A gapping wound is beginning to tear

"To disagree, one doesn't have to be disagreeable."
~Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater

The other day I got an email from an old friend from college. He’s in the Air National Guard. I thought I’d share some of what we said to each other with you.

Hey Ted,

Say, I've enjoyed some of your forwards as of late and I wanted to say thanks. They've been quite thought provoking. I was wondering if I could share some in site with you regarding some things I've seen/heard regarding the Iraq War.

I've had some doubts recently with us being "over there", but I struggle with these feelings due to information that I have concerning the rationale for going to war with Iraq.

In Feb. of 2003, I sat in an intelligence briefing with members of my Guard unit in NE. We were shown satellite photos of vehicle activity around suspected WMD sites that indicated movement which lead experts to believe that Saddam was hiding something. This was quite a moment for me considering that I'm really seeing this…We had information about carrier battle groups and ground units and their time tables for deployment. Wow! It was cool, yet scary. So the war came and went...and lingered. I held out that there would be WMD discovered in a matter time. I figured that I would be one of those guys out there in my chem suit and detection equipment dabbing at mysterious liquids. Heck! That's what I've been training for!

I was waiting for it too. So were we all. Secretary of State Collin Powell is someone I'd always respected and trusted, certainly more than Bush, Cheney, or Rumsfeld. So, I tended to believe his presentations of WDM intelligence to the U.N. before the war. But I still had a hang up with a pre-emptive strike. Through all of history only aggressor nations struck first. Now finally the 1,500 page Duelfer Report tells Congress that there were no WMDs. Could those satellite images the Defense department showed my friend’s Guard unit have just been of the vans and trucks of electricians, plumbers, even lunch caterers?

In Sept. of 2003 a friend emailed me a Powerpoint presentation of photos taken in Iraq. The presentation was entitled "Dig Deeper, Watson." In these photos are seen USAF personnel excavating a Russian-built fighter plane. The wings were removed, but the rest of the fuselage was intact. I thought if somebody could bury a monster like a fighter jet, it would be nothing to hide some chemical munitions.

I remember that slide show that he sent me that slide show of the Russian jet in the sand. It was amazing. That had raised a lot of questions and fears in my mind at the time. It's easy to see how anyone could "flip-flop" on these things.

In May of 2004, a story broke in the news that US Army demolition experts found an IED in Iraq that was a chemical mortar round. They were treated for mild Sarin exposure. The IED (improvised explosive device) was set to explode without being launched from a mortar tube. Had this round been launched and detonated, it would have taken out an area the size of at least 3 football fields. I don't want to even think of what that would have looked like.

Yes, many feel that Bush isn't handling this war very well, and that it was foolish to go in without more allies. I can't help wondering, however, that stockpiles of WMD may exist.

Naturally that’s the kind of things that makes you shiver. But no matter how vicious Hussein had been toward his own people, that didn’t mean he had the capability to attack the U.S. Before we invaded, it was less likely that his weapons could land in the hands of Al Queida Terrorists. Especially when a radical Wahhabist-Muslim like Bin Laden and a Secular-socialist totalitarian dictator who's nominally a Sunni-Muslim like Hussein hated each other. Hussein didn’t want Al Quieda in his country and Bin Laden had no respect whatsoever for Hussein. I hate how Vice President Cheney insists that the invasion of Iraq is part of the War-on-Terror. I still think that we should’ve concentrated far more force on Afghanistan and left Iraq to continue withering away like it had been for a decade. Sure the world is better off without Hussein, but Bin Laden is still out there.

On a different vane, I grow weary of people claiming one cannot be a Christian and vote Democrat. I've been biting my tongue these last couple of days. There's a teacher here who gets really excited about stuff like this. I have to argue that things aren't quite so simple. The article you've sent illustrates a point that many of us in the Guard have quietly mulled over. We can't keep on like this. Our military is stretched dangerously thin. Democrats can be Christians too, however. My good friend Ted Mallory is a fine Christian man. I immediately thought of you when this guy made his comment. I like the guy, but he talks a bit too much.

That’s something that sounds like something that many Vietnam veterans complained about- even if they think that the war is just, they were frustrated by the government’s mishandling of it.

Granted, it may be because we're friends, so I'm prone to listen to him and automatically give legitimacy to his input- but his letter reminded me that both sides of the war issue have reasonable, authentic, well-meaning cause to believe what they believe. So I want the “hawks” to know that I see your point, but please try to be open to the opinions of us “doves” as well. So close to the election, things are too charged, too polarized.

I suppose any war is polarizing. As a Civil War historian, my friend knows that too well. I fear that even if in no other way, this war resembles Vietnam insofar as the longer it goes on, the more divided the population will become.

I agree about the Vietnamization of the Iraq situation. I think you could even draw comparisons to the Philippine Insurection of 1900. Our foes are utilizing low tech means to attack a technologically superior force and yet our generals continue to insist that we can beat them with "just another 20,000 troops."

Thank goodness that Aguinaldo didn't have CNN. (Of course, W.R. Hearst could be just as bad I suppose.)
I will go and do my duty when I'm called. I am prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice if necessary, but when/if they hand that triangular flag to my wife, It would be nice to know that my death was worth it.

“How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?....We are here in Washington to say that the problem of this war is not just a question of war and diplomacy. It is part and parcel of everything that we are trying as human beings to communicate to people in this country - the question of racism which is rampant in the military, and so many other questions such as the use of weapons; the hypocrisy in our taking umbrage at the Geneva Conventions and using that as justification for a continuation of this war when we are more guilty than any other body of violations of those Geneva Conventions; in the use of free fire zones, harassment interdiction fire, search and destroy missions, the bombings, the torture of prisoners, all accepted policy by many units in South Vietnam. That is what we are trying to say. It is part and parcel of everything.” ~Lieutenant John Kerry made before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on April 23, 1971.

It frightens me to imagine either my friend from college, or any of my students as the last to die in Iraq.

I really consider myself a moderate centrist. I consider myself an American before and above being a Democrat and a Christian before and above being an American. I believe that our Nation's motto "E pluribus unum" -"Out of many, one" is more than a motto, it should be a mission, a principle which we should strive for. But it seems like people won’t let you be “for the troops, but against the war.” If you suspect the Bush Administration of favoring the rich and corporations, especially oil companies at the expense of the working class, or of botching the real War on Terror and the War on Iraq, somehow you’re a traitor.

Whether the next President is bush or Kerry, not only will they have to clean-up our mess in Iraq and continue to protect us from Terror, they will need to do an awful lot to heal the gapping wound in our unity that the war in Iraq is just beginning to tear.