My Memorial Day Post
So I sat down to write my Memorial Day Post. There is no shortage of inspiration out there. Every columnist and every journalist has made their stab at honoring our war dead. Some have simply listed those who have lost their lives in Iraq. Some have offered more probing commentary.
I, of course, was going to offer my usual blend of snide witticism and damning facts. A little humour, mixed with a little bile.
But that is getting very hard to do. Particularly now, with over 2000 soldiers dead and a civilian bodycount we like to ignore, and as we learn that US Marines may have been involved in a civilian massacre in Haditha, it becomes very difficult even to raise the flag of gallows humour. We are over three years into a war that has claimed the lives of over two thousand US soldiers, between 30,000 and 100,000 Iraqi civilians (depending upon who does the counting)and countless lives of our allies. There are no weapons of mass destruction. No connection to Al Queda and 9/11. No one greeting us like liberators. Nothing that would justify a bloodletting let alone a bloodletting of this magnitude.
When you take a step back, it is very difficult to find something funny here. But I have to. Because one thing we Americans hate is sincerity of the type that involves actual accountability. We don't like things to be our fault. That notion rubs uncomfortably against our belief about who we are. We are like so many people who deal with moral questions by asking, "That doesn't make me a bad person does it?". We are looking for some easy reassurance: "Despite what your soldiers do with their guns, their bombs, and their dogs. Despite the murderous despots you arm and finance. Despite the lengths you will go to to secure a steady supply of oil. Despite the swelling gap between how you live and how the rest of the world must live. Despite all that you are a good people. You are virtuous, kind and just. So sleep well."
But that of course is just so much BS.
We have taken life with no good reason. We have made a terrible muck of things and all of us, not just our elected leaders, are accountable for it. We turned a blind eye. While glorifying some kind of Christian awakening in our country, we have acted in the most un Christian of ways. We believed what was easy to believe and in doing so neglected our responsibilities as moral beings in a democracy. We let fear, and not a little self righteousness, rule the day.
And yeah, maybe that makes us bad people.
I, of course, was going to offer my usual blend of snide witticism and damning facts. A little humour, mixed with a little bile.
But that is getting very hard to do. Particularly now, with over 2000 soldiers dead and a civilian bodycount we like to ignore, and as we learn that US Marines may have been involved in a civilian massacre in Haditha, it becomes very difficult even to raise the flag of gallows humour. We are over three years into a war that has claimed the lives of over two thousand US soldiers, between 30,000 and 100,000 Iraqi civilians (depending upon who does the counting)and countless lives of our allies. There are no weapons of mass destruction. No connection to Al Queda and 9/11. No one greeting us like liberators. Nothing that would justify a bloodletting let alone a bloodletting of this magnitude.
When you take a step back, it is very difficult to find something funny here. But I have to. Because one thing we Americans hate is sincerity of the type that involves actual accountability. We don't like things to be our fault. That notion rubs uncomfortably against our belief about who we are. We are like so many people who deal with moral questions by asking, "That doesn't make me a bad person does it?". We are looking for some easy reassurance: "Despite what your soldiers do with their guns, their bombs, and their dogs. Despite the murderous despots you arm and finance. Despite the lengths you will go to to secure a steady supply of oil. Despite the swelling gap between how you live and how the rest of the world must live. Despite all that you are a good people. You are virtuous, kind and just. So sleep well."
But that of course is just so much BS.
We have taken life with no good reason. We have made a terrible muck of things and all of us, not just our elected leaders, are accountable for it. We turned a blind eye. While glorifying some kind of Christian awakening in our country, we have acted in the most un Christian of ways. We believed what was easy to believe and in doing so neglected our responsibilities as moral beings in a democracy. We let fear, and not a little self righteousness, rule the day.
And yeah, maybe that makes us bad people.
posted by Jack Reed at 8:20 PM
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