Recognizing Folly

Like so many unnecessary wars, Iraq will end in a whimper. There will be no martial parades and big kisses captured on film in Times Square, just a seeping of troops out of what had been the war zone.

The end is near for the Iraq War, that much seems clear. The irony is that the Iraqis are asking us to leave. George W. Bush is considering when, not if, we should leave.

Iraq begs many questions, mostly the why. Thinking about all the death (American and Iraqi), destruction, cost, and physical and psychological trauma, each American needs to ask larger questions.

Recognizing error, cutting losses, and altering course are not things governments do well. Changing course requires leaders to show considerable self-confidence: Often they are unable to ignore the next election and put their constituencies first.

Most of us who disagreed with the war were marginalized until the fall of 2005. Speaking out was reserved for “peaceniks.”

My son, Marine Lance Corporal Edward “Augie” Schroeder, was killed August 3, 2005, near Haditha, Iraq while deployed with the Third Battalion, 25th Marines, a reserve unit based in Brook Park, Ohio. He was one of 20 Marines from that unit killed within 48 hours. The shock of losing so many troops from one unit in such a short time helped convince “regular” Americans to openly question the validity of the Iraq War.

Cindy Sheehan’s protest in Texas, which she later told us started then because of the sheer magnitude of the Ohio loss, amplified the media noise.

The confluence of these events caused a shift in public opinion and put the onus on the U.S. government to find a way out.

After a good media run focusing on the battle between proponents of “hold the course” and “out now,” the war is now fading from public consciousness as Americans focus on the 2008 presidential election. The death rate has decreased, and people seem to consider the resolution of the conflict to be a done deal.

Even so, American troops continue to be maimed or killed in Iraq. The media largely ignores this part of the war, but the families and friends of the 140,000 or so Americans remaining there -- and those of others about to be deployed -- live each day with anxiety for their loved one’s safety.

Augie’s KIA number was 1,824 if we go alphabetically (he died with 13 comrades in a single explosion). As I write, the number is 4,155.

Some 2,331 deaths ago, Augie told us he didn’t think the efforts in Iraq were worth the cost. Survival for American Marines and soldiers in Iraq was “just a crap shoot,” he said, especially upsetting to the troops in the field because poor execution of the war plan caused their friends to be killed without showing any gain.

Was the Iraq War necessary? With 20/20 hindsight, many Americans believe it was not. It is very sad, then, that additional American lives have been and continue to be lost long after a majority of the American public, the American military, and members of Congress came to that opinion.

In the last three years, my family has given a lot of thought to one question: Why did our son and brother die? We don’t mean the manner of his death, the reasons he joined the Marines, or why and how the USA got involved in Iraq in the first place.

We’re trying to get at the larger Gestalt, the historical, perhaps even the philosophical reasons that prompted his death.

Augie is part of that long line of ghosts whose lives were taken by the folly of governments. Sadly, the lessons of history are seldom heeded. “Passion and party blind our eyes,” Samuel Taylor Coleridge wrote, “and the light which experience gives us is a lantern on the stern, which shines only on the waves behind us.”

Barbara Tuchman, in The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam. (1984) wondered why governments pursue policies that are clearly not in the best interests of their nation or their people.

She identifies three stages of folly:

First is a standstill, when principles and boundaries governing a political problem are fixed.

Second, failure and criticism begin to appear, which in her words “rigidify” those principles and boundaries.

It is here that changes in policy are possible, but Tuchman calls them “rare as rubies in the backyard.” More typical in this stage are increased investments along with an increasing need to protect egos that make a change in course next to impossible.

In the third stage, the pursuit of failure enlarges the damages until it causes the fall of Troy, the American humiliation in Vietnam, or our current morass in Iraq.

How sad that we haven’t come any further than the Trojans, who let that horse into the gates.

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More Knee-jerk Foreign Policy

Since Iraq’s American-installed Prime Minister asked us to set a date for departure, the focus has shifted back to Afghanistan. The Afghan War has been going on longer than the one in Iraq, and many Americans see it as the "good" war by comparison.

