I can point to George W. Bush and his administration and say that they are responsible for my current attitude toward U.S. military deployment, conflicts, wars, and Memorial Day.

The war of choice that is still Iraq---its utter devastation and inhumanity---brought into focus for my self what the Vietnam generation recognized decades ago. Not only is the current Iraq War brutalizing and tearing apart the lives of millions of Iraqis and squandering the lives of thousands of Americans but it is also an illegal war.

 

For me, the conflict with Iraq began on a sterile television screen in a spread-out cafeteria during a high school musical production of Anything Goes. During breaks, I would occasionally venture out into the area to sit on a chair in the middle of the cafeteria and watch as CNN offered a glimpse into the bombings that were going on, bombings which I watched happen with a night vision green tint to them.

It would have been just another piece of U.S. history unfolding in the news for me except I became interested. Maybe, intrigued is a better word. I started to read books and inevitably, my taste for satire and humor led me to Dude, Where’s My Country? by Michael Moore. 

No longer did the war only have a life on a television screen.

As Kerry ran for president, the war had a life on the message boards of MoveOn.org. I would offer up my ideas on strategy and tactics for Democrats with the hopes that Kerry would win so that the wars could end.

Then, I had a blog on Blogger. I was on Newsvine. I was on OpEdNews.com and now, I attempt to post my writings everywhere I possibly can.

My writings ask questions. I never claim to explicitly know what’s best for America or anyone.

I do not offer policy or guidelines for a better future (yet). I am just picking away at the ignorance and hubris of so many people who live in America and the world. I digress.

I have grandparents who served in World War II. And, I have a grandparent whose brother died in World War II. (I'm sure many more of my relatives have loved one who were involved and who died too.)

While my two grandparents never saw much combat of any kind, family members could tell me about what it was like to be part of what Tom Brokaw termed “the greatest generation.”

But, was “the greatest generation” manipulated into serving the country? Were they deceived into deployment for U.S. Empire?

The great historian Howard Zinn writes in Chapter 16 “A People’s War?”A People’s History of the United States: from

Pearl Harbor was presented to the American public as a sudden, shocking, immoral act. Immoral it was, like any bombing-but not really sudden or shocking to the American government. Russett says: "Japan's strike against the American naval base climaxed a long series of mutually antagonistic acts. In initiating economic sanctions against Japan the United States undertook actions that were widely recognized in Washington as carrying grave risks of war."

Putting aside the wild accusations against Roosevelt (that he knew about Pearl Harbor and didn't tell, or that he deliberately provoked the Pearl Harbor raid—these are without evidence), it does seem clear that he did as James Polk had done before him in the Mexican war and Lyndon Johnson after him in the Vietnam war-he lied to the public for what he thought was a right cause. In September and October 1941, he misstated the facts in two incidents involving German submarines and American destroyers. A historian sympathetic to Roosevelt, Thomas A. Bailey, has written:

Franklin Roosevelt repeatedly deceived the American people during the period before Pearl Harbor. ... He was like the physician who must tell the patient lies for the patient's own good ... because the musses are notoriously shortsighted and generally cannot see danger until it is at their throats.

One of the judges in the Tokyo War Crimes Trial after World War II, Radhabinod Pal, dissented from the general verdicts against Japanese officials and argued that the United States had clearly provoked the war with Japan and expected Japan to act. Richard Minear (Victors' Justice) sums up Pal's view of the embargoes on scrap iron and oil, that "these measures were a clear and potent threat to Japan's very existence." The records show that a White House conference two weeks before Pearl Harbor anticipated a war and discussed how it should be justified.

Like neoconservatives who craved war with Iraq so they could take control of the nation’s oil and use the country’s geographical location to achieve their own ends, the United States was interested in maintaining access to tin, rubber, and other raw materials.

As Zinn’s chapter on World War II illuminates, “wealth became more and more concentrated in fewer and fewer large corporations,” Negroes were “indifferent” and largely uninterested in the war, the proportion of conscientious objectors was three times that of the proportion of conscientious objectors in World War I (even though there was a perception that American communities were unanimously for war), and the supreme wartime objective seemed to be “to save capitalism at home and abroad.”

