“You see, killbots have a preset kill limit. Knowing their weakness, I sent wave after wave of my own men at them until they reached their limit and shut down.” – Zap Brannigan
In grim commemoration of the Congressional vote to authorize the Iraq War yesterday (which was now half a decade ago) the Washington Post published an op-ed article written by twelve (12!) former US Army captains. Their conclusion, arrived at after a succinct and grim evaluation of the situation, is that “our best option is to leave Iraq immediately.” That is about as unambiguous a statement as you can ask for and it doesn’t leave any room for misinterpretation.
To attempt to forestall or at least blunt the inevitable attacks on the authors’ credentials and credibility the Post lists the time and place of service in Iraq right next to each name. The dates range from 2003-2006 and the places read like a AAA Triptych of cities and provinces that plenty of Americans we wish we’d never heard of. The authors are neither grunts too close to the action to have any perspective nor higher ups with political axes to grind or promotions to consider. They are the junior officers who were charged with carrying out ground level command while still considering the overall picture. Their conclusion couldn’t be clearer.
This latest cry for sanity from the ranks will likely fade from the discourse as quickly as the one written by the enlisted solders for the New York Times back in August. In fact this one will likely fade even faster as none of the authors are still on active duty and therefore can’t get killed in the war effort. Nevertheless, articles like this nourish my hope that the Iraq War can be in some way steered toward conclusion before January of aught nine.
There is still that pesky matter of the $190 billion the Administration says it needs for the war to continue. For Congressional opponents of the war, and those (still) on the fence, surely having something like this op-ed piece as rhetorical ammunition not only aids the argument but strengthens the spine. Military, or in this case veteran, support for not just ending the war but immediately ending the war cannot be ignored completely.
I’m not naïve enough to think that this one thing matters, but the fact that it was published and that it has, at least so far, not received much in the way of angry reaction is encouraging. That the rank and file, the people for whom this war is as real as Vietnam or WWII, has had enough is becoming less controversial. The “Hoorah” crowd was once the exclusive province of war supporters, now the opposite is becoming true.
That kind of shift in conventional wisdom is tremendously helpful. The farther the public image of war opponents gets from leftover sixties stereotypes of peacenik Democrats the better. The last leg that war supporters have to stand on is the movie house myth of America and America’s military. As long as American soldiers are fighting and dying the knee jerk support-the-troops-America-always-wins-except-for-pussy-liberal-backstabbing argument will be employed. Hearing from actual Iraq veterans isn’t enough to break that illusion in one blow (witness the “Phony Soldiers” incident), but every little bit helps.
