Its the end of the year. Time to reflect on the biggest issues facing our country. One of my top 3 is war.
The invisible War
Looking around where I live, you would never know that we have been at war with two other nations for nine years. And that is partly by design. When the President led us to war, he assured us that it would be over quickly, it would cost less than $60B of tax dollars and we could do it with just a subset of our existing military. Ooops.
Since we did not do a draft, these nine years of war have relied on our existing volunteer military ranks which we have redeployed year after year. We quietly placed an enormous burden on a small group of American's.
Vietnam involved a national draft which eventually caused 10% of American citizens to serve. Afghanistan and Iraq only required 1% of citizen volunteers. When 1 person in 10 was serving, it was easy to know someone directly involved. With 1 person in 100, it is easier to miss. Especially when the same President urged us to show our patriotism by continuing to shop and to fight the terrorist by ignoring them. Mission accomplished.
This war shows up on our national balance sheet as a massive deficit and it shows up in VA hospitals but elsewhere is it invisible.
The most important thing for me at this point is that we give credit where credit is due. This is a Democracy and we need to hold people accountable (rewards and blame) for their actions. I dont see that happening which is discouraging.
"War is hell"
A trite sentence that holds two opposite meanings depending on the audience. For actual soldiers who faced death and lived, it describes their experience in a way all of them viscerally understand. For those at home, far removed from reality, it is a meaningless and trite sentence that does not even conjure a second of reflection or curiosity. We see war in movies and video games every day: the heroes always win. Big deal.
I find our obliviousness to the horrific costs of war infuriating.
My uncle went to Vietnam in the infantry as a young man. While he lived, the experience ruined him. PTSD and a mental breakdown left him a shell of a person. He never became a productive member of society. He never held a job. He was a casualty of war in every sense except the fatality statistics.
But that was then. We know so much more now, right? Now we know how to handle PTSD and traumatic brain injury and amputees. Now we reward our soldiers with health care and therapy and counseling so that they are able to put their experience behind them and return to a citizen's life. When our soldiers return they have a home, a welcome, and a job. Or not.
I think it is more accurate to say that those 1% have and continue to suffer in isolation and silence. Will that lead to a future crisis? A lost generation? (Even though they are too small to be a generation) A political backlash? For now, they get the occasional Sunday talk show program.
Credit where Credit is due
The thing that has confused and frustrated me so much are the politics of the past decade. No matter the costs, some wars are necessary. Was this one?
Lets review some of the political accomplishments of the past decade:
- A Republican President is the one who ignored the security briefings from Clinton security appointees and let the 9/11 attacks happen in the first place.
- A Republican President told us that the right way to fight terrorism was to simultaneously go to war and (for those of us at home) to ignore the war and the costs and keep shopping. Which we did.
- A Republican President talked about Osama Bin Laden but left his sitting in his cave while we invaded a totally different, uninvolved country.
- A Republican President is the one who urged us to war with guarantees of how cheap, quick and easy it would be.
- A Republican administration and Congress are the ones who ignored the costs and preparation to actually fight the war. Armored HUMV's, anyone? Body armor? Troop levels? That lack of follow through (and disagreement with the advice of Generals) led to many injuries.
- The Republican party continues to harp about being fiscally responsible yet they used old-school McCarthyism to ram through budget after budget to pay the increasing costs of the way - entirely with borrowed money. They even added to the debt with tax cuts.
- A Republican administration consciously hid the costs on lives and tax dollars because they knew that if citizens had to face the costs now (a war tax or a draft), their war would be unpopular.
- A Republican administration ignored the VA and did little to help returning soldiers. There are repeated scandals at Walter Reed Medical Center and other places that serve the medical needs of soldiers.
That is a short summary of Republican accomplishments on behalf of military families and the nation. It seems obvious to me that the Nation and its Republican leadership has told the military to suck it.
Even so, soldiers vote Republican. The entire nation re-elected the same Republicans in 2004 for 4 more years of war. ("Its not safe to change the Commander in Chief during wartime.)
The people who have borne the brunt of the war are the same people that re-elected the officials who put that burden on them. How does that make sense?
