One cannot properly honor the fallen and wounded soldiers in an unnecessary war if one cannot first come to grips with the reality that the war was unnecessary and not all that significant for the rest of the world. Iraq war supporters have consistently exaggerated the importance of the war for U.S. security and the rest of the region (and indeed for the rest of the world), and some of them continue to imagine that this major strategic blunder has been redeemed from failure to success. Exaggerating the significance of the war for the rest of the world does not respect the sacrifices that Americans, Iraqis, and other nations have made there, but disgracefully tries to distort reality. This is done not to acknowledge the achievements of American forces, nor is it done for the sake of honoring the fallen and wounded, but to gratify those who supported this disaster every step of the way and whose hubris and poor judgment plunged American and allied soldiers into a war that they should never have been called on to fight.
Present-day Americans, few of them directly affected by events in Iraq or Afghanistan, find war tolerable. They accept it. Since 9/11, war has become normalcy. Peace has become an entirely theoretical construct. A report of G.I.s getting shot at, maimed, or killed is no longer something the average American gets exercised about. Rest assured that no such reports will interfere with plans for the long weekend that Memorial Day makes possible.
Members of the civil-military-corporate elite find war more than tolerable. Within its ranks, as Chris Hedges has noted, war imparts meaning and excitement to life. It serves as a medium through which ambitions are fulfilled and power is accrued and exercised. In Washington, the benefits offered by war’s continuation easily outweigh any benefits to be gained by ending war. So why bother to try?
Aimai
And the costs to society are hidden. Bush’s wars and our love affair with war are not mentioned but they are the real drivers behind the attempt to gut SS and Medicare, funding for education and every other good thing our taxes could be paying for.
kdaug
@Aimai: Yep. Money is fungible, but finite. Spent on one thing, it cannot be re-spent on another.
Guns or butter. Either/or, not both.
Nothing defines the character of a society more than its priorities.
Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal
reposting from the poetry thread.
black 47 ramadi
the accompanying slide show has some disturbing images, not all of the pictures, mind you, but part of the reality.
stuckinred
And for those who may not be aware of it Dr. Bacevich lost a son in Iraq.
General Stuck
Vietnam was my generation’s war, and generates incredible sadness to ponder about very long, to this day from so long ago. And no doubt those who fought in it, and survived, the memories are much more intense and painful.
Now we went and created another generation of broken bodies and minds from fighting a similar war based on lies in Iraq, that also caused the result of Afghan to go badly as it has. And shame on us for that. And the shame does belong collectively with the American people, not just with the horrid leaders who ordered it.
This is why a big part of what has been my loss of faith in the American peoples on the whole, was their reelection of George Bush in 2004. That event crushed my spirit, even more than Vietnam and all the lies and bullshit that was behind that bloody adventure.
What I do to remember my generations war, is something I have done for the past decade. It is to search the web for some account of some long ago, far away battle in Vietnam, that no doubt has been forgotten by everyone, except maybe the families of those that died there. And read about what I can, of these mostly kids last day on earth, and read their names to myself, that at least one American is thinking about what happened to them, other than their families. Dying needlessly for a cause that should have never been, and that their ultimate sacrifice was and remains and honorable one, in spite of the shallow country that sent them there in a dishonorable way.
Mike in NC
Andrew Bacevich lost his son in Iraq.
stuckinred
@General Stuck: Andy Stein, 11/22/68
General Stuck
@stuckinred:
Thanks stuck!
Maude
@General Stuck:
This
Cermet
@stuckinred:Not a single top 10 percenter has or ever will lose a child to war but their fucking investments climb for and during war – peace? not when war pays so well, and congress is owned by the top 1%/Wallstreet and only fools (those that believe the make believe shit of god, country and amerikan way) or kids too poor ever fight. Except for WWII, the civil and of course, Revolutionary wars, no other conflict has ever, ever been anything but blood money for the elite.
cleek
the US has been at war – covertly, effectively or explicitly – for almost my entire life.
the US is at war?
oh, and i hear the Israelis are having peace talks this week.
shocking developments!
stuckinred
The woman who wrote the second tribute to Andy was a classmate. I found her years later on a discussion board and she has been wracked (sp) with guilt because she had a dream that he was going to die and she didn’t tell him before he left.
MonkeyBoy
The only security issue involved was in the minds of the right wing Israelis who cast Saddam as such a potential threat to Israel that he had to be preemptively neutralized. If Saddam had mounted an attack on Israel, they and the US could have stopped him very quickly. But I guess preventing some damage from an imagined Iraqi initial attack was worth starting a war over. Saddam may have been a madman but he wasn’t that mad.
