WHO KNEW?
I have friends who browbeat me about Saddam, who insisted he had to go, who bought all the lies about weapons of mass destruction, who smiled at the quick victory Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld and the rest of them declared. And when it all went wrong, and millions of human beings departed and trillions of dollars vanished, those friends shook their heads and mouthed….
Who knew?
Not quite an apology but almost an acknowledgement.
I knew. We knew. We who know that the path to world peace is not through world war. We who don’t see every almost daily horrific mass murder by lunatic misguided individuals as an invitation to crackdown, to panic, to manufacture more and deadlier weaponry, to wage war. We who know that the solution is not to throw billions and billions of bomb dollars at what is absolutely a human tragedy and crisis but rather to hurl humanity at the problem. Share the wealth just a little bit more equitably worldwide and throw safety net, occupational, healthy food, clean water, shelter, educational, medical, environmental, local community, artistic, and cultural dollars at the problem and in a generation or less the bulk of American dollars will go to bridges and not bombs. The powers that be will still have more power and wealth than they could possibly ever enjoy and consume. Alienation, hatred, bitterness, and a compulsion to destroy will lurk in fewer and fewer corners of this beautiful nation and planet. The last four years we had a president who talked tough and preached trickle down all the while slashing programs designed to help the young find a good path and the old survive. Many of those same friends shook those same heads….
Who knew?
Not quite an apology but almost an acknowledgement.
It will have to do, let’s move forward.
A hundred years ago we didn’t have a standing army and a gargantuan military line item feeding our GDP. We didn’t see the need to always deploy our young men and women in hostile territory. Yes, it is a dangerous world getting more dangerous every day. But it should be obvious by now that tribalism and walls and bombs and bullets don’t work. Books do, butter does, volunteers, medicine, communications and technology, fair wages, they all work wonders. Not overnight but over time. America first is not about exclusion or tribalism; it’s about leadership, about the wealthiest and most powerful nation on earth setting an example of equality, fairness, cooperation, and brotherhood that the rest of the planet will be all too eager to follow.
Soldiers follow orders. If we truly want to honor the memory of those bravest of us every Memorial Day, those who lost their lives in passionate pursuit of ideals they embraced with every ounce of their being, those who sacrificed everything for us, we need to be worthy of giving those orders.
In memory of my father Herman Brav, pictured below on the right with a Brother in Arms with the 69th Infantry in April 1945 Germany, and all the men and women who have served our nation so courageously.
