Lives and Families destroyed

We welcome another member of the Coalition for a Democratic America to Sirens as a writer. Kyle is a veteran that served his nation as a soldier in Iraq. His wise words and thoughts are a most welcome addition to our staff. This post begins a multiple part series~ Dusty

By PraetorOne, Kyle, Donatra, SweetPea, Kelli, and Rachel

PROLOGUE: To Paris! To Berlin! To Baghdad!

In 1914 in the weeks following the assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand, and leading up to the outbreak of the First World War, the people of Europe somehow managed to convince themselves that the ensuing war would be a brief one. Flushed with a collective, nationalistic fever of 106.7, the people of France turned out in the Streets, shouting “TO BERLIN! TO VIENNA!” The people of Germany and Vienna turned out in the streets, shouting “TO PARIS! TO MOSCOW! TO LONDON!” ad nauseum. Virtually no one believed that the war would be a long one, that their nation’s armies would soon overrun the armies of the other side and that valor and glory would rule the day. And yet, within a short period of time, it became all too apparent that the war wouldn’t only be a long one; it would also be a brutal and very bloody one; that it would go on for year, after year. Trench warfare, mustard gas, rape, mass murder, disease, and famine: Those were the horrors of World War I, horrors which created a new medical/psychiatric term: “Shell Shock.” And to make matters even worse, hardly a generation had passed but what Germany, once Europe’s problem child, was on the march again, led by a sociopathic dictator who, as a younger man, hadn’t only served in the trench warfare of World War I, but who himself had also been gassed.

The only difference between this young man and so many others of his generation, was that he had walked away from the war with the wrong lessons learned. Instead of recognizing the stupidity and futility of war, THIS young man, this raving butcher of an Anti-Semite learned that war was a solution to most problems; that survival of the fittest was the natural order of life. I am of course talking about the primary architect of World War II, Adolf Hitler, the madman who through blood soaked atrocities and war crimes taught us that war is the great evil of the 20th, and yes, even the 21st Century

Now flash forward to the year 2003. After a long, bloody war in Vietnam, our combat-dodging president, another Social Darwinist in the fascist tradition, has also refused to learn the lessons of history and has decided that war is the solution to most problems–this despite the fact that he never served on a battlefield during his entire, misbegotten life. And yet, like Adolf Hitler, George W. Bush has decided that an entire generation of soldiers are little more than disposable pawns on an international chess board. Indeed, the only thing which appears to have changed is the name of the disorder from which our young soldiers suffer when they are severely wounded and shipped back home with extreme mental and physical disabilities. After World War I we called it “Shell Shock.” Today we call it Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. But no matter how we label it, the fact remains that George W. Bush and his merry band of homicidal warmongers are ruining lives and families, and it is that topic which we intend to address in this fairly lengthy post.

Let’s begin with those who are not going to come back. As of 13 March, 2008 the number of soldiers who had died in combat since 19 March, 2003, the day on which George W. Bush chose to initiate his war, stood at 3,262. The total number stood at 3,987. Since George W. Bush declared the “mission accomplished,” on 1 May 2003,we have lost 3,154 in combat and a total of 3,848. Since we captured Saddam Hussein on 13 December, 2003 we have lost 2,965 and a total of 3,128. Since 31 January, 2005 we have lost 2,366 in combat and a total of 2,550. And through it all George W. Bush has shown a reluctance to attend soldiers’ funerals which borders on the phobic. Oh, Bush does a fine job at expressing phony compassion during his public appearances, but he doesn’t quite understand what he has done. Death is final. Death means an empty place at holidays and dinner tables, a vacancy where there was once a living, vibrant human being. To watch George W. Bush you’d think that the loss of a loved one is a minor inconvenience, an irritant that George W. Bush would rather ignore than address. To abominations like Cheney, Bush, and Gates, the troops are little more than little tin soldiers to be used and discarded at a whim.

They simply do not understand that each of those 3,987 young men and women were sons or daughters, brothers or sisters, husbands or wives,mothers or fathers and friends. Moreover the war mongers simply don’t care. They have their game, their pride, arrogance, and abnormal appetites for blood and gore to satisfy and if that can be accomplished by the violent deaths of thousands of troops they aren’t about to let little things like honesty, morality, and public opinion stand in their way.

Sadly, no one in this Administration understood that war equals dead bodies. They assumed it would be a cake walk. Didn’t Donald Rumsfeld tell us that “death has a tendency to encourage a depressing view of war?” Sure he did, but did he believe it? Probably not. In fact he is better known for his wonderful prediction about the length of the war:

“I can’t tell you if the use of force in Iraq today will last five days, five weeks, or five months; but it won’t last any longer than that.” In other words, the Bush Administration took the same attitude that nationalists took in 1914 towards war.

“To Paris! To Berlin! TO BAGHDAD.” At no time did it occur to them that they had under planned their war of choice. At no time did they consider the human cost. That simply didn’t occur to them.

Nor did it occur to them that there are fates worse than death– and that is where we shall pick up next time.

–
Let Freedom Ring,

The Coalition for a Democratic America