PS
@Aimai: I thought of being snarky and I thought of quickly agreeing, but on this day, especially, I’d rather be serious: I don’t think “drivers” is exactly the word, I think the driver is basically greed. But the presentation of war as inevitable, thus a budgetary untouchable, means that given the greed the social programs have to go. I guess I’m just saying the dynamic is a little more complex. Also, they still seem to cling to various fictions about what a small proportion of our budget goes to war (by not counting enormous parts of it), which seems to indicate some degree of shame that I find slightly surprising. But fundamentally I agree with you.
Amanda in the South Bay
I’m sure Larison considers the ACW as being an unnecessary war. Where is Dennis with an anti-Confederacy post when you need him?
ETA: yeah, I consider many of Larison’s views to be pretty abhorrent. I don’t give a shit how many times he’s linked by liberal pundits.
srv
FDChief.
Ruckus
@General Stuck:
Thank You.
@srv:
Thank You.
Bill Murray
@Amanda in the South Bay: well here is an appropriate to the day post from Ta-Nehisi Coates about the origin of Memorial Day (http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/05/the-first-memorial-day/239634/) from the starting point of a New York Times op-ed
El Cid
In the late 19th century and early 20th century, US troops were constantly deployed for battles, wars, invasions, and occupations. Especially Central America.
It’s sort of become a new norm again. Just on a much bigger scale as far as long-term actions.
Sharl
Ronald Lee Best, 19 June 1968
He didn’t even make it through a full three months into his deployment.
Grew up two doors away from me. Can’t say I really knew him – eight years older than me – in a child’s time frame, might as well be 80 years. (I have some hazy memory of him rescuing me from a bully, that’s about it, I’m afraid.) His family pretty much kept to themselves, but his dad was remarkable for keeping the most perfect front lawn I have ever seen; good thing for him the lots in that neighborhood weren’t very large.
His family moved away from that house a few years later. I wonder about them from time to time, and hope they’ve lived on as best as they could, maybe lived a little bit extra for Ron.
stuckinred
@El Cid: The Banana Marines
stuckinred
@Sharl: Andy’s folks moved away before I came home but I didn’t know it. About 15 years ago I got their phone number and called them. I told them I was sorry I hadn’t come to see them when I got home and his dad said, “You couldn’t have, we moved to New Jersey”. They were happy when I told them I dedicated my dissertation to Andy.
stuckinred
@Sharl: Here is another listing for Ron. If you have a picture of him they would love to post it.
And here is one from Belmont High School with his picture
http://belmont1965.com/new_page_4.htm
Violet
I wonder if most people are even aware we’re at war. Mitt Romney forgot and he wants to be president, Commander in Chief.
The wars have been going on so long, they’re the new normal. And given that they don’t affect people’s daily lives — there isn’t a “war tax” on groceries or gas, no rationing, not even victory gardens, for instance — it’s no surprise people don’t remember.
Amanda in the South Bay
@Violet:
Hence people in the other Memorial Day thread bringing up a draft in order to spread the pain around.
I know that here, in the Bay Area, almost every story you hear about people in the military locally has to do with poorer folk from East Bay cities. You don’t hear too much about veterans who work in Silicon Valley, fancy pants law firms in the Fi Di, etc.
But you also bring up a good point-hence a reason why Mitch Daniels is an odious piece of shit.
Yutsano
@Violet: Waitaminute…I thought one of Willard’s sons was over there fighting. Or am I cornfuzzling him with someone else?
srv
@efgoldman: Thank him. He’s a great writer, but has never gotten the following he deserves.
http://firedirectioncenter.blogspot.com/search/label/politics
Violet
@Yutsano:
I don’t know about now, but during the 2008 primary season he took heat because someone asked him if his sons were serving and he said something like, “the way they serve the country is to help get me elected.” Or something like that.
stuckinred
@Yutsano: Sheeeeet! From 2007
CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa — It is a question that Mitt Romney has gotten before on the campaign trail. Sometimes it is asked innocently; sometimes with a clear edge.
A woman at an Ask Mitt Anything forum earlier today in Iowa raised the question again, asking whether any of Mr. Romney’s five sons are serving in the military, adding pointedly, “If none of them are, how do they plan to support this war on terrorism by enlisting in our U.S. military?”
Although his campaign said his remarks were taken out of context, Mr. Romney’s response is drawing criticism, because he said, in part, “one of the ways my sons are showing support for our nation is helping to get me elected.”
stuckinred
@Yutsano: Proly Biden.
Kirbster
@El Cid:
That reminds me of War is a Racket, a great essay by General Smedley Butler, as true today as it was in 1935.
Yutsano
@stuckinred: I knew about (and drooled over) Beau Biden. But there was some conservative I’m thinking of too. And no not Bible Spice.
