In Memoriam

This is a most solemn day for America. Today, we memorialize our soldiers who died in all of our nation’s battles. But, strangely, we do not memorialize our wars.

In today’s NY Times, there is a particularly moving OpEd by Owen West, a Reserve Marine. It is a must read and I exhort the Editors of the Times not to ignore it.

It starts with this quote from Lincoln’s 2nd inaugural address: “Neither party expected for the war, the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with or even before the conflict itself should cease.” Eleven percent of the adult American citizenry at that time, were soldiers and one out of seven died in the war. Those are awesome figures, especially if viewed from the perspective of our present population (300,000,000). Is it any wonder that Abe Lincoln of that day, like George Bush today, was reviled by The NY Times?

Owen West goes on to say, that the political acrimony which keeps polarizing and vitiating our understanding of the conflict in Iraq, is not only seriously hampering our efforts, it is befuddling our population about how crucially significant this mission really is. Whereas the Civil War started with the secession of the southern states from the Union, the issue of slavery eventually rose to take its rightful place as the quintessential core of the conflict. And whereas this war in Iraq (and Afghanistan) was ostensibly started to deal mortal blows to individuals like Osama and later to Saddam Hussein, we now realize that we are gravely threatened by a particularly determined and militant sector of Islam. And let’s not deceive ourselves, until fundamental political, cultural and religious changes occur in Islam, this war we are waging “against terror” will continue unabated, indefinitely.

All of us, West, East, North and South, have distanced ourselves too far from those natural human instincts with which we were originally endowed. And tragically, we are finding that our “collective intelligence” is simply not up to the task of separating ourselves from the animosities we keep generating, in such never ending profusion.

In Memoriam

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