WAY TO GO OHIO

Tomorrow is the third anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, the second anniversary of the Madrid bombings. Human tragedies worthy of Euripides, certainly. My cousin Bob has been serving in Iraq as an officer in the Pennsylvania National Guard for nearly a year, and Bob, Sr., his father and my uncle, was recently diagnosed with lung cancer back in Pennsylvania. My heart goes out to them, as do my prayers and those of many others. Imagine the family's stress and heartache: they both have wives, children, rich lives. Bob, Jr., has a wife and two daughters and normally teaches science. What a waste! Strangely enough, I was the one who as a kid considered becoming an officer in the Army, or a war correspondent; Bobby wanted to be a poet or writer. VMI put me off my toast points as far as the military, but Bobby joined the Guard, partly to help him through college. He served in the first Gulf War, and by backdoor draft, was sent in again for the sequel. I dearly hope that he can come back soon and in good health to his family.

Which brings me to The Fog of War, an excellent documentary released in 2003, centering around Robert S. McNamara, a man spookily like Donald Rumsfeld, our current Secretary pf Defense. During the course of the film, McNamara ruminates on the excesses of past American policies and practices. Heavily involved during World War Two, McNamara assisted in the planning and evaluation of the air campaigns against Germany and Japan. With a haunting Philip Glass soundtrack overlaying his reminiscences, he recounts 68 bombings and firebombings of Japanese cities followed by the two even more horrific atomic bombings. He bluntly acknowledges that had the United States lost, he and his fellow planners would have been executed as war criminals. This is not to exculpate the Japanese policy makers (they were entirely brutal, as well), but the mass murder of Japanese civilians was one more great crime against humanity. Lives squandered, cities in ruins. And for me, as with the Iraq War, it's personal. My friend Yoko Akiba of Hiroshima became sickly from that horrible day on, eventually dying of cancer in her fifties. An innocent little girl in 1945, she suffered the horrors of war for the rest of her life. Even her children paid -- born with severe complications, they, too, were casualties of the same war. Where McNamara really seems like Rumsfeld is during his term as Secretary of Defense during Vietnam. The same creepily calculated decision-making, the same deluded optimism, the same attitude toward the press and protestors. Now, just as then, we hear rosy predictions about a light at the end of the tunnel, about standing down as our proxies stand up. McNamara admits that, in retrospect, the anti-war protestors were right; American policymakers had been blinded by hubris.

It's grotesque to imagine that our world has been dragged into another Middle Eastern conflagration by a strutting sawed-off runt of a man and his demented cabal of scoundrels. Condoleezza Rice, former National Security Advisor and now Secretary of State, like the rest of that crew, is either an idiot or a liar, or both. I'll never forget her stammering and disingenuous statements after the September 11th attacks: "Who could imagine an enemy using planes as missiles?" Good God, had she never learned about things as recent as the Japanese kamikaze and bonzai attacks during the Second World War, or the Vietnamese suicide squads penetrating American facilities during the Tet Offensive of 1968? And meanwhile, Bin Laden lives on. I certainly in no way exculpate him any more than I do the Japanese men of war in the 1930s and 40s. But in our democratic republic, Bush's War is our responsibility.

(Way to go, Ohio -- thanks for giving us another four years of G.W. et alia!)

Hence, here's another Bob Dylan song appropriate for the eve of the third anniversary of the Bush-ordered invasion of Iraq. Lest we not forget, the Bush Doctrine declares the right of the United States military to launch preemptive strikes -- including nuclear attack -- against any country deemed a threat. Dr. Strangelove would be proud. I am not. Dylan is not exactly brimming with Christian charity here, but this song effectively gets the message across. Most of you already know it, I'm guessing, but like a church hymn, it's worth repeating from time to time:

"Masters Of War"

Come you masters of war
You that build all the guns
You that build the death planes
You that build all the bombs
You that hide behind walls
You that hide behind desks
I just want you to know
I can see through your masks.
You that never done nothin'
But build to destroy
You play with my world
Like it's your little toy
You put a gun in my hand
And you hide from my eyes
And you turn and run farther
When the fast bullets fly.
Like Judas of old
You lie and deceive
A world war can be won
You want me to believe
But I see through your eyes
And I see through your brain
Like I see through the water
That runs down my drain.
You fasten all the triggers
For the others to fire
Then you set back and watch
When the death count gets higher
You hide in your mansion
As young people's blood
Flows out of their bodies
And is buried in the mud.
You've thrown the worst fear
That can ever be hurled
Fear to bring children
Into the world
For threatening my baby
Unborn and unnamed
You ain't worth the blood
That runs in your veins.
How much do I know
To talk out of turn
You might say that I'm young
You might say I'm unlearned
But there's one thing I know
Though I'm younger than you
That even Jesus would never
Forgive what you do.
Let me ask you one question
Is your money that good
Will it buy you forgiveness
Do you think that it could
I think you will find
When your death takes its toll
All the money you made
Will never buy back your soul.
And I hope that you die
And your death'll come soon
I will follow your casket
In the pale afternoon
And I'll watch while you're lowered
Down to your deathbed
And I'll stand over your grave
'Til I'm sure that you're dead.