[Culturechat] Fwd: FW: [sholemlist] Fwd: The Reason Why - GEORGE MCGOVERN
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Subject: Fwd: FW: [sholemlist] Fwd: The Reason Why - GEORGE MCGOVERN
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Date: Fri, 11 Apr 2003 17:24:04 -0800
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From: druthgo@sonic.net (Ruth I Gordon)
Subject: FW: [sholemlist] Fwd: The Reason Why - GEORGE MCGOVERN
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>>>
>>>The Reason Why
>>>
>>>by GEORGE MCGOVERN
>>>
>>>[from the April 21, 2003 issue]
>>>
>>>http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20030421&s=mcgovern
>>>
>>>Theirs not to reason why,
>>>Theirs but to do and die.
>>> --Alfred, Lord Tennyson
>>> "The Charge of the Light Brigade"
>>> (in the Crimean War)
>>>
>>>Thanks to the most crudely partisan decision in the history of the
>>>Supreme Court, the nation has been given a President of painfully
>>>limited wisdom and compassion and lacking any sense of the nation's
>>>true greatness. Appearing to enjoy his role as Commander in Chief of
>>>the armed forces above all other functions of his office, and
>>>unchecked by a seemingly timid Congress, a compliant Supreme Court,
>>>a largely subservient press and a corrupt corporate plutocracy,
>>>George W. Bush has set the nation on a course for one-man rule.
>>>
>>>He treads carelessly on the Bill of Rights, the United Nations and
>>>international law while creating a costly but largely useless new
>>>federal bureaucracy loosely called "Homeland Security." Meanwhile,
>>>such fundamental building blocks of national security as full
>>>employment and a strong labor movement are of no concern. The nearly
>>>$1.5 trillion tax giveaway, largely for the further enrichment of
>>>those already rich, will have to be made up by cutting government
>>>services and shifting a larger share of the tax burden to workers
>>>and the elderly. This President and his advisers know well how to
>>>get us involved in imperial crusades abroad while pillaging the
>>>ordinary American at home. The same families who are exploited by a
>>>rich man's government find their sons and daughters being called to
>>>war, as they were in Vietnam--but not the sons of the rich and well
>>>connected. (Let me note that the son of South Dakota Senator Tim
>>>Johnson is now on duty in the Persian Gulf. He did not use his
>>>obvious political connections to avoid military service, nor did his
>>>father seek exemptions for his son. That goes well with me, with my
>>>fellow South Dakotans and with every fair-minded American.)
>>>
>>>The invasion of Iraq and other costly wars now being planned in
>>>secret are fattening the ever-growing military-industrial complex of
>>>which President Eisenhower warned in his great farewell address. War
>>>profits are booming, as is the case in all wars. While young
>>>Americans die, profits go up. But our economy is not booming, and
>>>our stock market is not booming. Our wages and incomes are not
>>>booming. While waging a war against Iraq, the Bush Administration is
>>>waging another war against the well-being of America.
>>>
>>>Following the 9/11 tragedy at the World Trade Center and the
>>>Pentagon, the entire world was united in sympathy and support for
>>>America. But thanks to the arrogant unilateralism, the bullying and
>>>the clumsy, unimaginative diplomacy of Washington, Bush converted a
>>>world of support into a world united against us, with the exception
>>>of Tony Blair and one or two others. My fellow South Dakotan, Tom
>>>Daschle, the US Senate Democratic leader, has well described the
>>>collapse of American diplomacy during the Bush Administration. For
>>>this he has been savaged by the Bush propaganda machine. For their
>>>part, the House of Representatives has censured the French by
>>>changing the name of french fries on the house dining room menu to
>>>freedom fries. Does this mean our almost sacred Statue of Liberty--a
>>>gift from France--will now have to be demolished? And will we have
>>>to give up the French kiss? What a cruel blow to romance.
