In a Jan. 31,2012 Juneau Empire “My Turn” column, Deborah Craig states that the GOP feeds us “a steady diet of misinformation and skewed views despite the facts: Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction, nor instigate 9/11. The U.S. cannot bomb or invade our way to world respect.” And the Democrats think differently? Democrats don’t care about the war. The war protests mysteriously ended with the Obama inauguration. The wars did not. There was no “change we can believe in.”
I received a 50th birthday fundraiser invitation for Democratic Sen. Mark Begich. Many notables were on the invitation, including current and former assembly members and union heads and local Democratic party leaders who will be there to support Mark with their money and votes. According to Sen. Begich’s website: “I am committed to disrupting, dismantling and defeating the terrorist al-Qaida network in Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan. As a result of the visit with our troops I worked tirelessly to support necessary personnel increases in our military to ensure the right force was in place.” This is not a man who is going to bring our kids home from these senseless wars. He wants to send more. President Obama and our Congressional delegation recently sent home a Juneau soldier who lost three limbs and had a head injury. Another was sent home missing his foot. These heroes won’t be doing any celebrating. Not birthday celebrating, anyway.
They’ll celebrate walking again.
Begich, along with our Democratic president and our two Republican congressmen support the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. President Obama claims he’ll spend more than President George W. Bush did on defense when he left office. His GOP rivals say they’ll spend more. In the meantime, Senators Begich and Lisa Murkowski, Rep. Don Young and President Obama continue sending Juneau’s kids home from the wars with injuries — some we can see, and others we can’t.
We are on the brink of another war — with Iran. It’s a favorite tactic of sitting presidents and congressmen — to get into a conflict near the end of their term because they know the sheep will not want to “change horses in mid-stream” at election time. This is not a Democrat or GOP thing. War is big money. War backers are not only the Blackwaters and Halliburtons of the world, but our local political parties, unions, Native corporations and business leaders who back our congressional delegation for their own purposes — or ours, if you belong to their unions, parties, or corporations. Whether supporters claim to be pro-life or pro-choice, environmentalist or capitalist, pro-union or pro-business — one thing is certain: they support the candidates that continue the war.
Support for Alaska’s Congressional delegation, President Obama or the leading GOP candidates is support for the war. We know it’s wrong, but can’t bring ourselves to put peace above our other interests. There will be candidates out there against the war, from union board candidates to presidential candidates. We have to ask our leaders unequivocally if they support the candidates that support the war. If they do, we need to fire them at the polls or the union vote or the corporation board vote. Praying for peace ain’t gettin’ it. Voting for a pro-war candidate because you don’t think an anti-war candidate can win or won’t get your corporation or union a contract or isn’t from your party ain’t gettin’ it either.
There will come a day when we have a memorial in Washington, D.C. for our kids we’ve sent to these wars in the Middle East. Like the Vietnam memorial, we will stare at the names and wonder what the lives of these sons and daughters, spouses and parents, would have been like if they were still alive. And why we sent them there in the first place. And what their purpose was for dying. We’ll pass homeless people who made it home from the war in body but not in mind, and wonder why they can’t get a job.
We’re fooling ourselves to think we’re any freer sending our kids to the other side of the planet to fight wars where “victory” cannot even be defined, much less achieved. I’d rather bring our kids home and take my chances.
• Stopha is a North Douglas resident with no political party affiliation.
Comments (18)
Add commentIt's worse than he says
This fellow gives an accurate picture but the situation is even worse. For instance, because the US is so over-extended there is no likelihood that commitments to injured veterans can be met. With over 40% of every federal expenditure being borrowed, much of the borrowing coming from overseas, the huge costs associated with military personnel being injured today will have to fall into the deep, dark hole of entitlements that cannot be paid. No elected or appointed official is going to admit to that but everyone knows it. Next time you run into a federal employee, ask yourself if the costs incurred in employing that person are worth this fiscal mess and not meeting the commitments to our veterans.
Objection
I greatly appreciate Mr Mark Stopha's sentiments and sense of urgency, however,
1. we are in the initial phases of a conflict that will ultimately come to blows between two opposing idealogies, and if we don't recognized that sooner than later we will become beseiged and overrun; and
2. I believe our policy is flawed, but only because it got us into two limited conflicts that only served to stir the opposition, and now we want to wrap these up and move on in the name of political expediency.
Peace sounds nice, but peace is not the absence of war, its the dominion of security. Nothing of consequence will flourish without security.
Typical spin, geedog
Federal employee pay and benefits is well under 10% of total federal expenditures. The real money is in fat cat contracts, especially military contracts, as Mr. Stopha points out.
But way to blame your neighbors for the excesses of congress.
ideologies
Ah, way to come right to the meat of the matter, Grendel: "we are in the initial phases of a conflict that will ultimately come to blows between two opposing idealogies..."
So if I understand what you are espousing, we are in a religious war, and we need to resist the Islamists before their religion takes over the world.
Interesting that you consider the current wars, which have cost us north of a $trillion, to be "limited conflicts". That so completely minimizes and disrespects the sacrifices made by our soldiers.
