What If? A Memorial Day Meditation.
I preface my remarks with the admission that I have been fortunate enough to have not lost a close family member to war, so it seems perhaps unseemly to speak out on Memorial Day. I apologize if I inadvertently offend anyone whose losses are closer to home than mine.
Here is what is on my mind, this Memorial Day.
What if, as the President says, our response to 9/11 had been to spread democracy and freedom throughout the Mideast? What if, instead of responding in anger and fear using bombs and guns, we had dedicated a serious national effort to the cause that has finally become the last rationalization for our actions in Iraq? What if we had, as a nation, committed to responding to the hateful, bigoted zealotry of the hijackers, with a redoubled effort to support freedom and prosperity for their people?
Perhaps someone might have decided that we couldn't help them if we couldn't talk to them, and widespread classes in Arabic, Pashtoon, Farsi, and Middle Eastern history might have been organized. Had the bloodlust for Saddam been held in check for a few years, we might have had enough soldiers who spoke the language. (Remember those WWII movies where the unit is saved because the plucky Italian from Brooklyn, or the dapper Brit who learned French, or Sgt. Schmidt from Chicago can speak to the villagers? I often think of those scenes when I watch footage of our troops trying to find a suspect, or working a checkpoint.) If we'd been working for societal change, someone might have pointed out how much easier it would be to understand the motives of the locals if you knew that this guy's grandfather had brutally murdered that guy's grandfather, or that this other guy's innocent grandfather had suffered from "collective punishment" during the reign of the last English-speaking Big Dogs in the neighborhood.
Perhaps, if we had been serious about spreading democracy, even paradoxically with the barrel of a gun, we would have taken a few moments to re-evaluate our balance of forces. We might had noticed that we had far too few military police units, and most of those were reservists, not intended for long-term deployments. We might have noticed that our ground forces had, over the years, cut costs by offloading many of the key specialties for "nation building" on to private contractors, and rethought that decision. We might have paid attention when generals with experience told us we'd need to go in heavy, and assert immediate total control, instead of pretending that we could surgically remove a Bad Guy and modern civil democratic society would burst forth in the last reel.
We might even have given an outlet to the national sense of mourning and helplessness in the days after 9/11, by activating the draft, and sending all those who didn't volunteer for armed duty into organized units of citizen diplomats, teachers, and health-care providers, a true Peace Corps.
What if we'd all decided to dramatically reshape our standing relationships with the nations in the area, using real diplomatic and economic pressure for change? Perhaps we would have agreed upon a national effort to wean ourselves from foreign oil, maybe a "national security" gas surcharge, or the much-longed-for Manhattan Project for alternative fuels. What if we could have forced our "allies" to provide more freedom for home-grown entrepreneurs, and social mobility, and to close their torture chambers, to build belief in us as a true advocate of democracy, not a co-oppressor?
It might have occurred to us that, instead of starting by toppling a dictator who tortured his victims with electrocution, we should start with one who uses boiling, (maybe because he has looted his nation so thoroughly that it doesn't even have an electrical grid?) Even if we weren't able to be completely pure-of-heart, what if we'd gone for Karimov's Uzbeki natural gas and petroleum instead of Saddam's? Wouldn't it feel better? Wouldn't it have made more sense?
Recently, we passed the date on which there has been as much time since 9/11 as there was between Pearl Harbor and V-J Day. Think about that.
In the 1940s, America was able to dedicate its national energy to a cause and truly make history, through shared sacrifice. A huge industrial effort was marshaled. Army and Naval forces were raised, trained, deployed and supplied simultaneously around the world. Amazing breakthroughs in technology were made that would transform the world and lay the basis for decades of economic growth. The social changes required to fight the war led to permanent changes in the status of women and minorities in the country, and greater social equality. Yes, at a great cost. Losses were horrific, sacrifices were great. But it was all done, quickly, following a shocking attack to this country that forced us to acknowledge a war we'd been hoping not to have to fight, and defend the liberty and freedoms we hold dear.
What have we done in the 2000s?
This, in the end, is what infuriates me the most when President Bush or his administration repeats the rhetoric about spreading democracy and freedom as their response to 9/11. It isn't merely that it is just the last remaining fictional fig-leaf for their egotistical actions.
It's that truly spreading democracy and freedom would have been the right thing to do, that it could have transformed the world and human history, and they did no such thing.
Had they gone to the American public in late September 2001, with the sort of dramatic vision of regional change they pay lip-service to now, we would have agreed. Had we put the world on notice that America's response to the horrors of 9/11 was a broad-based diplomatic, economic, and yes, military effort to develop freedom, democracy and economic prosperity in places where the lack of such things led to such inhumanity as we had just suffered, allies would have rushed to our aid. It could have set the tone for the entire century.
What if the President had merely repeated the words of a President 60 years earlier?
Here is what is on my mind, this Memorial Day.
What if, as the President says, our response to 9/11 had been to spread democracy and freedom throughout the Mideast? What if, instead of responding in anger and fear using bombs and guns, we had dedicated a serious national effort to the cause that has finally become the last rationalization for our actions in Iraq? What if we had, as a nation, committed to responding to the hateful, bigoted zealotry of the hijackers, with a redoubled effort to support freedom and prosperity for their people?
