War
Thursday, June 07, 2007
I am by my nature a pacifist. I abhor the thing called war, but I understand that sometimes there is very little other choice. This was not the case in Iraq.I am not going to go over the reasons why I disagreed with starting this fight, because it's an unnecessary issue at this point.
What I do believe is that we as a nation need to get behind some solution or bearable resolution to what continues to be a misdirection of money, American patriotism, human blood and the mental fortitude of those returning.
I wonder about their hearts', brains', and souls' ability to deal with War. I don't remember hearing any stories of the WWII vets returning with the mental health problems that have come from Vietnam and Iraq. But WWII was an accepted war. That fight was the good fight.
In Madison last weekend I saw a bunch of old WWII posters and postcards. Some of them had ladies talking about how they were contrbuting by making cooking grease into bombs and the quintessential Rosie the Riviter one but a few surprised me. One says you should ride-share becasue "when you ride alone you ride with Hitler!" Others say that you should conserve, recycle, and grow gardens, all to help the war effort. Conserve, recycle, grow food? What were they a bunch of war-mongering hippies?
And now that we find ourselves in War again, why do we not have the "lets all sacrifice to make this happen" push represented in those post cards? The deeply cynical part of me says that we were never really in this-to-win-this. Nearly all of the corporate interests involved benefit more from conflict than resolution.
But what is the solution? I don't know, but the current "surge" or the "strategic reallocation of forces" both seem futile if we want anything resemblimg a good outcome. Maybe a draft is needed. Maybe we need 300,000 troops in Iraq to make things work. Easy for me to say being beyond draft age and having no kids or siblings to send.
But hey, I'll try to grow a garden, I will recycle, I will conserve, and I might even support a real surge if I had any faith in any leaders...
Hell, send in Colin Powell. Let him redeem himself.
He sure couldn't do anything worse...
