The mounting horrors of the war are with me all the time. Countless Iraqis are being killed and maimed by the actions of U.S. and British forces. They in turn are being subjected to the same risks at the hands of the Iraqis. As our military commanders become frustrated with the slow progress and the Iraqi commanders become more desperate, casualty rates will skyrocket. It is callous nonsense to say that our troops are volunteers and that they knew they would be subjected to danger when they signed up. They joined the armed forces with the implicit expectation that our military might would be wielded in a legitimate and just manner and only when all reasonable alternatives had been exhausted. They have been betrayed.
Our young men and women are there and in great danger, and we are here and we must support them. The popular belief is that this requires that we unite behind our president’s policies and stifle our misgivings. We are told that to speak out against the war while our troops are engaged in battle is unpatriotic. Is it not possible to support the warrior but not the war? Is it unpatriotic to grieve for Iraqi casualties as well as our casualties? If the war was wrong before it started, does it cease to be wrong once it starts? Does not real patriotism require us to resist being cowed into sullen silence? And who speaks for those of our troops who also believe the war is wrong but are muzzled by military discipline? Who gives voice to them?
So how do we support our troops while continuing to assert that the war is wrong and must stop? Our service men and women perform a function no less vital than the role of our police and firefighters, and no less dangerous and no less underpaid and under-appreciated. We take them for granted and expect them to do their jobs when the need arises. A11 other times, we ignore them. Of course, support for out troops must include giving them the tangible materiel they must have to survive their ordeal. While the fighting continues this must include weaponry and all that goes with it. Our casualties must receive the best possible medical and psychological treatment and those disabled, physically or emotionally, must receive long-term assistance. The widows, widowers and orphans must be similarly aided. The “Gulf War syndrome” and depleted uranium poisoning issues must be addressed. The sacrifices that our troops and their families are making must be recognized and rewarded. Our veterans of the first Gulf War know what it means to be ignored.
But this is not enough! We can give them the most valuable support possible by continuing efforts to remove them from harm’s way by ending the war. The end need not be achieved by bloody battlefield victory. The end could be based on a U.N.-brokered cease fire, a long-term U.N. weapons inspection program and peace keeping force and, most importantly, an acceptance by this country of the realization that we cannot and should not attempt to right every wrong.
Henry Pollard