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Looking At What We Don't Want to See
As it appears that the Bush administration is putting things in place to expand its strategy of violence not only in Baghdad
but very possibly into Iran, I think it's time to look at the reality of this war. In so many ways this has been a stealth
war. Images of the violence have been suppressed and censored. If the administration wishes to lead us further into this
morass, we ought to at least see what we are doing.
Some of the power of Mel Gibson's movie "The Passion of the Christ" was the graphic depiction of the violence
of crucifixion. Many Christians were moved to tears at the suffering that Jesus absorbed, as Christians believe, "for
us."
It seems only appropriate that we witness the suffering our soldiers endure "for us." It seems only appropriate
that we see the damage inflicted in our name. Except for the occasional horrific image smuggled through outside channels
-- Abu Ghraib; the Hussain hangings -- we have a very sanitized picture of this war. Where are the body bags? Where are
the flag-draped coffins? The directors of this war have been careful to block us from seeing the kind of images that were
common during the Vietnam conflict. Some of what we have seen, especially in the initial days of "shock-and-awe,"
looked more like a video game than real war.
One of the things they teach pastors is that human beings have a strong urge to deny death. In pastoral care classes
ministers are taught it can be important for family members to view the body of their dead relative, particularly if the death
was sudden and unexpected. Lacking that encounter with reality, some people have had difficulty believing that their loved
one was actually dead.
Over 3,000 Americans soldiers have died in combat in Iraq. Thanks to the advances in combat medical techniques, many
soldiers are surviving who might have died in previous conflicts. That also means that many of them will come home permanently
impaired. Almost 50,000 Americans have been injured. And then there are those whose injuries are not so visible. The psychological
trauma of war seems under reported.
From the beginning there was no accounting of Iraqi deaths. The leading medical journal in Britain, "Lancet"
published the results of their survey estimating violent deaths of Iraqi men, women and children to be 400,000 to 600,000.
The White House has dismissed that study.
These deaths and injuries seem too invisible to me. Our coffins are closed. The violence is distant. If we don't see
the war, maybe it really isn't happening.
There is another side to the suffering. Consider all the good things that we can't do and all the good things we won't
do in the future because we do not have the money and resources -- we've spent everything or borrowed it for war. General/President
Dwight Eisenhower famously said, "Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the
final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed." This war is phenomenally
expensive.
The National Priorities Project keeps a running total of the appropriated costs of the Iraq War, using figures from the
Congressional Budget Office -- not including Afghanistan or other non-Iraq military expenditures, and not including interest
that we will pay for decades to finance borrowing for this war.
When the cost of this war is prorated to our Arkansas Third Congressional District, the cost to those of us living in
Northwest Arkansas is $931.5 million. That kind of money would provide health insurance to everyone in NWA who doesn't have
it (60,000 people), a scholarship for every undergraduate at the U of A, 10 brand new elementary schools, Governor Beebe's
requested increases for the entire state's public schools, state colleges, human services and prisons combined for the next
two years, the new baseball stadium in Springdale, and still have over $106 million left over. It's a lot of money.
This war in Iraq is not worth it -- in deaths, injuries, mental suffering, and money. If the President wants to expand
the war, especially into Iraq, he needs to let us see it in all its gory reality, and he needs to be willing to increase the
taxes he loves to lower in order to pay for it. That's not going to happen.
Iraq is not something we can fix. We know what staying and escalating looks like -- it looks like Vietnam.
There are several exit strategies being proposed by credible people with military, political, intelligence, and diplomatic
experience. Most include our leaving quickly, a temporary multinational stabilization force, giving up our military and economic
presence, and offering our support for an Iraqi rebuilding effort. The Project on Defense Alternatives collects proposals
from an assortment of sources. Their "Iraq War Withdrawal and Exit Plans" lists 18 plans by experts and analysts,
as well as a collection of positions of political leaders and a series of commentaries. http://www.comw.org/pda/0512exitplans.html
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