The Fuzzy End of the Lollipop...OR...Who Would Jesus Bomb?

Well, it seems like I've been getting the fuzzy end of the lollipop lately, especially as I try to sort things out politically. I'M SO CONFUSED! The movie Saving Private Ryan came on TV tonight in honor of Veteran's Day, and I watched it for the umpteenth time. It's interesting how, despite the disgusting brutality of war, people always manage to find a way to glorify it.

Perhaps it is our way of justifying what we have done--"Oh, the courage!" "Oh, the bravery and the valor!" "Oh, the brotherhood!"

I'm sure that there are moments and times during war that bring men together as they share profound experiences of love and companionship even among all of the killing and death. And there is a need to expound on this shared experience, to bring it back home to let people know that even on the killing fields, there is love and hope.

But doesn't this seem a little twisted? "LOVE AND HOPE?!?" I want to scream. "DOESN'T A LARGE-SCALE MASSACRE KIND OF OVERSHADOW THAT?"

Then, I can't help but feel like I'm being unpatriotic. Afterall I am an American, and I am reaping the American profit from all of these wars that we have waged--even those wars that were not waged in defense of our country or our freedom, but were waged in order to place our government in a more strategically potent position to profiteer and control other countries (like the war in Iraq). Which, I suppose, is a kind of preventative defense. Don't let other countries get too powerful, because then they might become a threat. Crush 'em while they're still down, that's the spirit. Then, in some cases, sieze a certain percentage of that country's land and use it as political real estate. And take control of the country's natural resources, too.

So here I am, reaping all the profit of the USA's war-mongering, but living with an unclean conscience.

Maybe I am the ultimate hypocrite. Maybe without all of this war-mongering, our country would fall apart and my son and I would be starving, living in a dirt hovel boiling bark and bones for broth, taking cover from hostile gunfire, becoming accustomed to the sound of mortars breaking in the night.

But America is not the only country that feels the need to war-monger from time to time. Since 1900, there have been 104 recognized wars in the world, with a total of over 160 million casualties.

I guess we're all looking out for our own in this world, eh?

When are we going to start looking out for each other?

"And everyone 'neath the vine and fig tree, shall live in peace and unafraid. And into plowshares turn their swords, nations shall learn war no more."

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Peter Jennings: At that level, young lieutenant flying in Viet Nam, ... did you have to have a sense of the larger purpose? What America is doing here? Are we winning this war? ... Did you ... and your colleagues ever have to think about that on that level?

Admiral Smith: Not really. We kind of thought that our mission was moralistically right. We'd all been trained to do what we were told to do. And in those days, we didn't do a lot of questioning like that. It was pretty much, if you agreed with the policy, that was fine, you just went and did your job; if you didn't agree with the policy, it was just fine and you went and did your job. ... The thing I guess, Peter, that I admire the most about that generation, if you will, is that even if we didn't agree with the policy, we did what we were told to do. And in some cases, at great personal danger. And there were some people, I know they must not have agreed with it. But it was not something we sat around ... [and] discussed at great length. ...