War brings on many tragedies. The obvious tragedies of lives lost and families destroyed come to mind. But I am afraid there will be a hidden tragedy come out of the war just ended. No, I am not talking about the long term health effects of soldiers and non combatants from the waste of the battlefield. I am talking about the trivializing of the lives of our soldiers.
Oh, yes, we honor them with parades, with guest appearances on the news and with all too many military funerals. But we all talk about and most agree that war should only be undertaken in the most grave of circumstances; when a threat exists to our country, our interests, the lives of our citizens. And we can also pursue war for noble purposes; we can make war to free the oppressed, to free slaves, to liberate a country; noble reasons and often worth the human cost.
But what just transpired was a travesty. We did a good deed and I am glad we did it. But how did it come about? We found Weapons of Mass Destruction. We found tons and tons. We found enough with solid enough evidence to take the most drastic action one nation can take against another, we had enough evidence to go to war. Our leader told the people of this country, trust us, we have solid evidence. And many trusted him, after all, how could a god fearing president, one who wields his religion like a shield of honor, lie to the people looking to him for leadership and guidance. We have evidence, trust me. And he parades his Secretary of State before the world, a man who has served his country in war with honor, and he also has him swear to the leaders of the world, swear before the United Nations, we have the evidence, trust us. He takes his country’s most erstwhile ally and convinces him to join us in this quest, this crusade to rid the world of a madman with Weapons of Mass Destruction. Can you hear the deep ringing gongs echo as those words are uttered, WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION? You know evil lurks in the world, we have been told.
Now we are over a month past the end of the war to rid the world of Saddam and his {gong} Weapons of Mass Destruction {gong}. And what have we found? Where are the tons of weapons? Where is the evidence? Certainly we did not go to war over WMD’s and not monitor these tons we knew were there? Our cameras that can read newspapers from space did not lose them, did they? One hundred thousand men on the ground in Iraq could not also miss them?
So we have freed an oppressed people. And we have fought a very successful war, a war that showed the world that they better not screw with America. And for the freedom of the Iraqi people, and for the lesson that cheap, third rate dictators should not spit on Superman’s cape. And for those reasons I am glad we invaded Iraq and for many reasons I am bursting with pride in our armed forces.
So where is the travesty, the tragedy beyond the obvious deaths and shattered lives? What our president has done is squandered the good will of his office and our country. The next time he says we must do so and so to fix such and such I will be one citizen a whole lot more skeptical. And when he says. “trust me”, I will grab my wallet and hold onto it with both hands. And when we have a truly just cause and we send the Secretary of State around to convince Spain, Italy, and England of the justness of our cause, of the very necessity of it happening, will they be a quick to join us? Or will they wink and say the phrase the honorable leader could not remember, “Fool me once, shame on me, fool me twice, shame on thee.”
And then we consider the other coin of war, the trust of the armed forces. Oh, they signed up to defend our country and to be used as instruments of our foreign policy. They will respond. But when you announce one reason for a war and then scramble for other reasons even the most honorable must wonder what they are being used for. When you spiel reasons for war like a huckster selling the latest miracle cure you sully the service of these honorable men, you tarnish the luster their service should bear. And when you break trust with the very men who protect that freedom you start down a very steep road. War and expenditure of the lives of our armed forces should always be ventured into with honor, not with lies reminiscent of the man selling me ocean front property in Arizona.
