Orwellian prophetic

Reading Orwell's Homage to Catalonia. A passage that rings true today, seventy years later.

"The fact is that every war suffers a kind of progressive degradation with every month that it continues, because such things as individual liberty and a truthful press are simply not compatible with military efficiency. . . . As for the newspaper talk about this being a 'war for democracy,' it was plain eye-wash. No one in his senses supposed that there was any hope for democracy, even as we understand it in England and France, in a country so divided and exhausted as Spain would be when the war was over. It would have to be a dictatorship."

On American press eyewash on Iraq, see Robert Fisk's recent Independent column at http://informationclearinghouse.info/article12395.htm

Support Our Troops?

Everywhere you look, the little yellow ribbons reading "Support Our Troops." A sentiment universally affirmed? Well, not in most of the rest of the world. And here at home?

Insofar as our troops are allowing themselves to be used by a corrupt administration to prosecute an unjust war, I say no, don't support the troops. Don't support them any more than you would have supported the troops of Germany or the troops of Japan in World War Two. Soldiers fighting a bad war should not be supported, no matter how admirable they may be as individuals.

Or rather support them only insofar as you support the movement to have them brought home immediately. Who can dispute the truth of what Michael Moore says at the end of Fahrenheit 9/11, that our troops are sworn to risk their lives in any necessary war but are not obliged to fight in an unnecessary and/or immoral war. It is dead wrong to put them in harm's way unnecessarily. This is what Bush has done.

The ethical status of a U.S. soldier fighting in Iraq? A painful question. If the soldier is intelligent and perceptive enough to recognize that the war is unjust, and yet s/he allows her/himself to be used to prosecute it, can that soldier not be found guilty of a certain degree of complicity?

How about the troops who are not perceptive enough to know that they are fighting a bad war? Is ignorance of the war's immorality an acceptable defense? And how many of them would be willing to offer that defense: "I was too stupid to know what was going on. I was just following orders."

Pity our troops? Most would bitterly resent the gesture, be ready to punch you in the nose for it. Both those who believe in The Cause (an ever-dwindling number) and those who don't but do retain a certain amount of professional pride. Because in pity there is always also a trace of contempt. Sometimes more than a trace.

A good many troops coming home from Iraq are very angry. They feel they have been ill used, although they are not sure how or by whom. Where is the dignity they hoped to find in the uniform?

If a civil war breaks out in Iraq?

From today's Washington Post:

There's no doubt that the sectarian tensions are higher than we've seen, and it's a great concern to all of us," Abizaid told the Senate committee, adding that the situation in Iraq is "changing [in] nature from insurgency toward sectarian violence." Asked about that comment after the briefing, Abizaid said that "sectarian violence is a greater concern for us security-wise right now than the insurgency."

Seems those folks in Iraq have run out of patience waiting for Uncle Sam to go home so they could get down to the bloody business of sorting each other out.

There's an old Irishism: "If you see a good fight, jump into it." I think the best policy here would be to reverse that. There's a hell of a fight getting started, and it's time to jump out.

Damn shame about all that oil, though. Maybe we can recover some of our losses by selling arms to all the competing sides in the civil war. That's been done before.