@stuckinred: Maybe it was Grandpa Walnuts. His son did actually go over there but from what I understood had a really cushy post in the Green Zone. Beau is a JAG lawyer but he got dirty with the grunts some too.
stuckinred
@Yutsano: That asshole Duncan Hunter’s son but I think he’s in congress now. McCain’s son was a jarhead.
Violet
@stuckinred:
I’m trying to image Sarah Palin having such a forum. I guess she’d just pre-screen the questioners.
Amanda in the South Bay
@Yutsano:
I think one of Jeb’s sons got a cushy Naval Reserve intelligence billet-if not a direct commission, then…probably something very similar.
Granted, I was in the Army…but that’s a fucking cushy gig he got.
Sharl
@stuckinred: Thanks for those links! I’ll ask my dad if we have photos or (ugh) slides from the neighborhood taken in that early-mid 60s era, and I’ll get him to ask the woman who lives in the house between dad’s and the (former) Best family home. She’s been there almost as long as our family.
eemom
I don’t love everything Michael Moore has done, but that scene in Fahrenheit 911 where he cornered the congresscritters one after the other on the Capitol steps and asked them if they were sending their kids to fight in Iraq was fucking genius.
One after another they scuttled away like roaches when the light’s turned on.
Anne Laurie
@Yutsano:
Sen. Scott ‘Cosmo Boy’ Brown is in the Reserves (JAG?), and floated a trial balloon about asking to serve his duty requirement in Afghanistan. The responese from within the Guard hierarchy was… less than enthusiastic. But there was a lot of starbursting among the local Reichtwingers (’embattled’ as they are here in the Peoples’ Commonwealth) concerning the bold manly manliness of their very manly ex-male-model True American, which may be what you’re remembering?
Yutsano
@Anne Laurie: Possibly, but I’m thinking specifically of the progeny of one. Maybe it was Old Man Yells At Cloud.
stuckinred
@Sharl: It’s no great comfort after all these years but we always said we’d rather get killed early rather than go through the shit for months and then buy it.
Chet
@Amanda in the South Bay: I dig it.
That Larison described racist, reactionary, Holocaust-denying piece of shit Joseph Sobran as “a favorite columnist of mine” tells me all I need to know about him.
El Cid
@Kirbster: But General Butler lived a million years ago when that was all going on. Now everything is completely different.
hamletta
@eemom: Except for Rep. John Tanner. He said Moore had a good point, and even opened for him when he came to Nashville.
He was a Blue Dog who represented TN-8, which includes Clarksville, just over the state line from Ft. Campbell.
I disagreed with him a lot, obvs, but I was still disappointed when he retired.
Andre
It’s interesting how military service has, in many ways, changed from a genuine vocation (something only a few people are called to, but are called for life to do) into what is essentially a parallel social welfare system.
People join up for the benefits, monetary and social (it’s a decent, if not always reliable, way to boost your social status.) They stay for a few years, then (assuming they’re not killed by the risks of the job) they leave and do other stuff instead.
This isn’t to judge those who follow that path-they’re just taking the opportunities that are offered to them, and often pay a high price to do so. But it’s hard to miss the irony of a Republican party that hammers so hard at the “traditional” social welfare safety net, then glorifies a military machine that does exactly the same thing (only with more guns, injuries and violent death.)
Amanda in the South Bay
@Andre:
And absolutely fucks over and doesn’t care about those people once they leave the military. Just look at their opposition to the Post 9/11 Gi Bill.
Mike in NC
Merely a REMF job to pad his resume come re-election time. Scumbag.
Fuzz
@General Stuck:
I did something like that too, it was very sad. My home state (NJ) has a great Vietnam war veterans website where you can look up casualties by town (or name, service branch, age, etc). The way my relatively small home town was affected was amazing. In the classes of 65 and 66 four guys from each were KIA. There were a lot of others from local towns as well.
Yutsano
@Fuzz: In Seattle there is a Garden of Rememberance right in front of the main symphony hall. It has the names of every single member of the armed forces who was ever killed in action from the state. There is a big space where the Afghanistan/Iraq section is. They added a name a couple of months ago. That place will be covered with flowers tomorrow.
Fuzz
@Yutsano:
Here in NJ they have something like that for Vietnam vets, a wall with all the names and a museum. I’m not sure about the other wars though.
Paul in KY
@stuckinred: Family Friend: Frank Brawner, 1968.
Drafted, served, died at 24.
RIP
Steeplejack
@General Stuck, @stuckinred:
Thanks for this, and for the link to the wall.
Capt. Durward Dean Gosney, 1932-1964. Uncle Dean to me. He left behind a wife, a son and a daughter.