The Cost of War: Steep and Irreversible
by
Jack Random
The Battle for Basra gave way to the Siege of Sadr City, leaving in its wake a broken Iraqi government, the promise of inclusion irrevocably betrayed, a surge of violence, death and destruction, and the words of General David Petraeus on the progress of the war still ringing in our ears: “Fragile and reversible.”
In contrast to his first testimony before Congress, the second round of the Commander’s report to Congress elicited sympathy. It was sad, even tragic to witness yet another military leader playing point man for the White House in defense of a strategic catastrophe.
After an explosion of violence, the stunning defeat of government
forces and the subsequent disenfranchisement of arguably the most
powerful and influential Shia party in Iraq, with missiles raining down
on the once secure Green Zone, the best the General could do was to
claim progress that was “fragile and reversible.”
After five
years, at a cost approaching a trillion dollars, with 4036 dead
American soldiers, tens of thousands wounded and as many or more than a
million Iraqi dead, with apologies to the General, “fragile and
reversible” is no progress at all.
The die is cast, the
outcome set in stone, yet the costs of war continue to be manifest in
new and disturbing ways: A mounting trade deficit, the national debt,
a falling dollar, the price of food and gas, a stunted economy, an
emboldened China, a stark reversal of fortune in Afghanistan, and
global instability from the Middle East to Africa to Tibet and Haiti in
our own back yard.
Preoccupied and overextended, having lost
our economic leverage and diplomatic grounding, America is absent on
the world stage and struggling to pull out of a precipitous economic
decline at home.
An honest and candid commander, with the
interest of the nation over the president at heart, would testify that
our strategy in Iraq is doomed and intractable. He would testify that
our president no longer listens to his generals on the ground unless
they tell him what he wants to hear. He would tell us that this
president is dug in and will not move.
An honest commander
would inform us that neither he nor his fellow generals nor the
soldiers who must pay the greatest cost have any choice but to suffer
through the remainder of the president’s term.
He would tell that our only hope is to contain the damage insofar as it can be contained.
He
would warn us that as bad as it is it could be much worse. Our
president has been given the authority to strike at Iran on the
slightest pretense. This president or the next could use that
authority to open the floodgates of an expanded war that would render
the very concept of victory at war obsolete.
The stone cold
truth is we are already engaged in a war that can never recover its
burgeoning costs. Every individual in America, in Iraq and throughout
much of the world will be paying the cost of this war for the remainder
of our lives and our progeny will continue to pay for generations to
come.
We will pay in so many ways that we cannot now foresee.
There will be blood for vengeance is always answered by vengeance and
violence feeds on itself like gasoline on fire. There will be economic
retribution; economies will collapse. There will be realignment of
global powers. There will be poverty, hunger and disease. There will
be environmental disasters on a global scale that will still the world
in horror until we are numb to massive casualties.
The elder
historians will look back and proclaim: This was the time when we
should have read the signs, we should have known, should have learned,
and should have acted to unite the world in common cause.
The
writing on the wall was clear yet we squandered our energies, our
resources and our precious time on wars for profit, power and greed.
We will define the human tragedy: That we could have done so much yet we chose to do so little.
It
is a dark foreboding vision, the legacy of modern warfare, yet I refuse
to believe it cannot be redrawn. The people of this world are neither
vengeful nor greedy. We do not wish to visit death, destruction or
misfortune on our neighbors. We want to live and let live in peace and
contentment. We want the freedom to conduct our lives according to the
will of our hearts.
It is not the people who are to blame; it is the leaders who have wandered astray.
It
is for us particularly in democratic nations to choose our leaders
wisely and bind them to a course of action that will bring an end to
war and christen the beginning of a new age of unity and common cause.
Writings 
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