Fourth Of July
By Erin Aubry Kaplan
The image was so terrible as to be almost preposterous. A trick. I looked twice, three times, to make sure I was seeing things right.
When I realized I was, when I saw there was no reconciling the image or reducing it to something remotely encouraging, my heart sank somewhere beneath the soles of my shoes.
The photo essay in the current issue of The Nation’ magazine is only one page, titled “War is Personal.” In it, a wounded Iraqi war vet named Jose Pequeno sits on the edge of a hospital bed, his bare back to us, slumped forward into his mother’s arms. The mother’s embrace is full, her face tender; she looks weary but determined.
Also at a total loss. For her son is missing nearly half his head.
There is a big concave space where the head should be, a savage emptiness beyond which you see the wall and curtains of a bare room. The text explains that a grenade went off inside Jose’s helmet, that doctors told his mother he’d lost a couple of bottom lobes and wouldn’t live. But he did. I have no idea how. I’m not too ashamed to say that, in the long moments I sat trapped in the photo and all that it stood for, I wished he hadn’t.
I wanted mercy for Jose. I don’t, however, want it for the rest of us who have stood by and let this senseless war happen. We need to see more of this to put the rotten fruit of our irresponsibility in our faces. The physical toll of war on the people waging it is always monstrous, but Americans tend to justify it with an assumption that the fight was unavoidable or the sacrifice had to made for the cause of liberty.
That was never, ever the case with Iraq, and the worst part of it is, we knew that was the case well before this war got under way. We knew there were no weapons of mass destruction and that Al Qaeda and 9/11 had nothing to do with Saddam Hussein. We pulled the wool over our own eyes and now claim that, bad as things might be, we can’t see a way out of Iraq.
That is crap, sheer political cowardice. Having made such a mess, we have no choice but to make a way out. It hasn’t helped that we get zero pressure from an American press that, with the exception of the Nation and a few other publications, has been disgustingly, dangerously polite the last five years.
My suggestion is that we black out American Idolatry and 24-hour celebrity worship, substitute it all with war footage for about a week and see how we respond to the ultimate reality show. The raw visuals are what helped to end the Vietnam War, though it took ten years. We don’t have that kind of time anymore.
Nor do I have any patience left for feverish, election-season debates about patriotism. In short, John McCain the war vet and ex-POW has no business promoting war as patriotism’s ultimate test, and Barack Obama should have a better response to questions about fealty to his country than loudly claiming the p-word and wearing those wearisome flags on his lapel. What about ending the war? Isn’t patriotism about moral action? Isn’t that what Obama promised in the beginning?
But moral action is still our fight, not our candidates’. Jose and so many others, including hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians, are suffering mightily for our sins. Repentance starts with acknowledging the truth, however damning. The photo of Jose wouldn’t let me do otherwise. I’ll let you know if I ever see his face.
ERIN AUBRY KAPLAN, a contributing blogger with 3BAAS Media Group, is the first African American in history to be a weekly op-ed columnist for the Los Angeles Times. Her musings continue to appear in the Times, Essence magazine, and a host of other publications. Kaplan is currently working on her much anticipated book.
By Erin Aubry Kaplan
The image was so terrible as to be almost preposterous. A trick. I looked twice, three times, to make sure I was seeing things right.
When I realized I was, when I saw there was no reconciling the image or reducing it to something remotely encouraging, my heart sank somewhere beneath the soles of my shoes.
The photo essay in the current issue of The Nation’ magazine is only one page, titled “War is Personal.” In it, a wounded Iraqi war vet named Jose Pequeno sits on the edge of a hospital bed, his bare back to us, slumped forward into his mother’s arms. The mother’s embrace is full, her face tender; she looks weary but determined.
Also at a total loss. For her son is missing nearly half his head.
There is a big concave space where the head should be, a savage emptiness beyond which you see the wall and curtains of a bare room. The text explains that a grenade went off inside Jose’s helmet, that doctors told his mother he’d lost a couple of bottom lobes and wouldn’t live. But he did. I have no idea how. I’m not too ashamed to say that, in the long moments I sat trapped in the photo and all that it stood for, I wished he hadn’t.
I wanted mercy for Jose. I don’t, however, want it for the rest of us who have stood by and let this senseless war happen. We need to see more of this to put the rotten fruit of our irresponsibility in our faces. The physical toll of war on the people waging it is always monstrous, but Americans tend to justify it with an assumption that the fight was unavoidable or the sacrifice had to made for the cause of liberty.That was never, ever the case with Iraq, and the worst part of it is, we knew that was the case well before this war got under way. We knew there were no weapons of mass destruction and that Al Qaeda and 9/11 had nothing to do with Saddam Hussein. We pulled the wool over our own eyes and now claim that, bad as things might be, we can’t see a way out of Iraq.
That is crap, sheer political cowardice. Having made such a mess, we have no choice but to make a way out. It hasn’t helped that we get zero pressure from an American press that, with the exception of the Nation and a few other publications, has been disgustingly, dangerously polite the last five years.
My suggestion is that we black out American Idolatry and 24-hour celebrity worship, substitute it all with war footage for about a week and see how we respond to the ultimate reality show. The raw visuals are what helped to end the Vietnam War, though it took ten years. We don’t have that kind of time anymore.
Nor do I have any patience left for feverish, election-season debates about patriotism. In short, John McCain the war vet and ex-POW has no business promoting war as patriotism’s ultimate test, and Barack Obama should have a better response to questions about fealty to his country than loudly claiming the p-word and wearing those wearisome flags on his lapel. What about ending the war? Isn’t patriotism about moral action? Isn’t that what Obama promised in the beginning?
But moral action is still our fight, not our candidates’. Jose and so many others, including hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians, are suffering mightily for our sins. Repentance starts with acknowledging the truth, however damning. The photo of Jose wouldn’t let me do otherwise. I’ll let you know if I ever see his face.
ERIN AUBRY KAPLAN, a contributing blogger with 3BAAS Media Group, is the first African American in history to be a weekly op-ed columnist for the Los Angeles Times. Her musings continue to appear in the Times, Essence magazine, and a host of other publications. Kaplan is currently working on her much anticipated book.