War, huh, Good God, y'all
What is it good for? Absolutely nothin'
Say it again
War, huh, Woah, woah, lord, lord
What is it good for? Absolutely nothin'
Listen to me
War, I despise
'Cause it means destruction of innocent lives
War means tears to thousands of mothers' eyes
When their sons go out to fight and lose their lives
War. It ain't nothing but a heartbreaker
War. Friend only to the undertaker, aww!
War is the enemy of all mankind
The thought of war blows my mind
War has caused unrest, within the younger generation
Induction then destruction
Who wants to die?
Aww!
War has shattered many young men's dreams
Made them disabled, bitter and mean
Life is much too short and precious to be fighting wars these days
War can't give life, it can only take it away, aww!
Peace, love and understanding
Tell me, is there no place for them today?
They say we must fight to keep our freedom
But Lord knows there's gotta be a better way, oh!
War, huh, Good God, y'all
What is it good for? Absolutely nothin'
Say it again
War, huh, Woah, woah, lord, lord
What is it good for? Absolutely nothin'
~ Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong
***
Two statements:
1. War is always evil, destructive, and unnecessary
2. Sometimes war is unavoidable.
Both of these statements are true.
Another way of putting it is what my father taught me, before Faux News and the right wing media-industrial complex ate his brains and heart:
“Never start a fight. But if you have to fight, finish it.”
Unfortunately, other people in this world choose to start wars, and sometimes this means you have to defend yourself and your country.
But make no mistake, war itself is evil, and those who start them are engaging in evil behavior.
Ultimately, what is left behind are casualties. Dead people, disabled people, mentally traumatized people, people left behind by dead soldiers and civilian victims of war. There is nothing glorious or heroic about war. It is the friend of the undertaker. Our homeless veteran population is just the most visible reminder of the destruction of war.
That said, yes, of course there are individual heroes within the context of war, and there is nothing shameful about defending one’s family and society from those who would violently harm it.
But that doesn’t change the overall result of war, which is destruction and harm.
This is the paradox of holidays like Memorial Day.
We honor our dead, but we also understand that the best way to honor them is to work to minimize those who die in war.
***
Memorial Day started out (as an official holiday) as “Decoration Day” - a day when flowers would be laid on the graves of Union soldiers, fallen in the Civil War.
Before it was official, however, it was observed at a small scale throughout the country.
Unsurprisingly, the Lost Cause Myth propagandists loudly claimed that these memorials were a Southern Confederate thing, stolen by the Northerners. This was bullshit, like the rest of the mythology, but gained far too much traction because of the loudness of the lie and the political power of those promoting it.
The truth turns out to be very different.
Historian David Blight - a real historian, not a pseudo-historian like the David Barton sorts the Trump misadministration promotes - researched the suppressed story of the first Memorial Day. You can read about that here. It was organized by African Americans to honor the victims of a Confederate POW camp, and give them the decent burial they were denied - about 10,000 people attended. Unsurprisingly, this story was mischaracterized by white supremacists, who couldn’t fathom that black people could organize such an event.
Memorial Day doesn’t exist to celebrate war. It does not exist to stir up jingoistic fervor. It does not exist to encourage the starting of wars.
It exists to honor those killed in a just cause, a war made necessary by others.
Which is why it was first organized by those whose freedom was bought with blood - including their own.
This is why MAGA voters - the neo-Confederate movement of our time - have no business celebrating Memorial Day. The holiday is all about giving their victims a decent burial and the honor that white supremacists deny those who fight against their evil.
***
As I stated at the beginning of this post, I believe the best honor we can give to our dead is to work toward a world in which we do not have war dead.
A world of peace and cooperation is a better world, with less death, injury, disability, trauma, and loss.
The United States hasn’t won a war since World War Two. The reason why is primarily that the United States hasn’t participated in a morally defensible war since then. That could be its own post, of course.
Wars that are not morally defensible are not wars that can be won in any meaningful sense. For the same reason, starting a war cannot be morally defensible.
The pattern we see is that psychopathic men convince the population that a war is somehow necessary or good. See: Hitler, but also a procession of United States presidents who have started futile wars since then, either as proxies for the Cold War or as naked seizure of resources.
We have multiplied our dead, while continuing to lose in the long term and increasingly in the short term.
Trump’s adventure in Iran is just the latest - and most catastrophic - in a long line. An unnecessary war, morally indefensible, and completely counterproductive.
And there are already senseless, stupid deaths.
We can and should be better than this.
Today, I honor those who died in unavoidable wars. And I mourn the loss of those who died in stupid, senseless wars they didn’t start, and had no power to stop.
***
I’ll end with a couple of lyrics by Don Henley:
O' beautiful, for spacious skies
Now those skies are threatening
They're beating plowshares into swords
For this tired old man that we elected king
Armchair warriors often fail
And we've been poisoned by these fairy tales
The lawyers clean up all details
Since daddy had to lie
(The End of the Innocence)
Moon shining down through the palms
Shadows moving on the sand
Somebody whispering the twenty-third psalm
Dusty rifle in his trembling hands
Somebody trying just to stay alive
He got promises to keep
Over the ocean in America
Far away and fast asleep
Weaving down the American highway
Through the litter and the wreckage and the cultural junk
Bloated with entitlement, loaded on propaganda
Now we're driving dazed and drunk
Been down the road to Damascus, the road to Mandalay
Met the ghost of Caesar on the Appian way
He said, "It's hard to stop this binging once you get a taste
But the road to empire is a bloody stupid waste"
Behold the bitten apple, the power of the tools
But all the knowledge in the world is of no use to fools
And it's a long road out of Eden
(Long Road Out of Eden)
***
Some book recommendations for understanding the history of stupid wars the US has chosen to cause:
A Peace to End All Peace by David Fromkin
Endless Enemies by Jonathan Kwitny
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