But this young man did serve his nation   .   .   .   .

How so? And kindly be specific.

I thought most of us here understood that serving in the military is service to the country. There is always the risk that the military will be abused by morons or scoundrels placed in charge by our TV-infected voters, but when that happens, individual service members aren't properly blamed.

Surely you don't believe that the US should have no military.

" It's not that we have no regard for Iraqi lives; it's just that we have much less regard for them."

Exactly. And that was the problem in Vietnam --and in the Gulf War.

Take your anger out on me if you want.  Don't take it out on Professor Bacevich's son through mocking Steve Clemons' eulogy of him.  I promised myself I wouldn't use my kin and their choices in my comments here, but I'm going to break that rule just this once.  One member of my very small family returns to Iraq for his second tour of duty later this summer.  Everything Professor Bacevich must have feared for his son I fear for this member of my own family.  I fear for his life, and I fear for the lives he may endanger through his own service there.  But though I would have preferred he made nearly any other choice than the one he freely made, I love him and respect that choice he made in full good faith.

Rest in Peace, Lieutenant Bacevich.

aMike

To Bush, and his hard core backers and Loyal Bushies, the only lives that are 'worth' anything are their own. That fact is worth remembering for those who might be considering serving under our current Commander in Chief.

J. McCutchen

Am quite a fan of his father and am profoundly saddened by this, yet another, waste of a young life.

The GOP knows that Iraq is lost. They hope enough time will pass under their bullshit PR campaign about a "new strategy" to which they are adding a chorus of complaints of Iraqi non-feasance, that Americans will soon be more pissed at the Iraqis than they are at Bush. Thus will appear the needed justification for the beginnings of a pullout late this year or early next.

Nixon and Kissinger weren't any better.

No; I don't believe in "service" to abstractions.  And pro patria mori has got to be the biggest lie the state has ever sold.  There are lots of reasons for young men to join in martial enterprises but patriotic service isn't one of them.

As for having a military, of course we should have one -- one large enough to fight off the only country in a position to do us any damage -- Canada.

I understand that you don't believe our involvment in Iraq constitutes "defending our country."

But then, what does?  How do you define your term "defending our country"?

We owe a lot to those who did that.

Sure do. Generous, fulsome satisfaction of all contractual obligations owed to them and -- to assuage our guilt -- a heartfelt apology for ever teaching them "The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est / Pro patria mori."

Ok then...Let's reinstate the draft. Seriously. Pure statistics will show that a good deal more "men of conscience" will be sent to fight this war. That is, as long as everyone with the last name of BUSH and/or CHENEY is marked off the list, which they surely would be anyways.

No; I don't believe in "service" to abstractions.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]

As criminal as the specific operation may be, one who intends to defend our country needs to prepare for doing so well in advance of specific campaigns. Many soldiers do not know where they are going to deploy until in a staging area.

Units and personnel train without knowing where they may be in a year. Most commonly, Marines afloat do noncombatant evacuations from Africa, but sometimes their ships aren't in the right place at the right time. A thrown-together task force from Germany did the evacuations from the last coup in Liberia, not exactly what they had signed up for.

There may be criminals specifying the missions, but the actual troops may do noncombatant evacuation, shows of force, international operations, and humanitarian missions as they come. I don't think anything in Iraq contributes to the defense of the United States. I do think that the units deployed there prepared for a wide range of contingencies.

One friend, now retired, was a National Guard first sergeant. He had two tours in Iraq, but his more recent deployments were to New Orleans after Katrina, and fighting forest fires in the Pacific Northwest.
--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]

All of my hopes and good will to the Bacevich family.

I have a friend who went to Iraq and he served a few tours. The first time I saw him home, he was a machine. I was frankly in awe over how the military had turned him into a mass of confident muscle.

The last time I saw him, after he'd been in an armored personnel carrier that got flipped after an IED explosion... he was just not the same guy. Hell, he'd tell you that. Something had been taken from him and it's obvious and he knows it.

All of us war opponents are criticized for notg supporting the troops. That's BS.

I support all of our troops. As individuals. That's why I hate the fact that people who volunteered to do what I wouldn't do are coming back hurt or not coming back at all.

I hate the war but love the troops. We all do. It should be a no-brainer. Opposing this war is not opposing our volunteer soldiers, it's demanding that our volunteers don't die for an unworthy cause.

