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Are Your Children Expendable?
Alexis Finger, Committee woman in Marple Township, 1st Ward 3rd Precinct
Remember when we selected toys for our children, our son’s first
bicycle, our daughter’s first car? We had questions about the safety
and reliability of these items. The same applied to our choice of
camp, school, or neighborhood playground. The number one requirement was
safety because nothing was more important than protecting our children.
So, what happened when our children got older and we sent them off to Iraq, a
very dangerous neighborhood that traditionally doesn’t welcome strangers?
Didn’t we, a country of parents, have a responsibility to be more inquisitive
about the necessity of this war, and the kind of preparation, artillery and
armor that our children would receive?
It appears that our sons and daughters in the military have become
expendables, pawns in the President’s game of “ Democracy,” which is
rather unpopular in the Middle East. They are the direct targets of a growing
number of anti-Americans who resent our presence and will do anything to
terrorize, humiliate, and eliminate us.
As each day passes and another one, two, five, ten, or twenty of our
young people are killed or seriously maimed, I can’t help but wonder how the
more than 1,300 mothers who celebrated each birthday and worried about every
cold will survive the reality of never hugging their children again. Can the
families of the ten to thirty thousand dead Iraqi civilians that we’re
rescuing from oppression feel any less pain over their unimaginable losses?
What a tragic situation we are in! We are all culpable, but some more than
others. Too many members of our Congress should certainly hide in shame because
they not only lacked the backbone to challenge the Bush administration’s
“rush to war when there was no imminent danger,” but they lacked the smarts
to quickly squash the notion that dissenters of the president’s plans were
disloyal Americans who were playing into the hands of the terrorists.
Where was the outcry from the media –the headlines that highlighted the
mistakes of the administration and chastised the Congress? With some
exceptions, they were hidden In the editorials, on page 28. Yes, there were a
plethora of editorials that argued eloquently against going to war in Iraq
without the support of the UN and the international community. But, not many
people read these beautifully written pieces. In an election year, most people
form their opinions from sound bites they hear in political commercials and from
pundits on entertainment news programs that spend more time on the latest
scandal than on educating the public about issues that directly affect their
lives.
In 2001, over 739 stories and program segments were devoted to the
Chandra Levy -Gary Condit story. Perhaps if members of the media had put more of
their investigative teams to work on the Bush Administration’s case for war,
we wouldn’t be there now. And, if before the election, newspapers,
magazines, and the networks weren’t so busy providing the public with their
daily fix of the Martha Stewart and Scott Peterson soap operas or if they
weren’t so apprehensive about appearing unsupportive
of the country’s leaders in a time of war, they might have done a better job
of exposing the administration errors and forcing them to address the
deficiencies that have plagued our soldiers since the beginning. Perhaps more
lives could have been saved.
What will the media do now that the Scott Peterson trial has come to
an end? The stories of soldiers who sacrificed one or more limbs for our
country could easily fill the void, especially profiles of the
broken soldiers who will be looking for employment when they come home to
mountains of bills accumulated while they were away defending America. How
about a new reality show to find them jobs!
Apparently jobs weren’t such a critical issue when people in the red
states voted for “values” and protecting human life.
It’s rather sad
that the lives of fellow Americans in the military, functioning people
who are already formed, loved, needed, able to contribute to our society, and
completely vulnerable to pain and suffering didn’t trump the needs of
embryonic cells.
On Election Day, a majority of the American people chose to reward Bush, Cheyney,
Rumsfeld, Rice and Powell, key players of this terribly orchestrated war. What
were these voters thinking? Why didn’t they hold the Bush administration
accountable for not letting the UN inspectors do their job; for not getting the
facts about the culture of the region; and for not being prepared for every
possible scenario. Isn’t it obvious that because our administration
chose the time and place of this war, there is NO excuse for the insufficient
number of troops or lack of protection and bullet - proof vehicles?
Which of Bush and Cheyney’s children has given her life or limb for the war?
Not one of their children is expendable and neither is yours or mine! It
is time that Congress, the media, and the American people fight for all of our
children’s lives with the same intensity that the Bush administration wants
your children to fight for their “lies”?
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