- I often call the Iraq war George Bush's
personal war. But in truth it took a host of lackeys to pull it off, most
notably, Dick Cheney, Colin Powell, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleezza Rice,
and George Tenet. Give George Bush and Karl Rove credit on this one. This
was going to be an administration of "yes, sir." Loyalty and
total submissiveness were the only criteria for service. Medical X-rays
showing little or no spine were required before applications would be considered.
Colin Powell was the big winner. His x-rays at Bethesda Naval Hospital
shocked doctors and nurses alike: There was no evidence whatsoever of a
spine. He was perfect Bush material, and he went on to prove it.
-
- Every Sunday the Los Angeles Times prints
a special obituary section listing the military deaths of those serving
in Iraq and Afghanistan with detailed stories of those from California.
I make a point of going through it every Sunday. For those who write this
section it's a lot of copy and paste I'm sure. They can save much time
by putting in storage the following phrases,
-
- "killed when a roadside bomb exploded
near his Humvee."
-
- "killed when an improvised explosive
device detonated near him"
-
- "killed by a sniper."
-
- "killed when a roadside bomb hit
their vehicle while on patrol in Baghdad."
-
- Our servicemen are no longer there to
fight, but simply to survive. Rarely do they get the chance to confront
an enemy in the manner for which they were trained. When they go on patrol
they may as well not be armed for all the good their M-16s do them.
-
- Brian Mockenhaupt served two tours in
Iraq as an infantryman. He describes a typical day this way [Ref. 1]:
-
- "Mostly we drive around Iraq, often
we walk and always we wait. Waiting to blow up. Everywhere you look, there's
a possibility of being blown up. Bombs are hidden in dead dogs and dead
donkeys, trash piles, fruit stands and cars. Any place is a good place
to hide a bomb I may still have a young man's body, but now I have an old
man's heart, and I know when I'm back home it will quiver from loud noises
and strain in the night, while I sleep and I dream."
-
- Bob Herbert of the New York Times describes
a father's reaction to the death of his son, Corporal Schroeder, age 23,
"one of 14 marines killed last August in a roadside explosion in Haditha,
in western Iraq." Schroeder's father told Herbert (and later wrote
an op-ed piece in the Washington Post):
-
- "My son told us two weeks before
he died that he felt the war was not worth it. His complaint was about
having to go back repeatedly into the same towns, to sweep the same insurgents,
or other insurgents, out of these same towns without being able to hold
them, secure them. It just was not working, and that's what he wanted to
get across."
-
- Then there is the story of Major Ray
Mendoza, U.S. Marine Corps. His story was written as a special by Tony
Perry, who has been covering the Iraq war for the Los Angeles Times [Ref.
2]. Writes Perry:
-
- "When I hear that any Marine has
been killed, I can sense the grief that has descended on the family and
the corps. I'm always saddened but rarely surprised.Only once has my reaction
been of disbelief: No, not him. It can't be. Not Ray Mendoza.
-
- "At 6 feet 2 and 225 pounds, Mendoza
had been a star wrestler at Ohio State in the 1990s and, as a Marine, an
alternate on the 1996 Olympic team His shoulders were Herculean. His wrists
were the size of an average man's biceps. When he wore running shorts,
his legs looked like pillars. And he moved with an athlete's grace, as
if he could unleash speed and power at any time; no swagger, just confidence.[But]on
Nov. 14, in a joint U.S.-Iraqi mission to break up insurgent strongholds
along the Syrian border, Mendoza had led his troops to the village of Ubaydi.
As he stepped from his Humvee, he was struck full force by a hidden roadside
bomb," and died instantly. His battalion commander emailed Perry later
saying, ""If you thought anyone could stare down death and beat
it, it was Ray." But no one stares down death. Only a fool would make
such a statement. Death knows no distinctions. Young or old, weak or strong,
death could care less.
-
- Let me conclude with the story of Pat
Tillman, the NFL football star who turned down a $3 million dollar contract
with the Arizona Cardinals so he could fight with the Army Rangers against
Osama bin laden and the Taliban in Afghanistan. Tillman was killed on April
22, 2004, while on patrol in the Taliban-infested southeastern region of
Afghanistan. His story is complicated, but this much we know. Tillman was
killed accidentally by his own troops in a case of friendly fire, otherwise
known as fratricide.
-
- In an extremely detailed article by Steve
Coll of the Washington Post [Ref. 3], we learn of the details leading to
Tillman's death. Tillman's platoon had mechanical problems in one of their
humvees (a fuel pump) and found themselves stranded in enemy territory
as nightfall descended. The platoon commander, Lt. David Uthlaut, wanted
to keep his platoon in one group for safety, but was overruled by his company
commander, sitting at headquarters. Uthlaut, a recent West point graduate
argued that it was against Ranger policy to engage in "sweep operations
at night." But Uthlaut was overruled. It was this splitting up of
the platoon that led the two units to eventually engage each other in a
confused firefight, each thinking the other the enemy. And in this exchange
of fire, Tillman was killed, three shots in his skull that literally took
his head off according to one of his fellow Rangers.
