To the Editor:
For his eloquent letter of August 18, I must applaud the courage of Mr. John St. Lawrence to say the things that need to be said about U.S. wars of the last 50 years.
I …
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To the Editor:
For his eloquent letter of August 18, I must applaud the courage of Mr. John St. Lawrence to say the things that need to be said about U.S. wars of the last 50 years.
I wince every time I see “Thank the Troops For Your Freedom” signs, yellow ribbons and hear a plethora of empty platitudes praising their service in defense of our country. Defense? What defense? The Department of Defense should be quickly renamed the Department of Offense because we are defending nothing but the international bankers and their interests.
I am an American through and through. My mother’s parents were Irish immigrants and my father’s ancestors were on the Mayflower, and I served in the RI National Guard and am a member the RI Selective Service Appeals Board, but I’m also a realist. Our country’s foreign policy is in the hands of Wall Street. The CIA, which plots the overthrow of countless countries who cannot fight back, is Wall Street’s enforcement arm aided by our own military machine.
Why we continue to delude ourselves into thinking that these brave young men and women, many lacking job opportunities, actually died for a noble cause I do not know. I suppose to think about the obvious is too painful to countenance. The day of noble causes is well over.
There is no questioning the bravery and call to service these young men and women heard and answered thinking they were keeping America safe because our government told them so. But the realities, as usual, are very different. We are living in incredibly tragic times. We have become inured and desensitized to the horrors that are visited upon the peoples of this planet in the name of the so-called war on terror, nation-building, spreading democracy – and all in our name.
We have sown the seeds of our own moral and material destruction as our youth are fed to the perpetual war machine. It is time to break out of this electronically-simulated reality in which we live and do a little hard thinking about our place in the world, but is it too late for that?
Much too late.
Jim Morgan
Warwick
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davebarry109
You are like Mr. Lawrence. No wonder you applaud him. If you think we are getting embroiled in wars to line peoples pockets then work to change that. Meanwhile, don't negate the sacrifice of the brave men who gave their lives serving their country. These are two separate things. During WWII, they were not separate. The cause and the sacrifice were for the same thing. In the wars since Korea, soldiers who sacrificed still have done so for a noble cause....serving their country. The fact that the country entered into a questionable war does not take away from their nobleness. A soldier, even a volunteer, cannot decide such things. Once you enlist, you fight whatever fight you are told to, to the best of your ability. A soldier who died in Vietnam is no less noble than one who died during WWII. Both served their country. There is no higher honor.
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