Anti-war thought is, at least in this case, the kind of thought that actually honors and respects those who enlisted to defend us.

thosethingswesay.blogspot.com

I expected a knee jerk reaction. I'm not surprised to get one. Read what I wrote. I did not condemn any soldier, including those of Nazi Germany.

It just doesn't pay to check our brain at the door any time American troops are in action in a foreign country.

Hoppy in Sacramento

He has been one of the most articulate leading thinkers among military-policy dissident conservatives who have exposed the inanity of this war and the damage it has done.

True enough. But Bacevich's critique goes deeper than the all-too-evident problems of the current war. The war in Iraq is for him one symptom of a pervasive culture of militarism that has taken hold of both elite opinion and popular culture in the United States, under both parties, and perverted American principles.

This is a subject on which our candidates are so far silent, and show no interest in addressing in the future, and on which themainstream media-political culture has so far not had the slightest reformist impact.

Thank you for breaking your rule, Mike, just this once.

Tread softly, Mr. Clemons, please.

Godspeed Colonel Bacevich.

Sincere condolences to Andrew Bacevich, whose work I likewise appreciate and who himself has served with the US military. Thank you for your service to our country, Andrew.

And, in keeping with the spirit of Steve's post, sincere condolences to any readers, whether they live in the United States, Iraq, or any other country who have lost loved ones in this war. The vast majority of these individuals will not receive condolences from total strangers, as Andrew Bacevich is receiving here.

I try to make a point of thanking any individual I meet who has served in the US military. As Howard says, they don't get to choose for which wars they are going to answer the bell. It isn't their fault when the decisionmakers act on the basis of little or no insight into guerilla warfare or modern warfare, and the implications of same for whether, and if so how, to go to war.

It was with great sadness that I heard this news yesterday evening. I don't know Professor Bacevich personally and I didn't know his son, but I've long admired Professor Bacevich's thoughtful commentary on the war and that made this loss feel close to home. I doubt Professor Bacevich will be reading this blog at this time, but I do hope he knows that many of us who have been touched by his work send our sincerest condolences to him and his family.

The situation is nearly beyond words. It is nearly beyond belief. It is certainly beyond all reason.

What unmitigated bull-shit!

Men of concience must go to war, even an unjust war.

How about men of concience must do everything they can first of all to avoid war -- since this was was a war of choice and based on false pretenses, men of concience would have never started it.

Men of concience must put as much effort into diplomacy and thoughtful means of solving international conflicts as they do in settling turf-battles over fuel and other money sources.

Men of concience realize that turning their own into killers, and throwing young peoples' bodies in front of other peoples' bullets and bombs, is an ancient and destructive practice. 

And arming only the lowest among us is a bad thing. 

But, but, but the NRA Second Ammendment says.... 

Jan

Someone above said: "they don't get to choose for which wars they are going to answer the bell. It isn't their fault when the decisionmakers act on the basis of little or no insight into guerilla warfare or modern warfare, and the implications of same for whether, and if so how, to go to war."

But perhaps this is the great lesson of this war, a lesson we have not yet learned, though it has been put before us in many times and many places.

Personal choice. Personal responsibility.

Someone else above brought up Hitler's soldiers: "Didn't those soldiers actually just serve Hitler and his henchmen? Of course the choice was not theirs, and they had no way to make a judgement about if they were really serving their country by invading Poland."

Personal choice. Personal responsibility.

What horrors do we inflict on the world by saying it is HONORABLE to follow orders? By excusing all manner of inexcusable behavior by saying they were just "following orders"?

We know from several studies: "The Milgram Experiment", and the recent book about another such study, "The Lucifer Effect", that all manner of fine upstanding "honorable" people will do all manner of horrible things to other human beings if they just think they are "following orders" from some respected authority figure.

When will we realize that this human characteristic is not something to bring praise and honor, but a human FAULT that needs to be guarded against. When will we teach our young to avoid the pitfalls of obedience, so that they won't pay the lifetime price of regrets for the actions they took while "following orders"?

When will we stop with the euphemisms about "serving our country" meaning following orders to kill another human being who has done you and your country no harm?

