on Honor

What is honor? a word. What is in that word honor? What is that honor? air. A trim reckoning! -- Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part 1


I grow weary of the cult of the soldier in wartime. Weary of hearing people praise the soldiers for having served "honorably." How is it possible to serve honorably in a dishonorable war? An illegal war of colonial conquest? It would be like saying one has served honorably in a group action that, under close analysis, resolves into a gang rape. How can anyone who serves in this abomination of a war come out of it unsullied?

What can we say of our soldiers that is true? We can say that they've been tricked into serving in a dishonorable war -- have been fooled by words such as "duty" and "honor" and "freedom" and "democracy." We can pity them for their misuse and abuse, for being put in harm's way for no good reason and for a host of bad ones.

In my eyes, the most honorable soldiers in this war have been those who, possessed of the intelligence to see this war for what it is, have refused to continue to serve and have done so at the risk of their freedom. Now there is true honor. There is true courage. There is true patriotism.

Am I saying it is impossible for a soldier in Iraq to behave in an admirable way? Of course not. The soldier who throws himself on a grenade to save his fellow soldiers is acting courageously, and we admire courage. Yet we find ourselves wishing that he had never been put in the horrible situation where he had to make this fateful decision. We rightly blame the warmongers who put him there.

Rich man's war, poor man's fight. Never truer than now, than with the fight in Iraq.