The Missing Measure of Our Outrage

[marmar]

from the American Prospect:


The Missing Measure of Our Outrage

If most of us can agree the Iraq War is a colossal failure, why aren't we doing much about it?

Courtney E. Martin | September 10, 2007 | web only



How do you measure war?

It is a question that many of our greatest political philosophers have wrestled with for thousands of years. What number, what unit, what fields of inquiry could possibly describe the progress (or in our present conflict, the lack thereof) when it comes to the mess of war? Is it the number of dead soldiers? The dead plus the injured? The new alliances and government infrastructure? The "collateral damage"? Can it be measured by an absence -- of terrorist attacks, of tyrants, of dreams?

As our Democratic-led Congress looks towards answering this question, or at least attempting to, I have been mulling it over myself. And of course rather than leading to an answer, it seems to have left me staring down another, perhaps even more difficult question: how do you measure a public's responsibility to end war?

I sat drinking beers among family friends on a recent Sunday evening, discussing just this topic with a group of people hailing from both coasts and many places in between, spanning political persuasions from loyal Republican to anarchist, and at all stages of life, from a recent widow to a puppy in love. We were boomers and echoes of the boom, the moneyed and the starving artists. And we were all totally stumped as to what our responsibilities as citizens were in a war, that -- regardless of party affiliation or tax bracket -- we all agreed was a colossal failure.

Why haven't we been more outraged? And if we have, why hasn't it manifested in desperate action?

There were a couple of Vietnam vets in the room, and they were convinced that one of the reasons we have failed to feel strongly about the Iraq War is, sadly, a matter of personal interest. In all of Vietnam, there were somewhere around 58,000 U.S. soldiers killed. In our four years so far of the Iraq War, we haven't even suffered 4,000 yet. There are simply far fewer of us who have had to deal with the war in an acutely personal way. (Though injuries are on the rise because of new forms of warfare.)

My mom teared up as she remembered how many of her friends disappeared to the draft, their empty seats in class like open wounds among those remaining behind. My cousin did two tours of duty in the unforgiving Iraqi desert. I'm proud and lucky to report that he is now studying history at UCLA, galvanized by his mix-bag experience as a Marine to understand the legacy of war and the way that our world is changing. .....(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=the_missing_measure_of_our_outrage