“i sing of Olaf glad and big
whose warmest heart recoiled at war”e.e. cummings
My first experience with reading the works of e.e. cummings came in high school and was re-energized in an American Poetry class at the University of Wisconsin. Admittedly, the initial attraction to this particular poem, in my teens, had to do with the foul language used to emphasize the passion of cummings’ anti-war sentiments including “I will not kiss your f—–g flag.” While I do not share that sentiment about the flag, I confess that I still share the abhorrence of war.
Today we awake, these many decades later, to a new excuse for war… there is always an excuse for war. A nation half way round the globe in which we have no direct interest has used chemical weapons on a civilian population in a rebel controlled area in the course of a civil war. And we are told we must respond and that our response must be a response of warring force. Yes, bombs and perhaps boots, against one side and to the benefit of the other side or sides.
Understand that there are no factions allied with us. There is no faction friendly to us. There are no good guys in this Syrian mess. There is a corrupt dictatorship being opposed by rebel units made up largely of those who would replace one dictatorship with a clerical dictatorship based on Sharia Law and other factions closely aligned with our mortal enemy, al Qaeda.
But we must respond. We cannot allow the use of chemical weapons to go unpunished we are told. It sounds so easy, so morally necessary. We are the moral enforcers after all, the policemen of the world. It is our divine destiny, scripted by God or gods, that we might send drones to take out funeral processions in one country while sending Cruise Missiles, and maybe boots, to punish and deter the immoral acts of another country. Damn we are an arrogant lot!
There’s more you need to consider. What are our interests? What are our goals? Is it punishment for the sake of punishment? These things never stop at an initial blow followed by standing down. Escalation is the common end. Ask how those we bomb will respond in turn. Remember we are talking about the Middle East. Will we re-respond after that?
And what’s next? There needs to be regime change, doesn’t there? And then nation building. One follows the other. And how many trillions and how much blood before the escalation is complete and we have once again drained the lives and will of another generation until they too cry enough of this new warfare, until the next.
Beware the winds of war.
Contributor, aka tidbits. Retired attorney in complex litigation, death penalty defense and constitutional law. Former Nat’l Board Chair: Alzheimer’s Association. Served on multiple political campaigns, including two for U.S. Senator Mark O. Hatfield (R-OR). Contributing author to three legal books and multiple legal publications.