Monday, May 28, 2007

Bacevich: "The people have spoken, and nothing of substance has changed"

Andrew Bacevich, writing in the Washington Post on Sunday, offers a moving reflection on his personal loss and the wider tragedy of American politics.

It's a Memorial Day message that goes well beyond the meaningless platitudes we're accustomed to hearing on this holiday. A as despairing as it is, gives me hope that a figure such as Bacevich, with a distinguished military record and impeccable conservative bona fides, could have the courage to speak so forcefully about the meat grinder chewing up bodies in the background as we go about our holiday weekend rituals of golf, barbecue and mowing lawns.

Still, I don't think this eloquent and melancholy piece will come close to converting the remaining Republican faithful, and more important, the "leaders" of both parties and America's corporate media. (Where is our Walter Cronkite????) Bacevich admits as much, and frets heartbreakingly over how he has "done nothing." That couldn't be further from the truth.

Echoing perhaps the misguided search for turning points indicating the possibility of victory in Iraq, I can only express a faint hope that Bacevich's message, there for all to see on the op-ed page of the nation's paper on a Memorial Day weekend, will serve as a turning point in moving America's sentiment against this war, and against the horrible infrastructure that makes all such wars possible and inevitable. It's a faint hope, but it's all we've got.

Here's the core of Bacevich's piece, which should of course be read in full.

Not for a second did I expect my own efforts [in opposing the Iraq war] to make a difference. But I did nurse the hope that my voice might combine with those of others -- teachers, writers, activists and ordinary folks -- to educate the public about the folly of the course on which the nation has embarked. I hoped that those efforts might produce a political climate conducive to change. I genuinely believed that if the people spoke, our leaders in Washington would listen and respond.

This, I can now see, was an illusion.

The people have spoken, and nothing of substance has changed. The November 2006 midterm elections signified an unambiguous repudiation of the policies that landed us in our present predicament. But half a year later, the war continues, with no end in sight. Indeed, by sending more troops to Iraq (and by extending the tours of those, like my son, who were already there), Bush has signaled his complete disregard for what was once quaintly referred to as "the will of the people."

To be fair, responsibility for the war's continuation now rests no less with the Democrats who control Congress than with the president and his party. After my son's death, my state's senators, Edward M. Kennedy and John F. Kerry, telephoned to express their condolences. Stephen F. Lynch, our congressman, attended my son's wake. Kerry was present for the funeral Mass. My family and I greatly appreciated such gestures. But when I suggested to each of them the necessity of ending the war, I got the brushoff. More accurately, after ever so briefly pretending to listen, each treated me to a convoluted explanation that said in essence: Don't blame me.

To whom do Kennedy, Kerry and Lynch listen? We know the answer: to the same people who have the ear of George W. Bush and Karl Rove -- namely, wealthy individuals and institutions.

Money buys access and influence. Money greases the process that will yield us a new president in 2008. When it comes to Iraq, money ensures that the concerns of big business, big oil, bellicose evangelicals and Middle East allies gain a hearing. By comparison, the lives of U.S. soldiers figure as an afterthought.

Memorial Day orators will say that a G.I.'s life is priceless. Don't believe it. I know what value the U.S. government assigns to a soldier's life: I've been handed the check. It's roughly what the Yankees will pay Roger Clemens per inning once he starts pitching next month.

Money maintains the Republican/Democratic duopoly of trivialized politics. It confines the debate over U.S. policy to well-hewn channels. It preserves intact the cliches of 1933-45 about isolationism, appeasement and the nation's call to "global leadership." It inhibits any serious accounting of exactly how much our misadventure in Iraq is costing. It ignores completely the question of who actually pays. It negates democracy, rendering free speech little more than a means of recording dissent.

This is not some great conspiracy. It's the way our system works.

In joining the Army, my son was following in his father's footsteps: Before he was born, I had served in Vietnam. As military officers, we shared an ironic kinship of sorts, each of us demonstrating a peculiar knack for picking the wrong war at the wrong time. Yet he was the better soldier -- brave and steadfast and irrepressible.

I know that my son did his best to serve our country. Through my own opposition to a profoundly misguided war, I thought I was doing the same. In fact, while he was giving his all, I was doing nothing. In this way, I failed him.


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