I like to believe that people in the long run are going to do more to promote peace than our governments. Indeed, I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of the way and let them have it.
-Dwight D. Eisenhower
Such ironic words - a quotation from a man who was both General and President! Thus uniquely qualified to actually say such things. Our own leaders do not speak in this way.
Today marks the anniversary of evil. A nation was co-opted by its leaders and remains compromised. While I started many different themes for today, I ended up trashing them all as I addressed the way that the war, perhaps from afar, touched my life.
I remember that time 5 years ago - it was a time of hope in my life for other reasons and the specter of war worked to change that.
There were many people in my life at that time - which is very different today, who were angry and afraid and who, despite their otherwise liberal outlooks - supported what was to be.
I recall being baffled and confused and ultimately angry with this cry to go to war! Many things have changed in my life and relationships from that time - was the war part of it too? I am shocked to realize that it probably was. Which is to show that things are not discreet or antiseptic and that these matters have profound import.
While I remain close in my own way and connected to my family, there are friends who no longer populate my life. My own war dead?
Five years later. 4000 dead US soldiers later. 1,000,000 dead altogether, as if we can ever really find accurate numbers for this sad accounting, this tragic count.
Death by war itself, death by violence inspired by the war, death by division, death by despair.
So the things that brought us to war then, that have all proved erroneous even by its early supporters now, stand like despairing sentinels at the gates of death.
Is there anyone who supports this war? Shockingly - yes. In my own family, I can ask my brother or his wife or my adult nephews, one of whom has done two tours of duty in Iraq.
They speak of the need for "freedom" and for "driving out terrorism" and the need for "safety and security" and that old canard, as vile today as it was 5 years ago... "We had to get rid of Saddam because of 9/11!"
When these things are said, I look at my family, all of whom were far from NYC on 9/11, which is where I was on 9/11 and I want to scream.
I want to scream about the fact that freedom, terrorism, safety and security for them means something else to me and means even more to displaced and despairing Iraqi families.
It means something else to a soldier returned home minus limbs and God knows what else.
It means something else to a war widow or widower as they try to carry on with their lives.
It means more than just a few cheaply used words.
Perhaps if - God forbid - something had happened to my adult nephew, they might see it differently, who knows. Maybe not. I suspect that they would not change, which makes me sad as I write about it.
The reality is that most Americans at this point do see the war for the stinking hole of death and lies that it is.
And that it must end. Now. We can't change the past but we have this moment, we must change now.
Let this day be a testament to the sound of many voices raised in unison - all speaking different words but crying out for the same thing - peace.
**Update** Please go read this post by my blogfriend Johnieb. Johnieb is a Vietnam War vet and he has some unique insights to share about war. Please show Johnieb some love and read his post today.
20 comments:
Touche Fran..great post for the Blogswarm.
I used part of the Eisenhower speech in a YouTube I made for the Blogswarm. Its scary how true it is now isn't it? We have learned nothing.
Yay Fran! I'm sorry that you had to lose people because of this horrendous thing. It's very hard for people to let go of their fundamental beliefs...as well we know.
Peace.
It's amazing how many people I've talked to who were in the war in Viet Nam are reliving that horror as this war continues. It's so sad.
Just finished my blogswarm post. I had a difficult time, I wanted to be sure to be respectful to the troops that are still there, respectful to those who lost loved ones...a good friend of our family died last year in Iraq. Such a difficult subject to write about.
Fran, I have friends and family members who still support the fecked up mess. I lost one friend near the beginning of the war. It's not that we don't speak. It's that we don't interact much any longer. It seems to have been a gradual, mutual parting of the ways.
Excellent post, my friend.
I'm feeling under the weather today so forgive me for being so slow.
I'm wondering how we are still in a war made up from lies and a waste of money that seems to do nothing to protect our troops and a lot to bring down this country and its people..
Thanks for pointing to the "swarm". I had my own post up, but will now add it to the hive.
Great post, Fran.
I've linked all friends of the Dance Party's blogswarm posts.
Great post, Fran!
One of the things that strikes me reading through the bloswarm stuff is that I thought I lot more of it would be depressing. There's a lot of call to action and positive outlook towards the future in some of those posts.
So well written, Fran. So true. So wise. Thank you.
Beautiful post, Fran.
