Memorial
Day
Fighting
wars is hard. It is appropriate that we set aside one day each year
to acknowledge the soldiers who fought our wars.
But
the rhetoric of Memorial Day also frequently glorifies war and that
is a terrible mistake. War is an unmitigated disaster.
Too
many of the young men and women who discover this too late, have been
misled by this patriotic rhetoric that glorified war and asserts that
ours is a great nation because we can destroy and have destroyed the
countries and the population of other nations.
We
should refrain from this misguided glorification of violence.
Instead,
after recognizing the service of our soldiers, we should also speak
at length about the suffering we impose on other nations. UNESCO
estimates that half a million Iraqi children died as an effect of
US/UN imposed sanctions between the two Gulf Wars. We need to
remember the grotesquely disabled children of parents exposed to
Agent Orange during the Vietnam war. That war is over for most of us
but is still a terrible reality in Vietnam.
Side
by side with honoring veterans, Memorial Day should be the day to
remember the shame of the leaders that pushed us into these terrible
wars; We should turn away in shame from the names of Kennedy,
McNamara, and Kissinger. We should loudly proclaim the dishonor of
Wolfowitz and Cheney, of Ashcroft, and of Bush.
We
should roundly criticize the legislators who are busily appropriating
more and more money for weapons because they bring jobs to their
districts.
And
we should finally ask ourselves how it is possible that our vaunted
economic system cannot find work for
everyone even though a significant portion of the workforce produces
weapons of mass destruction.
No comments:
Post a Comment