PeaceBang

War and Sacrifice

March 14, 2008 on 8:25 am | In Activism, Cultural Commentary |

I got an e-mail yesterday from a colleague asking me to sign on to a statement of Lamentation and Repentance for War generated by Jim Wallis and the good folks at Sojourners. As I’m sure you are aware, March 19 marks the fifth anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, a moral disaster of such long-lasting and profound dimensions I won’t even try to address them in a phrase or two.

When I think of this occupation, though, I think not of my own generation but of my nephews’ grandchildren, who will stay be paying for it, and theirs after them. I am convinced that two hundred years hence, if we still have a planet Earth and a history of it, this episode will be remembered as one of the greatest disgraces committed by an empire at the height of its power. It will be remembered as a tale of stupidity and hubris and cultural ignorance over which historians and lay people will shake their heads wondering, “How could that one superpower in that era do something so incredibly, obviously motivated by bloodlust and greed? How did their great government allow it? How could the people not take to the streets in droves, screaming and protesting, boycotting and barraging their elected representatives until they got out? What in the world was it really supposed to accomplish? How long did it take Iraq and surrounding nations to regain anything resembling equilibrium?”

I did sign on to the Call to Lament and Repent, but really, what other sacrifices have I been asked to make? Sending an e-mail petition is a pitifully empty action made through zero effort by a fat, comfortable civilian whose exterior life has been entirely uninterrupted or disturbed by this war while thousands of my countrymen and women are dead, are currently in harm’s way, and whose families daily bear the burden of their being in a hostile, dangerous environment fighting a war with no end in sight. My only sigh of regret comes at the gas pump, where I shell out (pun intended) over $3 a gallon for gas so I can go and drive wherever I please, while how many tens of thousands of Iraqi lives are shattered and their land drenched in blood? My biggest family concerns in the past five years amount to a mother with a broken shoulder and a brother with knee problems. My nephews are alive and well and growing up with all comforts and luxuries on a safe little suburban street, my sister and I work our jobs and have full and free social lives, travel, shop, entertain ourselves as we so choose — there is no interruption of services, no end to the diversions we might purchase for ourselves, no cessation of the round of social outings, learning opportunities, cultural life and beautiful countryside to which we might avail ourselves. Our sleep is undisturbed. Our grocery stores are full to bursting, we never go hungry unless we choose to, and all manner of services are widely available to us with no delay.

I saw a movie this past week that was ostensibly a sweet piece of madcap costume fun starring the extraordinary Frances McDormand, the delightful Amy Adams and my personal favorite, the wickedly talented Shirley Henderson. It was set in England at the start of WWII, and while the younger characters involved themselves in a whirl of sex, champagne and romantic intrigue, the middle-aged leads (McDormand and her lovely, sexy suitor Joe played by Ciaran Hinds) were dreadfully aware of the signs of coming war, and knew just what that would mean. They had lived through the first world war, you see, and while the youngsters danced and carried on obliviously, these two drew closer together in deep generational understanding and sympathy, having no idea what was to come but knowing in their hearts that it would be terrible, and require much of them, taking away their peace of mind and their comforts, which is what any war should do. Any war should take away the peace of mind and the comforts of the nations that fight it, else it is too distant, too hypothetical, too much a spectacle on the nightly news and not real enough for us to hate it enough to end it.

Helpless, helpless, helpless. We inflicted this horror upon another sovereign nation and our own military forces and kept ourselves largely untroubled at home, thinking that yellow “Support Our Troops” stickers on our cars was gesture enough, that circling around in peaceful protest was enough. We should have had our gas rationed, our sugar, silk stockings, and other luxuries taken away, our electricity and heat rationed — not only to pay for some of this disastrous experiment in “nation building” but to have it brought to our attention on a daily basis that we are a nation at war, hemorrhaging billions of dollars a day while many of our own citizens lack housing, food and health insurance, and that this is untenable, disastrous, and must be repented of and ENDED.

“Miss Pettigrew Lives For a Day” — which of these women has lived through a world war??