Armo Virumque Cano

Back in the early stages of the Iraq war, I sat down with one of my friends from my Chicago years, who had just finished a tour of duty in the United States Navy. I asked him, out-of-uniform and off-record, what he thought of the "Mission Accomplished" banner and facade.
I think he was cautious in his response. In that cool dark hole of a bar in Washington, my friend compared W landing on the carrier to a CEO thanking his employees. It wasn't a bad thing, and I think my friend was trying to draw a parallel to a sentiment I could understand.

How prescient.

Like a CEO who's just fucked the company coffers and has tickets on the first plane out of town, George Bush has left his soldier-employees with shitty healthcare and economic uncertainty. He didn't do what he said he was going to do, but a select few of his buddies got rich. A guy who couldn't run a business right got handed a country, and it's the American soldier who has to bear the tragic consequences and deal with the aftermath.

People write letters to the editor all the time calling for greater sacrifice on the part of the American people, to share the burden with the American soldier.

It's a cute sentiment, but it's bullshit.

The people who should be sacrificing are the people who keep getting tax cuts, even though they're millionaires. The corporations who are profiting scandalously off this war should be cutting checks (at the very least) for the medical bills of every man and woman who comes home from Iraq and Afghanistan. Halliburton should set up a scholarship fund for full college tuition for every child left motherless or fatherless from this war.

The "American people" have sacrificed enough already under W. We've sacrificed our constitution. We've sacrificed New Orleans. We've sacrificed our economic health. We've sacrificed our environment.

It's about time we punch the guy who keeps passing the collection plate.