PLATFORM : The Reality of War

I join in celebrating the troops’ return. They deserve a parade. But the military hardware should have no part in this celebration. I see past this display to what they accomplished for the oil and weapons industries and recall that 650 wells are ablaze, the Gulf destroyed, thousands dead and Saddam Hussein remains alive.

I don’t understand war or killing or destruction or why we use sex and race and religion and flags and nationalism to separate ourselves, why weapons manufacturers are trillionaires or why war is so easily justified. I look at children play and sing and embrace strangers with no thought to their differences and know the world is in desperate need of what children have in great quantity. These sophisticated weapons don’t show how far we’ve come, they indicate how far we’ve gone astray. Welcome home troops, tell us of the reality of war.