By Katharine Daniels
Executive Editor, The WIP
– USA –
On Monday we celebrated Memorial Day, a federal holiday commemorating soldiers who have died at war and a tradition in our country since the Civil War. Most Americans have the day off and spend it with their families at picnics or sporting events. Some visit cemeteries or memorials and flags around the nation are commonly flown at half-staff from dawn until noon.
Just before leaving for a Memorial Day barbecue I had the curious notion to check the statistics at the US Department of Defense. On their website I read that as of Monday, Operation Iraqi Freedom has cost America 3,433 soldier’s lives. By the time I returned home that evening, six more soldiers were reported dead from explosions near their vehicles and two more were reported killed in a helicopter crash. Monday’s deaths brought the total number of U.S. forces killed this month to somewhere around 110.
The day before Memorial Day, retired Colonel and politically conservative professor, Andrew Bacevich, published an editorial in The Washington Post. He’s also published two books on American militarism and seduction by war, as well as several articles in leading US newspapers criticizing the President and the political elite for conducting preemptive war in Iraq. This was, however, the first article by Bacevich that I’d seen since the May 13th death of his son, who died in an attack by a suicide bomber in the Salah Ad Din Province of Iraq. His young soldier was 27.
Perched high above the Pacific and far away from any battlefield, it was hard to forget the Professor’s Sunday editorial. I share his sense of anger at the political elite, both Republicans and Democrats, and the complicit established media who rushed to war without seeking alternatives or offering substantive debate. Even the Democrats’ recent display of opposition in Congress has amounted to nothing more than an ineffective gutless bill which ultimately delivered to the President exactly what he wanted – more money to fund this war.
In this most recent editorial, Professor Bacevich characterized the dilemma – “Money buys access and influence. Money greases the process that will yield us a new president in 2008. When it comes to Iraq, money ensures that the concerns of big business, big oil, bellicose evangelicals and Middle East allies gain a hearing.” The devastating result, he reminded us, is “the lives of U.S. soldiers figure as an afterthought.”
As a veteran of the Vietnam War, a retired Colonel, and a Professor of History and International Relations, Professor Bacevich is an expert worth noting on this issue. Since September 11th, 2001 he has fought vociferously to promote a critical understanding of US national security strategy, specifically countering the notion of preemptive, unilateral military force – the heart of the Bush strategy in Iraq.
Professor Bacevich stresses that in this country, military power trumps diplomacy. Thus our solution to solving international political problems is always force – alternatives are no longer analyzed or debated. Bacevich reminds us that prior to the present day, “preemptive” war was considered “immoral, illicit, and imprudent.” Today it has become the centerpiece of US national security strategy and one that guarantees disastrous consequences. “Our folly has alienated friends and emboldened enemies,” Bacevich wrote in an editorial for the Boston Globe on March 1st. “Rather than nipping in the bud an ostensibly emerging threat, the Iraq war has diverted attention from existing dangers (such as Al Qaeda) while encouraging potential adversaries (like Iran) to see us weak.”
In the concluding paragraphs of Professor Bacevich’s Sunday editorial, I Lost My Son to a War I Oppose. We Were Both Doing Our Duty, he wrote: “In joining the Army, my son was following in his father’s footsteps: Before he was born, I had served in Vietnam. As military officers, we shared an ironic kinship of sorts, each of us demonstrating a peculiar knack for picking the wrong war at the wrong time. Yet he was the better soldier — brave and steadfast and irrepressible… while he was giving his all, I was doing nothing. In this way, I failed him.”
But Andrew Bacevich did not fail his son. I believe both men were living out their patriotic duty to this country – one in uniform, following orders to protect our nation from the threat of terrorism; the other a civilian, executing his patriotism as an outspoken critic of this war.
It is our leaders and our media that have failed us. Failing to heed the warnings of expert voices like Professor Bacevich, the new American militarism will continue to be the solution to our international problems. And, if the seduction continues, the next preemptive strike will be against Iran. Continuous, open ended global-war will be our future – with many more deaths to commemorate on each passing Memorial Day.
In her current opinion piece in New York Times Maureen Doud comments on a recent lecture given by Harvey Mansfield, a teacher of political science at Harvard and who writes about “Manliness.” Professor Mansfield and some neo-conservative academics have re-coined the Greek word “thumos,” to refer to the spiritedness with flavors of ambition, pride and brute willfulness that “manliness” displays. Are the young men and women we have lost and injured in Iraq sacrifices to “thumos?”
Will Peters: Sacrificing our young soldiers to “thumos” is a scary thought. Maybe this arrogance is part of the problem, yet, I would argue, the premier motivation is and will continue to be “money” – oil abroad and money in our politicians war chests at home. As I quoted Bacevich above “Money buys access and influence. Money greases the process that will yield us a new president in 2008. When it comes to Iraq, money ensures that the concerns of big business, big oil, bellicose evangelicals and Middle East allies gain a hearing.” Powerful interests with large checkbooks have undermined the democratic process in this country. The people spoke loud and clear at the ballot box in the midterm election – kicking out the bums and the bozos and sending a clear message to the politicians left in office – end this war. Yet, the war continues. Unfortunately it will take something entirely different, like public financing of campaigns, to remind both Republicans and Democrats, that they actually represent the public.
We must, as journalists in search of social justice, continue speaking out against issues such as these. Our politicians and the powers that be should be made to realise that the lives of these innocent soldiers are more important than money, power, oil or whatever it is.To Bacevich, may you and your family be consoled and comforted in your loss.Go Bless.
I agree with your editor’s arguments about oil imperialism and the moneyed basis of American politics. Both are important parts of the foreign policy picture. My suggestion is that completing that picture may require us to examine the neo-conservative, pre-emptive, and arrogant attitude the Administration displays and how mindlessly “manly” and stupid it is as rationalization for the loss of American lives.
Well, Will, you have undoubtedly hit the nail on the head – the “manly” and stupid rationalization for the loss of American lives you note is diametrically opposed to the perspective we hope to promote throughout our stories and commentary here at The WIP. The Bush doctrine is narrow-minded and short-sighted. Economic, civilian and U.S. Military casualties have been grossly underestimated. Our leaders “thumos” is no excuse. The War in Iraq is a tragedy of disasterous proportions.
The Iraq War is indeed a great tragedy. Part of what makes it so devastating to me is the sanitization of coverage that prevents the public from being able to comprehend what the death toll really looks like. Our leaders took note of the impact that the brutally honest news coverage and images from Vietnam had on the American people and ensured that it would never happen again.
Last week, 15-year old Lizzie Palmer made a simple but compelling video and posted it on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ervaMPt4Ha0
She’s had millions of hits and been blogged about in a firestorm of debate as to the video’s importance, whether she’s really a 15-year old girl, whether this is an attempt by neocon forces to get us to blindly support the war, etc. But I speculate that regardless of all the supposed controversy, the video’s popularity is still driven by the people’s need to know, see and feel the true impact of this war.
She has done what we endeavor to do everyday at The WIP – to put a human face on the cold statistics of the current events and issues facing us all. She brings us a little bit closer to the brutal reality of war, which is – people die. And in this case, many more than anyone is really willing to admit.
Sarah McGowan
Content Editor, The WIP