Tuesday, March 16, 2004
A Mother's Response
I agree, the Spanish voters have empowered the terrorists. So have the capitalists that sold them weapons. But I disagree that what goes on in Guantanamo Bay, or any other foreign prison we send suspected and known terrorists to, has anything to do with (wink wink) psychological warfare. I think the prisoners are kept in places where torture is legal. To what extent we allow that system of interrogation to go on is at the military's discretion. And that is not what we Americans expect from ourselves.
One of the saddest lessons I have learned in my life is that once very moral people do horrific evil things in the name of war. The Polaroids and letters from Vietnam describing what was done with prisoners were as bad as you can imagine. And the stories my uncle confessed to my mother after WWII were just as bad. It wasn't just that war or this war -- it is all wars.
The atrocities that are done to a soldier by the enemy are nowhere near as appalling as the monstrous things the soldier himself becomes when in a position of dominance over said enemy. That is why war needs to be eradicated from the human psyche -- not for the physical harm it does to them and to us, but for the harm it does to our souls, to our spirits. It is the mob mentality in the arena of a sporting event 100-fold, with weapons, and hatred, and unrestrained violence.
A song from the 1920's: "I didn't raise my son to be a soldier, I raised him up to be my pride and joy. Who dares to put a musket on his shoulder, to shoot some other mother's darling boy? Let nations arbitrate their future problems, put down your guns and learn to walk away. There'd be no war today, if mothers all would say: I didn't raise my boy to be a soldier."
I know. It is more complicated then that, now, since we quit the arbitration process. We didn't put all our passion into a peace. Not one of us gave it our all. Now we are in a war over there, and we haven't even begun to fight. Or to suffer. Or to sacrifice. We haven't even started the Victory Gardens, the scrap metal and rubber drives, the food rationing and gas rationing. We haven't been throwing every spare penny into war bonds. We haven't begun to fight. And this war, as all wars, once released upon the earth cannot be recanted.
I agree, the Spanish voters have empowered the terrorists. So have the capitalists that sold them weapons. But I disagree that what goes on in Guantanamo Bay, or any other foreign prison we send suspected and known terrorists to, has anything to do with (wink wink) psychological warfare. I think the prisoners are kept in places where torture is legal. To what extent we allow that system of interrogation to go on is at the military's discretion. And that is not what we Americans expect from ourselves.
One of the saddest lessons I have learned in my life is that once very moral people do horrific evil things in the name of war. The Polaroids and letters from Vietnam describing what was done with prisoners were as bad as you can imagine. And the stories my uncle confessed to my mother after WWII were just as bad. It wasn't just that war or this war -- it is all wars.
The atrocities that are done to a soldier by the enemy are nowhere near as appalling as the monstrous things the soldier himself becomes when in a position of dominance over said enemy. That is why war needs to be eradicated from the human psyche -- not for the physical harm it does to them and to us, but for the harm it does to our souls, to our spirits. It is the mob mentality in the arena of a sporting event 100-fold, with weapons, and hatred, and unrestrained violence.
A song from the 1920's: "I didn't raise my son to be a soldier, I raised him up to be my pride and joy. Who dares to put a musket on his shoulder, to shoot some other mother's darling boy? Let nations arbitrate their future problems, put down your guns and learn to walk away. There'd be no war today, if mothers all would say: I didn't raise my boy to be a soldier."
I know. It is more complicated then that, now, since we quit the arbitration process. We didn't put all our passion into a peace. Not one of us gave it our all. Now we are in a war over there, and we haven't even begun to fight. Or to suffer. Or to sacrifice. We haven't even started the Victory Gardens, the scrap metal and rubber drives, the food rationing and gas rationing. We haven't been throwing every spare penny into war bonds. We haven't begun to fight. And this war, as all wars, once released upon the earth cannot be recanted.