Why do we not allow our soldiers to CHOOSE - at every point - if the cause they are involved in is WORTH the risk of their life and is WORTH the soul-cost of taking another's life? Why, knowing of the Milgram experiment and the "Lucifer Effect" have we not built in policies that tell our soldiers that they have the right, the obligation and the duty to themselves and their country to NOT follow orders if they feel the cause is not just, and that they have the freedom, the right, the obligation and the duty to themselves and their country to leave the military [without being charged with desertion] if they feel their Commander in Chief lied them into harm's way, or in any other way their commanders have asked of them what they feel is wrong?

Watch Utah Phillips - The Violence Within

Josh Marshall mentions that "famous passage in Henry V: Act IV, scene one where Bates tells the disguised King Henry that if the King's "cause be wrong, our obedience to the King wipes the crime of it out of us."

We need to recognize that this is NOT so. Our obedience to a cause that is wrong does NOT wipe the crime of it out of us. It becomes an additional crime, and the burden of it is INCREASED, not decreased because of the burden of "honor" that society heaps upon its soldiers which keeps them from being able to speak about and process the qualms they have about the actions they were "forced" to take when "following orders".

Personal choice. Personal responsibility.

"You who are on the road
Must have a code that you can live by"

"Teach your children well
Their father's hell did slowly go by"

J. McCutchen

Boatmen of the River Styx
Cole on Bacevich:

Steve Clemons meditates on the death of Lt. Andrew J. Bacevich, son of Boston University Professor Andrew J. Bacevich-- a thoughtful critic of Bush's War. (Indeed, if Alaska was "Seward's Icebox," surely Iraq is "Bush's Inferno.") Those of us who have sons can imagine at least a fraction of the anguish Professor Bacevich is going through at this moment.

The fabled Tigris of the Fertile Crescent, said by some to have watered the Garden of Eden, has become the Styx, a river of death and corpses, with Bush and Cheney playing Charon....

Why do we not allow our soldiers to CHOOSE - at every point - if the cause they are involved in is WORTH the risk of their life and is WORTH the soul-cost of taking another's life? Why, knowing of the Milgram experiment and the "Lucifer Effect" have we not built in policies that tell our soldiers that they have the right, the obligation and the duty to themselves and their country to NOT follow orders

if they feel the cause is not just, and that they have the freedom, the right, the obligation and the duty to themselves and their country to leave the military [without being charged with desertion] if they feel their Commander in Chief lied them into harm's way, or in any other way their commanders have asked of them what they feel is wrong?

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]

~

.... the reality for every military of which I've ever read is that joining gives up certain rights.

" There is an obligation not to obey an order that violates the customary laws of war (a term of art that has very specific meaning."

According to the book "Choosing Peace" put out by the CCCO this doesn't happen very often "... because they (soldiers) don't know they can or because they're afrraid of what might happen to them."

Tom

Defending your country-acting in a martial way to repulse a direct military threat to the nation and its interests.

Now, you tell me how many of our numerous wars and military incursions into other peoples' lands over the last sixty years qualify under your definition.

For extra credit you may also tell us what you think the nation's "interests" are.

My point was "Is it difficult for a soldier to stand up and refuse an order?" I think the answer obviously is - yes it is.

Tom

I would also extend my condolences to Mr. Bacevich and his family on the tragic loss of their son. 

The younger Bacevich opted to serve his country in the military.  People who choose to serve their country usually do so out of love for their country, are willing to die to defend it and are justifiably mourned if they do die in service.  And that is what makes Mr. Bacevich's loss even more tragic...instead of defending his country his son was sent to wage an unnecessary and illegal war of aggression not of his choosing at the behest of of a delusional, meglomaniacal, madman who has a messianic complex.  This criminal war being waged at the direction of bloodthirsty lunatics needs to be ended now before anybody else has the mourn the loss of his or her son or daughter...

Again in closing I would like to extend my deepest condolences to the Bacevich family.

To place yourself at the disposal of criminals is to be a criminal yourself. There's is just no way around that, because it's the basis of moral responsibility: nothing can suspend your responsibility for your own actions. Otherwise we're back to "I was just following orders."