Perhaps someone might have decided that we couldn't help them if we couldn't talk to them, and widespread classes in Arabic, Pashtoon, Farsi, and Middle Eastern history might have been organized. Had the bloodlust for Saddam been held in check for a few years, we might have had enough soldiers who spoke the language. (Remember those WWII movies where the unit is saved because the plucky Italian from Brooklyn, or the dapper Brit who learned French, or Sgt. Schmidt from Chicago can speak to the villagers? I often think of those scenes when I watch footage of our troops trying to find a suspect, or working a checkpoint.) If we'd been working for societal change, someone might have pointed out how much easier it would be to understand the motives of the locals if you knew that this guy's grandfather had brutally murdered that guy's grandfather, or that this other guy's innocent grandfather had suffered from "collective punishment" during the reign of the last English-speaking Big Dogs in the neighborhood.
Perhaps, if we had been serious about spreading democracy, even paradoxically with the barrel of a gun, we would have taken a few moments to re-evaluate our balance of forces. We might had noticed that we had far too few military police units, and most of those were reservists, not intended for long-term deployments. We might have noticed that our ground forces had, over the years, cut costs by offloading many of the key specialties for "nation building" on to private contractors, and rethought that decision. We might have paid attention when generals with experience told us we'd need to go in heavy, and assert immediate total control, instead of pretending that we could surgically remove a Bad Guy and modern civil democratic society would burst forth in the last reel.
We might even have given an outlet to the national sense of mourning and helplessness in the days after 9/11, by activating the draft, and sending all those who didn't volunteer for armed duty into organized units of citizen diplomats, teachers, and health-care providers, a true Peace Corps.
What if we'd all decided to dramatically reshape our standing relationships with the nations in the area, using real diplomatic and economic pressure for change? Perhaps we would have agreed upon a national effort to wean ourselves from foreign oil, maybe a "national security" gas surcharge, or the much-longed-for Manhattan Project for alternative fuels. What if we could have forced our "allies" to provide more freedom for home-grown entrepreneurs, and social mobility, and to close their torture chambers, to build belief in us as a true advocate of democracy, not a co-oppressor?
It might have occurred to us that, instead of starting by toppling a dictator who tortured his victims with electrocution, we should start with one who uses boiling, (maybe because he has looted his nation so thoroughly that it doesn't even have an electrical grid?) Even if we weren't able to be completely pure-of-heart, what if we'd gone for Karimov's Uzbeki natural gas and petroleum instead of Saddam's? Wouldn't it feel better? Wouldn't it have made more sense?
Recently, we passed the date on which there has been as much time since 9/11 as there was between Pearl Harbor and V-J Day. Think about that.
In the 1940s, America was able to dedicate its national energy to a cause and truly make history, through shared sacrifice. A huge industrial effort was marshaled. Army and Naval forces were raised, trained, deployed and supplied simultaneously around the world. Amazing breakthroughs in technology were made that would transform the world and lay the basis for decades of economic growth. The social changes required to fight the war led to permanent changes in the status of women and minorities in the country, and greater social equality. Yes, at a great cost. Losses were horrific, sacrifices were great. But it was all done, quickly, following a shocking attack to this country that forced us to acknowledge a war we'd been hoping not to have to fight, and defend the liberty and freedoms we hold dear.
What have we done in the 2000s?
This, in the end, is what infuriates me the most when President Bush or his administration repeats the rhetoric about spreading democracy and freedom as their response to 9/11. It isn't merely that it is just the last remaining fictional fig-leaf for their egotistical actions.
It's that truly spreading democracy and freedom would have been the right thing to do, that it could have transformed the world and human history, and they did no such thing.
Had they gone to the American public in late September 2001, with the sort of dramatic vision of regional change they pay lip-service to now, we would have agreed. Had we put the world on notice that America's response to the horrors of 9/11 was a broad-based diplomatic, economic, and yes, military effort to develop freedom, democracy and economic prosperity in places where the lack of such things led to such inhumanity as we had just suffered, allies would have rushed to our aid. It could have set the tone for the entire century.
What if the President had merely repeated the words of a President 60 years earlier?
In the future days, which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms.Following such a leader, we might have done great things. For the men and women who are responsible for the horrible waste we are now living to even hint that they follow such a vision is like blasphemy. For the Senate to be occupied with fighting over unsuitable nominees put forward in pettiness, instead of legislation to bring some kind of solace to the downtrodden and oppressed -- everywhere in the world, is criminal. And for us today to be memorializing hundreds more brave young Americans lost, with so little to show for it, is a tragedy.
The first is freedom of speech and expression -- everywhere in the world.
The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way -- everywhere in the world.
The third is freedom from want -- which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants -- everywhere in the world.
The fourth is freedom from fear -- which, translated into world terms, means a world-wide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor-- anywhere in the world.
That is no vision of a distant millennium. It is a definite basis for a kind of world attainable in our own time and generation. That kind of world is the very antithesis of the so-called new order of tyranny which the dictators seek to create with the crash of a bomb.
To that new order we oppose the greater conception -- the moral order. A good society is able to face schemes of world domination and foreign revolutions alike without fear.
Since the beginning of our American history, we have been engaged in change -- in a perpetual peaceful revolution -- a revolution which goes on steadily, quietly adjusting itself to changing conditions -- without the concentration camp or the quick-lime in the ditch. The world order which we seek is the cooperation of free countries, working together in a friendly, civilized society.
This nation has placed its destiny in the hands and heads and hearts of its millions of free men and women; and its faith in freedom under the guidance of God. Freedom means the supremacy of human rights everywhere. Our support goes to those who struggle to gain those rights or keep them. Our strength is our unity of purpose.
To that high concept there can be no end save victory.
posted by Paul at 10:32 AM |
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