Irrelevant, in the present context. These are men and women who answered the call of duty and laid down their life in service to that call. Regardless of whether they should have been called in the first place, that’s a great sacrifice, and they should be remembered and honored for that sacrifice.
If a war is unjust or pointless, then it may stand as a criticism of the leadership of the countries fighting it. But it does nothing to lessen the sacrifice of those out in the field fighting and sometimes dying.
I don’t think the Doonesbury strip was funny or clever, and neither do I think that it was trying to be either of those things. But it is relevant and appropriate.
‘Sacrifice’, ‘Laid down their life’, ‘call of duty’ are all highly loaded terms from a century of propganda.
I find it highly patronising, and very disturbing, that anyone should expect us to ‘remember and honour’ those who have died, when we still have so little idea of why they dies, or what the outcome will be.
In either situation, my feelings would be very very different than for the (excuse the topicality for the example) D-Day veterans. Firstly, they’d all signed up voluntarily. I don’t feel as immediate a pang of guilt for someone who’s signed up as for the enlisted of the two world wars.
And by the way, (1) is true. Any evidence the now emerges to confirm (2) is highly suspect. But that’s for another thread.
Casualties of war, probably. It would be easier if half of them hadn’t been killed by their own side, and easier still if Iraq had been posing a visible threat to other nations when war was declared. Odds are pretty good that I won’t have to make that decision, though.
Every war is unjust on at least one side. Should we then not honor any war dead at all?
And it’s not war propaganda to say that those men and women died serving their country. That’s just the simple factual truth. Now, if I had said that they died to preserve our way of life, or that they gave the ultimate sacrifice for a worthy cause, there’s some propaganda value there. But there’s no denying that they’re dead, and no denying that their deaths came in service to their country.
Bunkum. The two cartoons showed soldiers. In neither cartoon are the soldiers identified as American. You do know that foreign nationals serve in the US military, don’t you? Sure the soldiers are dressed as American soldiers - what do you expect? - but they stand for all. Whereas Doonesbury lists only the American soldiers and only those who died in Iraq.
Yes, we all know Trudeau is against the war. But look at the strip on its own. We have a U.S. artist paying tribute to the U.S. dead in the war his country is currently fighting. The only message he states is “In Memoriam.” On Memorial Day. It could not be more proper or fitting. Whether you support or oppose the war, it is absolutely the right thing (particularly on that day) to remember those who gave their lives in the armed forces.
Let me see if I understand. They are soldiers dressed as Americans, but you think they might not be American soldiers? You think that foreign nationals who serve in the US military are not properly referred to as “American soldiers”? You think that cartoons depicting people dressed as American soldiers are less Ameri-centric than a list of American dead?
Oh forget it. It may not hurt your brain to think it but it hurts my brain to think about it.