Why Did My Son Die?

I have received the following trite email from three or four people over the last year, so I decided to answer it. The email questions are in italics and the answers to the questions follow. I changed the order of the questions to make chronological sense and to show the progressive buildup of the American government and military towards the all powerful state.

Then long, long ago, a mother asked, "Heavenly Father, why did my Son have to die on a cross outside of Jerusalem?"
And yet another mother asked President G. Washington, "Why did my son have to die near Valley Forge?"
Yet another mother asked President Lincoln, "Why did my son have to die at Gettysburg?"
Another mother asked President W. Wilson, "Why did my son have to die on the battlefield of France?"
Another mother asked President F.D. Roosevelt, "Why did my son have to die at Iwo Jima?"
Another mother asked President Kennedy, "Why did my son have to die in Viet Nam?"
Another mother asked President Truman, "Why did my son have to die in Korea”?
Cindy Sheehan asked President Bush, "Why did my son have to die in Iraq?"

The answers to all these are similar -- "that others may have life and dwell in peace, happiness and freedom."

Then long, long ago, a mother asked, "Heavenly Father, why did my Son have to die on a cross outside of Jerusalem?"

Saint Mary suffered to see her Son die on the cross, but she knew why He did it, and we are eternally blessed, thanks to her Son's sacrifice. His death was in fact the beginning of our freedom.

And yet another mother asked President G. Washington, "Why did my son have to die near Valley Forge?" 

Actually very few men died at Valley Forge, in fact few soldiers died in the War of Independence. It was fought with a Fabian strategy that saved our nascent country from disaster and abundant death. George Washington pursued the war, like all things that he did, deliberately, intelligently and humbly. Thanks to him and his way of being we were freed and for some time were the freest people on earth. We still maintain some of that freedom.

Yet another mother asked President Lincoln, "Why did my son have to die at Gettysburg?" The young men who died by the droves in the Civil war, died for the cause of freedom. They fought and died for (among other reasons less noble) the freedom of African slaves.

Unfortunately real freedom for blacks did not follow upon the armistice at the end of the war. Although blacks were never enfranchised there was a concrete result of the war between the states: That was the strengthening and enlargement of the Federal government. That power in the hands of the Feds has meant the erosion of our liberty over the last 150 years.

Another mother asked President W. Wilson, "Why did my son have to die on the battlefield of France?" 

The only real result of the US adventure in Europe in the Great War was to unbalance a virtual stalemate between the German-Austrian-Turkish alliance on one side and the French-British-Russian alliance on the other side. There were no moralistic reasons to suppose that we picked the right side.

The war was fought over territory not for world dominion by some new totalitarian system like the next war. However the success of the American Expeditionary Force (the Americans were valiant and very effective warriors) brought the Germanic alliance to their knees. That resulted in the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the dismemberment of the Middle East. The Middle East was cut up by the French and the English creating the disaster that we are dealing with today. 

At the same treaty of Versaille that sowed the seeds for our current war with Islam, France extracted such brutal reparationsfrom Germany and imposed such drastic sanctions that the German people allowed Hitler and the Nazis to power in order to get the strangling French noose off of their necks. 

So, if we had stayed at home in 1916, the war would have petered out in a year or so without anywhere near as many deaths as actually occurred. Germany would have negociated surrender from a position of parity, there would have been no nascent Nazi movement. The Ottoman Empire would have eventually died anyway, but slowly and peacefully. The Middle East would have followed a more gradual organic transformation that would not have led us to the disastrous situation that we're in now.

So what did the boys die for in France? They died in order to ratchet up another notch the power that the Federal government has over its citizens.

Another mother asked President F.D. Roosevelt, "Why did my son have to die at Iwo Jima?"

The boys who died in Europe and the Pacific did so to protect us and our freedom from foreign invasion or more correctly, they died to prevent our isolation in a totalitarian world. But keep in mind, if Wilson had not planned to increase Federal power by entering into WWI, there would not have been a WWII.

By all means the largest increase in size and power of the Federal govt. took place during the Second World War.

Another mother asked President Truman, "Why did my son have to die in Korea?"

Another mother asked President Kennedy, "Why did my son have to die in Viet Nam?"

The boys who died in Korea and Vietnam didn't accomplish anything at all, except to kill and die or end up crippled for life. Making small wars against the Communists is what kept them going. They needed a bogeyman to point at as the cause of their suffering and poverty. Just like Castro. If we had just accepted that idiot and traded with him like anyone else, he would never have lasted ten years. However his brave resistance to the Yankee imperialists coalesces the population behind him. If we'd have stayed out of Korea, it would never have been divided, and like Vietnam would have realized that its best bet would be to open up the economy and start making cell phones and dishwashers. Whenever we blockade some tin horn dictator like Kim Il Jun we give him a motive, we give him the tool to organize his people, and the excuse to explain their terrible lives and the reason to explain their total loss of freedom. The boys who died in Korea and Vietnam did so in vain.

Cindy Sheehan asked President Bush, "Why did my son have to die in Iraq?"

The boys who have died in Iraq have also done so in vain. They have been ordered to do great harm to the possibility of peace with Islam at the same time that they have strengthened the position of our avowed enemy, Iran, in the Middle East. It is not their fault, they are only following orders, except for the heroes that taunt and torture prisoners, or shoot up a wedding party. These soldiers have provided a training ground for insurgencies. They have been brutal enough to win the hatred of all the Middle East, without being brutal enough to win their fear.

But there is a difference between Iraq and all the other conflicts mentioned above that makes it even more pathetic. In all the other conflicts the Feds sent innocent young men to war, drafted without their consent. Perhaps many conscripts would have gone to the wars in Europe and Asia anyway, but we can't know that. Even if they had gone voluntarily it would have been for patriotic reasons, not for the pay because draftees have never been paid more than a pittance.

However all of the soldiers in Iraq are professional soldiers. They are not so much answering the clarion call of their country as they are doing the job that they were voluntarily contracted to do and for which they are paid well. That is why there is no hue and cry at home for these soldiers, and it also explains why there is much less resistance and rebellion among the soldiers compared to Vietnam. These men are professional soldiers. They are ordered to go to Iraq and kill, they go to Iraq and kill.

That does not mean that they are not brave men, it just means that they are fighting because it is their carreer, not because they are protecting their nation. It is still a terrible shame that they are dying for naught, but its not the same as before. Their unnecessary deaths are not causing the turmoil at home that they should. In no way does the war in Iraq make America safer, and it certainly is not protecting our liberty. In fact under this current bellicose President we have given up liberty like never before.

The answers to all these are similar -- "that others may have life and dwell in peace, happiness and freedom."

It is just not so.

Quoting simple ideas without thought and information is dangerous. There was a time when the vote in this country was limited to landholders, who by and large were educated and paid taxes. As that has changed we have given the vote everyone with no thought as to whether they can understand the issues and dangers that confront us, and so the level of the political debate in our country has lowered and lowered until it is now nothing more than cute, trite sayings (like this email) and 15 second sound bites. All this has led to the destruction of the great experiment in liberty that was the United States of America. So the misinformed, unthinking voters have authorized myriad excuses for the empowerment of the Federal government and the killing of millions of innocent people (our boys and so many others around the world).

It is not noble. It is tragic.