How long will we put up with it?

How long will we put up with it?
Charter Oak-Ute NEWSpaper — Schleswig Leader, Thursday, June, 21, 2007 – Page 3

After September 11, 2001 it was a frightening time. When we invaded Afghanistan it was with a combination of intense and justified anger, and a touch of anxiety. After all, while nothing was more sure than that we should avenge the terrorist attacks and bring Osama Bin Laden to justice, but at the same time, Afghanistan had been to the Soviet Union in the 1980’s what Vietnam had been to the United States in the 1960’s and 70’s. A terrible quagmire of unconventional warfare where the soldiers of the superpower didn’t know who their enemy was and the insurgents never seemed to give up because more than anything else, they wanted the western invaders out of their country at any cost.

I wondered how long we’d be there. Wondered how many of my students would have to serve there, if eventually there would be a draft. But I never doubted that our cause was just and that we were right to be there.

But then the Bush administration started complaining about Iraq and began trying to sell the American public and the United Nations on military action. I trusted Collin Powell, who wouldn’t? Although I was afraid that this would take the focus off of Afghanistan, off of Bin Ladin, off of Al Queda and the Taliban. I didn’t understand why Bush would risk so much and take away troops and money from the real objective with some much on the line.

Some reporter asked Defence Secretary Rumsfeld about how to handle the aftermath, how to manage Iraq and the region after Saddam Hussein was taken out. Rumsfeld virtually brushed the guy off, telling him that that wasn’t the Defense Department’s problem, that we “weren’t in the business of nation building,” as if to slam the Clinton Administration’s attempt to help NATO stop the genocide in Kosovo back in the 1990’s.

There were even some dyed in the wool Republicans who had their doubts. But then, for almost four years I was told that I was unpatriotic or that I somehow didn’t support the troops if I questioned the war.

Finally, a few weeks ago, I have been hearing hard-core Reaganites questioning the point in prolonging out stay in Iraq. True blue conservatives (true red?) Actually recognizing that not only were mistakes made, but staying only seems to be making things worse.
Maureen Doud had a great bit in har column a couple of weeks ago in the New York Times-
“The president is on a continuous loop of sophistry: We have to push on in Iraq because Al Qaeda is there, even though Al Qaeda is there because we pushed into Iraq. Our troops have to keep dying there because our troops have been dying there. We have to stay so the enemy doesn’t know we’re leaving. Osama hasn’t been found because he’s hiding.
The terrorists moved into George Bush’s Iraq, not Saddam Hussein’s”.

When I was in high school and we were studying about the Vietnam war my best friend at the time (a girl) and I went to see a movie in theatres called “Platoon” starring Charlie Sheen. We were both blown away, we were crying at how horrible and hellish war could be.
We asked each other what we thought we would’ve done if we had been in high school or college during Vietnam. Would we support the Johnson and Nixon administrations, or would we have opposed the war. Would we have protested? What if I had been drafted?

Fortunately it was an abstract, academic exercise, since the most serious military involvement of the Reagan era was the invasion of a teensy, tiny island nation called Grenada. I really didn’t know. I knew I’d be scared both to go and fight the Vietcong and to stay and fight the powers-that-be. I had two uncles who were great friends and could talk food and wine and local, municipal politics- but they never talked about the war. One went and served as a medic, the other went to Canada.

Frankly, I think that a lot of us kids of the eighties had unrealistic stereotypes of war opponents. Pot smoking “Hippies.”

Well, today someone who’s opposed to war, looks like a middle-aged, overweight, middle-class, Midwestern, white, Anglo-Saxon, protestant male. Married, father of three, active in his church. Laundered clothes, not too old or ragged. Showered and shaved, doesn’t use drugs, has never even tried marijuana. It looks like someone who loves Jesus, loves his family, loves his country, appreciates civility and a certain amount of “law and order,” and who does not hate, resent, or blame the troops who are fighting for us.

You can say that I’m lucky or spoiled that I never had to face a draft or that I’m not as much of a real man because I haven’t served in the military voluntarily. And maybe you’re right. Maybe as a Gen-Xer, I have it too easy. Maybe it’s safer to be opposed to this war than it would’ve been to protest that last one.

Frankly, we should all be thanking God that Iraq isn’t tearing our families and society apart the way Vietnam did. We may disagree, even vehemently, but we just change the subject or avoid the subject. This time, no one is screaming in (or spitting) in faces.

I guess that if I knew that the government lied and covered it up, if they were unclear or even obtuse about the causes and reasons for entering and staying in the war. If I heard that they were secretly invading and bombing Cambodia (practicing war games, hoping to provoke Iran)... yeah, I’d have a hard time sitting on the fence, even if it could get me in trouble.

The face of the anti war movement this time had been a divorced, Catholic mom who’s son was killed in Iraq. Cindy Sheehan bought land near the President’s ranch and camped out there, waiting for him to answer a single question for her. “For what noble cause did my son have to die?”

The answer never came. This past Memorial Day, she announced her retirement from protest. She had had enough of smears and personal attacks from both the right and the left.

I have nothing but the greatest respect for those who fought and sacrificed so much in Vietnam. But I wish that Johnson and Nixon had respected them as much as they deserved.

I certainly respect and admire the men and women who are serving in Iraq. God knows, many of them are my former students whom I love and pray for. Frankly, if President Bush had have as much concern for them that I do, they’d all be home already.