Iraq War Memorial..

[Bigmack]

I can't figure where to post this. It's an editorial... it's a breaking story (we'll see more like it)... it needs discussion...

What kind of memorial for a war founded on lies and marked by torture and large civilian casualties? Hmmmm. Any ideas?
- - - - - -
Honor our young soldiers for their courage and resolve

By John Hughes
The Christian Science Monitor (snips)

ST. GEORGE, UTAH — It is time for Americans to be thinking about a memorial to their soldiers who have fallen in Iraq.

This might seem premature. Clearly there are more battles yet to be fought and more casualties to be taken.

It also might seem fanciful to be talking about building such a memorial on the Washington Mall at a time when there are still deep divisions among Americans about the rectitude of the war.

But though such divisions of opinion exist about whether such a war should have been launched, there is great unity of admiration for the valor of the young soldiers — often no more than teenagers just out of high school — who went to Iraq in the service of their country.

Thus the nation could find a unifying bond in planning for a memorial to those who are not returning.

There is special poignancy about their sacrifice because, unlike the troops in the Vietnam War, who were often draftees, the American soldiers who have gone to Iraq are part of a volunteer Army.

I was thinking about this over the Thanksgiving holidays safe with my family in the serenity and beauty of sun-splashed southern Utah, as I was reading the firsthand accounts of newsmen embedded with U.S. units engaged in the street-to-street assault on Fallujah.

Tom Friedman, a Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times columnist who supported the war, has many doubts about its prosecution and its outcome. Yet, after a visit to Fallujah, he wrote that "despite all the mistakes made," what the U.S. is attempting in Iraq "is an incredibly noble thing."

They deserve to be honored by all Americans. That honor should one day be translated into permanent recognition in the shape of a memorial on the Washington Mall.

John Hughes, a former editor of the Monitor, is editor and chief operating officer of the Deseret Morning News.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2002106272_hughes02.html

[PATRICK]

1. The cost of nobility

Should be seen in such memorials as the burned out corpses strung up over a solid huge base of realistically portrayed enemy casualties including women and children. If the memorial is to war than that is it. If it is to the soldiers who died believing in the cause that is another matter, but it also entails whether that cause is real to begin with, outside of the young programmed minds and the surface liberation/democracy.

Better yet a monument to WMD. An empty pedestal.

How can anyone allow their children to be cannon fodder for possible corporate dictators and then ennoble their victimhood and complicity in murder and exploitation? Easy. Buy totally into the "bright side" and individual personal commitment and patriotism.

And no, the demonization of soldiers, pretty much the same sort of courageous(or brutalized) fellows throughout history, is not appropriate. They are usually part of the victim class for the sake of the myth protected few. War is really all about the perps. Sometimes THEY get monuments. Those we can tear down.

[PATRICK]

2. The cost of nobility

Should be seen in such memorials as the burned out corpses strung up over a solid huge base of realistically portrayed enemy casualties including women and children. If the memorial is to war then that is it. If it is to the soldiers who died believing in the cause that is another matter, but it also entails whether that cause is real to begin with, outside of the young programmed minds and the surface liberation/democracy.

Better yet a monument to WMD. An empty pedestal.

How can anyone allow their children to be cannon fodder for possible corporate dictators and then ennoble their victimhood and complicity in murder and exploitation? Easy. Buy totally into the "bright side" and individual personal commitment and patriotism.

And no, the demonization of soldiers, pretty much the same sort of courageous(or brutalized) fellows throughout history, is not appropriate. They are usually part of the victim class for the sake of the myth protected few. War is really all about the perps. Sometimes THEY get monuments. Those we can tear down.