I recently
diaried on the creeping banality of the ever-mounting deaths of American soldiers, and to a greater extent Iraqi civilians. The question that naturally rises from observing that the deaths of our fellow citizens three years after Bush declared victory in Iraq is how can we reverse this banality? How do we restore meaning and consequence to each tragic death to the nation on whole? Is it possible to give the same attention and weight to the deaths of twenty-four of our troops last week as we do to twelve miners? Or is the Iraq quagmire too far beyond our daily lives and has our country moved beyond caring about the lives of grunts in Iraq? In this post I'll try to address some of these questions and hopefully provide hope that all is not lost.
Hail Mary Pass below the fold.
I have to start, though, by placing blame for the genesis of the treatment of the deaths of GIs as banal. Not surprisingly, that blame rests squarely on President Bush and to a slightly lesser extent Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, Press Secretary Scott McClellan, Vice President Cheney, and rightwing talking heads like Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, and Sean Hannity.
These men are to blame for their role in either setting policies that diminish the value of American troops' sacrifices in Iraq or publicly attacking those who have the courage to criticize the president for these disrespectful policies. For starters, President Bush's policy of not attending the funerals of our troops who died in combat tell the country that the deaths of Americans isn't important enough to fit on the president's schedule. No one really expected Bush to go to every funeral, especially as the death toll reached the thousands, but it's a specious argument to say Bush can't visit some for a lack of visiting all. The disrespect of the dead is carried even further by Rumsfeld's disavowal of his most sacred duty as Secretary of Defense - personally signing every letter to the families of the deceased soldiers. When the Secretary of Defense isn't prepared to spend two seconds offering you the proper respect your sacrifice deserves, it sends a message that the death of American servicemen just isn't that worthy of attention by the average American. The Pentagon bears even further blame for shipping coffins of soldiers back to the US via the cargo bay of commercial airplanes - in the Bush administration our military dead have become line items (Pentagon>Army>Soldiers>Postage) not deserving of the respect required by military codes of honor.
The president and his surrogates have demonstrated an even greater disrespect for our dead soldiers by the treatment of Cindy Sheehan. Sheehan wanted to talk to the president about what he beliefs her son Casey died for. Bush, in response, has ignored Sheehan and had her forcibly moved and arrested multiple times, all the while his surrogates smear her name, her motives, her love of her son. Bush's followers vandalized the representations of dead American on crosses by her roadside camp. This is not the respect a grieving mother deserves, let alone treatment that recognizes the sacrifice thousands of families like hers have made for our country.
Americans have died in Iraq. 2,210 by last count. No amount of smearing liberals will make these Americans come back nor change the fact they died fight a war against a nation that had not attacked us nor had the capacity to do us harm. In what is surely the greatest disgrace to our dead soldiers, some media outlets refused to broadcast Ted Koppel's reading of the names of every dead American soldier in primetime ABC broadcast. Somehow even commemorating those who have lost their lives in Iraq is a partisan act - though it's notable that on every September 11th the names of every victim is read and publicly honored. The Bush administration has co-opted the military as a symbol to be used for Republican partisan gain and all other instances of honoring the military are taken as assaults on what they hope would be a president beyond reproach.
The result of these actions by Bush and his cohorts is that the media doesn't pay much attention to the deaths of American troops, which means Americans aren't given the opportunity to see these soldiers honored by military tradition (when applicable) or given respect by the President. We are told the troops lives aren't important, aren't worthy of concern. After hearing this over 2,200 times, it has sunk in and only passing attention is paid. We don't know the troops that died and even their cause of death has become banal. IED. Suicide bomber, Car bomb. Friendly fire. Sniper. Taglines and photos of the shells of Humvees. It all looks the same now. It is banal.
We can only reverse this tragic chain of events by going back and striking at their cause. This doesn't mean ending the Iraq war, for that would only end the occasion for the tragedy, not the banality itself. Here is a list of actions the progressive blogsphere should begin to call for to honor our troops who die serving the Constitution and their brothers in arms.
- Tell us about the soldiers. Every one of these heroes deserves personal recognition for their sacrifice. Their lives should be respected and valued. The government should fund a documentary tribute for each soldier. These citizens deserve to have their story told, even if it's just ten or fifteen minutes. With 2,210 dead Americans given fifteen minutes each, it would take about 6 months for each to have their story if it were broadcast three hours a night, seven days a week, commercial free on network television. Do it all on PBS or require Fox, ABC, NBC, CBS, UPN, and WB to do it as well. Fund it with government dollars or private donations. Interview the soldiers' families and friends, letting them use their time for whatever sort of commemoration they want, be it political, emotional, or historical. This would be a tremendous undertaking, but it would finally introduce America to the men and women fighting and dying in our name. Every death would become tangible; every life would be recognized as unique and no longer banal.
- Along similar lines, allow and encourage network news broadcasts to name those Americans who have died in Iraq on that date in the war. This could done in parallel with the annual reading of the name of every American who's died fighting in Iraq on March 21st, the date of our first casualty.
- Require the president, vice president or a member of the cabinet to attend every funeral of an American soldier, unless the families of the deceased refuse. Force the administration to respect every life we lose fighting this war.
The danger is that these measures will also become repetitive and commonplace. My hope is that they are in themselves so powerful that our citizenry cannot mistake the tremendous loss our country suffers with every soldier's death. My hope is that the administration will recognize that the military is not a tool to enable corporate power grabbing of Arab oil, but a national treasure that cannot be carelessly wasted by unpreparedness and irresponsibility. My hope is that the administration will realize that they could be doing more productive things than attending thousands of funerals and decide to bring the troops home as a result.
I don't know how effective these ideas will be in combating the banality of loss of life in Iraq. I don't have any clue how we can even come close to making progress regarding Americans valuing Iraqi civilian lives, a topic deserving of its own post. I don't know if the everyday fact of American deaths in war makes the creep of banality an irresistible force. I hope not. I believe Americans do care deeply about the sacrifices our troops are making, but we haven't been given the opportunity or cause to devote our emotions to their losses.
Bush isn't going to do anything to honor these men and women if it doesn't help him politically, but this is an issue that rises beyond politics. I know a lot of us are angry about Bush's handling of the war, but I believe we can affect political change through the non-partisan commemoration of our troops' sacrifices. That's not to say that our outrage won't affect political change, but it shouldn't be our primary goal. That is reserved for the authentic, respectful, public honoring of every American who's died fighting in Iraq.
I have listed three ideas to start the debate. Hopefully people can suggest others. Please give thought to how we can confront banality, how we can change the way people talk and think about our casualties in Iraq, and how the president. This list should be tripled in honor of the 2,210 reasons for honoring the troops.
Cross posted at The Baltimore Group.