Fast-forward to today’s wars in Iraq (and Afghanistan and Pakistan). America now has one of the highest levels of income inequality among high income nations. People of color (Latino and Black) are enlisting at the highest rates to serve in war so they can overcome poverty and go to college and possibly achieve prosperity and happiness in their lifetime, tens of thousands of soldiers have gone AWOL and hundreds have become “war resisters,” and, of course, this was all part of a “project for a New American Century (which when translated means preserving America’s superpower status for the next one hundred years).

From FDR to Obama (in fact, from the beginning of U.S. Empire to Obama), those in power have not been concerned with “keeping America safe.” Presidents have not preserved the security of the American people or its geographical landscapes; they have charged themselves with keeping America’s superpower status safe and long-lasting.

President Barack Obama in his weekly address asked Americans “to reflect on what this holiday is all about.”

Obama said this holiday is meant “to pay tribute to our fallen heroes and to remember the service men and women who cannot be with us this year because they are standing post far from home.”

He also said, “It’s about remembering each and every one of those moments when our survival as a nation came down not simply to the wisdom of our leaders or the resilience of our people but to the courage and valor of our fighting men and women.”

Obama may think his address gives Americans the “truth at the heart of [American] history” but it really doesn't.

In regards to the history of the holiday itself, a posting on CommonDreams.org raises skepticism on the holiday saying, "Memorial Day, it turns out, is yet another hijacked holiday. It was first observed in 1865 as Decoration Day by liberated slaves, who independently set up, decorated and proclaimed an ad-hoc graveyard – a field of "passionless mounds" – to honor dead Union soldiers."

Memorial Day will come and go tomorrow. Parades will line up and take off in the morning. They will be filled with veterans and high school bands and rotary club and breakfast club members.

The Knights of Columbus and the Salvation Army and church groups and children will all be participating. Candy may be thrown to those on the side of the street and vintage cars and fire trucks and police cars and military vehicles will spark memories and excitement. 

Those who have participated in war will be remembered, but those who have been victims of U.S. Empire will not be remembered at all. 

There will be no moment of silence for the women who are raped, assaulted, and brutalized during war.

There will be no moment of silence for the innocent children who become refugees as their homes and schools are bombed to pieces.

There will be no moment of silence for those young soldiers who go off to war and end up committing suicide. 

There will be no moment of silence for the men who go off to war and come home with PTSD. Or, the men who become conscientious objectors or war resisters. 

Or, the soldiers who return home and do everything they can to raise their voice and demand that these wars come to an end so their brothers and sisters will stop dying, so that innocent lives will not continue to be lost.

True---in places like Chicago, those with healthy cynicism and skepticism will have an opportunity to gather and reflect on America's military history in a different manner---a manner that is less focused on candy, vintage cars, ribbons, confetti, bands, and fanfare. But, a majority will not. 

I put this out there because I come down on the side that many in the Vietnam generation come down on.

I say this so that perhaps some will question the mythology our government and leaders have created which reinforce a holiday like Memorial Day. 

As more and more of "the greatest generation" go to their grave, those who are left to honor will be those who were involved in conflicts from the Korean War to the current conflicts in the Middle East.

Much of the American population from the Vietnam generation on are those  who have grown to accept debates over the value of war. They now have second thoughts about sending their sons and daughters off to war.

That's nothing to be ashamed of. As the cliché goes, war is not the answer. And just because traditionally America's men and women have served with honor doesn't mean that war should ever be.

 

 *To view version with embedded media, go here. 

Author's Bio: Kevin Gosztola goes to Columbia College in Chicago where he is studying film. He is a YP4 2009 Fellow and is interested in becoming more involved in progressive leadership and using media for social change. Kevin Gosztola is a documentary filmmaker and also an At-Large Senator for the Student Government Association at Columbia College. Currently, he is an Issues Researcher for a documentary being produced by Intersection Pictures in Chicago on housing and gentrification in Chicago. The 2016 bid for the Olympics is accelerating the displacement of residents in areas of Chicago, particularly Bronzeville, and the film being crafted examines Chicago's history and the current housing situation. On Columbia College's campus, he is working to create a Student Civic Collective and increase funding and resources for political and social student organizations on campus. He is working to show students how they can use arts & media for social change and is the leader of Students for Media Reform at Columbia College (SMRCC).

www.opednews.com/articles/Healthy-Cynicism-Toward-Me-by-Kevin-Gosztola-090524-922.html