Rationale for War

Today I read an article in the April 2007 Newsweek Magazine. It was written by Anna Quindlen and entitled, The Last Word: The Weight of What-If. She was reminiscing about how fortunate it was that her boyfriend (now husband) had received a high draft number, and didn’t have to go to war. She then started to list the milestones in her life that might not have been had he gone to war and died there. She calls those who have died in war “a collection of short stories, of might-have-beens, a book with half the pages gone.” She goes further and states, “When policymakers start a war, do they realize they have dragged heavy hands across the map of the world and altered the details of daily life?” She proudly states that, “The age of dictum has morphed into the age of the discussion, and dissent is no longer synonymous with treason.” She also explained the difference between WWII and Vietnam respectively by saying, “The mission and the men then were both accepted as honorable and good; the cost was counted in gold stars, not black marks. The antithesis was Vietnam; when Americans soured on the war they, too, often soured on the soldiers fighting it, so that when those men came home, with the same terrible nightmares as their predecessors, they felt obligated to keep their heads down instead of holding them high.” Then she gives us a test to measure the rationale for going to war. She states, “The rationale for going to war has to meet many tests, but one of them – perhaps the most important one- is whether the mission is strong enough to carry the weight of so many ghosts and so much misery, … The legacy of what-ifs, of abbreviated and amended lives.”
Wow, that is strong, powerful. Of course she is talking about Iraq. But for one moment, let us use her premises to judge another war; indeed, let us see if they work for any war. First let’s define war. War is when one group kills or fights against another group for some sort of gain. It may be a political, financial, moral, immoral, or for whatever other reason humans find to wage war against another. We can go further and state that individuals can wage war like the Capulets and the Montagues; a war between tribes. A modern day example might be what some people call the cultural war in this country. As we can see, war can be loosely defined. However, let us state, just for the sake of our argument, that war is an act of killing.
There is a war in which millions have been killed to date. Each individual has been killed for some sort of gain. Some for financial gain, some for political gain, some for social gain, some say for moral reasons, and others claim for immoral reasons. Regardless, millions have been killed. The question is whether, according to Ms. Quindlen’s test, there is a good rationale for this war or not? Remember she stated, “The rationale for going to war has to meet many tests, but one of them – perhaps the most important one- is whether the mission is strong enough to carry the weight of so many ghosts and so much misery, … The legacy of what-ifs, of abbreviated and amended lives.” Is there really any war that can be justified when measured against her test? Can we really justify any war when we think of each individual sacrificed in that war as “a collection of short stories, of might-have-beens, a book with half the pages gone.”
Well, what about an individual with all the pages gone? What about the millions of babies that have been killed for whatever reasons: having a baby would ruin my life, I’m too young, too old, too poor, too rich, too skinny, too fat, too inconvenienced. But just think, perhaps, we killed the person who could have found a way to get us out of Iraq. Maybe we killed the one who could have given us the cure for AIDS. Perhaps we killed the one who…whatever is possible in the pages of millions of innocent people’s lives. I wonder, when mothers start a war, a war against their own children, do they realize they have dragged heavy hands across the map of the world and altered the details of daily life?
At least the soldiers, who have given up their lives in Iraq, gave them up willingly. And just think, they gave them up so that women would have the right to choose to kill their own babies, to wage war against their own children. What a tragic reason for our soldiers to die. Maybe we can make it better; maybe we can make it better and honor their name, if we stop the war on the innocents in this country. Maybe when we as a country sacrifice and stop the war against the unborn, then maybe we will finally deserve peace.
I hope you read this with an open mind, after all, “The age of dictum has morphed into the age of the discussion, and dissent is no longer synonymous with treason.” So women should be able to speak out against abortion without fear of being labeled a traitor to women. A Democrat should be able to find a place in the Democratic Party holding beliefs against the war of abortion. However, it is not so. Not even in the age of discussion. There is no room in the Democratic Party for anyone who does not believe in abortion. Hear me now, there is no room in the Democratic Party for anyone who is Pro-life. And if most of the Republican candidates have their way, there will no longer be any room in the Republican Party for those who do not believe in the abortion war against the unborn.
Now is the time for all men and women to stand up and stop the war against the unborn. Once we have stopped those atrocities, then maybe, just maybe, we will see change in other horrors we are experiencing. You want to end the war in Iraq, then end the war here against the innocents. You want to mend our country, then stop killing our citizens. Each of you who support abortion, let’s face it you are Hawks. You are not peaceful and your children, if you have any, won’t be peaceful. I can guarantee you this however, if you don’t stop the practice of abortion, you will never know peace; and the sacrifices that you make will never make up for the price you will pay.