War is a Useful Word

"I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity." - General Dwight D. Eisenhower

The men and women who have waged this atrocity, this defilement of human endeavor and of human life, have done so, not to protect or to safeguard, but to legitimize their own power. War is obsolete. The wholesale slaughter of enemies no longer serves any purpose. But the word War is still useful, as Erik points out. So are other words, such as witch hunt and due process.

What else should we expect? We Americans all stood by, and because we are who we are and we believe that our system of government is essentially fair and benign, we allowed the peaceful ascension to power of a man who was not duly elected or qualified to serve.

President Bush is no statesman. By his arrogance, he has squandered the good will that most of the planet vested in America in the days following our national tragedy. Now because we are essentially, effectively alone, lacking any viable moral mandate, we have no means to defend ourselves from perceived threats but swaggering polemic and staggering violence.

I’m reminded of an old joke. A man working in a candy factory falls unseen into a giant vat of chocolate syrup and can’t get out. Facing death, he cries out desperately, “Fire!” Men come, pull him out, and ask him why he yelled, “Fire!” … “If I’d yelled, ‘Chocolate!’ no one would have come.”

Of course he’s going to keep bellowing “War!” It’s all he has. If he hollered anything else, such as “in God’s name, let us feed the hungry and house the poor,” or “let all the nations peacefully bring terrorists to justice,” the world would know he’s too small a man for such a vision. The curtain would fall away, so OZ would stand there as he is. But war is easy to say, a small word for a small man of small means; an easy word, like blood and ice and fire.