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Blind Spot
When
I hear people speak about the Iraq War, whether pro or con, I am both
amazed and discouraged by the glaring blind spot in their comments.
The rhetoric usually ranges from differing views
of patriotism, to contrary opinions about the relationship between Iraq
and Al Qaeda, to weapons of mass destruction and international image —-
all seasoned with tiresome partisan clichés. We hear about building
democracies in cultures where democracy remains a questionably foreign
concept. We hear prideful declarations of success, and that no terrorist
attacks against Americans have occurred since 9-11, even as Americans
get killed every day by ambushes and roadside bombs. The deaths of 4,
000 soldiers don't seem to register, even as their faces parade across
the nightly news.
Some say we are winning with the "surge"
because the killing rate has decreased to where it was 2 years ago. Slight
of hand propaganda? Others say we should get out of Iraq now, even if
it leads to a blood bath.
Almost
everyone agrees, no matter how they feel about the war, that removing
Saddam Hussein from power was a good thing. Few admit that the cure might
have been worse than the disease.
A lot to think about, not only for the contradictions
and resentment they produce, but for revealing a huge blind spot in our
values, which our political parties tend to reinforce. It is a blind spot
that saturates our collective conscience by devaluing human life.
If,
before the war started, we were confronted by the question of how many
lives we were willing to sacrifice to oust Saddam Hussein, what number
would we deem acceptable? 100? 1,000? 4,000? 100,000? I'm not referring
to just American lives, but Iraqi as well. One of the reasons we wanted
Saddam Hussein out of the picture was that he killed thousands of his
own people. Shouldn't we have avoided doing the same?
The
American government has openly stated that they are not keeping count
of the Iraqi dead. This takes the death rate of our own killing machines
completely out of the picture. How could this not amount to a noticeable
blind spot in our moral conscience?
One
foreign agency estimated 600,000 people killed by our initial invasion.
(That's about the same as our own Civil War, which lasted four full years.)
Countless others have fallen since, so that the death toll of 30 or 40
in a single car bombing produces little more than mere shaking of the
head. We've become numb not only to the death toll of Iraqi citizens,
but to their broken families, their loss of homes, their shattered economy,
their orphans, their daily hardships and fears, their wounded. The unfortunate
fate of Terry Schiavo tore at the hearts of millions of Americans. Were
we more sympathetic then? Or was her plight better marketed?
It's
hard to put a price on so much loss and suffering. So why bother? If you
listen to John McCain, all we need to concern ourselves with now is winning.
He equates national pride with victory, no matter what the reason or cost.
The inference is, of course, that our pride is more important than the
lives of all those people.
If that's true, what does it say about our values?
Why doesn't he realize that we are losing what
cannot be regained.
There
are those who still insist that Saddam Hussein, in his obsession with
weapons of mass destruction, was somehow a threat to the United States
of America, despite our distance and an ocean in between. That our own
atomic bombs and chemical weapons dwarf even his greatest aspirations
don't sway their opinions. That this tiny nation has neither the means
nor numbers to invade our huge continent is something that doesn't seem
to register.
Perhaps
we are subconsciously avoiding the darkest, scariest truth of all. When
we failed to exact revenge on Osama bin Laden, who slipped through our
fingers in Afghanistan, we released our anger on a neighboring middle
eastern country, whose president we didn't like. Perhaps the invasion
was nothing more than savage, misplaced revenge.
And
now we pay the price, and keep on paying. So are the Iraqi people.
When I hear that success may be just around the
corner, because of the surge or some other hopeful sign, I am reminded
of the cost of human life, and cannot rejoice. Such victory, if it comes
at all, carries too great a price for celebration. Whatever "face"
we save by winning does nothing to assuage the guilt.
That
there are those who thrive on political blind spots, and are richly rewarded,
is the final insult.
It
completely amazes me how some of our political leaders, those most responsible
for this outrage, still walk around with pride and arrogance, as if the
innocent dead mean nothing compared to their "resolve." It makes
me wonder about what is missing in their humanity.
