December 18, 2004

• NATIONAL VIRTUE

  Many years ago, when I was young, the United States was fighting a war against three of the most bloody-minded, evil groups of the past several hundred years. We were attacked by the Japanese, our army in the Philippines was quickly defeated, and the American (and other allied) prisoners were subjected to inhumane, brutal treatment by them. A few days after the Japanese attack, Hitler's Germany declared war on us as did Mussolini's Italy.
  Both the German Nazis and the Italian Fascists had long histories of terror and brutality against their own citizens and their defeated neighbors. For the most part though, they abided by the Geneva conventions regarding prisoners of war, as did we. In those cases where they did not, those responsible were tracked down after the war and brought to trial. The last of these trials I remember was just a few years ago and resulted in the guilty ex-death camp guard being deported from the U.S. where he had lived for more than forty years.
  Those Nazis, Fascists, and Japanese militarists who commanded others to commit acts of brutality were for the most part hung (Tojo, Eichmann et al.), shot (Mussolini), or committed suicide (Hitler, Goering, Himmler, etc). Many others were imprisoned, some for life.
  My reason for bringing up this ancient history is because I am somewhat concerned about the actions of the present U.S. government. In this present so-called War on Terror, we are apparently not abiding by the Geneva conventions regarding prisoners of war (e.g. all that is supposed to be required of them is name, rank, and serial number) and there have been disturbing stories of atrocities committed by American troops on captured insurgents. In the case of Afghanistan, we are apparently treating captured Taliban Afghan soldiers as terrorists even though we invaded their country and they were fighting for what was the established government at the time.
  Along the same lines of thought, the War in Iraq has been so poorly managed that much of the welcome we had when we entered and drove out Saddam's government, has now turned to anger and hatred. The Iraqi insurgents seem to be increasing in number. The country with the second largest oil reserves in the world now has to import its fuel. Iraq is physically and economically much worse off than before the war and the U.S. has lost a good deal of the respect of other nations. It hasn't done our economy much good either.
  Our President and his advisers seem to be lost in the same dream world of our foes of World War II. Bush speaks of "Democracy is on the March" and "Our 150 year cordial relationship with Japan" and Gives the Medal of Freedom to those who mismanaged the Iraq War. He and his government apparently can't see the reality of the situation. Probably one the most telling remarks was Rumsfeld's "Well, you have to fight a war with the army you've got, not the army you might want" in reply to a question from a soldier about inadequate equipment. Who started that war anyway? And why was that again?

  • 8:03 pm
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