Perhaps this is an over-diaried subject but a book I picked up at the library opened old wounds that never quite healed.  The book in question is The Terror Dream by Susan Faludi.

This is not a book review.  I agree and disagree on a multitude of points in her book.  Instead I feel the need to get some of the pain I re-experienced from reading the book off my chest.

I read somewhere the suggestion that Memorial Day has been trivialized by making it a Monday holiday. I don't think that's exactly true. I think we've trivialized all our holidays. Monday holidays are convenient for just about everyone, including business. A holiday on a Tuesday or Thursday invites a four day weekend. Memorial Day is much more of a start of summer celebration now. The 4th of July used to serve the purpose, believe or not. Beyond that, Memorial Day cannot be turned into anything other than another retail shopping occasion. Shopping is the #1 hobby. It feeds on every other hobby.

The good Congressman puts the situation plainly.

This is the vote from January 16 on war funding.  Since that time, according to Democrats.com, these Congressmembers have said they will vote against further funding of the war (which they did not do on the earlier vote):

William P. O’Connor sees the Iraq fiasco through the lenses of his Viet Nam experience in Distant Echoes of Vietnam; The Day I Lost My Innocence over on Counterpunch.  Please read it all but I want to draw your attention to this first:

The perpetual conundrum of the old men who declare war is how to get the young boys to commit to the battle field. They have solved this conundrum by selling young boys on a counterfeit cause: freedom. War is somehow always about freedom, whether it is insuring it, or making the world safe for it; the men who spin these yarns preach that the only way to insure freedom is to liberate the villages, liberate the towns, and liberate the cities. We did that in Nam. We would send in mortars to soften up a village and then spray it with machine gun fire before occupying it and killing whoever we suspected might be the enemy. After the patrols, some of us would wash away the memories of such philanthropic antics with tumblers of Johnny Walker. We drank at the community lean-to back at the base, a lean-to which was appropriately christened, “Bombs for Peace.” I vividly recall guzzling a pitcher of Manhattans and looking up at the television set to see President Nixon making an urgent address to the nation. His words were clear, emphatic, concise, and complete bullshit. “We are not now, nor have we ever, bombed the country of Laos”(Sheehan 310).  So I finished my drink, rolled a nice fat joint, and went outside to smoke it, because it was 8:45 now. The Air Force usually started the napalming of Laos about nine. I didn’t want to miss the show. After all, how many people get to see bombs that don’t exist?

Democracy Now! reports:

US to Release Iraqi Prisoners, Teach Them About Islam
The Wall Street Journal reports US commanders in Iraq have begun releasing hundreds of Iraqi prisoners after concluding the military’s detention policy might be harming US goals in Iraq. The US is currently holding about 23,000 Iraqis, many without charge. The US military has begun building a pair of large halfway houses in Taji and Ramadi, where detainees will undergo vocational training. The Wall Street Journal reports the US military also plans to teach religious courses to the former prisoners about how to be a moderate Muslim. Imams will be brought in by the military to teach courses that highlight the Islamic precepts that bar the killing of innocents and offer alternative interpretations of jihad.

If I had been detained without charge, perhaps leaving my family members without a breadwinner, to fend for themselves in a war-torn land fraught with shortages and physical perils, I am not sure how receptive I would be to lessons in religious morality from my captors.  I don't think attempts to adjust my religion would address the root cause of any anger I might harbor in my heart -- and might just add to a litany of perceived offenses that my detention had given me lots and lots of time to think about.

On the other hand (and looking for a bright side), after all the Islamaphobia that has swirled around our airwaves in recent years maybe we can take this as a tacit admission by the U.S. government that Islam is not a religion to be feared.

Who honestly thinks that American image in Iraq will be improved by this measure?

As an American History teacher, I make a point to let my student know that historical is not cyclical, as many might believe. That is a historical fallacy to think that we will necessarily repeat the past. But it is not a fallacy to suggest that human nature, which is driven by money, greed, sex, and power will fall into the same predictable patterns so long as human being are driven by those four traits.

