"They died for their country," read the white granite memorial in the
Concord, Massachusetts town square, honoring local men who died in the
Civil War. Newer headstones mourned Concord men who gave their lives in
other wars -- practically every war America has fought -- belying the
recent baiting of quintessentially blue-state Massachusetts as a place
whose citizens lack patriotism. I was in town, on the first anniversary of
Sept 11, speaking at a local church that had lost one of its most active
members on a hijacked plane, a man named Al Filipov. It was clear then --
and clearer now -- that these honored dead would not be our nation's last.
I thought of Concord when George Bush urged us, this past Memorial Day, to
redeem the sacrifices of our soldiers in Iraq by "completing the mission
for which they gave their lives." But what if this mission (which will, of
course, claim more lives) itself is questionable, and founded on a basis
of lies?
Forty-eight Concord men died in the Civil War, which the memorial called
"the War of the Rebellion." They indeed died for their country, turning
the tide at battles like Gettysburg and helping end the brutal oppression
of slavery. The World War II vets, listed on a nearby plaque, helped
preserve the freedom of America -- and the world. We owe a profound debt
to the farmers and artisans who won our freedom in America's Revolution,
and whose sacrifices were marked, a few miles away, with an exhibit on the
battles of Lexington and Concord. It's easy for those who have lived
through too many dubious wars to
forget the power of their sacrifices.
But not all the Concord deaths served such lofty purposes. Three Concord
men died "in the service of their country" during the Spanish-American
war. This war of empire took 600,000 lives alone in our subsequent
occupation of the Philippines and our suppression of the first Asian
republic, prompting Mark Twain to suggest that the Filipinos adopt a
modified version of our flag "with the white stripes painted black and the
stars replaced by the skull and cross-bones." Five Concord men died in
Vietnam oining 58,000 other Americans, one to two million Vietnamese, and
four million who died after we overthrew a long-neutral Cambodian
government and paved the way for Pol Pot. One died in our 1965 invasion of
the Dominican Republic, which helped prevent the return of a
democratically elected president and installed a corrupt oligarch who
would rule for nearly three decades.
The American soldiers who died in these wars were as brave as their
compatriots in the Civil War or World War II. They undoubtedly had as much
integrity in their personal lives. But their courage and sacrifice made
the world neither safer nor freer. Since my visit to Concord, the memorial
has added another name, a 25-year-old first lieutenant, killed a month
after our forces rolled into Iraq in March of 2003, around the time that
Bush spoke under that "mission accomplished" banner on the deck of the USS
Abraham Lincoln
It's tempting to assume that all the sacrifices of our soldiers are
worthwhile. But mere courage guarantees no inherent moral rightness:
German and Japanese soldiers fought bravely in World War II. The September
11 hijackers were willing to surrender their lives to murder 3,000
innocent people, including Al Filipov, whose widow would initiate the
peace and justice lecture series where I spoke. Even when we're told our
soldiers are fighting for freedom, we have to look at the broadest
consequences of their actions. For instance, an international Pew Center
survey right after our Iraqi invasion found that we'd so embittered the
Islamic world that majorities to near-majorities in countries like
Pakistan, Indonesia and Egypt now said they trusted Osama bin Laden "to do
the right thing in world affairs." They now viewed him as a hero, not a
murderer.
Unfortunately, those who initiated the Iraq war now use each additional
American death to justify the need to stay. If we challenge this war,
we're told we're being disloyal to the troops, undermining their resolve
and disdaining their sacrifices. We heard this as well during Vietnam,
after which the media rewrote the history of the antiwar movement to
imply, through images like protestors spitting on soldiers, that those
working to bring the troops home were their enemies.
By time the first Gulf War began, these images were omnipresent. Even
young anti-war activists told me, "We won't spit on the soldiers this
time." Yet when sociologists Jerry Starr and Richard Flacks, who worked
extensively with Vietnam vets, tried to track down the story, they
couldn't find a single incident of a vet who said he was actually spat
upon. And when syndicated columnist Bob Greene invited responses on the
subject in a column that reached 200 papers, he found only a handful.
The power of such useful myths may erode as military families and veterans
play an increasingly visible role in the current antiwar movement, though
veterans and families played a key part in the Vietnam-era peace movement
as well. Every time I've marched against this war, I've ended up next to
someone carrying a picture of a relative in uniform, a son or brother,
husband, nephew, or niece, often someone facing the involuntary servitude
of being unable to leave the military long after his or her original
service term had expired. But unless we can convince our fellow citizens
to separate the lives of the soldiers from the policies that place them in
harm's way, they'll continue to be held hostage to the choices of leaders
who are insulated from the human costs
So let's remember the debt we owe to those who have died for freedom as
well as those who risk and sacrifice in the name of protecting us all.
But not all wartime deaths advance human dignity, and not all sacrifices
are worthwhile. If those who die for a worthy cause are indeed heroes to
be honored, those who send our brave young men and women to die in wars of
empire and dominion squander their courage, their trust, and ultimately
their lives. To use their losses to justify further needless deaths is to
betray the best of what the soldiers enlist to protect. For not all of
America's wars have been worth dying in, nor are those we now fight.
---
Paul Rogat Loeb is the author of
http://www.theimpossible.htm The
Impossible Will Take a Little While: A Citizen's Guide to Hope in a Time
of Fear, winner of the Nautilus Award for best social change book of last
year. He's also the author of Soul of a Citizen: Living With Conviction in
a Cynical Time and three other books. This piece originated on
TomDisptach.com