Well you asked for it
I feel terrible about this war and its costs to our country. Face it, no one really gave a shit about Iraq or Afghanistan in the first place yet we have bet the farm on it. Its like we spend our children's college fund on magic beans and we dont even like beans.
But I feel conflicted when I think about the military. It sickens me that we put this burden on our soldiers and refused to even give them decent health care in the VA system but those same soldiers asked for it. They voted for it. They dug in their heels, turned Fox News into a political force, defended the President, said they could win this mission and asked for more. They re-enlisted and served more tours.
Most of all, they failed to speak out publicly when it mattered. It is hard for me to feel sorry for that. I understand the visceral desire to support your buddies in harms way but our Democracy is totally broken if the people who know best keep silent.
Even though they represent 1% of the voters, if soldiers came back and spoke out about what it was like, if they criticized the people that put them there, it would have a huge political impact. People seem to accept the lie that Democrats are not patriotic or strong, but how does that criticism hold up against actual solders? Especially when none of the President, Vice President and their top advisors served in combat. ITs one thing to call John Kerry a coward decades ago in Vietnam; its another thing to say that to Iraqi vet and amputee.
This country is a Democracy but democracy does not work unless people participate.
As frustrated as I am with voters inability to hold Republican's accountable for their actions, I still feel sorry for military families. Most people join the military because they consider it their best option. It is a steady job with benefits like health care; it is a way to pay for college; it is a tradition of service. This silent war has been a lot more than many of them asked for or expected. Thousands of families with have to cope with deaths; many more thousands of families will face a lifetime of therapy or mental issues caused by this war.
the costs
War really is hell. Even if people are too dense to empathize with soldiers, war is still unpopular when the burden is shared.
Hey voters, would you like to pay a thousand Billion Dollars of new taxes to pay for war so far? Uhh, when you say it that way, not so popular.
How about several thousand Billion Dollars to pay for the future health care of all those wounded, but not dead, soldiers? Not popular.
Given how expensive war is on a nation, it is rather amazing that we have been at this for a decade with so little to show for it. It is also amazing how little we really talk about the war and what it is costing us. Ross Perot ran for president largely in opposition to the economic costs of NAFTA and free trade. No one wants to talk about the costs of this war.
In terms of lives, the casualties of this war are astonishingly few. Remember that 100,000 people die in car accidents every single year - no headlines or hand-wringing about that. With roughly 15,000 casualties from 9/11 and the wars, deaths will not be significant for the nation as a whole.
The real cost of this war will be financial. Those tax dollars that we hear so much about from politicians; politicians who show no restraint in actually spending and promising said dollars. This war will cost several thousand Billion tax dollars (that is several trillion Dollars) -- all of which have been borrowed and will need to be repayed with future taxes.
The other real cost is prestige and our standing in the world of Nations. We were the World's super power. Now we are just a guy with a big army; an army that has been unable to defeat Al Qaeda after a decade. A country that hates muslims. A country that talks about freedom but continues to install and reward corrupt politicians in an (apparent) attempt to create US-friendly puppet regimes.
Let's face it, Osama Bin Laden has won. It is incredibly cheap to create terrorist attacks. Our clumsy, irrational response has been incredibly expensive, from the wars to the TSA. And our failure to achieve our publicly stated goals (remember when we were going to "smoke them out" of caves?) is a continual embarrassment and encouragement to our enemies. Osama hit our pocket book, our reputation and our way of life. He poked us with a stick and made us look like an ineffectual, ignorant bully. He punched us in the nose and we pulled out a gun and shot the guy standing next him in the face.
now what?
War is hell. It is costly in human lives and treasure. Anyone with half a brain would take a deep breath and consider the ramifications BEFORE starting a war. Too late for that.
At this point we should all be spending a lot more time reflecting on this war and how we will be paying for it. We cannot undo the past but what should we do next?
Do we really care more about Afghanistan and Pakistan than we care about Grandma's health care?
Do the last ten years really reflect American values? Or American interests in the 21st Century?
This decade of politics and war will be a seminal point in world history. Vietnam also lasted about a decade but it has yet to leave American consciousness. I predict that we will look back at what it cost us and wonder how the @#$% it happened and how it went on so long.