It is in that spirit that I post more of C. Vann Woodward's treatise written in 1968, but applicable to today.

I tuned into Bill Moyer’s Journal on Good Friday – and was stunned by his story on a new film, Body of War.  It is Phil Donhue’s first film, made with Ellen Spiro – and judging by the lengthy clips shown on Mr. Moyers’ show, it is an eye-opening, must see for all of America.

The film tells the story of Tomas Young who, out of deeply felt patriotism, enlisted in the military immediately after 9/11/01.  He wanted to go to Afghanistan and help bring our attackers to justice -- but was instead sent to Iraq.   He served there only one short week before he suffered a spinal cord injury from a bullet that left him paralyzed from the chest down.  Now Tomas Young needs help with the most mundane and private of bodily functions, his body temperature does not regulate itself, and he cannot make love to his wife.  His is now an important  voice calling for the end of the Iraq War.

Ms. Spiro and Mr. Donohue did more than just focus on Tomas, however.  To put his story in context, they went through all of the CSPAN footage of Congressional debate leading up to the war – and from the montage they have created from that footage, it is very clear that there was a lot of parroting of White House talking points and precious little examination of what would likely follow.  It is chilling to see how easily Congress was led.

Promoted by PD with anger and sadness. 97 percent of American casualties have come after "Mission Accomplished."

I awoke on Easter Monday to hear that 4 more US service personnel were killed and now the death toll is at 4000.

US service people - 4000. This includes 8 Department of Defense deceased, according to the article I link to here.

Countless contractors, soldiers from other lands and more innocents than we can possibly comprehend.

I feel the scream rise up from deep within.

God have mercy on us all.

A couple of days ago, I posted a summary of the first part of the IDA's Saddam and Terrorism report that the administration was originally going to release with a little fanfare, but then pulled the press plug and slipped it out quietly.  You can find that summary here...  I joked that I read the report, so you don't have to, but..

No, actually you should read this report.  You can find it here... on the right-hand side(big pdf!)

I think you should read it because anything the current administration doesn't want you to easily access must be GOOD stuff. I mean, they canceled a press conference about the release of the report so as to avoid being asked questions about it. So read it-- get informed about what is in this report and perhaps more importantly, what is NOT in this report. Then ask questions... ask Congressmen what they think of the report...ask journalists to ask questions of administration officials...keep asking.

What follows is a summary of the second main part of the paper: State Relationships with Terrorist Groups.

Let's say that the objective of a war is the defeat of an enemy. It may or may not include the occupation of territory.

Let's say that the measure of "success" in a war is how much closer a warring side is to the defeat of an enemy & the end of combat. The "light at the end of the tunnel" as General Westmoreland so infamously said about Vietnam in 1968.

Tomorrow, I will be a part of an interfaith press conference, hosted by our church, that will mark the five-year anniversary of the war.

I am sitting here today trying to organize my thoughts...each of us only have two-three minutes. (Yeah, I know...fat chance...)

I plan to talk about how violence breeds violence. I plan to talk about how the war violated "just war" theory. I plan to point out how our fears, and the fears of Saddam, collided in an almost perfect storm of misunderstanding (his inability to admit he had no WMD...our belief he did...). and how fear is one of the things that our religious faith can help us overcome.

That's the direction I'm headed.

But I'd love your thoughts:
Five years later, what would YOU say, from a faith perspective, about the war and where we are today?

No, actually you should read this report.  You can find it here... (big pdf!)

I think you should read it because anything the current administration doesn't want you to easily access must be GOOD stuff. I mean, they canceled a press conference about the release of the report so as to avoid being asked questions about it. So read it-- get informed about what is in this report and perhaps more importantly, what is NOT in this report. Then ask questions... ask Congressmen what they think of the report...ask journalists to ask questions of administration officials...keep asking.