The Cruel War is nearly over, thank God
So now it appears that everyone in the world wants to change dramatically the course of the Iraqi War except President Bush. And even he appears to be caving a little.I've been relatively civil during this war. I haven't exploded all over the blogosphere with the rage of a peacenik. I haven't hit any of the neocons who call folks like me an idiot. Generally, all I have done is sat quietly and waited for the truth to come bubbling to the surface. And now it has all but arrived.
Fifty hears from now, the Iraqi War will be tagged a big mistake. It won't be the first time America has screwed up militarily and it probably won't be the last.
But here's what they'll be saying in 2050: A group of Arabs commandeered airplanes and used them as bombs to kill more than 3,000 Americans back in 2001. Most of the Arabs were Saudi Arabians. So what was our response? We attacked Iraq while our leaders held hands with the Saudi royalty and called Saudis our friends.
It won't make much sense until those folks a half century from now understand that our peculiar ways were brought about by our love - no, our lust - for oil.
Every time America flips reality the bird and embraces some pie-in-the-sky ideology, we screw up. Iraq is no different. After we learned there were no weapons of mass destruction in that country, our leaders decided that we were there to impose democracy.
How in the name of all that is sane can democracy be imposed on a people whose majority wants a theocracy, not a democracy? But I didn't even ask that question of the hawks. You see, I have been called "stupid" and "idiot" more times than I can count. I don't have to set myself up for that any more, nor will I.
I knew that all I had to do was bide my time and we would fail miserably in Iraq. And that's exactly what has happened.
As for the threat of terrorism, this country had better take seriously the worldwide threat. Sure, there are terrorist in Iraq, especially now that we have created the atmosphere there in which terrorism can bloom. But there are countless countries worldwide where terrorists are eager to kill us. Iraq is simply another blip on the radar screen, but it's a blip where thousands of Americans have died because of a failed idea that we could somehow bring democracy to a county that doesn't want democracy and thereby democratize the Middle East.
I'd like to tell the hawks to sit down and shut up, but it would do no good. They're not going to do it. Like the old confederate soldiers of long ago, they'll go to their grave believing they were right and everyone else was wrong.
So be it. It's their problem, not mine.
Labels: Iraq
posted by Dave Peyton @ 4:36 PM
1 Comments:
Dave:
I agree. As someone who grew up during the draft card days of Vietnam, this war has much of the same feeling about it. Our military is designed to engage and defeat uniformed forces occupying territory. When the enemy are indistiguishable from the friendlies, we put our troops in the position of having to make split-second decisions whether or not to kill someone when it is not clear if that person is a bad guy. Sometimes they will guess wrong. If they kill a good guy by mistake, other good guys instantly become enemies. If they let a bad guy go, that bad guy lives to kill other Americans. This ambiguity is the reason that for the past few hundred years, the 'rules of war' have said that a combantant caught out of uniform could be shot as a spy while a combatant captured in uniform was to be made a prisoner of war and protected. But this rule is less about respecting the captured soldier than it is preserving the mental health of the soldier pulling the trigger - so they knew for sure who were the bad guys. In both Vietnam and Iraq, we have had to train our troops that killing 'civilians' is okay. How do we help them reconcile this violation of accepted morality when they come home?
One thing we're doing this time that is very different than during Vietnam: soldiers and Marines are going over as intact major units, rather than as individuals. They go over with the team they train and live with stateside. While there, they are supported by the families and community they left behind. And they come home as a unit -- to well-deserved homecoming celebrations.
During Vietnam our troops came and went individually and alone. I remember walking through O'Hare airport in uniform during the summer of 1972 and feeling the stares. At one point, a number of names were called over the PA system, including mine, and we were asked to report to a certain room in the terminal. About a dozen or so of us gathered there, and we quickly discovered that we were all military (I was a midshipman in Navy ROTC en route home from my summer duty). Those in uniform were asked to change to civilian clothes, apparently to a avoid a confrontation going on in the airport.
Most of today's generals and admirals are Vietnam vets, and they probably remember what it was like to shoot 'civilians,' and to come home alone. Whichever one of them championed this 'whole unit' policy has done a great service to the young men and women fighting this war.
Now we need to get them out of there.
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