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Fraggin'
By Bill Shunas
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Members and friends of VVAW will soon be attending Memorial Day
ceremonies, much as we have been doing for over thirty years. At these
ceremonies, as well as on Veterans Day, we have honored the dead of our
wars. We have honored the veteran and have been advocates for better
care for veterans. We have used these occasions to speak out against
unjust wars which needlessly create more memorials and more veterans.
Another reason we hold ceremonies on Memorial Day is because the memory
of those who never made it back alive is used to try to justify
participation in unjust wars. We point this out and oppose it. In wars
of longer duration, such as Vietnam or the Gulf, how many times have the
politicians and hawks urged us on so that those who already died "won?t
have died in vain?"
They try to obscure the fact that the war has no
good purpose. They appeal to a desire for retribution and help ensure
that more will die in vain. They use veterans too. In these wars as well
as any shorter military actions, you?re likely to see TV images or
newspaper photos of war-supporting vets saluting the flag. This is a
call from those who have gone before to urge on the new generation to
fight.
It is this use of war dead and veterans to promote the new war,
or to promote trust in the political leadership, that we in VVAW have
long opposed. They would not have you question whether a war or military
police action is just. Instead they play on the emotions and respect the
American people have for veterans and soldiers who died. We say this is
a bogus use of that respect.
Those leaders (most of whom are not
veterans) who are responsible for our wars always evoke these emotions.
In essence, this misuse of memory is showing disrespect for the dead. If
the dead soldier could talk, quite likely he would be the last to
promote war, especially unjust war. Such a war means death,
dismemberment and agony for no good reason, only for the advantage of
the few. This is the ultimate disrespect for the dead.
Same goes for the
victims of 9/11. That was an act of war, and while the victims were
(mostly) civilians, they have been looked upon as one would look upon
those who died at Khe Sanh or the Chosin Reservoir or Iwo Jima or the
Somme. It is in their name that we — well, what do we do? We invade Iraq
which had no link to al-Qaeda, the perpetrator of 9/11. We come to find
out that long before 9/11 the Bush administration had their eyes on Iraq
and that 9/11 was just an excuse to go in. We make plans to do the same
to North Korea, Iran and Syria. Maybe we catch a few allies of the 9/11
terrorists. More likely we create more terrorists. We kill civilians. We
send our brothers and sisters off to fight and get killed.
In the name
of the victims of 9/11, our nation commits to all this. Like veterans
and KIAs, the 9/11 victims are used to justify all sorts of illegitimate
military and political deeds. Like veterans, they are dishonored by
George W. Bush. They are dishonored by Dick Cheney. They are dishonored
by Colin Powell. They are dishonored by Donald Rumsfeld. They are
dishonored by John Ashcroft. Rice. Perle. Wolfowitz. Same. Same. Our
nation's leaders dishonor the 9/11 dead by using them to promote their
preemptive wars and to erode our civil liberties on the homefront.
Bush
pulled a con job usually called "bait-and-switch." The American people
wanted justice for the victims of 9/11. The finger was pointed at
al-Qaeda, who were in Afghanistan, so we went to war there with mixed
results. We tried to kill a mosquito with a hammer. We got some al-Qaeda
and Taliban, but many are still running around loose in the mountains of
eastern Afghanistan and Pakistan.
One thing about going to Afghanistan:
even though we went in heavy-handed, we were aiming at al-Qaeda, which
was at least understandable. That was the bait, and then Bush switched.
Iraq and Saddam had no connection with al-Qaeda. Bush had the CIA
looking for a connection to enhance his propaganda effort, but al-Qaeda
and Saddam despised one another. There was no connection. So Bush set
the bait that we were going after al-Qaeda, who was responsible for the
9/11 crimes, and switched to going after Saddam, who is all bad, but not
responsible for the 9/11 crimes. When Bush did this, it was the ultimate
diss of the 9/11 victims. Their memory is now being used to bring death
and destruction for his political purposes.
Bill Shunas is a Vietnam veteran and author. He's a member of VVAW's Chicago chapter.
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