After being treated to the strange spectacle of two right-wing bloggers (including one who should know better) calling out Amanda Marcotte for not going to Afghanistan, I think it's important to be clear about how this "chickenhawk" criticism actually works.
I've never thought the whole point of the thing was to criticize war supporters for lacking the physical courage to put their own lives on the line. There's actually something very sensible about wanting to avoid situations where you could get killed. The point is that they don't think enough about the lives of other people to apply this good sense to them.
There's plenty of good reasons why you might be in favor of a war, but choose not to fight in it. If you're doing AIDS research or something of similarly awesome value to humanity, keep doing that and don't go to war. If you're disabled or elderly, no obligation falls on you. And if we already have all the soldiers we need, there's no reason for you to go. There are probably a couple other reasons that I haven't thought of yet. But the selfish reason that the costs will fall on somebody else doesn't count.
