demonstrate sufficient mental robustness and courage in the face of a challenge. Under many military codes of justice, cowardice in the face of combat is a crime punishable by death...
or hypocritical
Hypocrisy
Hypocrisy is the state of pretending to have virtues, moral or religious beliefs, principles, etc., that one does not actually have. Hypocrisy involves the deception of others and is thus a kind of lie....
for personally avoiding combat in the past while advocating that others go to war in the present.
Quotations
"Many of those who want to rush this country into war and think it would be so quick and easy don't know anything about war. They come at it from an intellectual perspective, versus having sat in jungles or foxholes and watched their friends get their heads blown off."
:United States Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska- 2002
Category:Politics