In Memoriam: War

On Memorial Day the soldiers who lost their lives in service to this country are honored.

But what if the memorial is tainted, that the wrong wars are being fought by those whose valor is being used for a less than noble agenda?

America's involvement in Iraq has gone on longer than World War Two and yet the stakes could not be more dissimilar. In the mid 1950's when Eisenhower warned of the Military Industrial Complex making the country in its image, subsequent wars lost their essential meaning and became a means not to secure freedom but to ensure profit, like all concepts co-opted and retooled by usurpers with dollar signs for eyes and stones for hearts. They see something real, add obscene amounts of sweetener and mass produce it. And the soldier who was once branded in madness as a baby killer is now glorified as a saint, an angel in camouflage and their service is being used by the Chicken Hawks In Chief as a guilt inducing distraction. The monuments both of stone and of flesh are sullied by those who have propagated this current war of convenience and who see only profit in its perpetuation. Because it is a turf war, a braggart's war, a who-has-the-biggest-dick war, the Mother of All Oil Wars war. A sick, unjust perversion being waged as I write this, as you read this. It is just another substandard outsourced product, being sold by cynical manufacturers of maladies and corrupt concoctors of cures, bought by a nation of consumers too guilty to stop buying the line, unable to shake their shame for having once treated a previous generation of warriors like shit when they, like their current incarnations, were only following the rules of the game.

Where are the wars to stop genocidal madmen armed with machetes? Those wars which would be unanimously backed by an America newly awakened to the real world and fought gladly by our ennobled young warriors if only to free those caught in the true, bloody, grip of terror that reigns in places like Rwanda, Somalia, Angola, Sudan? To reclaim the displaced people in the middle east? To rebuild, to feed, to reunite the families, the children, the intellectuals, the farmers, the artists, the elderly being butchered by real enemies to liberty and peace? This should be the mission of our brave soldiers, this the cause in which they might fall. But it would be too costly to the profiteers, the Halliburtons, the Blackwaters, the BushCos. A conscientious approach to the war in Iraq would force their consumers to read the ingredients before they shove it down their throats. So think of the young men and women falling. Just don't think of why.

The war in Iraq is really being sold as The War to Forget War, where its simplistic ring-around-the-collar reasons are trotted out by earnest, well-paid spokesmen; where pictures of flag-draped caskets are hidden from view; where death tolls for Iraqis are snickered at and suppressed; where returning veterans are shelved in the attic. It is the war where generals try to do their duty to their commanders and their country and testify on its behalf but who resign or are kicked away when they discover the fraud of their mission and the waste of their brave charges. It is a war of corporations, a war between brands, a battle between Quisp and Quake; it is war as a game, war as a tactic, war as a ploy. It is a bait and switch for suckers. It is the very perversion of war.

This Memorial Day let us remember not only our courageous fallen but the seventy five percent of those innocents caught in the crossfire of war. And this Memorial Day let us remember war itself and what it has become in the hands of those who want us to forget.

Comments

[NoFactsJustTruth]

I would hope ALL Americans can afford a minute out of their busy lives today, Steven, to remember OUR soldiers that have fallen in service to OUR country, and continue to fall now. Whether it's an honorable mission they were given by elected leadership or not, whether it was in actual declared war or an occupation for oil, the men and women in uniform that have served OUR country and gave everything possible for THEIR sense of honor and duty to us, deserve all the tributes, commendations and support to their families we can give. Theirs was not a choice of where and when to fight, once they had agreed to serve, but a conscience of duty and obedience to a country they loved.

May they NEVER be forgotten.

[edgraham]

I don't really disagree with what you said, but I don't like the way that you said it. I do honor the war dead, but not the war. There has to be another way to solve problems. War is stupid. We have started most of the wars in my lifetime as the aggressor. That is not what America should be about.

I still believe we are potentially the greatest nation in the world, but we have to revert to the idealism that I was taught about in school - - or was that just propaganda too.

Ed Graham

[apduncan1]

It is not a war... it is an OCCUPATION.

Write it 100 times in the blackboard.

[lgillooly]

Clinton lied and no one died,yet the media still focuses on their destruction.
WMD'S, Saddam linked to Al Quaeda, Operation Iraqi Freedom, We'll be greeted as Liberators,Fight them there,so we don't have to here,the surge is working!!
Wait...Iran is the really bad guy...oops! They will destroy Israel, They are killing Americans, they have Nuclear weapons(Don't read the reports by the National intelligence),Wecan't be appeasers.You are with us or against us,We do not talk to terrorists....
I have a really bad feeling.

[Sundialsvc4]

The story briefly flickered over the American press, and was promptly submerged, that American companies are making billions of dollars by selling weapons to BOTH SIDES of the wars in the Middle East.

I don't know what could be more "giving aid and comfort to the enemy" (whoever 'the enemy' is supposed to be...) than selling weapons to him by the truckload.

[opines]

When one is in the midst of an ongoing evil deed, it should not be surprising that the perpetrator will not seek media attention.

As was the case in our subjugation of the Philippines, U.S. policy, adhered to by a compliant media, succeeded in ignoring the barbarities our military was inflicting on the native population. Occasional protests from opponents of the war failed to stop it and after four years of resistance, our military was able to crush the Filipino attempt at independence.

