Old Lessons Still Unlearned

Despite the Bush administration’s optimism and strident insistence of — “no surrender” / “no defeatism” — by a chorus of prominent Republicans, bloodly day by bloodly day, the United States’ invasion and occupation of Iraq descends further into its abyss of immorality, absurdity, and carnage, revealing very troubling features of the U. S. national profile.

Democrats miserably failed to accomplish simple homework about Iraqi politics and history required to understand and avoid this stupendous blunder by duly and effectively challenging Bush’s bad proposals.

Lustrous allure of pseudo-patriotism, combined with regular incompetence, riddled most of the Democrats’ ranks. Ignorance and hubris, poured from an imperial pitcher of 19th Century, Manifest Destiny, joined to swiftly become a politically contagious cocktail, especially for mainstream types of Democrats.

Crusader-mentality and herd-behavior, two prominent national features, seem generally unreflected upon within U. S. politics. It’s as if this nation is truly, dangerously insane, and lacks even the psychological capabilities to comprehend its circumstances. Abundant anti-intellectualism and political self-deception exists within U. S. culture, constraining evolution of national ethics and conscience.

It’s almost as if no politician who honestly expresses the truth about our national predicaments could ever become elected.

Insulated within a dense, cultural bubble of class-slanted affluence, obsessive mass-marketing and consumerism, media-churned pseudo-spectacles, and a knee-jerk reflex of deference to authorities of elites and experts, mentalities within much of ordinary U. S. citizenry don’t well encompass complex, international facts and realities. National attention is virtually consumed.

Vacuums of rationality and morality, like that within recent U. S. political dynamics and policies, have again caused this — “nation of sheep” — (credit to William Lederer’s book of the Vietnam era) to ship its dear soldiers to a slaughterhouse.

Soldiers are regular folks, generally unprepared for intense cross-cultural and psychological turmoil of a conflict such as this so-called war in Iraq. Soldiers aren’t combat machines filled with training, duties and orders, then sent into battle.

They’re ordinary persons like you and I, who possess various attitudes, values and perspectives, across a very wide spectrum of individual experience.

Soldiers deserve to fight and risk themselves for a worthy cause (if one might occasionally be found) for they stake their efforts, lives and honor to such a quest.

The U. S. paid a very high price for its hugely mistaken adventure in Vietnam, which didn’t turn out to be the Philippines of the Gilded Age, conquered at the upswing of U. S. power. The Vietnamese drove the U. S. out of their country, using guerrilla tactics, just like the (eventual) U. S. defeated the British. The fact that this was obviously what would happen, was common knowledge among salient portions of the U. S. population by 1968. Yet, this nation and Vietnam, plus much of IndoChina faced more long years of bloody war and vast carnage.

The Vietnam War Memorial is not a monument which is cast in the style of victory.

From this pure confession, some might assume that such a nation had learned a very difficult and important lesson. But somehow, U. S. political leadership has again badly failed this nation’s people — for a longer period of time than World War Two — and still cannot even find brakes to halt this current version of runaway, wrong-war machinery.

Let’s take a look at some details of this landscape, from soldiers’ own mouths.

Recently, the U. S. military has released results of its (August / Sept.) 2006, anonymous polling of soldiers in Iraq, which confirm what might be suspected — U. S. soldiers aren’t a particularly good fit within Iraq. For years, polling of Iraqi people has shown a majority wanting the U.S. occupation to end and at least tolerant of attacks on U. S. troops. Now, we can see that reciprocal sentiments exist among U. S. troops.

These attacks, sophisticated bombs and suicide bombers, resemble some of the tactics used by Muslims in defeating the Holy Crusaders in Jerusalem. Suicide missions and bomb-sophistication are very powerful weapons, also reminiscent of the unqualified devotion of Vietnamese to U. S. eviction from their nation.

War is hell, so to speak. Why has the U. S. has repeatedly permitted itself to march into hell — without a heavenly cause — but rather with a transparently avaricious agenda of corporate empire? Why is it the case that some folks seem blind to this political / cultural reality?

The following data reflects results of the official, U. S. Defense Department (anonymous) survey of soldiers, as reported in the U. S. military publication, “Stars & Stripes” :

* The survey found that one-third of troops in combat report feelings of anxiety, depression and stress.

* Just 47 percent of soldiers and 38 percent of the Marines participating believe that noncombatants should be treated with “dignity and respect,” according to the report.

* One servicemember in 10 admitted to hitting or kicking a civilian, or destroying noncombatant property without justification.

* Fewer than half of soldiers and Marines polled in Iraq would report a buddy for unethical behavior.

* More than one-third also felt that torture should be allowed to save the life of a fellow soldier.

* The more frequently servicemembers are deployed, and the longer they stay on the battlefield, the more likely they are to report losing not only their moral compass, but their mental well-being.

* As part of their recommendations, the survey’s researchers said soldiers should remain at home base for 18 to 36 months to recover from the stress of the battle. Deployment length was directly linked to morale problems in the Army, according to the report.

* The Army recently announced that all combat tours in the Middle East will be extended from one year to 15 months. The Army’s current goal, with the 15- month deployments in place, is for active- duty troops to have a one-year break between deployments.

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