America has fought many wars. And built many war memorials.
Wandering around Washington, D.C., I made a point to stop by the biggies — the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, No. 1 in my book, for breaking war's symbolic stranglehold on imagined glory. A black granite gash in the earth featuring not eagles but the names of the 58,318 American dead.
The Korean War Veterans Memorial, a night patrol of 19 stainless steel figures, in ponchos against the cold rain, faces etched with stress and fatigue, frozen in mid-stride. Even the sprawling, soulless World War II Memorial.
The World War I Memorial wasn't on my radar. Until I found myself next to it, at the corner of 15th and Pennsylvania Avenue. A few extra steps, and there was Sabin Howard's epic sculpture "A Soldier's Journey." Starting with a doughboy taking leave of his wife and daughter, charging into combat, men around him killed, wounded, with a homecoming at the end.
World War I is a stark reminder of the greasy slope of war — what started with an assassinated Austrian archduke exploded into fighting across the globe, ending 31 years later — historians consider World War II an extension of World War I, after a 21-year intermission to raise a new generation of cannon fodder.
War between the United States and Iran commenced Saturday. It'll end... nobody knows, of course. We assume it'll be a few tightly contained airstrikes, like last summer.
But then war always seems quick, at the outset, with the boys hurrahing down to the recruiting office to sign up, worried the action will be over before Christmas. The Russians, don't forget, rolled into Ukraine four years ago, expecting to be in Kyiv in a few days. They're still fighting, having lost an estimated 200,000 men.
When World War I broke out in 1914, President Woodrow Wilson, promised not to get involved. "He kept us out of war" was his re-election slogan in 1916. "No new wars," Donald Trump echoed in 2024.
Both promises worked. Both were broken. Both with reason. Iran is the worst sponsor of international terrorism — Hamas could have never pulled off the Oct. 7 attacks without Iran's enthusiastic backing — making it impossible not to welcome the elimination of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. "It's been mass terror, and we're not going to put up with it any longer," Trump said.
You go, Mr. President. Add it to the list of Trump successes, along with elimination of the penny. Whether that counterbalances scuttling voting rights, well, you decide.
We're attacking Iran now... why exactly? To destroy its capacity to produce nuclear weapons? Sounds laudable. But also very... familiar. Didn't we just do that?
“A spectacular military success” Trump said after the strikes last July. “Iran’s key enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated.”
"Totally, again, obliterated," Trump said Saturday. Maybe it'll stick this time. We're also calling for regime change. That seems naive — how well did that work in Afghanistan? Or to return to World War I: remember the regime Germany ended up with after Versailles. We liked the Nazis even less.
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For many years I've repeatedly thought that Trump had finally done something that would force the reckoning he has avoided during a lifetime of ignorance, arrogance and failing upward. Of course it's never come. But as he somehow avoided a reckoning the stakes got ever higher. I fear we have reached the moment of reckoning for him and the consequences will be cataclysmic. When someone tells you who they are, believe them. The fools who voted for him never listened to his confessions. His handiwork will haunt the world and the country for god knows how long.
ReplyDeleteWhen the Viet Nam war memorial was unveiled, there was lots of disapproval as well as approval. Didn't quite understand why, until we visited DC and saw it. It has the names of all the soldiers killed, starting with the first few names and progressing to those who died just before the end. As you read the names, you walk down down down until you are at the lowest point with the most names for that year. Sort of a descent into hell. So powerful and moving; I found the name of the brother of one of my dear friends. The most antiwar war memorial I've ever seen.
ReplyDeleteChicken Hawks, all of the current administration and their congressional supporters. Ready to go to war, as long as it doesn’t involve them or their families
ReplyDeleteDonald J. Trump is a liar. Donald J. Trump is a draft dodger. Donald J. Trump is an American embarrassment.
ReplyDeleteThe only people worse than Donald J. Trump are republicans and their supporters.
Full stop.
And the funny thing is, BB, while true, in his case, that's almost praising by faint damnation.
DeleteNo Dump fan here but there's worse than him. Putin, Xi, Kim, Khameini, Ven. druggie Pres. and a few other dictators in Africa or Latin America. Also, good thing the Iran. people can be free, esp. the women. You know what they say about a broken clock.
DeleteAnd are the Orthodox Jews pulling their wt. to help Israel? or they use sexist related excuses of why they can go into the military.
DeleteEverything Trump has done this term, he has done to memorialized himself. Everything. Think about it. This new war is for him, and him alone. His legacy will be without glory.
ReplyDeleteAmericans who have died in this war, and who are about to die, are already being called patriotic heroes. Those who died in previous conflicts were, of course, suckers and losers. Because they didn't die in HIS war.
DeleteHow many young men are now thinking THIS?
"Die for Felonious? I'd rather have Felonious die for me."
Huckster Don will never sell this war. People are tired of being used.
DeleteSend Barron
ReplyDeleteWhy, he would just wreck everything he did & then get fragged, now that would be expected!
Deleteyep, send Baron
DeleteExactly what I've been thinking. Of course, it will never happen because Barron isn't in the "suckers and losers" class. That's other people's kids.
DeleteIs there a monument for the $3 trillion waste of life and resources in the Iraqi desert? We are on our way to a repeat.
