Keeping the effort afloat, women knew a lot about sacrifice during WWII.
For the past few nights, I've been watching several parts of a great documentary on PBS simply entitled "The War." In it, people learn about a whole host of issues coming from the vantage point of citizens from one of four different US communities during World War Two, such as Mobile, Alabama and Sacramento, California. What's astoundingly clear is that everyone - man, woman and child - sacrificed everything to ensure victory. Why? Because it was a necessary war.
People were saving the fat from their bacon because it could be used to make munitions. They were baking birthday cakes with neither flour nor sugar. They were working in factories 24/7, pumping out more planes than people could fly (which is a lot, considering dozens were lost every day). Meanwhile, almost an entire generation of men and women put their lives at risk, all around the world, as nurses and soldiers, to protect the globe from a very real - and potent - threat. United States citizens did anything and everything they could to win because they knew, in their heart of hearts, that Germany had to be defeated. Back then, the Axis really was an Axis of Evil, even if politicians of FDR's stripe weren't as practiced in using falsified fear and hyperbole.
Meanwhile, our politicians today are so convinced Iraq is just that they're willing to sacrifice a lot - after all, just think how much larger those tax cuts for the rich could have been! Politicians are so proud of their troops, they encourage none of their own sons and daughters to become Army Strong. (FDR's eldest son served in one of the most elite and dangerous Pacific fighting forces. Reportedly, one of Bush's twins is engaged to be married.) Our elected leaders show their support for our men and women who risk their lives every day by wearing stickers on their cars and making sure they don't have enough proper body and Humvee armor. Because, really, wouldn't paying for all that be cheating or something?
People were saving the fat from their bacon because it could be used to make munitions. They were baking birthday cakes with neither flour nor sugar. They were working in factories 24/7, pumping out more planes than people could fly (which is a lot, considering dozens were lost every day). Meanwhile, almost an entire generation of men and women put their lives at risk, all around the world, as nurses and soldiers, to protect the globe from a very real - and potent - threat. United States citizens did anything and everything they could to win because they knew, in their heart of hearts, that Germany had to be defeated. Back then, the Axis really was an Axis of Evil, even if politicians of FDR's stripe weren't as practiced in using falsified fear and hyperbole.
Meanwhile, our politicians today are so convinced Iraq is just that they're willing to sacrifice a lot - after all, just think how much larger those tax cuts for the rich could have been! Politicians are so proud of their troops, they encourage none of their own sons and daughters to become Army Strong. (FDR's eldest son served in one of the most elite and dangerous Pacific fighting forces. Reportedly, one of Bush's twins is engaged to be married.) Our elected leaders show their support for our men and women who risk their lives every day by wearing stickers on their cars and making sure they don't have enough proper body and Humvee armor. Because, really, wouldn't paying for all that be cheating or something?
Our cause is so necessary that there's no point in even trying to come to a diplomatic solution, or reaching out to the world for help. Nope, we own Iraq and we're even willing to make our children pay for it, quite literally. That's how much it's worth sacrificing for, because, really, who can expect people to go without cell phones that can toast bread and televisions so advanced that they really do take you out to the ball game? Some sacrifices are too much to bear.
Here's the most important lesson from "The War." Unless a country is willing to sacrifice everything, it ought to think twice about waging a war in the first place. Where are all the war supporters demanding to pay higher taxes to fund it, or demanding the draft be instituted so their sons and daughters can risk their lives, too? Can anyone imagine the people who fought World War Two being willing to sacrifice just the same for similar justifications that brought us to Baghdad? Maybe they really were the greatest generation, after all. At least they were a generation of people who were only willing to wage wars they felt were so necessary that they'd sacrifice everything to win - because they had to win, or else.
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4 comments:
Unless John McCain wins the Presidency, the last combat veteran to serve will be fighter pilot George Herbert Walker Bush, shot down over the Pacific.
we did defeat a country to rid Afganistan of the Taliban, a direct victory. You say they're not that powerful, some said that when the Nazis were only the "brownshirts", then we had "Krystalnacht". And in the age of biological/nuclear/chemical weapons they don't need to conquer a large territory to have their terrorism inflict the kind of damage Adolph could only dream about.
I know about how Iran treats homosexuals. We should offer amnesty to any gay people in Iran. However, we can't - and shouldn't - invade that country.
Also, Afghanistan was an important fight... and, sadly, we're not giving it the effort now that we need to. We've allowed the Taliban to come back - and that's happened largely because Iraq has diverted our efforts there.
Finally, I didn't say that terrorists aren't a major threat, they're a threat that can be countered with a strong intelligence system: our intelligence agencies can both prevent attacks and prevent attacks from becoming disasters. They failed doing the latter on 9/11, they've likely succeeded in other ways I don't know about, because they're often kept secret.
But you really need to read your history: the Nazis killed over 23 million people in the Soviet Union, alone. Al Qaeda would have to commit 7,866 9/11s to kill that many people. Over 25 million other people died as a result of the Axis, including almost 20 million at the hands of the Japanese in China. We're talking about completely different levels of threat that require completely different tactics to end that threat. One required a major, world-wide war. Terrorism, on the other hand, requires vastly superior intelligence and an effort to make the entire world, especially Muslims, shun that movement. To do that, it's going to require a lot of diplomacy and certainly an end to the war in Iraq.
Ryan - your statistics take in a period of over ten years for the Axis powers, and assume that the only Taliban casualties were on 9/11. Talk to London, France - and Marianna Pearl.
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