I would suggest that you offer your services to our military services...but truth be told, I wouldn't want your type IN our military.
cool your jets, lat58
It is in fact a religious war. Both sides dont have to call it such, but when one side will strap a vest packed with plastique to a kid and praise allah -- I'd call that convincing evidence.
If these wars Mr Stopha speaks of are not limited, then why are we trying to divorce ourselves of the Iraq debacle, and why has the current administration set a timeline for AF?
truth be told: Somalia, '93; Bosnia, '94, Dem Rep Congo, '98; Horn of Africa, '03, and a few other crummy little limited conflicts. I would suggest you choose your battles.
@Grendel: yeah, it's all
@Grendel: yeah, it's all about religion! Those Muslims lay low for 1400 years and then bam! All out war!
Culture, a history of oppression by the west, constant western meddling, etc. have nothing to do with it. Nope, it's all simply religion. It must be true because it's easier to come to terms with than a more complex answer.
@PP: security
which would put you more at ease: the rabid dog in the neighborhood isn't so bad, so long as he is kept penned; or, there was a rabid dog in the neighborhood but they put it down?
@Grendel: I think you know as
@Grendel: I think you know as well as I do that a multi-generational cultural conflict involving centuries of history is a bit different than a rabid dog.
It's also worth noting that Muslims aren't, contrary to what you may believe, dogs; they are people, like you and I.
protest have not ended
I don't know where the writer comes up with the protest have ended. I see the same individuals protest every Saturday against the war that have been protesting since the invasion of Iraq.
It so easy to claim what would have, could have or might have happened if something had not happened. Those concept are nothing more than possible maybes and not much else. What did happen is the reality and not putting things into perspective is a poor way to claim failure by anyone.
It would be great if one could instantly make a wish and boom the wish came true; in the real world it doe not happen that way.
@PP
dont read too much into it. You got the point. I did have a nicely crafted reply to your first, but it's somewhere in the moderatorsphere. An expression I heard frequently enough in AF makes my point: "you have the watches, we have the time." (we'll see if this posts....)
Well said Mark Stopha!
@grendel, we're not talking about rabid dogs, we're talking about human beings who have been repeatedly stomped on for the sake of "energy security" in the United States. Is it any wonder it's given their radical voices more of a stage? They're more violent than the religious zealots in our country only because they're on the bottom and have nothing left to lose.
If you want a religious war, by all means go over there and start fighting, but don't do it in my name or with my tax dollars, please.
@jamison
If it makes you feel any better, substitute "crazy man with an explosive vest" for "rabid dog". And don't say you'd call the cops...
We are not at war, folks...
And we're not going to be. There are 90 million people in Iran, and since we muffed the Iraq thing... Iraq is a mere mouse compared to Iran. There are maybe a few hawks dreaming how nice it would be to drop a nuke on Iran, but they just want to rattle a saber & be reminded that they are dominant. The Israelis may bomb Iran, as they already have in Syria and Iraq, but that may fail and just stir up the hornet's nest.
I personally think the whole thing is media hype. Any modern country who actively talks of war with the current global situation is nutz. Wars don't fit in anymore, and we have much more important things to worry about.
Too much of a business
What makes me ill about these "wars" are that its all business and political correctness. We don't just go in and vanquish a foe. No, we have to go in and nation build with our billion dollar private contractors as mentioned in the article. Then we have to buy friends while being very careful not to offend the inhabitants. Any offensive actions or remarks and its apology time, and more money.
pp
Off your meds again
Time to pull out and bring
Time to pull out and bring our people home. There may be something worth fighting for somewhere outside our borders but it isn't in the ME. If those folks want to live like they're in the stone age so be it.
There's lots of oil other places and we're about bled out and most of our treasure is gone.
bandirider: what war did we
bandirider: what war did we ever vanquish the foe?
civil war? most of the conferate soldiers got a pardon and the states are back in the union. WW1? harsh peace terms led to the rise of the nazis. smooth move there. WW2? we had war crimes trials for a few leaders, most of the small ones were let go after some jail time. the marshall plan "nationbuilding" rebuilt europe and there was no war with russia. gulf war 1? saddam was still in power at the end.
No grendel, peace isn't about "security"
Peace, while it is more than just the absence of war, as you point out, is based on finding ways to resolve disputes that do not involve slaughtering people(or worse, continuation of said slaughter in inconclusive, unwinnable conflicts in the name of meaningless terms like "national honor").
Without finding ways to resolve disputes between nations in nonviolent, diplomatic ways, no amount of "security" will ever make us secure, and demagogues in undisclosed locations will continue to repeat phrases like "it's STILL a dangerous world"(by which they mean that we have to be MORE dangerous than anyone else in said world).
In the end, it involves taking leadership away from the "leaders", none of whom care how many people have to die in the name of preserving their "power" and "prestige" and "credibility", and giving it to the ordinary common people of the planet...the global Rainbow majority who realize that none of the wars are about them and who, given the chance, would avoid sending their kids off to die on battlefield after battlefield after battlefield.
That's what peace would be...not "security", a concept which has no absolute meaning and a state of being that none of our leaders will ever admit has actually been fully and permanently achieved.