Thanks for the great post, Fran, and for the link to Johnnieb's excellent blog. Linking to ya and to Johnnieb.
Well done, Fran. I have three posts up so far for the blogswarm, and my blogmate at Blue Herald Questiongirl has two more. It'll be good to check over the compilation post the blogswarm organizers will be making.
Most people are aware that George Bush's "surge" was designed to put a band-aid on a gaping wound and make the war seem under control until the end of the election cycle. It is his intention to try to make the next president "stay the course". STOP JOHN MCCAIN.
I admit at the time I was deeply torn though I was not as committed then to the cause of nonviolence and peace as I am now. I was not a Quaker then and I did not fully realize the repercussions at first, but very soon I did.
When I was in grad school, I read a book called The Irony of the South by C. Vann Woodward that really opened my eyes and let me know the perils we were going to be facing.
I will likely not be drafted in subsequent wars because of my medical history, but I will certainly speak out against all war from henceforth.
Friendships for me also have changed Fran. My whole attitude and outlook as well. I have a difficult time finding common groud with those that support this insanity. I align with those who demand accountability.
One Fly articulates a very good point. I have, now former, friends that support the warmongering in the Middle East..as for family that supports it..Its hard to cut ties with that group isn't it?
We agree to keep that issue off the table when we gather, as it always turns into a screaming match and feelings are trampled on..usually by me..a very vocal supporter of accountability and the anti-war movement.
I remember the turmoil of Vietnam, which I was in, and how we hated Nixon. He was the personification of evil.
We had a lot to learn, about evil.
Fran, I wonder if you are clairvoyant. Yesterday, my colleague Dave and I decided to walk up Madison Avenue to our work seminar. During that time, we talked about the Iraq War and he flat out said that he disagrees with my position on the war -- that we ought to be fighting the "terrorists" over there, so that they don't come here.
I stopped in my tracks and asked him a simple question -- what was the original intent of the way (as stated by then SecState Powell)? Even noise from the taxis and buses on the street could not drown the deafening silence until he said this: "I agree that this should have been handled differently." I'll take that as a sign of progress, but is it too little, too late?
Excellent quote. And a very well written post.
I think those forced to participate in this war by their military vocation have to tell themselves that it is necessary and that they are doing something good for our country.
Because the alternative is to take a hard look at yourself and live with those decisions for the rest of your life.
My brothers and I don't talk about the war or politics.
One of my brothers served in the army for 22 years. And while he is not "anti-war" he has turned down multiple offers to work in the middle east. Because, as he says, "You'd have to be nuts."
Two points off of Missy's comments:
I believe a majority of the troops over there want us to withdraw now, don't they? At he very least, the number has skyrocketed, and there's certainly no love for Bush, nor was there for Rumsfeld.
Also, while I know the sense that you mean it, and it's a great anecdote to pass on, every vet I've ever known is pro-soldier but anti-war, which go together quite naturally. It's semantics, but it's very important to the issue, I think. You're not liable to find unconditional pacifists in the military, but war requires a high threshold and should be waged only as a last resort. At least the wiser, saner military types tend to look at war in terms of necessity and an unpleasant, regrettable duty, whereas the chickenhawk neocons celebrate bloodshed and feel that reflectied martial "glory" enhances their masculinity even more than that penis patch they bought over the series of tubes that make up the internets.
As for fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them over here, putting aside for a moment that Iraq has been the bestest recruitment tool bin Laden's ever had and the war/occuptation has made us less safe, and that the majority of Iraqis merely want us out as we would likely want of an occupying force (74% of Iraqis, and 95% of Sunnis, IIRC). Putting all that aside, it's something out of science fiction or paranoid fantasties to presume that a small group of radicals could somehow defeat the mightiest military on the plaent, subdue a nation of 301 million, and destroy and establish a new government based on Sharia law. Read some right-wing blogs, though, and that "threat" is what has them crapping their pants, or the prospect I suppose that those scary illegal immigrants will band together with Islamic extremists, and Washington, D.C. will become the Baghdad in Aztlan. (Or, there's how Garry Trudeau dispensed with that silliness.) Destroying America's international prestige and economy is more than bin Laden could ever have hoped for, but Bush and the GOP have been happy to oblige, especially when they and their friends grow richer even while it gets worse for everyone else.
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