A letter from last year

[DemoTex]

October 25, 2005

Dear Editor,

The haunting realities of President George H.W. Bush’s (41) reference to “a thousand points of light” in his 1989 inaugural speech visit us again. This time the “thousand points of light” are the lost lives of 2000 of America’s finest young men and women. The first of these brave troops died on March 20, 2003. The 1000th Iraq war death occurred on September 7, 2004, and the 2000th needless death was announced today, October 25, 2005. This regiment of the dead – 2000 strong now - haunts those with a soul.

These 2000 lives were lost in a war that happened because of another “thousand points of light,” the constellation of bright shining lies of President George W. Bush (43). Mr. Bush just couldn’t get his war on quick enough. Bush lied; 2000 died.

Then the former-Lieutenant Bush just couldn’t do his vainglorious victory strut on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln, under a banner proclaiming “Mission Accomplished,” quick enough (May 1, 2003). Since that day, 1883 US troops have died.

Then President Bush just couldn’t taunt the tenacious enemy quick enough with his macho “Bring ‘em on!” (July 2, 2003). They brought it on, indeed, and 1795 good Americans died.

On December 13, 2003, Saddam Hussein, bedraggled and lousy, was captured in a hidey-hole. The world is a safer place now, we were told. Dover AFB has received 1588 flag-draped coffins from Iraq since that day.

The original reasons justifying this $200-billion war are long-gone, down the rabbit hole as it were. The words of Dwight D. Eisenhower, ringing like a Presbyterian deacon, point out the contradictions between war and the teachings of the Prince of Peace: "Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed" (President Dwight D. Eisenhower, April 16, 1953).
As for President Bush, Vice-President Cheney, Secretary Rumsfeld, and the rest of the PNAC (Plan for the New American Century) gang, Mark Twain busted their crusade over a century ago:

“I bring you the stately matron named Christendom, returning bedraggled, besmirched and dishonoured from pirate-raids in Kiao-Chou, Manchuria, South Africa and the Philippines, with her soul full of meanness, her pocket full of boodle and her mouth full of pious hypocrisies. Give her the soap and a towel, but hide the looking-glass.” Mark Twain, from A Salutation from the 19th to the 20th Century, December 31, 1900.

As a veteran of 250 air combat missions over Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, I honor the warrior, but not Mr. Bush’s war. As one who can count the names of many friends on the Vietnam Memorial Wall, I grieve for this regiment of good and brave Americans, lost forever in Iraq. They join the great WW-1 poet, Wilfred Owen, who wrote the most exquisite anti-war words ever:

My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

DemoTex

PS: Owen’s Latin phrase, the old Lie, translates (roughly): “It is sweet and good to die for one’s country.”

[oneighty]

1. Hail DemoTex

I am glad you have brought your writings of happenings, musings and quotations to the writing group.

180

[frogmarch]

2. Kudos

A powerful letter, WesDem. :thumbsup: You said it all, and in a way that deeply affected me. I'm sure everyone else who read the letter felt the same way. You did a superb job.