The Decider’s decision to wage the “bad” war was knee-jerk foreign policy. Now that we are putting that one behind us, we can concentrate on the “good” war. We went to Afghanistan, after all, to capture Osama bin Laden and Al Qaida, the culprits of 9/11.

Have you ever read Rudyard Kipling's short poem about Afghanistan?

"When you're wounded and lying on Afghanistan's plain,
And the women come out to cut up your remains,
Just role to your rifle and blow out your brains,
and go to your God like a soldier."

In short, a ground war in Afghanistan is hopeless. The Russians didn't learn from the 19th Century British experience there, and our government hasn't learned from the Russians or the British.

There has been too much knee-jerk foreign policy, and Sarah Palin, running for Vice President on the GOP ticket, continues the twitch.

Roger Cohen writes about all this in the International Herald Tribune http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/09/07/opinion/edcohen.php .

Americans need to pause to consider the goodness of our efforts in Afghanistan and Sarah’s knee-jerk foreign policy prescriptions.

Sarah brought down the GOP house when she criticized Barack Obama’s approach to international terrorists. “He’s worried,” she said, "that someone won’t read them their rights.”

McCain knows better about the treatment of captives because he’s been one. She hasn’t, and from all accounts, hasn’t thought much about Iraq, other than to tell a church group that America was following “God’s plan” by going to there.

Sarah is just another warmonger on the campaign trail.

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Impaling Palin

At the grocery just now, I admittedly lost my cool when the woman in front of me complained that the media is not being fair to Republican Vice Presidential Nominee Sarah Palin.

"Why do they lie about her," she asked out loud.

"First," I said, "she put herself into the national spotlight. Second, who's to say they're lying about her?"

The woman and I argued about politics (she didn't care for either party) and the media (she was reading National Enquirer while waiting to check out).

We parted on friendly terms, but the encounter prompts this piece.

Sarah Palin's nomination is supposedly targeted at disaffected Hillary Clinton supporters. If that is true, it seems rather patronizing TO THINK JUST ANY WOMAN POLITICIAN WOULD DO.

While one can applaud Sarah's decision to have her latest child, she did have the right to choose, a right she would deny other women. Further, she has joined a presidential candidate who has voiced an opinion that would deny a woman's right to choose.

Taken from his campaign website, John McCain "believes Roe v. Wade is a flawed decision that must be overturned."

Sarah ridicules Barack Obama for being a community organizer. That doesn't wash. Anthony Fossaceca at Blue Ohioan -- http://www.blueohioan.blogspot.com/ -- provides a fairly complete list of community organizers, including Jesus Christ (see his piece "The Fresh, New Face of Hate). I would add the prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, Micah, and Moses to name just a few others.

Sarah also ridicules Obama and her vice presidential counterpart Joe Biden for having no executive experience. This begs incredulity! LET'S SEE: What executive experience did Abraham Lincoln have?

Sarah seems to think that being mayor of a small town with SOME 5,000 souls (WHEN SHE WAS ITS MAYOR) and being governor (for FEWER than two years) of a state with fewer than 1 million people -- no wonder she doesn't need focus groups -- gives her a leg up in the executive experience category. One only needs to point to Obama's managing a national campaign with millions of volunteers to put the kibosh on that claim.

To put Sarah's executive experience into perspective, read Rosemary Palmer's "Palin passes the teleprompter test" at http://reclaiminghope.blogspot.com/

Sarah also does a good job (or at least her handlers do) of ridiculing the media. Sorry Sarah, the media is doing its job. People have a right to know who you are. By accepting the nomination for vice president, you have no right to stop them. Indeed, the more you try to stop them, the deeper they'll dig.

The media, however, does fail to mention that a McCain/Palin victory will likely result in two or three new conservative members of the Supreme Court.

So to those disgruntled women who supported Hillary Clinton, take a closer look because (from his website) "John McCain believes Roe v. Wade is a flawed decision that must be overturned, and as president he will nominate judges who understand that courts should not be in the business of legislating from the bench."

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