America at Half Mast

“It’s a bad war; it’s a stupid war.” — Karen Lieurance, Knoxville mother of slain soldier Sgt. Victoir P. Lieurance

The flag at our local grocery store is flying at half mast for Victoir Lieurance and Joey Hunt, 2 ETN Guard soldiers killed in Iraq last week. By midweek the families had not received the remains or made funeral arrangements, but the father of Victor Lieurance is one more recruit for Cindy Sheehan. “She didn’t speak for me, but now she does.”

Negotiations over the new Constitution are “at the end of the road” and the Pentagon is preparing to ramp up troop numbers again. My buddy Jason Purcell is coming home this week from North Kuwait to get married. We will toast him and his bride, celebrate their wedding, and then send him back — for what?

Jason is pretty gung ho, and he would be the first to say he knew what he was signing up for, even as a Guardsman. He's doing his patriotic duty as a soldier. The rest of us, I believe, should do our patriotic duty as citizens of a democracy and ask our leaders some hard questions. Just what have we done as a nation? Why did we start a war we are not winning for a democracy that isn’t happening?

Rep. Ron Paul of Texas asked these questions two years ago from the floor of the House of Representatives:  

I am sure once the alleged attempt to buy uranium is thoroughly debunked, the other excuses for going to war will be examined with a great deal of scrutiny as well. It is obvious that the evidence used to justify going to war is now less than convincing.

The charge that Saddam Hussein had aluminum tubes used in manufacturing nuclear weapons was in error.

A fleet of unmanned aerial vehicles capable of dispensing chemical and biological weapons did not exist.

The 63,000 liters of anthrax and botulism have not been found, nor have any of the mobile germ labs. There are no signs of the one million pounds of sarin, mustard, and VX gasses alleged to exist.

No evidence has been revealed to indicate Iraq was a threat to the security of any nation, let alone America.  

The charge that Saddam Hussein was connected to the al Qaeda was wrong. Saddam Hussein’s violations the UN resolutions regarding weapons of mass destruction remain unproven.

How could so many errors have occurred? Some say it was incompetence, while others claim outright deception and lies.

The most recent justification for the war is that we are helping the Iraqis bring democracy to their country. As of yesterday the Iraqi Parliament had given up on a Constitution.

Where do we go from here? Our flag is at half mast. How will we raise it again? — T