I was just watching a great movie, The Americanization of Emily, written by Paddy Chayevsky. Chayevsky's words, spoken by James Garner, hit hard, given the war we're currently "lacking the stomach for":
CHARLIE: I don't trust people who make bitter reflections about war, Mrs. Barham. It's always the generals with the bloodiest records who are the first to shout what a hell it is. It's always the war widows who lead the Memorial Day parade.
EMILY: That was unkind, Charlie, and very rude.
CHARLIE: We shall never end war, Mrs. Barham, by blaming it on ministers and generals, war-mongering imperialists, or all the other banal bogeys. It's the rest of us who build statues to those generals and name boulevards after those ministers. The rest of us who make heroes of our dead and shrines of our battlefields. We wear our widow's weeds like nuns, Mrs. Barham, and perpetuate war by exalting its sacrifices. My brother died at Anzio.
EMILY: I didn't know that, Charlie.
CHARLIE: Yes, an every day soldier's death, no special heroism involved. We buried what pieces they found of him. But my mother insists he died a brave death and pretends to be very proud.
MRS. BARHAM: You're very hard on your mother. It seems a harmless enough pretense to me.
CHARLIE: No, Mrs. Barham. No, you see, now my other brother can't wait to reach enlistment age. That'll be in September.
MRS. BARHAM: Oh, Lord.
CHARLIE: It may be ministers and generals who blunder us into wars, Mrs. Barham, but the least the rest of us can do is to resist honoring the institution. What has my mother got for pretending bravery was admirable? She's under constant sedation, terrified she may wake up one morning, and find her last son has run off to be brave. I don't think I was rude, or unkind before, do you Mrs. Barham?
I'll admit that, like our Republican leaders, I've never fought in a war, or served in the military. I, like them, am an abject coward, although I have the decency to be open about it.
It is only if we stop talking about how noble and brave it is to die in Iraq that we have any chance to get the hell out. As long as dying or losing a leg or an arm fighting in the middle of a civil war we needlessly started is "honorable," then getting out before success is "dishonorable."
I admit to feeling some shame at times that I haven't gone and sacrificed my life or my career to go off and fight. The difference between my cowardice and that of, say, Jonah Goldberg, is that I don't want anyone else to go off and fight and die either. I think that's a critical difference, and not just because it makes me look better in contrast.
This war is pointless. It was pointless before it started, it has been pointless throughout the duration, and, years from now, doctoral students of history and political science will write dissertations explicating at length the utter pointlessness of this damn war.
I cannot imagine the pain of the families who've lost loved ones. But families lose loved ones every day to cancer and car crashes. We only elevate the status of those who die in war to martyrdom. Everyone agrees that every soldier who dies or is wounded is a hero, no matter what the person was doing at the time. So, the administration says, we cannot dishonor the martyrs by leaving too soon. The Democrats in Congress are caught in the trap. If all soldiers who die are martyrs, we're betraying their noble deaths by retreating.
War is not noble. It's ugly, horrible, and something to be avoided, even though wars are part of life, as much of the world can attest. The people who die in war almost always die in a brutish, violent way that hardly smacks of heroism.
There is only some great struggle against Islamo-fascist tyranny if we keep saying there is. (I note without irony that this elevation of war to something sanctified is exactly what we say is the problem with our "enemies.") So, members of Congress, stop saying it.
That's the only way out of this. If this is a stupid misadventure, we can stop it. If this is a grand holy struggle, with heroes laying down their lives, we're stuck.
One last thing. Polls show that America has basically figured all this out. We're ready to leave the place, noble sacrifices be damned. It's only the media and the politicians who're still caught in their rhetorical snare. They need to free themselves, and us.
Then we can bring our troops home, where they can afford to be cowards like me.