Travellinguist's Musings

Born on the 4th of July.

I am currently watching the end of Oliver Stone's "Born on the 4th of July" starring Tom Cruise. This movie, for some reason shown only after the election, tells the true story of Ron Kovic, a Long Island man who volunteered for the war in Vietnam, was paralyzed, and like John Kerry (though physically wounded far more than Kerry) became a Vietnam veteran against the Vietnam war.
This movie lays out the sort of turmoil we are going to face again as we finally learn the truth of the lies of Iraq, the murders of Iraq and the crimes of Iraq committed by our soldiers, who should not be there and who would not have committed crimes if they were kept at home.
War is inherently immoral. It turns young adults into killers, innocent civilians into "collateral damage" blown to pieces in "precision bombings" conducted with 500 pound bombs over their homes and holy places, and turns young and poor men and women into "terrorists" and "insurgents" and freedom fighters. Once we let loose the dogs of war they are not easy to reign back in.
The scars and bloodshed, the wounds and hurt will not go away. Thousands upon thousands of Iraqis are dead because of our actions. Almost 1200 American soldiers are dead because of President Bush's orders and a reaction to them that is as ferocious as it was predictable. Hundreds or so of soldiers from other nations not to mention our Iraqi "allies" (derided by many as "Collaborators" in occupation which of course they are) also are dead. Families are without fathers, mothers, sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, because of our actions.
I hear from others that Hussein was worse.... or Hussein was a butcher. OK. We can't deny that. He killed tens of thousands of people. Sadly, so now have we, and for what? Hussein is in prison, Iraq is in turmoil and thousands are dead. Seems to me that the only difference between Iraq under Hussein and Iraq under Bush (don't buy the lie that Iyad Allawi, himself a former trained killer for Hussein's Ba'ath Party, is in charge) is that now more than a thousand US soldiers and those from other nations are also dead. We have a promise of elections in January in Iraq which do provide a certain amount of hope, however as many have pointed out to me (while arguing that the democracy in Lebanon is illegitimate) is that elections while under the occupation of foreign powers cannot be considered legitimate.
So where are we now? Tough to say. Thousands dead. Thousands more certain to die. Elections to come? Well one might hope so.... of course there are elections to come in Cuba too, eventually, and we didn't have to flatten Cuban cities to make it so.
We are just in a conundrum, one that occurs in all situations of war. I honestly don't see this entry as one going anywhere.... I don't have answers really other than we must try to get away from this idea that we can bomb our problems away. It doesn't work especially in situations when nothing was happening. There was NO war in Iraq until we brought war to Iraq. Now there is war in Iraq and there will be war in Iraq for years to come.
Democracy is government of the people by the people. By this very reason outsiders cannot impose democracy. Imposition runs counter to what democracy is supposed to be, and so our project in Iraq is doomed to failure because of its inherent contradiction. If it were not doomed to failure we would not have had to impose Iyad Allawi in power. Allawi is a man who, according to complaints from Australian SAS soldiers reported in the Sydney Morning Herald, was seen personally executing prisoners in an Iraqi prison (one bullet to the back of the head) 5 days before assuming power from L. Paul Bremer. Allawi served in Hussein's secret police monitoring and executing Iraqi dissidents in Europe before Hussein took a dislike to him and tried to have him killed. He is not a good man, he is not a holy man, he is not a revered Iraqi figure and he is no principled anti-Hussein dissident. He is a killer and a thug. If not for Hussein's change of heart in the 70s Allawi would be rallying insurgents against us rather than US soldiers against them. Let us not mistake Allawi for a democrat. He is a tyrannical strongman, and our use of him demonstrates the incipient failure of Bush's project in Iraq.
Let us hope. Let us hope for an end to the bloodshed. Let us beg our troops home. Let us beg our troops to avoid killing innocents. We are in a catch-22 whose only escape route is a removal of our troops and an apology for the death of innocents in our project to "liberate" them, as well as an apology to the families of those soldiers killed by the actions brought on by lies and the waste of their lives for no purpose.
Although I have lost faith in organized faith because of the faithless actions of the so-called faithful, I do pray for the souls of those whose souls have been given flight years before they should have. I hope that those who found no peace in their lives can at least find it in their deaths and that those left behind can find the strength to choose peace and forgiveness rather than death and vengeance because it more than we deserve (and probably more than many of them deserve as well) but it is the best that we and they can hope for.

posted by travellinguist @ 1:53 PM