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Today's Top News
The Not-So-Small Price of Iraq
Until recently, I thought America agreed that the death of over 3,800 troops in Iraq is a tremendous loss to this country.
My brother, Sgt. Sherwood Baker, is just one in that number. He was a soldier in the Pennsylvania Army National Guard, and was killed in an explosion in Baghdad on April 26, 2004.
Sherwood, like other fallen heroes, was a leader in his community, a vital link in the fabric that binds us as Americans. His son, growing into a young man, has the loss etched into his long, penetrating stares. Who could look at him and say his father's sacrifice was, in actuality, not a large one?
A chorus of war enthusiasts is giving it a shot. House GOP leader John Boehner said it best when asked recently about the monetary and human price tag of the war. He categorized these costs as a "small price to pay."
The death and dismemberment in Iraq is being spun as the pro-war lobby tries to shore up support for more blank checks from Congress. Pay no attention to the devastation behind the curtain, they tell us.
Of course, anyone who's lost a relative, anyone caring for a wounded vet, anyone whose marriage has been destroyed, anyone with skin in the game will tell you that the cost of war is, indeed, great. That was spelled out again for me when we visited my brother's grave. It would have been his 34th birthday. He's still young, I'm reminded.
But the effort now is to paint these tragedies that dot the landscape as random and obscure.
The goal is to keep the machine rolling. Rep. Boehner knows his audience is much greater than Gold Star and military families.
The war, in reality, is a small price to pay for this country. We, the affected, represent an incredibly limited portion of the population. Less than one percent has served in Iraq. The breadth of the sacrifice has maybe hit 10 percent of the country.
What Americans must rely on is their empathy. The emotional vulnerability of our citizenry again becomes the strategic battleground. And just as distortions led us into this war, they are being used to keep us there.
The numbers aren't really that bad, they tell us. Perhaps 100,000 or more Iraqi citizens have been killed. Shamefully, we can't tell you for sure because their lives never mattered as much. "We don't do body counts on the other people," as Donald Rumsfeld said.
If the public blinks, they'll miss the truth about our own casualty figures. To put a better face on what's happening, the Department of Defense decided that non-combat injuries won't make the most prominently published totals. The average person might be surprised to learn that more than 50,000 armed service members have been wounded or killed in Iraq.
But the real cost of the Iraq war is yet to be defined. The impact of the first Gulf War, a four-day ground war, is revealing. Of those veterans, more than one out of every four has been granted a service-connected disability.
What does this portend for the almost million and a half vets of this war, many of whom have served multiple deployments in a conflict approaching its five- year anniversary?
Still, Congress will remain partly unable but mostly unwilling to take a stand. They have succumbed to the false pressure that they must "support our troops" by keeping the money flowing.
The question is: What are we funding? Are we really benefiting our military by leaving them under-equipped and stretched thin? What is their mission amidst a civil war fought, in part, with weapons we flooded into the country? Does continuing this morass not somehow benefit al Qaeda?
Politicians will gloss over these questions and the brunt of the unending carnage will be absorbed by people like my nephew. Some pundits, meanwhile, cheer from the sidelines and ask these children to accept their tragedy as historically insignificant. How awful will we, as a nation, become to maintain this war?
For four and a half years, the reported deaths of soldiers, Marines, airmen, sailors, Coast Guardsmen and contractors has been heartbreakingly painful. The magnitude of their sacrifice has been a crucial part of the debate. Politically savvy war supporters want to change that.
They will try to keep the blinders on with their morally defunct contextualization. They want the focus out front, even as their policies and ideologies leaves broken bodies and broken lives in the rear-view mirror. *
Dante Zappala is a member of Military Families Speak Out (www.mfso.org).
© Copyright 2007 Philly Online, LLC
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9 Comments so far
Show AllZappala has hit the nail on the head. Has there ever been a war that the public feels less? Let's make them feel it! Instigate a draft and force a balanced war budget! I'm not sure how to go about it yet, but I'm thinking...
Dante is a hero to me: speaking out, and never tiring of the fight that must continue to be fought.
I am constantly surprised at how this administration considers itself to be "pro life" when they can dispatch hundreds of thousands to their graves in a deceptive war against an enemy defined by ideology to scare a weak kneed congress into its continued support. When we as a country lose its best and brightest to a war without end, we deserve the inbred billionaire frat boys who will only run for office to perpetuate their survival in the ruling class and to feed the corpoate greed that is killing a beautiful idea called America.
America is a whore. Never missing an opportunity to get on her knees to make a buck, regardless of the consequences.
Filthy filthy whore.
mr.dante,after reading this,my heart fell to my feet and my tongue tied,unable to find any words of my own to express all this tragedy...i felt the depth of your emotion in this powerful essay...i am truly sorry for your loss.
correctivelens..methinks you need correctivelens,i dont know what you were doing in the days leading up to shock and awe, i spent weeks writing to the white house and my representatives,asking them to please not commit the people of america to an insane and unnecessary act of aggression and misplaced revenge.well,of course,i am nobody,but a layman and they sure didnt listen to me...but honestly the public doesnt feel this war because a great many knew it was not the correct response to 9/11and that no plan had been put in place,to protect the people,they invaded and occupied.in other words,much of the public NEVER believed bush and his pack of professional liars...if you personally would like to feel this war,go enlist with our military and pay the war taxes pelosi would like to levy on us..for the rest of us..who are still waiting for an answer to what happened to the billions of dollars 'missing'from the funds of the american people.when all it would take is one finger and one button=to blow the whole planet up...why bother, having wars at all,anymore..terrorists used to be just isolated little bands of fanatics,that were not sanctioned by any country..it is bush who promoted them to the legitimate status,they enjoy,today.
correctivelens,every time bush goes to congress for more money he says"its for the troops"that tired old mantra"we must support our troops"IS PURE NONSENSE !! out of trillions of dollars,the majority finds its way into the pockets of bush,all his corporate buddies and high-priced mercenaries,bush throws a couple of pennies to our troops,every once in awhile...
I do not support our troops. I hope they are forced to come home, and soon. Unlike Vietnam where the majority of our service-people were drafted, our troops now are all there voluntarily. Many of them thrill seekers who just happen to come from lower class backgrounds than their Blackwater counterparts.
Are we even at war? Only congress can declare war. And although they abdicated their authority to do so to the son-of-a-privileged that couldn't make it through a state-side national guard commission and the other sons-of-a-privileged that got deferments and hence have no idea of the true brutality of war, congress can still put an end to this, since they fund it.
Only congress can declare war, as set up at the founding of this country, to avoid exactly what is happening now.
What we need is an amendment stating that in order for the US to drop a single bomb on foreign soil there needs to be a formal declaration of war by congress. AND any formal declaration of MUST necessitate a draft, so that all can feel the pain.
Why an amendment? Because the cronies that have been placed on the supreme court would over-rule any bill doing it. Of course, an amendment means we the people have to make it happen, which will never come to pass.
Meanwhile the world sees us with ever-growing suspicion, and rightfully so. I fear we are all fucked.
gbaldmoove...you are wrong,i know many soldiers,whom truly believed it was for their country,believed in the president as a small naive child believes in santa claus.. way more than half of our children,that signed on believed..AND THEY HAVE BEEN BETRAYED IN THE WORST POSSIBLE WAYS..IN WAYS SO HORRIFIC AS TO BE UNIMAGINABLE !!......