Owning It. January 20, 2008
Posted by littlebangtheory in Politics and Society.Tags: Iraq, Owning This War, Viet Nam
trackback
There are so many, many people in this world whose personal experiences of the horrors of war so far exceed our most paralyzing nightmares as to render our most heart-felt attempts to relate to them pitifully insufficient.
Forty years ago We, America The Beautiful, sent our sons half way around the world to fight in Viet Nam. Fifty thousand of my brothers and cousins and neighbors and friends died there, and many times that number came home so damaged that they were never again whole.
But this loss, so deeply felt by those of us who watched the flag-draped coffins come home day after week after month, was dwarfed by the losses of the Viet Namese. An estimated two million of their people, soldiers and civilians, old people, children, babies, were shot, bayonetted, burned alive as entire villages were incinerated, shredded to ribbons as mile after square mile of their beautiful country was carpet-bombed into a lifeless moonscape, by our pilots, with our tax dollars, in our name.
Forty years later, even as their children are still being born with deformities from the hideous poisons we so generously spread over everyone and everything in that small country, the people of Viet Nam welcome Americans with open arms, warm smiles and the genuine hospitality one might expect from brothers.
And it’s not because they’ve forgotten the stench of their dead, or the visions of their family members burning as they ran to their graves.
It’s at least in part because they came to understand that We The People stood up to our government, faced down the Dogs of War, made it STOP.
We took it to the streets, occupied parks, intersections, Campus Centers and City Halls. We faced down lines of riot police and threw their tear-gas canisters right back at them. We marched on Washington, went to jail in massive numbers, and screamed Bloody Murder into every television news camera we could find.
We owned that war. We assumed responsibility for the decisions of our Leaders, felt the horror and injustice of it with every fiber of our beings, and we ENDED IT.
………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Today we are fighting another war, perhaps equally horrible, at least equally unjust, based on bald-faced lies, executed with unbridled arrogance, propelled by insatiable greed, defended with a hubris unheard of in the history of our Nation. The Iraqi death toll has long since passed half a million people, most of them civilians. Neighboring countries are staggering under the weight of an estimated four million refugees, people who owned homes and enjoyed a decent standard of living before our ill-advised adventurism precipitated their flight into joblessness, hopelessness, and the desperation of people who have spent the last of their savings waiting for a chance to return to God-knows-what.
It’s true that out Government has learned a lot since our debacle in Viet Nam. Gone are the roving reporters detailing the death and destruction, replaced by “embedded” observers of only what our military wants them to show us. Gone is the daily footage of cargo planes off-loading flag-draped coffins into warehouses to await their final train ride home to Mom and Dad. Missing from our daily consciousness is that heart-breaking death counter in the corner of the television screen as we eat our dinners in front of the nightly news.
It’s not that these things aren’t happening; it’s just that it’s so much easier to control a population who get their Oval Office Spin from Fox “News,” who would rather watch “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire” than “Who Wants To Be A Quadriplegic.”
But for those of us who care to know, the internet provides images of the awful truth: the wild-eyed wail of a blood-spattered child standing amidst the scattered pieces of a parent who was just a little closer to the bomb, the helpless horror in the eyes of a Mother cradling her charred baby as it takes its last shuddering breath, the dream-like desperation of a Father searching for his Son among the mutilated corpses in a make-shift morgue.
This isn’t just a war, people – it’s our war. Initiated by Our President, MY President, God Damn him. Paid for with half a trillion dollars borrowed by We The People, and with the blood of our Sons and Daughters and Brothers and Sisters.
It isn’t Harry Reid’s job to stop this war, or Nancy Pelosi’s, or even the next President’s. It’s OUR job.
And as long as we have the audacity to claim that we live in a Democracy, the people of the world have every right to hold us fully responsible for the actions of our Government.
How we will be judged forty years from now depends on what we are willing to do today. And my friends, we can’t stop this madness until we admit to owning it.
………………………………………………………………………………………………………
For the memories and emotions and inspiration for these thoughts, I’d like to credit Christina over at Saying Nothing Charmingly. Her very moving and personal account of a recent incident in her life is well worth the read, and I promise, it’s blessedly brief compared to my intergenerational ramblings.
And a special H/T to Phydeaux for the link to Christina’s post.
Thank you for your link and thank you for your note at my place.
There is no peace to be found with this–it is but to weep over.
And I thank that man for my lack of peace.
tcr
you ruined my date with American Idol with all the “war” talk
great great post — and so true
while Bush is a complete and total failure as a president, leader and person — the one place he succeeded was marketing this war — which proves what a complete and total failure we are as a nation. — people bought his crap.
we own this war — but we will never ever admit it.
now back to paul abdul
ps — thanks for such a terrifc post and i hope you are feeling much better
Daily Consciousness about the war doesn’t exist…I wonder what is wrong with our society? You know, besides our selfish consumerism.
we must take responsiblity, own it and protest it.
and try to learn from it, yet again.
Moving post. You’re right. It’s just so much easier for Americans to turn away and be entertained rather than informed, pacified rather than impassioned. That’s why everyone should be taking the election seriously. But of course the MSM has reduced it to discussions of whether HRC’s tears are real. America sure does have its priorities straight.
Our attention is so easily divided these days. We are more fractured and diverse than unified by any one theme.
The reason why people my age are not up in arms about this is because they are NOT BEING DRAFTED. It’s amazing what the threat of being sent to war against your will will do to create a sense of commonality among widely divergent groups of people.
CK, you’re so spot-on about that. As abhorrent at The Draft was in my teen years, the prospect of War without personal consequences is by far the greater evil.
Send “volunteers” off to die in the desert; it’s their God-given right to choose a military job.
Of course, they have few other options, and they’re doing it for benefits which will ultimately be denied them.
With tears flowing like rivers from my eyes, I’d vote FOR a draft. If the Children of the Comfortable (including girls) were dying in the desert, this war wouldn’t be happening. Because it’s not worth MY child’s life.
The Army of Juan is an economic classist construct. We must deconstruct it to end Corporate War.
CR, wonderful post. But in this age of apparent apathy, I simply do what I can, and encourage my boys to seriously consider the consequences of a military career.