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The administration bans cameras from
showing dead soldiers returning in their flag-draped coffins. It
uses its powers to hinder the media from showing armless and legless
privates. This is done for the sake of brushing clean the horrors of
war and anesthetizing a Hollywood conditioned citizenry into
believing that this is just another PG-13 movie or violent video
game where the good guys always win and never suffer anything but
cuts and bruises.
Shielded from the reality
of war -- the dead, the horribly maimed, the uranium poisoned, the
psychologically devastated -- we are given a sanitized fantasy of
war that shields Bush from the political consequences of this
bloody, unnecessary war.
By Manuel Valenzuelas
Autumn leaves continue to
fall inconspicuously throughout the United States just like our
cannon fodder troops fall dead, maimed and scarred in the
Mesopotamian deserts of Iraq. Throughout our nation, lawns
surrounded by white-picket fences and small blotches of green in
concrete jungles are covered by dry and dead brown leaves signaling
the change in the seasons, as warmth and comfort gives way to the
dreaded doldrums of winter. As each day passes, more leaves fall to
the ground, leaving bare the skeletons of wood around and above us,
a stark reminder of the hibernation of life in the natural world.
In similar ways, the loss
of life and limb of our soldiers in Iraq continues unabatedly in a
far away land. Like our leaves, soldiers continue to fall and die,
their bodies devoid of a life once so full of energy. More than 400
have died, and the number of injured is eight times that,
conveniently hidden from Americans’ view, lest we see the horrors
that our little war for oil has spawned. They might be called lucky
to have escaped the claws of explosives, flying shrapnel or bullets
whizzing by their heads were it not true that many will have to
continue living without hands, arms, legs and feet or with severe
burns, scars, brain damage and handicaps that will forever
traumatize their lives.
Of course the hidden and
much more dehabilitating scars, the psychological, emotional and
mental ones will linger perpetually in the minds of thousands who
will never be able to escape the terror of war. These demons will
haunt them for the rest of their lives. And, lest not we forget,
thousands of these brave and young men and women will carry with
them back to their homes the pulverized remnants of depleted uranium
from our bombs, missiles, ordinances and munitions, creating in them
diseases and sicknesses that act like a timebomb, ready to afflict
and decimate over the course of time.
Much like Gulf War I,
where anywhere from 8000 to 9000 of its veterans have already died
from mysterious illnesses including numerous cancers, and where
hundreds of babies have been born dead or deformed in ways never
seen before, today’s troops may suffer similar fates. One need only
look inside Iraq, where thousands upon thousands of civilians alive
in the early 1990’s have died from cancers and other diseases, and
where thousands of babies have suffered the same fate as those born
to those of our own soldiers. Knowing that tens of thousands of tons
of bombs, ordinances, munitions and missiles made of depleted
uranium have been used on Iraq in Gulf War II, it is a good bet that
many more thousands of Iraqi civilians and American troops will
suffer the same fate. The remains of depleted uranium are literally
scattered throughout Iraq, – and lets not forget Afghanistan as well
– contaminating land, air, water and humans. And we can’t seem to
find WMD’s. I know where these WMD’s are: stockpiled in our bases,
right inside our country. Right in front of our noses, and we attack
Iraq with them. Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Iraq. Fertile Crescent no more.
Are we such hypocrites?
Over 7000 soldiers
already injured in some way, shape or form, but how quickly they are
forgotten by an administration that will not dare go to funerals or
hospitals for fear of awakening the presently placid storm called
the American public. Men and women of the underclass, from rural and
urban homes, their families supporting this adventure in empire
building with their hard earned wages, fight for the interests of
the upper class. What a dishonor to these fallen heroes to sweep
them away into a dark closet, without mention or acknowledgement,
used as nothing more than expendable pawns in Bush’s war. The United
Corporations of America and the Military Industrial Complex are at
it again, lying and manipulating, warmongering and profiteering,
once more terrorizing the planet.