This is the exact playbook the Pentagon is following in Iraq. While relaxing the Rules of Engagement to permit greater brutality against Iraqis opposing our occupation and increased 'collateral damage' to the civilian population, the compliant MSM has been entrusted to divert attention from the daily carnage.

As was true in Vietnam, our military leaders have underestimated the time and cost necessary to 'pacify' the natives.

Will no Member of Congress ask Gen. Petraeus to recite the current Rules of Engagement and whether those Rules are violations of the Geneva Convention? Perhaps the question might be raised by the MSM. Nah! Let's focus on the election.

[adamsmith]

Weren't Saddam and sons genocidal madmen?

[Jason357]

Actually, like in Kosovo, I don't think the huge number of mass graves they said were there were ever found. Is it also genocide when Israel rips across their border and kill 300 Lebanese because one Israeli soldier got shot?

[1LTUSMC]

Per capita, a lot fewer Israeli soldiers get killed. Maybe we should learn from them. They told us not to go into Iraq.

[apduncan1]

Who cares?

[billydog]

But Steven, didn't you see all the "Support Our Troops" magnetic ribbons placed on every other car and truck and motorcycle and bicycle on American highways in every state in the union? Americans wholeheartedly supported this war---well, until it went beyond their tolerance point and then they began to realize what a mistake it all was---oops, alittle too late America!

Our country proved with this Iraq war that war is popular and marching off to war is inspiring as well as
exciting. Whether the country was lied to or not about the reasons for the war there is no mistaking the fact that America proudly and with near ravenous hunger for war marched off to it and paid little notice to the massive slaughter of innocents that we approved of in Shock and Awe. Grown men were pushed to tears of pride watching explosions where children were blown to pieces. "That'll teach them bastards!" our loyal patriots at home bellowed. They loved this war. America loved this war.
Until they ate too much and got sick.

It's not just a Bush problem. It's a human animal problem. We like war as much as we like peace.

[TRex86]

The 20th century bloodbath had 350 million excess deaths attributable to political disputes and genocidal hatred. Americans haven't reflected on our role, reluctant warriors who broke the stalemate of WWI (preventing a negotiated peace). At the end of WWII we used nuclear weapons against against Japan. While we did not seek our role in those horrific wars we created a world under threat of nuclear annihilation, using those weapons in the one-sided destruction of civilian populations.
To everyone's benefit eighteen years ago the Soviets collapsed under the weight of their intolerable system. How have we responded? How have we helped to clean up the Soviet nuclear junkyard? What have we done to spread a spirit of peace and cooperation around the world? We elected chicken hawks who think it's "romantic" to send blue collar Americans to steal Iraq's oil under the guise of stopping terrorism. Unfortunately, the world's pre-eminent super-power is being run by solipsistic, spoiled children. Instead of gaining maturity from the horrors of the 20th century we've chosen zealots who act like kids quarreling over toys in the backyard. "Now it's my turn to run the world."
For two millennia the human race has misapplied Biblical teachings. The time has come to spend a millennium working on forgiveness, developing a humble, charitable spirit of shared stewardship of this planet--a small rock circling an ordinary star on the margin of one of the billions of galaxies that occupy a vast universe.

[tathagat]

Check Masters of War video by Bob Dylan [his birthday today] @ Utoob...

[elisunday]

> another substandard outsourced product, being sold by cynical manufacturers of maladies and corrupt
> concoctors of cures, bought by a nation of consumers too guilty to stop buying the line, unable to shake > their shame for having once treated a previous generation of warriors like shit when they, like their
> current incarnations, were only following the rules of the game.

Well done!

------------------
"When the rich wage war, it's the poor who die."

-Jean-Paul Sartre

[GOP4MoreTears]

Until, the Bush administration criminal cabal is brought to justice, our fallen will not be able to rest.

[vietveter]

(sp) excellence
so sorry

[vietveter]

Mr. Weber,

True excelence.

Thank you

[Herrington]

Every soldier is a hero. Not in earnest, but to fight the dishonesty of chicken hawks in endlessly flinging the support the troops defense to justify whatever it is for which the chicken hawks have decided to use them. It has some unintended consequences.

Now everyone who shows up is a hero. Not just the Medal of Honor, Silver and Bronze heroes, but the guy tending the bar at the officers club in theater, or the youngster pumping gas at the supply depot.

It transmogrifies into little league baseball. Everyone gets to play and everyone gets a trophy. It is a great stupefying of culture, of endeavor, of strife and terror and honesty and a demeaning of true courage. All, served up by the mind numbing dignity crushing dishonesty of the right. It was all just fine for the play actors, Reagan. To play a hero is to be one.

Simple service is honorable and of unimpeachable value to the nation no matter what the cause. So honor the troops as if everyone were a hero because it breaks one of the fangs of the right wing sociopaths. There will be time to reclaim the dignity of our legends when and if we have reclaimed control of our country.

[mnkors]

Names of senators profiteering from this war. Names and numbers.
This administration has collected the exemplary sycophants, war mongers (who never risked combat though), and shameless ignoramuses. The war is killing babies, youth, pregnant women, and elderly in the Middle East.
And, for God"s sake, where is the Church with a Gospel to protect the POOR, widows and orphans, and to name the scoundrels? Has the conscience been buried underneath the mega-churches of the Bible Belt?