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Written by Earl Hiatt / Community Columnist
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Friday, 20 June 2008 |
An un-memorial day
Bereaved relatives visit gravesites of loved ones. Patriotic citizens wave flags and attend parades. Vote-seeking politicians wax eloquent about sacrifices made on behalf of freedom.
 Earl Hiatt / His Voice
President Bush said: “Today, we mourn and remember all those who have given their lives in the line of duty.”
And mourn we should, especially because virtually nothing President Bush — or any of his predecessors — said was true.
Courageous men and women have died, and most thought they were defending liberty and the United States. But only rarely have U.S. wars had anything to do with the nation’s defense, let alone the promotion of liberty, here or abroad.
That is a tough message to swallow, for many good soldiers have died bravely and honorably for bad or unjust causes.
What follows is a short review of some of our wars and their relationship to our nation’s defense or the promotion of liberty:
President James Polk started the Mexican-American War by sending U.S. soldiers into Mexican territory and then claiming that Mexico had committed aggression by attacking our force. Our goal was not to promote liberty but to seize Mexican territory, which we accomplished by taking almost half of the country.
The Spanish-American War was supposedly started to save Cuban people from Spanish oppression, but our true goal was to drive Spain out of the Philippines, as we needed a coaling station in the Western Pacific for our commercial ships. It took 10 years and 200,000 Filipino lives before the Filipinos had their freedom (our version).
World War I was one of humanity’s greatest tragedies, an utterly unsuccessful conflict. Our irrational President Woodrow Wilson thought we could “make the world safe for democracy.” The result was the slaughter of millions, destruction of constitutional liberties, destruction of social orders and dissolution of countries across Europe. The vengeful peace treaty that followed was not only a primary cause of Communism, fascism and Nazism, but the primary cause of World War II.
In that war, we were told that we were fighting against dictators and for freedom, but Stalin, one of the cruelest despots of all times, was our ally. Millions of people were killed by the Soviet Union after World War II was over. And we were fighting for freedom?
We were told the Vietnam War was necessary to defend the U.S. and the free world. We lost 58,000 servicemen, proving that the previous sentence was not true and, like most always, our leaders had lied to us. Much later in life, then-Defense Secretary Robert McNamara admitted that he had lied to the American people. When asked why, he said, “My president asked me to.” Now that’s a freedom worth 58,000 lives.
There are many more wars and lies, but I’ve run out of space.
But Memorial Day should be a time to challenge incompetent politicians for wasting our courage on dubious, even disputable ends. Most foreign meddling is counterproductive.
Most U.S. wars have been unnecessary and imprudent, and some (like the present) have been brazenly immoral. The best way to honor those who have sacrificed their lives in the past would be to change U.S. policy in the future.
- Patterson resident Earl Hiatt is a semi-retired agri-businessman whose major interests are nutrition, economics and religion. His columns appear occasionally on the Irrigator Voice page. His e-mail is
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