It was a time of great and exalting excitement. The country was up in arms, the war was on, in every breast burned the holy fire of patriotism; the drums were beating, the bands playing, the toy pistols popping, the bunched firecrackers hissing and sputtering; on every hand and far down the receding and fading spreads of roofs and balconies a fluttering wilderness of flags flashed in the sun; daily the young volunteers marched down the wide avenue gay and fine in their new uniforms, the proud fathers and mothers and sisters and sweethearts cheering them with voices choked with happy emotion as they swung by; nightly the packed mass meetings listened, panting, to patriot oratory which stirred the deepest deeps of their hearts and which they interrupted at briefest intervals with cyclones of applause, the tears running down their cheeks the while; in the churches the pastors preached devotion to flag and country and invoked the God of Battles, beseeching His aid in our good cause in outpouring of fervid eloquence which moved every listener. ...

I agree that a thread about a real person is not the place to try out snarky posts.

But on a broader political note, I'm fed up with all too many "progressives" trying to take cover behind "support the troops". How many "progressives" will be voting to "support the troops" right into their fourth tour in Iraq? How many troops have died and will die because "progressives" have been and will be "supporting" them to death?

"If...."?

Tom

No -- there's a big difference between criticizing the system and calling the men and women who serve (and I do think that's the right word) fools. I think we can (and should) do the first, but not let our anger lead us into the second. That said, I also agree with bluebell that we shouldn't accept a Republican definition of "supporting" the troops.

Ellen,

Defending our country is what it implies. I mean our young men and women should NEVER be asked to sacrifice themselves unless our nation is directly threatened and requires defending. And I don't mean in some abstract manner. If another nation attacks us we should defend our country. Then and only then should our youth lay their lives on the line in combat. Lies about WMD or anything else don't count. Preemptive attack doesn't count. Securing oil or other energy resources doesn't count. Wars of aggression to secure and maintain an empire don't count.

J. McCutchen

3 Iraqi Journalists Speak with Charlie Rose

The consensus view

the Iraqi government is a powerless government...It only exists in a few square miles of Baghdad...The Iraqi people do not trust the government, the army or the police

The three also agreed with what amounts to an Iraq Study Group policy shift to withdrawal and a political reconciliation plan enforced by a concert of neighboring powers. The journalists also confirm the view that the invasion itself brought on the current anarchy - there was nothing the US could have done after it invaded.

It does no honor to Bacevich to use his son’s death as a pretext for pious ejaculations about the glories of military service and the surpassing virtues of Our Boys. Bacevich has written critically, and with a skeptical eye, on what he calls “new aesthetic of warfare” and the myth of “moral superiority of the soldier” which accompanies it. Both of these help support the culture of modern American militarism which he decries:

Confidence in the military has found further expression in a tendency to elevate the soldier to the status of national icon, the apotheosis of all that is great and good about contemporary America. The men and women of the armed services, gushed Newsweek in the aftermath of Operation Desert Storm, "looked like a Norman Rockwell painting come to life. They were young, confident, and hardworking, and they went about their business with poise and élan." A writer for Rolling Stone reported after a more recent and extended immersion in military life that "the Army was not the awful thing that my [anti-military] father had imagined"; it was instead "the sort of America he always pictured when he explained … his best hopes for the country."

According to the old post-Vietnam-era political correctness, the armed services had been a refuge for louts and mediocrities who probably couldn't make it in the real world. By the turn of the 21st century, a different view had taken hold. Now the United States military was "a place where everyone tried their hardest. A place where everybody … looked out for each other. A place where people – intelligent, talented people – said honestly that money wasn't what drove them. A place where people spoke openly about their feelings." Soldiers, it turned out, were not only more virtuous than the rest of us, but also more sensitive and even happier. Contemplating the GIs advancing on Baghdad in March 2003, the classicist and military historian Victor Davis Hanson saw something more than soldiers in battle. He ascertained "transcendence at work." According to Hanson, the armed services had "somehow distilled from the rest of us an elite cohort" in which virtues cherished by earlier generations of Americans continued to flourish.

I can’t accept the notion that by virtue of the fact that Steve’s post is about the death of Bacevich’s son, harshly critical comments about insidious war propaganda and the cult of soldier worship must be deferred to a more “appropriate” time. There never is a more appropriate time, because soldiers are dying every day. The desire to get people to shut up about their reservations or cynicism is one reason why presidents invite heavily decorated soldier-heroes to their State of the Union speeches, and invoke the mighty fallen dead on every occasion they can. For who would dare to allow their cold and skeptical criticism to intrude on the weepy, moveable war memorial service that is the American Presidency?

