"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, in a final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed."Dwight D. Eisenhower: (April 16, 1953).

 
Dying for the Government
by HOWARD ZINN

Those who died in this war did not die for their country.

They died for their government.

Our government has declared a military victory in Iraq. As a patriot, I will not celebrate.

I will mourn the dead--the American GIs, and also the Iraqi dead, of whom there have been many, many more.

I will mourn the Iraqi children, not just those who are dead, but those who have been blinded, crippled, disfigured, or traumatized. We have not been given in the American media (we would need to read the foreign press) a full picture of the human suffering caused by our bombing.

We got precise figures for the American dead, but not for the Iraqis. Recall Colin Powell after the first Gulf War, when he reported the "small" number of U.S. dead, and when asked about the Iraqi dead, replied: "That is really not a matter I am terribly interested in."

As a patriot, contemplating the dead GIs, I could comfort myself (as, understandably, their families do) with the thought: "They died for their country.

 
"You've got to be taught to hate and fear,
you've got to be taught from year to year,
it's got to be drummed in your dear little ear---
you've got to be carefully taught!

You've got to be taught to be afraid
of people whose eyes are oddly made,
and people whose skin is a different shade---
you've got to be carefully taught.

You've got to be taught before it's too late,
before you are six or seven or eight,
to hate all the people you relatives hate---
you've got be carefully taught!"

---You've Got to be Taught, from South Pacific - Rogers and Hammerstein