Travesty

Recently Bush and Rumsfeld were busily hawking their selective recollections as to how and why it was just, virtuous and necessary for American troops to invade Iraq and Afghanistan. While their books are still on the best sellers list, our forces find themselves trapped in Afghanistan, with objectives unclear and no end in sight.

Bush and Rumsfeld induced a Congress and a people into participating in two unnecessary wars, which were ill conceived, badly planned , poorly managed and ultimately bungled, as being necessary for the security of the United States. The allure of history overcame any modicum of good sense. To have started two wars on the thinnest of reasons, cherry picking among data and calling it intelligence, advancing stories of whole cloth in order to deceive an entire nation should not go into the history books without a thorough vetting and a delivery of shame rightly bought by these self promoting heroes.

Rather than making literary “victory laps” and preening , peacock like, in halls of Congress, these men should apologize firstly to the dead youngsters whose lives were lost in pursuit of these follies, next to the thousands of young men maimed and crippled by these wars, and lastly to the survivors whose lives will never be repaired.

Bush, once pantomimed before a “roast” making sport of his inability to find WMD’s in Iraq. He should try that routine in the wards of Walter Reed.

But the last, and worst great crime these men continue to participate in is to tell the men who served that they were doing something important for their country, to take pride in their service. It is , in effect, their BIG LIE, the one behind which they hide. That this lie serves as solace is probably undeniable. Yet it is the grossest of crimes, this deception of the young men who were victims of their egos and recklessness. Ultimately , a history will emerge which will tear down this deceptive facade, this “Potamkin Village” of falsehoods.

Perhaps, before the book is closed , an apology to those who served would be appropriate if not sufficient.