There is an odd romantic tendency to talk about US soldiers as though they were not paid employees of the US government, but were instead members of the Fellowship of the Ring. But in contemporary America, soldiers are mostly paid professionals, not chivalrous bands of brothers volunteering for an uncompensated knight’s quest. Some of these soldiers might have been moved by patriotism to sign up following a perceived national emergency, and might actually be foregoing better opportunities elsewhere. But very many of them joined for either the short-term or long-term career opportunity it offered. It really is a bit of a euphemism in this day and age to describe what these people are doing as “service”. It seems we still refer to soldiers in terms that are more appropriate to times when we had a draft.

Finally, some of these professions of grief and sorrow strike me as hyperbolical. If I read about the unfortunate and violent death of some young man I have never met, I might be moved if the story is ably told. But grief? Are these professions sincere? How does one grieve for people one knows hardly anything about? Perhaps I have grown too hard-hearted over the past few years, but while I can say that the spectacle of death and carnage in Iraq sickens and revolts me, there is far too much of it, and most of it too removed from me, for me to experience anything like perpetual grief over the losses. Some soldiers died this week – including Bacevich’s son. But the death of soldiers makes this week no different than any of the other weeks in the past four years. Bacevich is a somewhat well-known figure, and thus his son’s last name is known to many of us. But that’s the only difference. Unless you actually knew the young man or his family, don’t pretend that you genuinely grieve for him.

I am impressed with your psychic abilities, knowing what everyone believes, without bothering to ask. It appears that you are going to ad hominem cliches like "neo-con lite" rather than actually finding out positions. It is this quality of attacking disagreement, and attributing things that you have made no effort to confirm, that leads to my giving you a low rating.

Ellen's positions, admittedly phrased in ways that, in an earlier era, would cause her face to be slapped with a glove and a request to have her next friend meet with yours to arrange the event, are not focused on Iraq. They appear no more than a mocking, condescending attack on anything military for any purpose. Oh -- my contempt for Ellen is such that I choose not to give her a rating; it would be too much like wasting my saliva.

Tell me, where have I ever suggested that the 2003 invasion of Iraq made any sense in protecting the United States? I regret that I can't share the URL syntax to get at thoughts in my brain of which I am aware, but apparently you are.

--
Howard

Thoughts of militarist warmongers, all of whom had seen war

"When people speak to you about a preventive war, you tell them to go and fight it. After my experience, I have come to hate war." [Dwight Eisenhower]

"It is well war is so terrible, lest we become too fond of it." [Robert E. Lee]

"People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf." [George Orwell]

"The man who will go where his colors will go, without asking, who will fight a phantom foe in a jungle and mountain range, without counting, and who will suffer and die in the midst of incredible hardship, without complaint, is still what he has always been, from Imperial Rome to sceptered Britain to Democratic America. He is the stuff of which legions are made. His pride is his colors and his regiment, his training hard and thorough and coldly realistic, to fit him for what he must face, and his obedience is to his orders." [T.R. Fehrenbach]

"An honorable Peace is and always was my first wish! I can take no delight in the effusion of human Blood; but, if this War should continue, I wish to have the most active part in it." [John Paul Jones]

"I know war as few other men now living know it, and nothing to me is more revolting. I have long advocated its complete abolition, as its very destructiveness on both friend and foe has rendered it useless as a method of settling international disputes." [Douglas MacArthur]

Interesting.  My last duty was with the 75th Engineers then at Ft. Lewis.  Two rumors were flying around then (1967) - one was about the battalion being sent to forest fires, which didn't seem to bother the rank and file much.  But the second was to be deployed to cities  to police political uprisings - race issues or antiwar.  That got the goat of the rank and file, and a few of my chums swore they would desert before raising a weapon against their own people.  As it turned out, the battalion was sent to Maryland, leaving me behind to serve my last 80 days or so in a Holding Company.  

Neoboho

~

First up ... aMike, thanks for that link ...

Where you quoted Dan K's last sentence:

But that’s the only difference. Unless you actually knew the young man or his family, don’t pretend that you genuinely grieve for him.