The administration bans
cameras from showing dead soldiers returning in their flag-draped
coffins. It uses its powers to hinder the media from showing armless
and legless privates. This is done for the sake of brushing clean
the horrors of war and anesthetizing a Hollywood conditioned
citizenry into believing that this is just another PG-13 movie or
violent video game where the good guys always win and never suffer
anything but cuts and bruises. Quite simply, it is yet another
fantasy that gets absorbed into our psyche. This is called the art
of sanitized warfare, a good news-only policy of selling death and
destruction to American citizens. Everything is airbrushed to give
the illusion that Iraq is a nation on the brink of a renaissance,
that what combat does exists is insignificant, that it is under
control and that a few "terrorists" are nothing more than bothersome
pests. Nothing could be further from the truth. This is politics at
its worst, cynically gone mad, a way to keep Bush’s poll numbers up
in light of his re-election campaign, a way to keep citizens
supportive of the war and designed to maintain the country ignorant
to a reality that is the wickedness of war.
If we cannot see the
reality of war, and are only allowed to see a fictional delusion of
it then we will never empathize with the dead or wounded, we will
never see death, blood and gore, its violent sounds or putrid smells
nor the inextricable agony and suffering of a dying soldier or a
maimed Iraqi child crying out in terror for her mother. In short, we
will never see war, thus becoming immune to the all too real,
chilling and sobering effects of man killing man with the most
violent of weapons. War is made an abstract mirage, allowing the war
machine to ravage foreign lands and innocent civilians with impunity
and with little care for accountability. Meanwhile, the American
public, unaware of what is being done in their name thanks to
government propaganda and corporate media filtering, remains
dangerously incurious and passive while their loved ones in Iraq are
subjected to a cruel game of Russian roulette. Congratulations
George, you and your shadowy cast of characters have succeeded in
curtailing outrage and furor by conditioning us through television
shows, movies, video games, media lies, charades and delusion.
The thousands of
physically wounded and mentally scarred survivors that return to our
safe shores from the oil-filled deserts half a world away are swept
under the rug of apathy by an administration concerned more for the
President’s image than the sacrifices of those who left blood and
limb in the sands of Mesopotamia. Stealthfully brought back into the
country, mostly in the black envelope of night when we lay asleep so
as to sneak in below the radar of attention, these men and women,
along with their dead brethren, are quickly wished away, becoming
not returning heroes but discarded statistics that are for the
President more a liability than a symbol of what makes America
great.
There is something rather
perverse when a sitting President gives more importance to attending
almost-daily $2000 a plate fund raising dinners around the country
than to reassuring, sympathizing and helping to put at ease the
thousands of walking wounded and hundreds of families of those whose
spirit was unexpectedly taken away. Raising $200 million for his
campaign from the wealthiest Americans seems to be of much more
importance than showing compassion to middle and lower income
citizens sacrificing both wages and loved ones to a war whose
purpose and reason are not yet fully understood.
In these cold and dark
days our dead citizen soldiers return home with eyes closed, never
again to breathe the sweet crisp autumn air emanating from coast to
coast. For these brave sons and daughters of our nation, America’s
splendors, from its highest peaks to its magnificent valleys, will
never be seen again as their once splendid energy, having been so
deceitfully taken from them, exits the parameters of this great
Earth in their journey to the unknown.
Meanwhile, our Commander
in Chief, following not his heart but rather self-serving political
decision-making interests, nonchalantly, purposefully and
unapologetically forfeits a leader’s duty to help strengthen those
who mourn and ail, comfort those children left without a parent and
stand proudly next to the flag-draped coffins of the men and women
he sent to die as they are forever laid to rest. This man should be
forced to witness the sad tears and incredible pain and sorrow of
those who have seen their loved ones for the last time. He should be
forced to touch the frigid coffins of those whose bright lights have
been extinguished. Perhaps then he will finally realize that the
consequences of his actions come not in wrapping himself up
victoriously in the flag but in seeing it draped over a coffin on a
cold wet day and having it slowly folded up and handed to a bereaved
wife or daughter as trumpets wail and thundering rifles roar homage
to those whose ultimate sacrifices lie at his feet.
Manuel Valenzuela is an
attorney, consultant, freelance writer and author of Echoes in the
Wind, a novel to be published in 2004. He currently lives in
Madison, Wisconsin.
Intervention Magazines, 20/11/03
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