Proud to be an American.

If we are serious about fighting a real War on Terror, and intend to win in Iraq and the middle east let’s MAKE the congress declare war. Let’s have the draft reinstated and take every American man and woman between the ages of 18 and 46. Let’s pick them up from their homes and from where they work and send them off: six weeks training and then on to Iraq for two to three or more years – no leave or vacations until the war is over. Let’s institute wage and price controls, bring back rent control and freeze the interest rates. Let’s begin rationing of goods, sell no more tires, restrict the sale of gasoline, put a 35 mph speed limit on all American roads. Let’s shutdown the auto industries and most of the other major industries in America and turn them into great war production machines. Let’s start collecting trash and converting it into war products, re-institute war bonds and let our kids buy war stamps in school. Let’s do all of this, IF we really believe George Bush when he says we are in the greatest battle of civilization’s history.

After all, that’s what Iraq is doing and that’s what al Qaeda is doing, and that’s what the Taliban is doing, and that’s what “Greatest Generation” of Americas did during World War II. But it seems like we don’t do any of that any more. We want to fight wars on the cheap, we think we are simply invincible and nobody can stand to fight us anymore. Besides, God is on our side and He will see we win in the end.

But this war in Iraq is lost in spite of God and everybody. It’s lost like the last few wars we “fought”. And for the same reasons. We lost Korea because the American people didn’t really want to fight it, they didn’t really believe in it. President Truman sent the troops in for an easy victory but the people had to be “sold” on the war later when the fighting turned tough. They didn’t buy it. We lost in Vietnam because the American people didn’t want to fight that one either – especially after they found out Lyndon Johnson lied to them about the Gulf of Tonkin “attack” so we could get rough with North Vietnam and the Veit Cong. We lost Afghanistan because we just simply quit there so we could go invade Iraq. We lost Iraq because the American people never did believe George Bush and they didn’t want the war in the first place.

After all, Bush wasn’t “just wrong” on every single issue from the WMD to the AlQuida in Iraq, to the Saddam Hussein planning the 9-11 attacks, to the yellow-cake thing, to the “MIssion Accomplished” thing, and the “bring them on” thing, and his cute little “what insurgency?” thing. He wasn’t just ignorant about Jessica Lynch, Pat Tillman, Abu Ghraib, Walter Reed, and so on. He was lying. He was lying to the congress, lying to the American people, lying to the world. It’s his war, his personal war and he has only a few people really behind him, namely a few Bush patriots like Cheney, Libby, Gonzales, Perle who have sworn allegiance to Him, not the constitituion, and – of course – “the troops”.

So now this war has become a special kind of hell for a few Americans. Those are the “Troops” we just mentioned. They go and come and go again. We say we won’t forsake our “troops” there so we send them back again to relieve themselves. And we send them back sooner and keep them there longer. And again. And again. And again. And we still won’t forsake them there so we send them back again – too often they are the same guys – we did that in Vietnam, remember? Meanwhile, the rest of us are here at home, building our lives, moving up in our jobs, putting down roots, getting our kids through schools, moving to new neighborhoods, buying better houses, new cars, TVs, computers, and we won’t forsake our troops, either. We help them to rotate over again to relieve each other more quickly and help them to stay there longer to give “the troops” back home a break. We watch our own kids get married, we go to the high school football games, and watch the news occasionally. We put new bumper stickers on our new SUVs to show we really do support our troops. We wave the flag. We stomp our foot. We support our president! Hot damn! It’s good to be an American.

© John Womack, 2007. All rights reserved.