Finally, some of these professions of grief and sorrow strike me as hyperbolical. If I read about the unfortunate and violent death of some young man I have never met, I might be moved if the story is ably told. But grief? Are these professions sincere? How does one grieve for people one knows hardly anything about? Perhaps I have grown too hard-hearted over the past few years, but while I can say that the spectacle of death and carnage in Iraq sickens and revolts me, there is far too much of it, and most of it too removed from me, for me to experience anything like perpetual grief over the losses. Some soldiers died this week – including Bacevich’s son. But the death of soldiers makes this week no different than any of the other weeks in the past four years. Bacevich is a somewhat well-known figure, and thus his son’s last name is known to many of us. But that’s the only difference. Unless you actually knew the young man or his family, don’t pretend that you genuinely grieve for him.

From my position: I am deeply "moved" for the Bacevich's loss. And although, I do commiserate and "express" as a feeling of grief for another's plight in dealing with a personal loss, I could never truly claim to feel or experience the total "grief" that a father and/or mother feels for the loss of their own flesh and blood...

And as to the link you provided: Yes! "No man is an island," and "therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee," and yes, eventually all ... That is an awareness of human connectivity and human mortality. Donne's Meditation XVII is set upon and steeped in his deep seated faith of God through the teachings of his early religious beliefs of the Catholic church, and of course later becoming a priest of the Anglican church, eventually being appointed Dean of St. Paul's Cathedral. The Mediation is his rightful beliefs of coping with his personal mortality, while recognizing the mortality of all.

Thanks again for that link.

~OGD~

Thank you, OGD, for Donne's meditation. It's very true in many contexts, some of which are military. Albert Schweitzer wrote of "the brotherhood of those who know the mark of pain," and that's a more general experience than that. One close friend is a commercial fisherman, and I've watched him when he saw the news of a boat and crew being lost. Even though he didn't know any individually, he had been close enough to death at sea that those less lucky were still his brothers.

No man may be an Islande, entire of himself, but Bush is, at best, an isthmus, and Cheney a very narrow peninsula.

It's probably more generally acceptable to accept that medical personnel, who may not know a patient, especially in an emergency, still grieve that if they had been better at what they did, they might have saved that victim. I will also never forget the suppressed joy when a trauma team brought back a patient from apparent death.

Still, I know too many soldiers, especially leaders at the tactical level, that blame themselves for might-have-beens, be they in combat or training.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]

A story of grief and loss appeared in our local paper a couple of years ago. A 60ish man walked into a small town tavern inquiring if a certain family still lived nearby. He was directed to a local farm where he found the old woman he had been looking for. It was a visit he had not been able to face for nearly 40 years.

The old woman had always wondered about her son's death. She feared he had died alone. Her visitor had been a medic in Vietnam. Her son had died in his arms.

I think what people miss about grief and loss is its permanence. 18 year olds who volunteer for service have no conception of this permanence, no 18 year old does.

A young man who dies leaving a baby behind will still be dead when the child goes to kindergarten, to middle school, to the prom, to college, gets married, has his own children, and his own grandchildren and that child will know he missed having a father even when that child is 80 years old.

To me, this is the great crime of "optional wars". It's the great crime of the cowards who voted to support and still vote to fund a war they never did and never will believe in. They support the war out of short term personal political expediency. Their legacy will live on long after their death till the death of the last family member who lost a loved one in this war.

From Andrew Bachevich's writings and from his life experiences we know he understands, far better than most, the nature of the complexities that have resulted in his son's death. Because he has been so articulate we feel we know him and his family to some degree. His son's death is tragic and poignant and he has written that the awareness and feelings of never ending tragedy and poignancy over the loss of sons, fathers, mothers, daughters, relatives and freinds are shared by thousands of other families in this country, in Iraq and in many other countries over the years where the United States has been at war with people who feel the same things we feel.

This world is our home and the human race is our family. Wars are deadly domestic violence in this our world home. Just as there is no winning in domestic violence, there is no winning in war that makes it all worth it or makes the pain go away or makes it easy to cope with debilitating injuries.

Andrew Becevich has been hard at work for years pointing out that militarism comes at a very high price and can itself lead to our self-destruction. This country has a very long way to go before it even begins to understand what he has been telling us.

Communication throughout the world is now instant. Our emphasis should be on finding ways to communicate with those who see things differently than we do and devising ways to cope with those differences rather than planning and devising ways to obliterate them.