ReplyDeleteIran won't be as simple as Iraq. The Iran troubles started in 1953 when we helped England oust Iran's democratically elected prime minister. Nothing will be solved in our lifetime.
DeleteI saw on TV yesterday that someone is trying to do just that!
DeleteUnfortunately I've had the occasion to quote the Dropkick Murphys "Worker's Song" far too often relative to US foreign policy in my lifetime, but dutifully do so again:
ReplyDeleteAnd when the skies darken and the prospect is war,
Who's given a gun and then pushed to the fore?
And expected to die for the land of his birth,
Though he never owned one lousy handful of earth.
As you already know, I most often comment on EGD when art is involved. Today is no different. The WWI Memorial is something I've never seen before. Powerful and moving as it is, it reminds me of Lorado Taft's "Fountain of Time" at the west end of the Midway Plaisance. Its parade of figures offers a narrative about the grit and determination of people to survive. The Vietnam memorial is something altogether different. Like many EGD followers, our generation was subjected to a war that was not about humanity but about ideologies. Being from that generation, I knew several people whose names appear on that wall. Lost friends and family members whose stories will never be told are part of the abstraction of war itself. What Neil wrote today should make everyone aware that time is not on our side. We will all die. But for me, the question is, "Will we die in vain?" Who doesn't want to be remembered? The mad man who is in today's headlines has no remorse or understanding of what it means for anyone other than himself to be memorialized. He is one sick puppy.
ReplyDeleteIt’s been 19 years since that hero the orange felon didn’t like, John McCain, jokingly sang “Bomb, Bomb, Iran” to the tune of “Barbara Ann” by the Beach Boys. I found that very disappointing at the time, but at least he never got to do it.
ReplyDeleteAfter that, my favorite president defeated him in 2008 and the U.S. signed onto the Iran Nuclear Deal, or Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, in 2015. That was not ideal, but it was something, and it was way better than war. Needless to say, Cadet Bone Spurs hated it and he withdrew from it in 2018, based on the same knee-jerk reaction he has to anything achieved by Obama.
It's just interesting to look at the Wikipedia page about that fateful, poorly considered 2018 withdrawal. Under the heading "Reactions," we find listed those in support of this stupid move: The Republican Party, Nikki Haley, Mike Pompeo, John Bolton and Dick Cheney. Also in support were (guess who?) Saudi Arabia and Benjamin Netanyahu, along with Bahrain, Egypt, the UAE and Yemen.
Opposed were this small, insignificant group: The United Nations, the Democratic Party and a bunch of leading Democrats, political scientists, and Colin Powell. Also Iran, the European Union, China, France, the UK, Turkey, Germany, Austria, Russia, Japan, Italy, Finland, Portugal, Spain, Australia -- well, you get the idea.
"According to the Pew Research Center, 53% of the American public and 94% of U.S. scholars in international relations disapproved of Trump's decision to withdraw from the Iran nuclear weapons agreement," while a CNN poll found only 29% of Americans in favor of withdrawing from the deal.
Now we have this war as the alternative that Bibi and Don the Con managed to come up with in the ensuing years. I’m shocked, SHOCKED! that the winner of the vaunted FIFA Peace Prize has decided that war is preferable to peace. Uh, not THAT shocked. I’m sure he’s very carefully considered all the consequences, especially since he’s such an ace student of history.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_withdrawal_from_the_Joint_Comprehensive_Plan_of_Action
Bravo Jakash. This is brilliant and spot on. Oh how different the world would be if that Iran Nuclear Deal had not been erased.
DeleteYes having a nuclear deal with Iran made you feel better it seemed like something was being done and that they wouldn't develop a nuclear bomb without us knowing about it and we were able to placate ourselves in that way.
DeleteWe released some of their money that we were holding and expected them to live up to their end of the agreement no subterfuge pardon the pun.
But actually they just went on about their business of building a bomb and really gave the world the finger.
I don't think Trump was right right to withdraw from the deal and I don't think that he was wrong to bomb their nuclear facilities last year.
But from the looks of things they just got right back to work moving towards a bomb.
From what I understand they have quite a stockpile of highly enriched uranium that they've secreted away somewhere.
I guess the best thing to do would just to be to let them go about their business and once they had a nuclear weapon it would be a similar circumstance to North Korea where there's absolutely nothing we can do about it now.
I know there's a lot of anti-israel sentiment out there and that they've got their own leadership sewer but Iran is responsible for a lot of the attacks on Israel from Hezbollah and Hamas the houthis in The straits of Hormuz attacking shipping these things need to stop if we don't do it who's going to who's going to stop this?
I understand that war is not going to end and it waging war is not going to end war we're just stuck with war but with a nuclear-armed Iran it just seems like the end of Israel was in the future
Iran has been a big problem since 1979, at least. Doing all kinds of terrible things. Through Democratic and Republican administrations. It seems to me that the professional folks in those administrations, when considering what to do about Iran, evidently decided that starting a war with them was not in our best interests.
DeleteNow we have a president who likes to shoot first and ask questions later, goaded by Netanyahu, and in charge of the most incompetent administration in memory. He and his henchmen have decided this war is an appropriate option. I don't agree, and am inclined to think that the previous administrations had a better understanding of what the risks were than the orange felon and the insipid Hegseth.
Well said, Jakash.
ReplyDelete