Against all common sense, and probably because I've been sick lately and thus sleeping irregular hours, I found myself engaging in an idiot-fest known as "
Yahoo Answers" on the Yahoo corner of the web. Then some girl there posts a question online if anyone has lost someone in Iraq.
Whoa. Reality intrudes into my pleasant cyberlife again.
She said her uncle just died over there. Her question was short on details, but obviously this is a kid dealing with a lot of pain. My response was about a couple of ex-students of mine who've gone over there--they've been changed by Iraq, but none have been hurt, thank God. But it occurs to me that the whole question about Iraq is a human question.
Those who support a different viewpoint than me tend to dismiss the human aspect of it. They talk in platitudes about "fighting them over there instead of over here" and "defending freedom" (of which Iraq is such a bastion now) "striking back at terrorism"--all vague ideas with no real appreciation of the human costs of all that hardware and ordinance.
And the flip side is us here at DU. Too often, I think we speak in scornful terms about the war--we call it fascism and imperialism and blood-for-oil. Some of us even label all of our troops for the atrocities of the small minority who cross the line and betray their country's values. I don't think any of that sort of thinking helps. Ignoring reality or indulging in condemnation of ordinary troops is not productive. It does not solve the domestic political mess that this war has become.
This country is not a democracy because we vote. Hell, people voted in Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Russia and Saddam's Iraq. It's a democracy because we the people are responsible for the decisions our country makes. We can only change things if we talk with each other and if, in talking, we change other peoples' minds.
From now on, whenever I talk to someone about this war, I'm going to do so pretending that someone who just lost a family member in that conflict--someone who cannot deny the human costs of it the way senators do--is standing right over my shoulder. I'm going to acknowledge first off that honorable people are dying in a war created by madmen, that every life lost is a tragedy, that I have not lost anyone in this war because of dumb luck and because no one in my own family is in the service right now.
The human costs, the human tragedy is why I fight. We always get bogged down in ideologies and name calling when we dismiss the human side of our politics. The Republicans benefit from a debate that avoids specifics and ignores real world responsibilities and indulges in Rambo-like fantasies of solving problems with violence and bulletproof supermen.
I told that poor girl on Yahoo:
Whether you believe in continuing the occupation till peace is won or you think that it's time to bring the mission to an end, fight 100% for what you believe.
I cannot imagine what she lost, what the empty seat at the next family get-together will be like. I cannot imagine that scene happening at a 3000 American dinner tables this coming Thanksgiving. I cannot imagine that scene happening at 30,000-100,000 Iraqi tables. But I can and must remind everyone I speak to that this is the reality we are all responsible for.
I cannot get that poor girl's loss out of my head. I'm a damn lucky person who can come home to my kid at night and sleep in a peaceful neighborhood and only have to worry about gas prices and keeping my job and affording college. Someone's uncle died in Iraq to make all that stuff easier for me. I would never have chosen that, but it's the reality that my country has created. It's my job now to stop it, if I can.
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