The following text is taken from
Landscape Turned Red: The Battle of Antietam by Stephen W. Sears, pages 319 and 320.
Viewed solely in military terms, then, Antietam was a day of fearful violence beyond anything in the nation's experience, notable above all for its missed opportunities and hideous memories. Robert E. Lee had taken his army into Maryland to wage the decisive campaign for Southern independence, and he had failed. George McClellan had been granted the certain opportunity to crush the Southern army, and he too had failed. Almost 23,000 men had paid the price of these failures. Fourteen months later, at another little town where the roads came together, thirty five miles to the north, Abraham Lincoln would find the words to give meaning to the dead and maimed of Gettysburg. On September 22, 1862, he also gave deeper meaning to the terrible struggle along the banks of Antietam Creek. If what he read that day lacked the eloquence of his address at Gettysburg, it was nevertheless a document with a significance even more timeless.
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All I could fit...please keep reading
The paper...written without rhetorical flourish [contained] that singular riveting phrase: unless the states in rebellion returned to the Union within the next hundred days...all persons held in bondage in those states "shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free...." Beyond whatever other purpose, the dead of Antietam had died to make men free
As of the time I write this, according to the best source I can find, 1,493 United States soldiers have lost their lives. The latest fatality was yesterday.
What have they died for? As of right now...as far as I can see...not much. The stated reason for going to war, keeping us safe from weapons of mass destruction, was a lie. Any attempt to compile a list of the many and varied shifting justifications spouted by this criminal administration would be a futile exercise.
And yet...aside from all the weapons of mass destruction lies...would anything have made the war worth it? In my opinion the answer is yes, only one condition. That condition is that if the Iraqi people were to become truly free, then the United States servicemen and women who have died would have died for a higher and worthy purpose.
It is undeniable that Saddam Hussein was a despotic tyrant. Even though most Iraqis had managed to fashion some kind of normal life under his regime, in any sane world they would be better off without him. The right of a people to self determine is, to me, one that all should fundamentally be entitled to and enjoy.
For over two centuries, the United States of America has been that beacon of freedom and self-determination. Untold millions of people made journies of unbelievable difficulty and hardship to reach these shores. It was only in the twentieth century that democracy began to become a widespread thing in the world. For most its existence, the United States was truly "the last best hope of earth."
That was our national reputation. George Bush, like some drunken, idiotic gambler, staked that reputation which was so dearly won by so many, on this insane adventure in Iraq. He rolled the dice...and lost. And now others have been forced to pay the price. For nothing.
To me, that is the ultimate tragedy of the second Iraq war. The futility. The backsliding that has resulted from it. Billions of dollars, the blasted hopes and dreams of thousands upon thousands of Iraqis, and the blood of 1500 American soldiers and several hundred of other nationalities for no real purpose. I hate futility. I hate wastage. It's enough to drive one insane at the mere thought of it.
And yet, as I said above, I feel it would have been truly worth it in my opinion to set an entire opressed people free. It seems to be the most popular of the shifting justification parade since the weapons of mass destruction boondoggle became clear. "The Iraqi people are free. They can practice their love freedom. Freedom is on the march." And perhaps it could have been done if conducted in a reasonably competent manner. We'll never know one way or the other now.
The recent election, which should have been an historic event to be remembered for all time, quickly became revealed as nothing more than a elaborately staged event to provide Bush with a nice purple thumbed photo op to go with the State of the Union Platitude Address.
What is happening now? For starters, we have the prospect of having the Iraqi people being required to suffer an insurgency that could go on for over a decade. Air Force General Richard Myers notes:
The insurgency in Iraq is not likely to be put down in a year or even two since history shows such uprisings can last a decade or more, the United States' top military commander says.
Air Force General Richard Myers says that in the past century, insurgencies around the world have lasted anywhere from seven to 12 years, making a quick fix to the problem in Iraq unlikely.
"This is not the kind of business that can be done in one year, two years probably," Gen Myers said, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in a speech to the Los Angeles World Affairs Council.
(Tip o' the hat to Volvo Liberal's diary for bringing that article to my attention.)
Even worse, far from an increase of freedom, many in Iraq are experiencing a restriction of personal liberty as a result of the recent elections--ironically enough, the supposed sign that a people are truly free. A mentally disabled monkey could have predicted this, given the Shia majority in the country and the fact that, once elected, such a government would be sympathetic to the theocratic government of Iran. No one segment of the population is feeling the effects of this more than Iraq's women.
The amazing, incredible woman who writes the Baghdad Burning blog gives chilling testimony:
It's not about a Sunni government or a Shia government- it's about the possibility of an Iranian-modeled Iraq. Many Shia are also appalled with the results of the elections. There's talk of Sunnis being marginalized by the elections but that isn't the situation. It's not just Sunnis- it's moderate Shia and secular people in general who have been marginalized.
The list is frightening- Da'awa, SCIRI, Chalabi, Hussein Shahristani and a whole collection of pro-Iran political figures and clerics. They are going to have a primary role in writing the new constitution. There's talk of Shari'a, or Islamic law, having a very primary role in the new constitution. The problem is, whose Shari'a? Shari'a for many Shia differs from that of Sunni Shari'a. And what about all the other religions? What about Christians and Mendiyeen?
Is anyone surprised that the same people who came along with the Americans - the same puppets who all had a go at the presidency last year - are the ones who came out on top in the elections? Jaffari, Talbani, Barazani, Hakim, Allawi, Chalabi... exiles, convicted criminals and war lords. Welcome to the new Iraq.
Ibraheim Al-Jaffari, the head of the pro-Iran Da'awa party gave an interview the other day. He tried very hard to pretend he was open-minded and that he wasn't going to turn the once-secular Iraq into a fundamentalist Shia state but the fact of the matter remains that he is the head of the Da'awa party. The same party that was responsible for some of the most infamous explosions and assassinations in Iraq during the last few decades. This is the same party that calls for an Islamic Republic modeled like Iran. Most of its members have spent a substantial amount of time in Iran.
Jaffari cannot separate himself from the ideology of his party.
Then there's Abdul Aziz Al-Hakim, head of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI). He got to be puppet president for the month of December and what was the first thing he did? He decided overburdened, indebted Iraq owed Iran 100 billion dollars. What was the second thing he did? He tried to have the "personal status" laws that protect individuals (and especially women) eradicated.
They try to give impressive interviews to western press but the situation is wholly different on the inside. Women feel it the most. There's an almost constant pressure in Baghdad from these parties for women to cover up what little they have showing. There's a pressure in many colleges for the segregation of males and females. There are the threats, and the printed and verbal warnings, and sometimes we hear of attacks or insults.
You feel it all around you. It begins slowly and almost insidiously. You stop wearing slacks or jeans or skirts that show any leg because you don't want to be stopped in the street and lectured by someone who doesn't approve. You stop wearing short sleeves and start preferring wider shirts with a collar that will cover up some of you neck. You stop letting your hair flow because you don't want to attract attention to it. On the days when you forget to pull it back into a ponytail, you want to kick yourself and you rummage around in your handbag trying to find a hair band... hell, a rubber band to pull back your hair and make sure you attract less attention from them.
What have we done? Our national reputation was "the last best hope of earth." We could have enhanced that by making Iraq a truly democratic, stable state.
In one sense, the Iraq war was a battle for our national character. We attempted "to nobly save or meanly lose" the "last best hope of earth."
We lost. Thousands of people from all over the world have died in vain. May we someday be forgiven.