>>>
>>>During his presidential campaign Bush cried, "I'm a uniter, not a
>>>divider." As one critic put it, "He's got that right. He's united
>>>the entire world against him." In his brusque, go-it-alone approach
>>>to Congress, the UN and countless nations big and small, Bush seemed
>>>to be saying, "Go with us if you will, but we're going to war with a
>>>small desert kingdom that has done us no harm, whether you like it
>>>or not." This is a good line for the macho business. But it flies in
>>>the face of Jefferson's phrase, "a decent respect to the opinions of
>>>mankind." As I have watched America's moral and political standing
>>>in the world fade as the globe's inhabitants view the senseless and
>>>immoral bombing of ancient, historic Baghdad, I think often of
>>>another Jefferson observation during an earlier bad time in the
>>>nation's history: "I tremble for my country when I reflect that God
>>>is just."
>>>
>>>The President frequently confides to individuals and friendly
>>>audiences that he is guided by God's hand. But if God guided him
>>>into an invasion of Iraq, He sent a different message to the Pope,
>>>the Conference of Catholic Bishops, the mainline Protestant National
>>>Council of Churches and many distinguished rabbis--all of whom
>>>believe the invasion and bombardment of Iraq is against God's will.
>>>In all due respect, I suspect that Karl Rove, Richard Perle, Paul
>>>Wolfowitz, Donald Rumsfeld and Condoleezza Rice--and other sideline
>>>warriors--are the gods (or goddesses) reaching the ear of our
>>>President.
>>>
>>>As a World War II bomber pilot, I was always troubled by the title
>>>of a then-popular book, God Is My Co-pilot. My co-pilot was Bill
>>>Rounds of Wichita, Kansas, who was anything but godly, but he was a
>>>skillful pilot, and he helped me bring our B-24 Liberator through
>>>thirty-five combat missions over the most heavily defended targets
>>>in Europe. I give thanks to God for our survival, but somehow I
>>>could never quite picture God sitting at the controls of a bomber or
>>>squinting through a bombsight deciding which of his creatures should
>>>survive and which should die. It did not simplify matters
>>>theologically when Sam Adams, my navigator--and easily the godliest
>>>man on my ten-member crew--was killed in action early in the war. He
>>>was planning to become a clergyman at war's end.
>>>
>>>Of course, my dear mother went to her grave believing that her
>>>prayers brought her son safely home. Maybe they did. But how could I
>>>explain that to the mother of my close friend, Eddie Kendall, who
>>>prayed with equal fervor for her son's safe return? Eddie was torn
>>>in half by a blast of shrapnel during the Battle of the Bulge--dead
>>>at age 19, during the opening days of the battle--the best baseball
>>>player and pheasant hunter I knew.
>>>
>>>I most certainly do not see God at work in the slaughter and
>>>destruction now unfolding in Iraq or in the war plans now being
>>>developed for additional American invasions of other lands. The hand
>>>of the Devil? Perhaps. But how can I suggest that a fellow Methodist
>>>with a good Methodist wife is getting guidance from the Devil? I
>>>don't want to get too self-righteous about all of this. After all, I
>>>have passed the 80 mark, so I don't want to set the bar of
>>>acceptable behavior too high lest I fail to meet the standard for a
>>>passing grade on Judgment Day. I've already got a long list of
>>>strikes against me. So President Bush, forgive me if I've been too
>>>tough on you. But I must tell you, Mr. President, you are the
>>>greatest threat to American troops. Only you can put our young
>>>people in harm's way in a needless war. Only you can weaken
>>>America's good name and influence in world affairs.
>>>
>>>We hear much talk these days, as we did during the Vietnam War, of
>>>"supporting our troops." Like most Americans, I have always
>>>supported our troops, and I have always believed we had the best
>>>fighting forces in the world--with the possible exception of the
>>>Vietnamese, who were fortified by their hunger for national
>>>independence, whereas we placed our troops in the impossible
>>>position of opposing an independent Vietnam, albeit a Communist one.
>>>But I believed then as I do now that the best way to support our
>>>troops is to avoid sending them on mistaken military campaigns that
>>>needlessly endanger their lives and limbs. That is what went on in
>>>Vietnam for nearly thirty years--first as we financed the French in
>>>their failing effort to regain control of their colonial empire in
>>>Southeast Asia, 1946-54, and then for the next twenty years as we
>>>sought unsuccessfully to stop the Vietnamese independence struggle
>>>led by Ho Chi Minh and Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap--two great men whom we
>>>should have accepted as the legitimate leaders of Vietnam at the end
>>>of World War II. I should add that Ho and his men were our allies
>>>against the Japanese in World War II. Some of my fellow pilots who
>>>were shot down by Japanese gunners over Vietnam were brought safely
>>>back to American lines by Ho's guerrilla forces.
