Bush & Petraeus: Troops Dying For Their Vanity

(Cross posted at Daily Kos)

General Petraeus is going to give his September report next week. And/But whether or not you believe that the violence is down in Iraq (it's not), whether or not you can even tell me how many benchmarks there are, let alone name a single benchmark or quote the ones that have (or have not) been missed, the single most important fact about the Iraq occupation is not in dispute:

Political reconciliation is nil. Iraq has no functional government -- not even a bad one. It doesn't exist. It has no ability to govern or ensure the safety and security of the Iraqi people. And nothing we do will change that.

We're just marking time, counting down the days until this president (who will not take marching order from al Qaeda) leaves office. Then we'll tote up with the final number of American and Iraqi war deaths so we can plug it into the history books.

And if this is true (and it most surely is), have the lives of our fighting men and women been wasted?

Last spring, Sen. Obama and Sen. McCain both said yes, but quickly revised their comments when faced with an uproar of agonized denial. But there's a difference between honoring our fighting men and women and recognizing that they died in vain.

"Vain" is the root word of "vanity" and dying in vain means you died because of vanity -- the vanity of men like President Bush and General Petraeus. We can, we must, honor the dead while utterly rejecting the vanity for which they died.

President Lincoln, a real wartime president, knew the difference and his words give meaning to us even today -- if we'll listen:

It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Our continued presence in Iraq will not produce such a government; it will be for the Iraqi people to do that. Maybe they will, maybe they won't.

But it's still not too late, after the occupation ends and our troops come home, for the people of the United States of America experience a new birth of freedom. And if that happens (and I hope to God it does) then "these dead will not have died in vain."