If any question why we died, tell them, because our fathers lied.

[Q]

Published on Thursday, January 27, 2005 by CommonDreams.org

Tell Them, 'Because our Fathers Lied'

by Gilbert Jordan

 
"The master class has always declared the wars;
the subject class has always fought the battles...."
- Eugene Debs

Almost two years after our invasion of Iraq - an occasion that was to be 'a piece of cake,' one that would be celebrated by Iraqis strewing flowers before our troops - it is well past the point when we should recognize that the Iraq War has become the Vietnam of the 21st Century. As in Vietnam, The Mexican War, the Spanish American War, the pretext for going to war was manufactured by misrepresenting facts and whipping up public fury, usually a simple task when that well known toxin - patriotism - is in the air.

Many years ago Rudyard Kipling wrote in his Epitaphs of the War:

'If any question why we died,
Tell them, because our fathers lied.'

At the same time, one of England's most promising poets of WWI, Wilfred Owen, wrote a famous anti-war poem. After presenting a series of ghastly images relating to the death of a soldier by mustard gas, Owen tells us that if we could witness such scenes, then

'My friend, you would not tell with such high zest to children ardent for some desperate glory. The old lie: Dulce et decorum est Pro Patria Mori.' For those of us without an Oxford education, the translation of the Latin is, "It is sweet and fitting that you should die for your country."

President Bush and his minions are not unique in riding to war on the back of lies. Presidents Polk, McKinley, and Johnson, among others, were equally guilty. In each case, these presidents embarked on wars that were based not on self-defense but naked aggression and a desire to expropriate what belonged rightfully to others. To mask such pillaging, it is always accompanied by an appeal to nationalism and soaring flights of rhetoric. With Iraq, President Bush kept inventing new rationales for the invasion, all of them evoking some noble purpose. And in his second inaugural speech just delivered, more of the same was dished up supposedly in the service of liberty and justice for all of the world's citizens. Of this tactic, columnist Molly Ivins would say, "It's like putting lipstick on a pig."

While the President can endlessly resort to Pollyanna summaries of the "catastrophic success" of our engagement in Iraq, the truth puts the lie to all of these fictions. --- http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0127-26.htm

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1. I wonder...

...how many Americans even think about those dying in Iraq and other foreign places in the name of....what? Patriotism? It's not patriotic to send America's sons and daughters to die in a needless, senseless war.

It's insanity.

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2. I'll ask everyone reading this thread...

...to join me in a moment of silence or prayer...for those who have died and will die for our father's lies. Just a moment to think about what it means to kill and be killed on the orders of an insane commander in chief.

A moment of your time...to wonder what you could do to put an end to the slaughter of tens of thousands of innocent civilians and those being sent to fight and die in OUR name.

In their memory...

...the 'lawmakers' who have brought them this horror are guilty of treason.