When the guns fall silent

[DFW]

Every armed conflict comes to an end.

Sometimes it takes days. Sometimes it takes centuries. But at some
point the last shot is fired, the last soldier is wounded, the last
child dies for having been in the wrong place at the wrong time, and
the last cent has been spent on sustaining the hostilities.

Then, the victors, if there are any, and the vanquished, if there are
any left, turn to the inevitable questions. Was it all worth it, and
what next?

As a leader, it's easy to convince a population that a war is justified,
as long as you win. America's first major foray into a totally unnecessary
foreign war brought the defeat of an enfeebled Spain and got us colonies
in the far east and the Caribbean. When we helped out in World War One, we
were saviors, but for the first time since the Civil War, we lost thousands,
and got many horribly disfigured thousands more back alive. Even so, we
were the heroes, and our participation lasted less than two years.

The leaders of Japan, Germany, and Italy had their countries convinced that
they were doing something well worthwhile in the 1930s and 1940s. Come 1945,
suddenly they figured out that the whole adventure was most definitely not
worth it, and became (especially Japan and Germany) bastions of pacifism. Not
so the USA. We saved the world (again), got our economy steaming, our
industries running at full pitch, and despite horrendous losses and more
war wounded, felt good about ourselves after not quite four years of war.

Even in Korea, we had convinced ourselves that we were the good guys, and
that was over in less than three years. Saved our friends from "kommanism,"
doncha know, and granted: Kim Il Sung was almost as bad a nut case as his
loony son turned out to be. The guns fell silent, and at least South Korea
became prosperous, and has even managed to toss off Park Chung Hee's
de facto dictatorship and establish a fair semblance of democracy.

But then came Vietnam, and it wasn't so clear any more that we were the good
guys. We were not on friendly territory, and didn't know who our allies were.
Our medical care was better, but that just meant we had fewer dead and a lot
more badly maimed guys returning, and a lot of mental wounds that blew up like
a hidden cancer years later. It took us ten years to get out of that one, and
what did we have to show for it? We lost money (unless you sold the government
guns), men, and standing. It took us a remarkably short twenty years to regain
the money and the standing. It took us an even shorter ten years to lose both,
again, and we have dug ourselves into a deep hole from which we don't seem to
be able to extricate ourselves.

After Vietnam, the two questions were inevitably asked again, as they have
always been. But this time, the answers weren't what we had grown accustomed to
hearing: no, this one was not worth it, and we had no idea what was to come
next, because we would have no say whatsoever in it. Vietnam was not a pleasant
place to live for the first twenty years after we left. It is on the road to
becoming a better place now. They lost a lot of time while the French and the
US were tearing their country up, trying to remake it into something it never
was and never would be. We ran out of there, not because our leaders were too
cowardly to "finish the job and win," but because our people finally figured
out that there was nothing for us to win. Our departure was determined by a
calculation of how much more we were willing to lose, and when the answer finally
became "zero," we left. There was turmoil, but eventually the guns fell silent.
We're back, but now with development and an embassy, not bunkers and bases for
fighter jets. Lesson learned.

NOT.

So now, here we are again, involved in an unnecessary invasion, started cynically
by a very few who stood to enhance their wealth and prestige, built on their
media manipulation, and lasting longer than our involvement in World War II.
The results are well enough known so far, I don't need to repeat them here. But
at some point, the guns will, once again, fall silent. Not when we leave--we have
created too much of a powder keg for that to happen right away. Conflicts among
the Sunni, the Shia, and the Kurds will have to be resolved, and MANY more lives
will be lost there before the chaos we created will be resolved. But at SOME
point, the last shot will have been fired. And so, once again, as always: was
it worth it? Cheney already answered that one nine years before he had Junior
launch the invasion: "no, and we think we got it right." All the lost people,
wrecked budget, demolished American prestige, maimed and disturbed vets returning
because our medics were good enough to save their bodies, but couldn't repair
their minds or their lives. All the countless lost lives in Iraq and the local
people who will curse America's name and tell their children to do so as well.

Not only was it not worth it, it was so very NOT worth it, and why this wasn't
evident to more people in power before it was even considered escapes me.

And lastly: what next? When the guns fall silent, what is left? A fractured
country, an America once again scratching its head, saying how could we have
been so blind and so reckless as not to see this coming? A gaping hole in the
territory that was Iraq--an artificial country to begin with. The fighting over
territory that would have been resolved a century ago, had not colonial powers
from Europe decided to forge artificial nations out of areas geographically
convenient to them, will continue when the last American fighter has departed.
Maybe for months, probably for years. Then something will get resolved. Maybe it
will take another century, but it will get resolved. That is what will come next.
It will be bloody, and innocents will suffer unimaginable horrors, and they will
be photographed for Newsweek, and forgotten when the next issue comes out with
Paris Hilton or some sports figure who has made a fool of himself.

The "what next?" question, after Vietnam, but especially after Iraq, really
hurts. Except for war injuries and Agent Orange lingering in Vietnam, we might as
well never have been involved there militarily at all. At some point, Iraq will
say the same thing--one distant day after the last shot has been fired.

What is next immediately we can't know. But far into the future, Bush's invasion
will be remembered, both here and in the Middle East, as a foolish, evil
undertaking that accomplished exactly nothing. Bush talks now of victory vs.
surrender, when there is nothing to win, and no one to surrender to.

The guns may not fall silent immediately in Iraq, but it is time for OUR guns
to fall silent, be packed up, and sent home, or to wherever they are needed.
That is what is next for us, whether it is tomorrow or in ten years, so why
not now? It may not be the victory Bush wants, but every day that we save by
departing now will have been a day that SOME people on both sides did NOT die.
And THAT, my friends, is as good as we're ever going to get, and every day saved
will have been well worth it.

[DFW]

1. PS:

Never write some long post right before you fall asleep if you
want to edit it again!!