Thoughts on the price of war.

There is a story on the news sites today about a 17 year old, female Iraqi Kurd that has been publicly stoned to death for loving a Sunni boy. The reasons cited are more religious than ethnic as the two obviously fall under differing sects of Islam. I think it is worth noting that the group of men responsible was comprised mostly of members of her family.

Now, we all know that this type of thing is not new to Islamic society and have, most likely, all previously read or heard of acts just as appalling, if not more so, than this particular incident, but as I read the article on this, my mind rewound a couple of days to President Bush’s “veto” speech.

I watched his address with my roommate who is a reporter for our local newspaper and a conservative, though he may fall into the category of those who are conservative and don’t really know why. Listening to Bush, he mentioned a conversation he recently had with his many liberal coworkers. The conversation essentially started with the war and ended with their regurgitating the usual complaints about the “dishonesty” in the reasons initially given for our going in (i.e. the lack of WMD’s) and my roommate’s inability to address them (for an admitted lack of knowledge).

I thought about this conversation as I read this article and couldn’t help but wonder why the cost of this war in terms of lives, money, and diplomatic leverage is so easily considered unjustifiable to so many. I’m not a big fan of “nation-building”. I’ve never really cared for the interventionist bend of our foreign policy. I’ve never held a strong hope that our attempt at establishing a lasting, relevant democracy in Iraq would be successful. The conflux of my understanding of Islamic culture and beliefs about the future of this world, especially regarding the Middle East, has kept me from ever truly buying into the viability of what we have been told is our goal there. I don’t believe Bush and Co. are lying. I just think their a little more optimistic about the future of the region than I am. With all this said, I read about this girl who was stoned or another girl in Kuwait whose father cut her throat because it was merely believed that she had been violated, not consentingly “deflowered”, raped, and I am left with the sole reality that we have been blessed with enormous prosperity and power and are presently the only country on earth that can effect a change almost wherever and whenever it feels compelled to take the necessary steps to do so. I think of these things, and, for me, it comes down to the question of is it worth paying an American life in order to wield that power for the betterment of the world entirely? I can’t say that I know the answer…In a general sense I would reject this notion, but in breaking principle down into applicable scenario, I am left with another thought.

I recently watched “Saving Private Ryan” for upwards of the 500th time. As I’m sure everyone knows, immediately after D-day, Hanks and Co. are sent out to retrieve a private (Ryan) so that he can be sent home. The reason is that Ryan’s three older brothers have died in taking the beach, and the government determines that three losses is plenty for one family. I thought about this scenario as I am also the youngest of four sons. I tried my best to insert myself into Ryan’s place and weighed a loss of that magnitude against the benefit of freeing people like this girl who was stoned to death, and honestly, if my three brothers went of their own volition and died for the cause of freeing someone like this girl, I could begrudge neither my country for having sent them nor my God for having allowed it. Why?...Because, in my eyes, if sacrifice, the laying aside of oneself for another, is not the ultimate mark of greatness, whether in a person or a society, what is?

cheers.
Zeius