Happy Fourth of July - 2006

I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom.
Yours, very sincerely and respectfully,
A. Lincoln

I had written this post a while back in response to the Haditha incident and as Independence Day comes upon us, I thought this would be a appropriate).

Rarely does a letter move one to tears and yet the ending of this letter written by Abraham Lincoln, sent to a women who was reported to have lost a number of sons in the civil war, has done just that to me. The image of "a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom," is so vivid and so noble. It brings to mind soldiers, who are pure and kind, fighting against tyranny and oppression. Appropriately than, this line is read near the end of the movie, "Saving Private Ryan." A true sense of honor is associated with the men of this greatest generation. If ever there was a war that so perfectly epitomized the fight between good and evil, it would be WWII.

Sadly, I'm not sure if this Iraq situation is so black and white. This latest incident at Haditha, another story about the dishonorable behavior exhibited by our soldiers, in the name of American democracy, I am disheartened. We are supposing to be the "good" guys, and yet these actions, belie that.

At this year's West Point graduation speech, G.W. spoke about the war on terror as being like the Cold War. I sincerely hope not. It was in the name of the Cold War, America did some very bad things, are we planning on doing those same heinous crimes again, this time in the name of fighting terror? This makes me ask -are we righteous in fighting terror with terror? If we use terror to fight terror, who exactly is the victor?

It makes me think…would our victory in WWII have smelled so sweetly if we had systematically killed parts of the American population in concentration camps? If we had subjected German soldiers to the same treatment that was doled out to our soldiers in Germany or in Japan?

As the Iraq war goes on with no end in sight and more of these incidences surfacing, I'm left depressed. Where is our victory? Is this the way we are going to eradicate terrorism so unlike the way we eradicated Hitler? What do we have to capture, sign, to be done? Where is our V-E or V-J day? What will we tell our children about this war? How will history remember it? What has happened to the noble and just principles that were canonized as truly "American" that Fourth of July, 1776?