Confronting the Fact of War

I just watched, over the course of a couple days, both "Farenheit 9/11" and "FarenHype 9/11". I don't really want to delve too deeply into the issue of who is right and who is wrong; obviously excellent points are made on both sides, and by the same token, both films carry with them their share of distortion and prejudice. I'd love to comment on the merits and demerits of both films, but that's not what spurred me to write today. What did motivate me is a kind of obvious revelation that only a moron couldn't experience while watching these films, yet it seems like a conclusion that is escaping all of us on a daily basis.

And that conclusion is this; we are at war.

Forget all the handwringing and finger pointing. Forget for a moment at least, about whose watch 9/11 was on, what poor decisions left us vulnerable to attack, what could have and should have been done to prevent it. Forget about whether or not overthrowing Hussein was a good or bad idea, forget about what Rumsfeld thought would happen versus what did, forget about Halliburton and uranium rods and Abu Gharaib and Gitmo and Johnny Walker and forget about losing Osama at Tora Bora. I care about all those things, of course, but let's just really take a moment and appreciate the enormity of the overall picture.

People are trying to kill Americans, on a daily basis. American soldiers are trying to kill those people, on a daily basis. People are dying from car bombs, roadside attacks, sniper bullets, rocket propelled grenades. Families are losing husbands, wives, and children. And it's going to keep happening, probably for a long time.

Stating the obvious? Well, sure. But think honestly about how often the topic of war comes up in your life. I don't care whether you agree or disagree with how it's being prosecuted or even if it should have been waged. We're at war. It's a reality and it's not going to end soon. How many of us have really got our heads around that concept? How many of us put that in the forefront of our minds? Oh of course, your job and your family and your health comes first...but after that? How important is your yard to you? Your boat? Your home? Your "stuff"? Do you think about that more than the fact that we are at war?

My mom was a news junkie and she watched a lot of cable news, including of course, a lot of war coverage. Sometimes she would say to me, "I like the news and I'm interested in it, but sometimes you have to watch something funny, something other than war." And she was right. Too much war and you'll end up with an ulcer and a worldview that is depressed and fatalistic. Violent death is ALWAYS happening at some point on the globe, and always has been. But the nature of the 24 hour news networks kind of demands a certain emphasis on violence and negativity. I'm certainly not suggesting here that we all wallow, single mindedly on the war on terror or the Iraq war or the permutation of the two. That's a road to psychological ruin.

But I kind of worry that a lot of us have, if not exactly FORGOTTEN, well, at least put the war on the backburner in our minds. Shoved it off to a corner with all the other yucky things we don't like thinking about like getting old, and maybe losing our health and our job, or that pesky mole that keeps coming back time after time. And I certainly understand the impulse. Who the hell WANTS to think about war and all its implications? Most of us work hard every day and at the end of it don't want much more than a good meal and some time with family and a little relaxation. A steady diet of war coverage (and contemplation) is hardly conducive to relaxation, and most of us I think feel powerless to effect any real change anyway.

But see that's the scary part. We can effect change. This war does matter, whatever side you are on. There ARE people who want to kill us, who would kill us in an instant if they could, thousands of us, MILLIONS of us. Are we doing the right thing to stop them? That's another question, but I guess I just wish that more people would at least TALK about the fact. You don't have to agree with Bush or Kerry or me or anyone...just think and TALK about it. Remember that there are young men and women out there, thousands of miles away, living in terrible circumstances, their lives in constant danger, all in the service of protecting you. Remember how much money we are all spending for these efforts, how many lives we have lost. Think of how different the world would be today had there been no 9/11.

Don't worry so much about Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise and who wins "Survivor" and what Orpah thinks about things. Stop fretting about minivans and leaf blowers and your neighbor's cat that keeps messing in your garden. You don't really need another cell phone, or DVD recorder or whatever the next "hot" thing is supposed to be. Just sit and think for a few moments about the fact that the country you live in is under attack. Breathe that in for a moment. Think about the names you see on TV as more than statistics; think of them as people with families who love them, people whose dreams are gone now, people who could very well be your own family or even you. Think about the people who have killed them. Think about why they do and feel the way they do, and how you feel about that.

We live in a culture with little or no attention span. We move from one thing to the next, we get bored so easily. Well, we had better not get bored with this. We had better pay close attention to this and do the hard work of hanging in there this time. We don't have the luxury of treating a war as a fad like mood rings or pet rocks or boom boxes or hackey sack. This is serious business and its significance will ripple out as far as the eye can see.

I don't know for sure if our inattention comes from our not wanting to face the ugly realities of war, or if it's that the ugly realities aren't "interesting" enough, that somehow we aren't relating these events to our daily lives. Maybe it's that we feel powerless against the flow of history, and would rather just "dance in the ruins" than bother to try and change what we feel is unchangeable.

That, again, is a blueprint for disaster. You can change just about anything you want to, given time, effort and will. But in order to change something, you had better be able to identify it and how you want it to change. You've got to be able to discriminate between what is truly important in life and what is not. And you've got to have the staying power to navigate through all the dichotomies of the situation, the places where things aren't so easily cut and dried.

Right now, I don't think we as a country are doing that. I have no doubt that we can, but the first step towards doing so involves some serious introspection and the willingness to change.

We are at war.

Think about it.