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The
Atlantic
Why
the Cory Remsburg Tribute Will Be Seen as a Sign of Our Times, and a
Bad One, Many Years From Now
Taking
The Long View of events one day in the past
Barack
Obama has always been said to take The Long View. It's a point he
made several times in last night's speech, most explicitly here:
Climate
change is a fact. And when our children’s children look us in the
eye and ask if we did all we could to leave them a safer, more stable
world, with new sources of energy, I want us to be able to say yes,
we did.
That's
the answer the president "wants" to give his grandchildren;
it's not the answer I "expect" any of us to be able to
give. But at least he raised the question and expressed a hope.
There
was another moment in the speech that I think will look worse in the
long view. It was the emotionally charged ending, the tribute to the
obviously courageous and grievously wounded Sergeant Cory Remsburg.
The
moment was powerful human and political drama; it reflected deserved
credit and gratitude on Remsburg and his family; and as I wrote
earlier today, I think it was entirely sincere on the president's
part, as a similar tribute would have been from his predecessor
George W. Bush. With the significant difference that Bush initiated
the wars these men and women have fought in, and Obama has been
winding them down. And so the most favorable reading of the moment,
as John Cassidy has argued, is that the president was trying to
dramatize to the rest of the government the human cost of the
open-ended wars many of them have egged on.
But I
don't think that's how it came across to most of the Congress, or was
processed by the commentariat. This was not presented as a "never
again" moment; it was a "this is America's finest!"
moment—which Cory Remsburg himself, and with his family, certainly
is. (Also see Peter Beinart on this point.) For America as a whole,
the episode did not show us at our finest. In the earlier item, I
tried to explain why these few minutes will reflect badly on us and
our times when our children's children view them years from now.
Since the explanation was buried at the end of a long post, I repeat
it at the end of this one.
Here
is a reader note that makes the point more directly. A soldier in an
earlier war writes:
When
I was a draftee in the Army (1967-69) it was unusual to meet a
soldier who'd served two tours in Vietnam and almost unheard of to
meet one who'd served three tours. That's why I consider it almost
unimaginable cruelty the sacrifices our politicians have forced on
our troops in the past 12 years.
Ten
tours! Good Lord, how much is a soldier—and his or her
family—supposed to take in order to save a chickenhawk politician
the odious task of voting for a draft to supply enough manpower for
all the wars he wants others to fight?
A
Congress that by default is pressuring the country toward war, most
recently with Iran, and that would not dream of enacting either a
special tax or any kind of enforced or shared service to sustain
these wars, gives a prolonged, deserved ovation for a person who has
dedicated his all to the country. Tears well up in many eyes; the
cheering persists; the admiration for this young man is profound.
Then everyone moves right on...
Read
the rest of the article at The Atlantic
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