To save your world you asked this man to die; Would this man, could he see you now, ask why ?: W. H. Auden: "Epitaph for an Unknown Soldier"
War is a waste as Doug Bandow wrote in March of 2007 and I have updated his figures ~ " War is a huge waste, a monstrous blight upon humanity. Sometimes we must wage war, but it should always be a last resort. Even the winners usually suffer a terrible toll. Some 4,200 'reported' dead in Iraq may seem to be a small bill compared to that for many other conflicts, but 4,200 wasted lives are 4,200 too many. We must bring this needless war to a speedy end. And ensure that U.S. policymakers never again frivolously loose the dogs of war." http://www.antiwar.com/bandow/?articleid=10741
Kristina M. Gronquist calls it the OLD LIE ~ Dulce et decorum est - Pro patria mori ( To die for one’s country is sweet and becoming )
It's from the poem “Dulce et decorum est” by the English poet Wilfred Owen, 1893 -1918, killed at the front a few days before the Armistice.
Here's an excerpt from her timeless article written on memorial Day 2005 ~ " The media will continue, this weekend, to suppress the truth, which is that the war in Iraq is a massive foreign policy failure; Iraq is a failed state, an incredibly chaotic unstable mess where tens of thousands of Iraqis have died needlessly. Unworried Americans will say we can’t judge Iraq yet, we have to “wait and see,” because down the road, if oil rich Iraq becomes a (Western-style) democracy “it will all be worth it”. These are such easy words to utter, from the armchair experts on democracy for Muslims, so smug with remote controls in-hand. Yes, tell the loved ones of one million dead Iraqis that someday the deaths of their family members will all be worth it, as your own children scurry about safe and warm...
On Memorial Day we will blithely ignore the massive protest and hatred that our polices, occupations, torture and wrongful imprisonment have inspired in the Muslim and Arab world. Come to think of it, many Europeans, Latin Americans and Africans aren’t enthralled with our foreign policies either. But an empire can ignore the common sense of the global masses of people who oppose war, and we can easily choose not to try to understand root causes of anti-American sentiment. C’mon - America, it’s Memorial Day, tune that negative reality out and turn on your television for yet another glorious war hero story." http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article8970.htm
We must now face the hard cold reality that War is an insurmountable human waste and not a cause for glorification and celebration ~ and then demand action from our political leaders to end this waste.
What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction of war is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or in the holy name of liberty and democracy?: Mohandas Gandhi.
Allen L Roland http://blogs.salon.com/0002255/2009/05/24.html
