'A Traumatized Patient'

Faithful Progressive is a former official Bob Graham for President blogger and Kerry Internet Town Meeting organizer. FP, who lives in Wisconsin, has published more than 100 short-stories, essays and poems in popular and academic literary magazines. These include The Wallace Stevens Journal, Mickle Street Review, The Guardian, The MacGuffin and The Shepherd Express. An attorney, FP has published articles about law and literature in Wisconsin Lawyer. He also writes a weekly column at the Christian Alliance for Progress. He blogs at Faithful Progressive.

Prior to the invasion, Madeline Albright called this an “elective war” akin to an elective surgery—one where the likely benefits clearly did not outweigh the potential risks. The Iraq war has set off a disastrous course of events that has led to tragedy on many levels. It has weakened our position strategically and advanced the cause of Iran, our most dangerous adversary. The war has stretched our military, put us deeply in debt, and left the region less secure.

But, first and foremost, one must remember the deep personal losses suffered by so many Iraqi, American and British families. Thousands of lives have been lost and many more seriously injured. I recently received an e-mail from a member of the Band of Sisters group. She wrote of her son’s traumatic injuries when shrapnel went through his skull and brain. Now he has a “debilitating learning disability as a result of his brain injury.” There are tens of thousands of similar stories, each one full of incalculable human pain and loss.

As Americans, we have lost our moral authority and standing in the world. The run-up to the war revealed us at our worst: we arrogantly went it alone without much support from the larger world community. Intelligence failures and outright distortions have made us a less trustworthy ally. We have resorted to the troubling use of mercenaries to do much of the fighting, and they and others have shown few qualms about war-profiteering. And then there is the deeper tragedy of torture and Abu Gahrib: will America ever be viewed the same again, anywhere in the world?

This in turn raises another question about Americans ourselves--are we still capable of being shocked into a new strategy? Is the patient so traumatized from his disastrous choice that he can no longer think clearly?