>>>
>>>During the long years of my opposition to that war, including a
>>>presidential campaign dedicated to ending the American involvement,
>>>I said in a moment of disgust: "I'm sick and tired of old men
>>>dreaming up wars in which young men do the dying." That terrible
>>>American blunder, in which 58,000 of our bravest young men died, and
>>>many times that number were crippled physically or psychologically,
>>>also cost the lives of some 2 million Vietnamese as well as a
>>>similar number of Cambodians and Laotians, in addition to laying
>>>waste most of Indochina--its villages, fields, trees and waterways;
>>>its schools, churches, markets and hospitals.
>>>
>>>I had thought after that horrible tragedy--sold to the American
>>>people by our policy-makers as a mission of freedom and mercy--that
>>>we never again would carry out a needless, ill-conceived invasion of
>>>another country that had done us no harm and posed no threat to our
>>>security. I was wrong in that assumption.
>>>
>>>The President and his team, building on the trauma of 9/11, have
>>>falsely linked Saddam Hussein's Iraq to that tragedy and then
>>>falsely built him up as a deadly threat to America and to world
>>>peace. These falsehoods are rejected by the UN and nearly all of the
>>>world's people. We will, of course, win the war with Iraq. But what
>>>of the question raised in the Bible that both George Bush and I
>>>read: "What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose
>>>his own soul," or the soul of his nation?
>>>
>>>It has been argued that the Iraqi leader is hiding a few weapons of
>>>mass destruction, which we and eight other countries have long held.
>>>But can it be assumed that he would insure his incineration by
>>>attacking the United States? Can it be assumed that if we are to
>>>save ourselves we must strike Iraq before Iraq strikes us? This same
>>>reasoning was frequently employed during the half-century of cold
>>>war by hotheads recommending that we atomize the Soviet Union and
>>>China before they atomize us. Courtesy of The New Yorker, we are
>>>reminded of Tolstoy's observation: "What an immense mass of evil
>>>must result...from allowing men to assume the right of anticipating
>>>what may happen." Or again, consider the words of Lord Stanmore, who
>>>concluded after the suicidal charge of the Light Brigade that it was
>>>"undertaken to resist an attack that was never threatened and
>>>probably never contemplated." The symphony of falsehood orchestrated
>>>by the Bush team has been devised to defeat an Iraqi onslaught that
>>>"was never threatened and probably never comtemplated."
>>>
>>>I'm grateful to The Nation, as I was to Harper's, for giving me
>>>opportunities to write about these matters. Major newspapers,
>>>especially the Washington Post, haven't been nearly as receptive.
>>>
>>>The destruction of Baghdad has a special poignancy for many of us.
>>>In my fourth-grade geography class under a superb teacher, Miss
>>>Wagner, I was first introduced to the Tigris and Euphrates rivers,
>>>the palm trees and dates, the kayaks plying the rivers, camel
>>>caravans and desert oases, the Arabian Nights, Aladdin and His
>>>Wonderful Lamp (my first movie), the ancient city of Baghdad,
>>>Mesopotamia, the Fertile Crescent. This was the first class in
>>>elementary school that fired my imagination. Those wondrous images
>>>have stayed with me for more than seventy years. And it now troubles
>>>me to hear of America's bombs, missiles and military machines
>>>ravishing the cradle of civilization.
>>>
>>>But in God's good time, perhaps this most ancient of civilizations
>>>can be redeemed. My prayer is that most of our soldiers and most of
>>>the long-suffering people of Iraq will survive this war after it has
>>>joined the historical march of folly that is man's inhumanity to man.
>>>
>>>
>>>---
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>>
>>
>>--
>
"You may not be able to change the world, but at least you can embarrass
the guilty." Jessica Mitford (1917-1996)
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