Terry Lisk's war

Perhaps you have seen The New York Times article about the death of one soldier in Iraq.

His name was Sgt. Terry Michael Lisk. He was 26, from Zion, Illinois. His death was meaningless to the men who had sent him to the desert to risk his life for no reason anyone outside the administration believes is true, but it was meaningful to those who served with him. And, as the article attests, they paid him the last full measure of respect. Death has that effect, when you're close up.

Only presidential speechwriters and munitions manufacturers believe that anyone "wins" a war. The cost is so high and the scars are so deep that "victory" is a non-start as a concept. That is why any politician mouthing large about Terry Lisk's "sacrifice" is so nauseating--what does a guy on lease to a lobbyist know about primal emotions, about flying bullets and screaming children, about the shock of a fatal wound?

Military men know, and military men have had enough of it. They tell Jack Murtha that this war is a disgrace, and, hero that he is, he shouts this news so loudly that the Ann Coulters of the world wish him dead. Gen. George Casey Jr.--commander of American forces in Iraq--must suspect it, for although there are no signs that the Iraq army is standing up, he is drafting a plan for real troop reductions. And the generals at the Pentagon know it, for they are trying to stop the bloodthirsty Vice President and the idiot Secretary of Defense--and, I almost forgot, their mouthpiece, the President some of you voted for--from bombing Iran.

Isn't that amazing? The military men don't want to fight. And they want not to fight so badly they have thrust themselves into backstage Administration politics, in a desperate attempt to avoid getting orders they dare not disobey. "Cut and run" cowards? In the Pentagon? Now that's a story. Seymour Hersh reports it in The New Yorker.

You can be sure the administration will find some way to distract you from this news. With luck, maybe someone will pick up on the hate that's being spewed against journalists and--in the land of the brave, home of the free--cap some editor who crossed the White House. And then won't we all feel more free?

A country is a good idea when it provides basic services for its citizens, protects the environment, and leaves people free to find their personal destinies. Our government, having failed the first two, is working on the third.

So too bad about Terry Lisk. Too bad about the 2,500 others, and the Iraqi children, and the Iraqi men with their hands bound and their eyes drilled out. And, on our birthday, too bad about us too.