20 October 2006 - 3:09pm
Chicago Tribune stops profiles of fallen solders, can't keep up
This is just so sad:
...Robert Best, a reader, was among several in the past several months who asked why the Tribune stopped writing articles about the life and death of every U.S. soldier killed in Iraq.
"Here is a complaint that hopefully is not a partisan issue," Best wrote. "During the first two years or so of the war in Iraq, the Tribune published on a regular basis ... stories containing obituaries of sorts of the American troops who died in Iraq. Usually, a single story might contain stories about three or four soldiers who had died, with background information on them and quotes from family members and/or friends.
"While the soldiers were from different geographic regions of the country; represented different races, religions and ethnic groups; and were of differing age, gender and marital status, they shared a common bond in that they made the ultimate sacrifice for our country. I can't remember reading a single story without thinking to myself that this soldier was just an ordinary kid from an everyday walk of life."
Best, whose 22-year-old son is completing his third deployment to Iraq, said those stories "put an important face on the war."
Best did not raise it as a partisan issue, but many readers believe it is.
Who's to say it's partisan? But it's easy to make partisan conclusions about the war itself.
I swear that the NewsHour has sped up its Honor Roll, which almost makes it all the more horrifying. Are you watching these? They're kids -- 19, 20, 21, 22 years old -- and middle-aged -- 40s, even some in their 50s. Many of the older soldiers' photos have them in civvies, which suggests that they were called up out of their jobs, called away from their families, to go fight in Dick and George's war of choice.
A war that Bush is determined to pass on to his successor.
So as the casualty rate continues to accellerate, what will happen? Will we go back to scorecard reports, like we did in Vietnam, when our bravest were dying by the hundreds?
I'm sorry to see the Trib discontinue their regular coverage. It must be very hard to do. But I know that if I were a regular reader I would be left quite disappointed, and feel like I'd lost what must have been one of the best parts of the paper every day.
In Unforgiven, Bill Munny says:
Hell of a thing, killin' a man. Take away all he's got and all he's ever gonna have.
So much taken away. So much more.
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In World War Two during the first days, people gathered in town squares to commemorate the fallen. It was a smaller, more closely knit America in many sectors, and so it seemed natural to gather. However, as the number of fallen increased, the memorial services (at least large ones in public squares) sputtered out. At one point the number simply becomes so large that the human psyche can't cope or keep count.
Some of us remember the weekly body counts in Vietnam. On a good week in was under 200. We didn't see the faces of those boys, but everyone knew someone who had fallen. With Iraq, we're not at that point yet -- where everyone knows someone who fell -- but were headed in that direction.
Vietnam was a Civil War, but it was not along the lines of the fight between Shiite, Sunni, and Kurd. The goal of unification by the North Vietnamese is not like what apparently seems to be a goal of division as the outcome of the war.
The current Administration has destabilized Iraq and this means the Middle East will be destabilized and it is not clear what the long-run consequences will be. Bush may well leave the mess for his successor, making him the longest sitting lame duck in our history.
When Rome burned, it is said Nero fiddled. No one could claim that Nero was "staying the course" and that those who sought to get out of the way of the flames were "Cut and Run Romans."
The Administration seems to feel justified in its policies in that there hasn't been another 9/11. It's like FDR claiming that he was doing a great job because after 12/7/41, we didn't have another Pearl Harbor. Or like the guy who walks around New York snapping his fingers to keep wild tigers away. "Hey, man, there are no wild tigers within 6000 miles." "See, it works."
But the cost of the policy is not just the foolishness of the Administration with a cost that is dollars alone. People are dying and the toll is mounting.
When combat deaths turn from quantitative numbers to qualitative numbers and abstractions, we see that the Administration has numbed us to the carnage. Lame duck Bush waddles on into history. Alas, 2008 is still two years away.
Stay tuned.
This is a sign that the Iraqi War must stop. NOw. What should happen is gather all the president's male relatives and friends and send them to Iraq. Let the president worry for them. This will definitely make him pull out all troops. Unless he's that full of himself and still let them suffer.