No Winners

No Winners
By Nancy Greggs

“Winning in Iraq.” It started as a promise, evolved into a political slogan, drifted into chaos, and finally erupted in endless violence. Now, it is just the punchline of an incredibly cruel joke, and nobody is laughing.

Winning denotes some kind of victory, some sense of achievement, something of value having been accomplished for someone, somewhere in the end.

But there are no winners here, only losers; and the price being paid is as obscene in its magnitude as it is foolish in its continued expenditure.

There is no winning for the people of Iraq. They have lost their country to the violence of civil war, and to the manipulations of a madman more indifferent to their plight than the dictator they were allegedly liberated from.

It was a heavy price to pay for a purple finger, a vote for representatives who will sell them out tomorrow based on the going per-barrel price. Children have lost the parents who would have protected them; parents have lost the children who might have given their country a hopeful future. Hearts have become empty of mercy as the graveyards have become full.

There is no winning for American soldiers who have already fallen, or those who will survive to live out their days with broken bodies, broken spirits, broken minds. They have lost faith in a government that would send them into a war that can never achieve peace; betrayed by a country they swore to protect, only to have their sacrifice repaid with contempt and disdain.

There is no winning for our nation. We have lost the friendship of our allies, and the respect of the world. We have not met the enemy, but created it; we have not risen above what we once abhorred, but become it. We have not brokered peace, but abolished it. We have not asked God for moral guidance, but have used him as an excuse to torture those who pray to Him in a different tongue.

It is still the favorite taking point of the morally-bankrupt politician: September 11th changed everything. And it did, because that was when we started to lose. In our anger, we lost sight of who we were, and allowed ourselves to be blinded by fear. Persuaded to do battle with a country that was never a threat, we allowed ourselves to become the victims of the greatest con-men who ever lived – and they lived not in some distant land, but right here among us.

We gave up our freedoms for a false sense of safety; we gave up the very democracy we were told we had to protect. We fell prey to the sleight-of-hand of seasoned tricksters, who directed our attention to the other side of the world, distracting us from their power-grabs, their corruption, their plunder of our treasure, human and monetary.

There is no winning for we, the citizens, once so proud of our never-perfect but still-hopeful nation. We have been turned one against the other, taught to speak in terms of left and right, instead of right and wrong; encouraged to be separate and apart in a country founded on the concept of one nation, indivisible.

Some of us have seen the writing on the wall from the beginning. For others, it has been a slow awakening, a gradual realization that where we are is not where we were meant to be, that the course we are on must be corrected, that the people who should be the most trustworthy among us are those who are the least worthy of trust.

I am hopeful that the tide has turned, that people of true patriotism are ready to engage the true enemy – the one that has wrapped itself in God and the flag, while defiling both with equal impunity.

But in this illegal, immoral and unholy war, there are no winners. There are only losers; those who have lost loved ones, those who have lost faith, those who have lost hope in ever setting things right.

And that is now the challenge to be faced; not winning in Iraq, not winning in the so-called War on Terror, but the winning back of what we have all lost, and the iron will to never allow it to be lost again.

Some may say that there have been winners here; those who have lined their pockets at the expense of their fellow citizens, those who have garnered political power to the detriment of their own country’s well-being, those who have cheated, lied, and stolen, in order to enrich themselves through the suffering and death of others.

There is a name for such people. It is not winner, but traitor.

They know who they are. And as the truth comes to light and the real treachery exposed, it is finally they who live in fear.

Keep speaking the truth, you do it so well.

The only redemption I can see is for the war mongers and profiteers to pay massive reparations to both the Iraqi people and the American people.

Somehow we have to maintain that this woh-ful situation can and will be rectified over time.

I refuse to live in fear or project my shadow on to unwitting victims.

Try this prayer. . . "We are creating with spirit restoration of honesty and accountability and the rule of laws long established. We are creating with spirit a lasting peace on earth."

I "see change" despite all the BS. Hope you do too.

Love Jeff's imagery this week. That moved me so.

K & R'd

So that we will have the good fortune to hear you for many, many years yet!

This is outstanding, but I think you are incapable of writing anything that isn't.

I am proud to K&R...

:patriot:

... brought me to tears. What an incredibly beautiful thing to say.

I am what I hope most of us here are: Old enough to recognize what is wrong, and young enough to believe I will live to see it made right.

I have no trust in this administration, but my trust in my fellow Americans is a bottomless well of hope.

:hug:

Clear and clean rhetoric is a hallmark of your contributions at DU. Thank you for your efforts.

Please do not let them get you down. The tide has changed and you have been proven right.

:kick:

your ability to express the truth with such eloquence is a real gift.

Thank you for speaking the truth. And yes, I also think that the tide has turned- people have come to see that the Emperor has no clothes.

:kick: