Just Cause or Just Because?

by Paul Wilson

Just imagine it...

Your son or daughter announces to you that they have joined the military. He wants to go to Iraq and fight for democracy and the American way. Honor and glory are shining in his eyes. His patriotism is contagious and despite your concerns for his safety, you cannot help but be proud. He is doing what he believes is right.

Now imagine that you receive the worst news a parent can get. Your child has been killed in action. It came with no warning, a senseless death; suicide bomber, land mine or sniper.

At the same time that you get this devestating news, you are being bombarded, here at home, with the growing protests to the war. You have always been a loyal American, believing this conflict in Iraq to be a necessary and noble cause. But now, truths are coming out that show that we were wrong to go there. As these facts are being thrown at you, however, you cannot accept them. For to do so would mean that your child died for nothing.

The pain of out-living your children is a nightmare for any parent to overcome. Knowing that theirs was a senseless death, or could have even been prevented, could be too hard to face.

Is it any wonder, then, that we search for meaning in the death of a loved one...no matter how tenuous that meaning may be?

I have nothing but sympathy for the parents who have lost a child to the "war" in Iraq. As someone who has been deeply opposed to our invasion there, from the beginning, I have received my share of criticism and accusations about my loyalty to the troops. I consider the deaths on both sides to be a tragic waste of life. Yet I do understand why many continue to support it.

Meaning and purpose.

It began, after 9-11, as a necessary mission: To seek out those who had harmed our country and bring them to justice. We sent our troops to Afghanistan with a righteous fury.

Then, suddenly, our focus was shifted from Osama bin Laden to Saddam Hussein and Iraq. Despite the fact that the man who claimed responsibility for the U.S. attacks had not been apprehended, the mission expanded to include W.M.D.'s and freeing the Iraqi people from tyranny. Worthy causes, surely, if somewhat off the point of our being there in the first place. We were the good guys, spreading justice and democracy. And as we began losing American lives to this "war on terror," families of the fallen soldiers took comfort in the knowledge that their deaths had been for a just cause. They were heroes in the battle for freedom. The few of us voicing objections to our motives in Iraq were labelled "un-American" and not supportive of our troops.

A lot of facts have been brought to light since then. No WMD's, no link between Hussein and Al Quaeda. No "mission accomplished." Bin Laden remains at large and violence erupts daily in Iraq, killing more end more of our sons and daughters.

Why, then, do so many of the families of these victims continue to support the Bush administration and their police action?

The answer is simple: To believe the truth would be to believe that their children died for nothing.

With the majority of Americans believing that our invasion of Iraq was a mistake, a surprising number of those who still support it are the families of its casualties. And most still believe that to bring the trooops home now would cause more harm. Or could it be that to leave now would only serve to remind us how useless all of the deaths were?

These grieveing parents cling to the president's consistent rhetoric. The world is safer with Saddam gone. We are bringing Democracy to the region. We will win the war on terror.

My child did not die in vain!

Can you protest the war and still support and sympathize with the troops? In a rational world, of course you can. Those of us opposed to Bush's war realize that soldiers are trained to follow orders and sold on the justifications of their actions. If a man is given faulty (or fabricated) information, then fights for what he believes is right, do we condemn him, or the leaders who lied to him?

But to grieving parents, an attack on the war is an attack on those who died believing in it. Right or wrong, they need a greater purpose to justify the sacrifice of their offspring.

Just ask Cindy Sheehan.

By facing the hard truth that her son died needlessly, in an unjust war, Ms. Sheehan found her own, greater purpose. And it became a cause. She represents all of the families affected by loss. And she courageously faces a president who accepts no blame. Like a mother whose child is killed by a drunk driver, she is taking on the system that makes that death possible and trying to change it, to prevent similar deaths from happening again.

Perhaps, in this way, her son's death will have true meaning, after all.