by hilzoy
Civilian control of the military is a wonderful thing, but it places a huge responsibility on us. The men and women in the military do not get to pick and choose their missions. When the leaders we elect ask them to fight, they go. We owe them our gratitude, but we also owe it to them to take the task of choosing our elected officials very seriously, so that they are not sent off to risk their lives in wars that should never have been started.
Since I don’t think we have been very successful at discharging this responsibility lately, I sent a donation to the Wounded Warrior Project, which provides programs, services, and backpacks of useful stuff to wounded veterans. There are other organizations that help veterans in need listed here. It’s not nearly as good a gift as responsible political leadership, but at least it’s something. If you have the means, please consider giving something.
Thanks.
BTW – Project Valour IT surpassed its goal of $180,000. Thanks to anyone here who contributed.
“…that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain….”
That American soldiers do not die in vain is an ideal we must all strive for.
It is not a logical necessity. With bad enough leaders, the reality falls short of the ideal.
As we begin trying to undo the damage that Bush’s war did to our country, we will almost certainly hear some voices saying “you can’t say the war was a mistake! No American soldier dies in vain!”
But, alas, saying it that way confuses a statement of our ideals with a report about our performance in living up to them.
If a President betrays our ideals, starts a war for his own vanity, and then is too vain to end it, it is only too possible for American soldiers to die in vain.
It is a tragedy, but it is not a logical impossibility.
That no American soldier should die in vain is a central American ideal. President Bush failed in his duty to uphold that ideal.
America’s prestige no longer depends on the outcome of Bush’s war; it is only his own twisted vanity that prolongs it. And when he sends more troops out to die so that he can avoid admitting that he sent others to die in vain, then he doubles down on his guilt.
In this as in other wars, our troops have fought conscientiously, for duty and for country. They did as well as they could have done, with what Bush gave them. Bush had a blank check from the nation, for six years. He had a free hand to do exactly what he wanted, to give them exactly what he wanted. And he gave them only enough to lose.
In so far as they died for their devotion to America, for their love of their comrades, for their loyalty to our nation’s ideals, their deaths to that extent were not in vain.
But in so far as they were put into battle under false pretences, for unrealistic objectives, by a feckless commander who was never committed to the task, their deaths were indeed in vain.
In so far as the stated aims of the war would have been better achieved without putting our troops into Iraq in the first place, their deaths were indeed in vain.
I hate to write those words. When I think about the families of our troops reading them, I imagine the outrage and indignation that they must feel, that I would feel if my son had died in Iraq.
That outrage is justified. I share it. What is unforgivable is not my saying the words “they died in vain.” What is unforgivable is Bush’s having made those words true.
In some ways I think America loses something by not remembering WW1 on the 11th (and yes I think veterans deserve all of the remembering they can get, maybe VJ day would be a better choice).
For most of the rest of the world it’s a day when we remember the end of a bloody, destructive and totally pointless war which killed and maimed an entire generation for the sake of politics.
We remember the tactical blunders (Gallipoli for example), the horrors of trench warfare and the fact that the soldiers on both sides were used as little more than fodder.
It’s not really a day for celebrating the living.
Wow. A belated post about wars that should never be started, one comment saying yes, they did in fact die in vain, and one saying it is not a day to celebrate the living.
Birth control for men? 66 comments and counting.
Excuse me if I find this a little depressing.
Birth control for men? 66 comments and counting.
Touched on a bunch of other subjects too. Besides, I think we’re all in need of some comic relief.
FWIW, OCSteve, some of us (myself included) had already comment on Veteran’s Day in the other thread. Whether this is helps lessen your depression, well, YMMV.