-
- But death by friendly fire is more common
than most realize. Yes, there is often negligence or incompetence involved,
some procedure not followed properly, but after all, war is chaos and endless
death, and this is all part of what we sign up for when we endorse war.
-
- The company commander's name was just
recently released. He is Capt. William Saunders. In the subsequent investigation
of Tillman's death, Saunders testified that he got no objections from Lt.
Uthlaut about splitting up the platoon, but communication records disproved
this. Nevertheless, as Coll writes, "although initially threatened
by perjury charges, Saunders was given immunity and allowed to change his
prior testimony." It is here that the disgrace comes in. Recall that
Army slogan seen so often on TV, "Be all you can be." A better
one would be, "Take no responsibility, pass the buck when you can,
and always lie your ass off." It's the new Army way.
-
- Coll goes on to describe how the Army
tried to play Tillman's death to its advantage. Coll writes that, "The
records show Tillman's superiors exaggerated his actions and invented details
as they burnished his legend in public, at the same time suppressing details
that might tarnish Tillman's commanders. Army commanders hurriedly awarded
Tillman a posthumous Silver Star for valor and released a nine-paragraph
account of his heroism that made no mention of fratricide. A month later
the head of the Army's Special Operations Command, Lt. Gen. Philip R. Kensinger
Jr., called a news conference to disclose in a brief statement that Tillman
'probably' died by 'friendly fire.' " Not surprisingly, the brave
General Kensinger refused to answer questions consistent with the
new Army mantra I announced above.
-
- Tillman was buried in his hometown of
San Jose, California. One of those giving a eulogy was Sen. John McCain
of Arizona. McCain's only connection was that Tillman had gone to Arizona
State University and played with the Arizona Cardinals football team. But
McCain saw Tillman's death as an opportunity to gain some spotlight in
his obsessional bid for the 2008 presidential nomination and he hurriedly
got himself to San Jose. It was only later that details came out about
fratricide. It was also learned that one of Tillman's fellow Rangers "burned
Tillman's bullet riddled body armor - which would have been evidence in
a friendly-fire investigation. He later testified that he did so because
there was no doubt it was friendly fire that killed Tillman. Two days later,
Tillman's uniform and vest also were burned because they were soaked in
blood and considered a biohazard. Tillman's uniform also was burned."
-
- And when this new information came forth,
where was the hero, John McCain? He was off to his next campaign gimmick,
like the Jay Leno show, to show what a great guy he is. New York Times
columnist Paul Krugman puts John McCain in proper perspective. Writes Krugman
in a recent article:
-
-
-
- "It's time for some straight talk
about John McCain. He isn't a moderate. He's much less of a maverick than
you'd think. And he isn't the straight talker he claims to be.
-
-
- "Every once in a while he makes
headlines by apparently defying Mr. Bush, but he always returns to the
fold, even if the abuses he railed against continue unabatedAnd he isn't
a maverick, at least not when it counts. When the cameras are rolling,
Mr. McCain can sometimes be seen striking a brave pose of opposition to
the White House. But when it matters, when the Bush administration's ability
to do whatever it wants is at stake, Mr. McCain always toes the party line."
-
-
- I don't mean to argue that some lives
are more valuable than others. Every combat death is a tragedy of equal
magnitude. It's just that some stories hit home more effectively than others.
And some, like Pat Tillman's death, raise important issues of how the military
conducts itself today under Bush command. The bottom line is that all the
deaths in Iraq were to fulfill one man's will, that of George W. Bush.
And more American soldiers will die next week and still more the week after,
and so and so on, all to fulfill George Bush's pathological drives. Who
will they be? Which families will have well dressed military men or women
knock on their doors to deliver the heartbreaking news?
-
- What was this war really about anyway?
Was it about oil? Was it about establishing a military presence in the
Middle East? Or was it a personal issue, Saddam having once planned to
assassinate George Bush Sr.? I don't think we will ever know, anymore than
we know what drove Hitler, who we can at best only write off as a psychopath,
a madman, who somehow had the charm and the charisma to hypnotize a nation
when it was at its weakest point, devastated by the severe and unfair surrender
terms of World War I. To this day Germany still feels the disgrace for
having sat passive and idle while Hitler and his madmen took advantage
of these conditions and ended up destroying not only much of Europe and
Asia, but in the end, their own once great country.
-
- Could this happen now in the United States
under "Hitler-Lite," George Bush, as he sits on the world's largest
nuclear arsenal? Is passive, weak America -- once proud and courageous
-- still cowering in fear after 9/11, willing to turn their lives, and
perhaps the fate of the world, over to a madman?
-
-
- References
-
- Ref. 1:
- Brian Mockenhaupt , "Waiting to
blow Up: Moments from the War Zone,"
-
- Ref. 2:
- Tony Perry, "Coming to Terms with
the Death of a Marine,"
-
- Ref. 3:
- Steve Coll, "Barrage of Bullets
Drowned Out Cries of Comrades,"
-
- Gerald S. Rellick, Ph.D., worked in aerospace
industry for 22 years. He now teaches in the California Community College
system. He can be reached at grellick@hotmail.com
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