(MG) When I was much younger, every Memorial day our grade school band would march and play in the parade, through the heart of town out to the cemetery. These were reverent moments. But now, when I view Memorial day parades and fourth of July parades, I see the overt militarism and glorification of soldiers, warriors. I've had my fill of this pap. Do you want to know the face of war? Look at a baboon's buttocks. THAT is the face of war. And what are the soldiers fighting for? They are fighting for each other, while we sleep soundly, and life goes on. They are dying - for each other. And we, the people, have let this happen. Each military death of the Iraq / Afghanistan invasions and occupations has been a waste. They are all for naught. They are empty homes, empty beds, empty hearts in America -- the lives rent asunder. And the wounded who survived -- and the wounded whose scars cannot be seen, and whose scars will not heal, for what purpose have we sent our troops into harm's way?
There is neither glory nor honor in dying for an illegal war waged upon poor peoples in foreign lands. There is simply an emptiness, a loss of life, a loss of potential. Damn all the war mongering politicians to hell. Bring the troops home. The mission? Weapons of mass destruction - check. Regime change - check. Installation of a (more or less) democratically elected government - check. Mission accomplished.
Civil war and strife ensuing? It escalates daily - each and every day our troops remain, the situation worsens (and the situation is horrible beyond words). Do the math - two million Iraqis have taken refuge out of the country; two million Iraqis have been rendered homeless; Six-hundred and fifty thousand Iraqis have died because of our presence there. From a country of twenty-seven million souls.
Here's proportionality. If the ravages of war were distributed proportionally upon the US with it population of three hundred million, the numbers would be:
22,200,000 Americans taking refuge outside of America
22,200,000 Americans rendered homeless
7,200,000 American deaths resulting from a proportionate war on these shores
How do soldiers die? HORRIBLY. It's not like in the movies. Read below an account of how soldiers die.
There is neither glory nor honor in dying for an illegal war waged upon poor peoples in foreign lands. There is simply an emptiness, a loss of life, a loss of potential. Damn all the war mongering politicians to hell. Bring the troops home. The mission? Weapons of mass destruction - check. Regime change - check. Installation of a (more or less) democratically elected government - check. Mission accomplished.
Civil war and strife ensuing? It escalates daily - each and every day our troops remain, the situation worsens (and the situation is horrible beyond words). Do the math - two million Iraqis have taken refuge out of the country; two million Iraqis have been rendered homeless; Six-hundred and fifty thousand Iraqis have died because of our presence there. From a country of twenty-seven million souls.
Here's proportionality. If the ravages of war were distributed proportionally upon the US with it population of three hundred million, the numbers would be:
22,200,000 Americans taking refuge outside of America
22,200,000 Americans rendered homeless
7,200,000 American deaths resulting from a proportionate war on these shores
How do soldiers die? HORRIBLY. It's not like in the movies. Read below an account of how soldiers die.
Wilfred Owen
Dulce Et Decorum Est
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of disappointed shells that dropped behind.
GAS! Gas! Quick, boys!-- An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And floundering like a man in fire or lime.--
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,--
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of disappointed shells that dropped behind.
GAS! Gas! Quick, boys!-- An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And floundering like a man in fire or lime.--
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,--
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.
