It’s Memorial Day. Let’s get this started with a little mood music from the Battle Hymn of the Republic:
Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord;
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;
He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword;
His truth is marching on.
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! His truth is marching on.
There! Are you feeling it? Perhaps we can better appreciate the moment by referring back to Mark Antony’s vow to avenge the assassination of Julius Caesar:
O, pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth,
That I am meek and gentle with these butchers!
Thou art the ruins of the noblest man
That ever lived in the tide of times.
Woe to the hand that shed this costly blood!
Over thy wounds now do I prophesy,
— Which, like dumb mouths, do ope their ruby lips,
To beg the voice and utterance of my tongue —
A curse shall light upon the limbs of men;
Domestic fury and fierce civil strife
Shall cumber all the parts of Italy;
Blood and destruction shall be so in use
And dreadful objects so familiar
That mothers shall but smile when they behold
Their infants quarter’d with the hands of war;
All pity choked with custom of fell deeds:
And Caesar’s spirit, ranging for revenge,
With Ate by his side come hot from hell,
Shall in these confines with a monarch’s voice
Cry ‘Havoc,’ and let slip the dogs of war;
That this foul deed shall smell above the earth
With carrion men, groaning for burial.
Somehow this all seems appropriate today.
“After all, this is the guy who tried to kill my dad.”- George W. Bush, September 26, 2002, speaking in Houston at a fund-raiser for Texas Attorney General John Cornyn, the Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate.
Yes, rumor has it that Saddam Hussein made an assassination attempt on George Herbert Walker Bush in April 1993. There is some dispute about that, but there you have it. For Dubya, Saddam might as well have succeeded.
I have read a fiery Gospel writ in burnished rows of steel;
“As ye deal with My contemners, so with you My grace shall deal”;
Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with His heel,
Since God is marching on.
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! Since God is marching on.
We’ve lost 3,455 American soldiers in this war, all to ‘loose the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword’ so that ‘Domestic fury and fierce civil strife, Shall cumber all the parts of I[raq]’. And, from that standpoint, it has been a job well done. Never mind the New York Times’ reporting this morning:
The Iraq war, which for years has drawn militants from around the world, is beginning to export fighters and the tactics they have honed in the insurgency to neighboring countries and beyond, according to American, European and Middle Eastern government officials and interviews with militant leaders in Lebanon, Jordan and London.
Alas, we have “Cr[ied] ‘Havoc,’ and let slip the dogs of war”. We have brought the wrath of God down on the Iraqis, and that wrath knows no mercy. Thomas Friedman explains why we did this:
“We needed to go over there, basically, um, and um, uh, take out a very big state right in the heart of that world and burst that bubble, and there was only one way to do it.”
“That Charlie was what this war was about. We could’ve hit Saudi Arabia, it was part of that bubble. We coulda hit Pakistan. We hit Iraq because we could.”
It’s hard to say what the appropriate memorial would be for all the people that have lost their lives, all so George W. Bush’s ‘spirit, ranging for revenge, With Ate by his side come hot from hell, [could] in these confines with a monarch’s voice, Cry ‘Havoc,’ and let slip the dogs of war; That this foul deed [the assassination attempt on his father would] smell above the earth,
With carrion men, groaning for burial’.
In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me:
As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free
Our God is marching on.
Set aside the wider issues of oil dependency, peace for Israel, and regional stability, the invasion of Iraq made no sense. Our intelligence community was unambiguous about this in the lead up to the war. They told us that the invasion would compound every problem we had in the region. That advice was ignored. And now we must find a fitting memorial for all the people that have lost their lives as a result of this folly.
What better than this exchange, where Brutus and Cassius, defenders of the Republic, prepare for the decisive battle with Octavius Augustus and Mark Antony?
CASSIUS: Then, if we lose this battle,
You are contented to be led in triumph
Thorough the streets of Rome?BRUTUS: No, Cassius, no: think not, thou noble Roman,
That ever Brutus will go bound to Rome;
He bears too great a mind. But this same day
Must end that work the ides of March begun;
And whether we shall meet again I know not.
Therefore our everlasting farewell take:
For ever, and for ever, farewell, Cassius!
If we do meet again, why, we shall smile;
If not, why then, this parting was well made.CASSIUS: For ever, and for ever, farewell, Brutus!
If we do meet again, we’ll smile indeed;
If not, ’tis true this parting was well made.BRUTUS: Why, then, lead on. O, that a man might know
The end of this day’s business ere it come!
But it sufficeth that the day will end,
And then the end is known. Come, ho! away!
They lost that battle. But no one will ever forget that they died to save the Republic. Let us not let history repeat itself. On this Memorial Day, let us remember all those that died to save the Republic. And let us mourn all those that were misused or tricked into dying for some other purpose…all those that died for Caesar.
