Stop the war.
I would like to let that sentence stand alone and leave the rest of this column blank as I think that would make quite a statement, but the editor probably would not let that happen.
A previous column I wrote quoted Howard Zinn and a reader sent me an e-mail stating that Zinn lacked credibility as he was a pacifist with a "knee jerk reaction to war."-áFollowing this line of thinking, should we remove our ministers and priests from the pulpits?-áShould we silence the mothers telling their young children not to fight?-áShould we remove the politicians that question war from office?-áI hope these people are credible.
I thought of somebody that would have opinions at the other end of the spectrum, our campus friend Horowitz.-áSome quick searching found frontpagemagazine.com, an online forum sponsored by him and feature his writings.-áA prominent link on the page led to "conservative" T-shirts, some of which featured catchy phrases such as "Give War a Chance," "Out of Iraq and Into Iran," and "I'd rather fight than switch to a religion of peace."-áAn article on the page proclaimed that force was the only option available in Iran.-áThink carefully and then ask yourself if these people are credible.
My critic's dislike of a "knee jerk reaction to war" brought a particular level of disappointment and despondency to me.-áI believe that whenever we risk lives of thousands of Americans along with millions of lives of civilians of the country in which the war will be waged in there should be an outcry from our people.-áThis outcry should demand honest reasons for conducting war, a demand for certainty that there are absolutely no other options available, and a demand that war is not conducted for the sake of war alone and certainly not for profit.-á
We have become very good at putting our veterans upon a pedestal while a war is being conducted.-áBut after the war has run its course and the veterans have returned to their lives and allowed time for contemplation something amazing happens.-áGo to a VFW sometime and talk to the combat veterans.-áWatch these veterans as they huddle around bottles of beers and talk.-áMost of the time, they will not even talk about their particular war, their discussions will be more mundane subjects.-áBut when the news comes on and the war is mentioned there will be two types.-áThe first type will get quiet and take a long pull off their drink and wait for the report to end.-áThe other type will express a reverent wish for their new generation of brothers in arms to come home and stop killing and dying.-á
Philip Caputo was a Marine in Vietnam and wrote "A Rumor of War." He said that the current generation has the inability to listen to the previous generation's experiences with war.-áPick any war and ask a veteran and many times you will find an abhorrence to war and combat.-áBut the new generation of warriors will not listen and somehow believe that their experiences will be dramatically different.-á
I sincerely hope not for two reasons.-áIf it is dramatically different something has happened to the ethics of these new veterans.-áWar is a horrible thing and for that perception to change and become something desirable we have lost something important from our humanity.-áSecondly, to accept war makes us even more vulnerable to the belief that war is a better option to peace.-á
So we stop listening to these old veterans because war is an easier option than peace.-áSo maybe we can listen to a veteran from this generation and I am going to simplify my initial statement:-á
Stop war.
Write to Jason at jlhodson@bsu.edu.
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