Winning Isn't Everything …

The triumphant procession of victorious military might that overtook Washington, DC, on June 8, and the New York City ticker-tape parade that followed two days later, were not just experiences of national celebration; they were public liturgies of corporate denial.

Let's first put one thing to rest. The war's supporters should stop accusing the war's opponents and parade dissenters of not being glad for the safe return of soldiers. Of course we're glad, and thankful. The reunion of loved ones is always a cause for celebration, but it is obvious by now that the martial display on the mall in downtown Washington was about far more than that. The great celebration also served as a great denial.

What do our great celebrations deny? First, that an awful lot of people died in this war, and that the dying is far from over. Estimates of Iraqi war dead now range from 100,000 to 200,000, a toll that includes tens of thousands of civilians. A June 21 New York Times story reported the findings of a Harvard medical team and other health workers just returned from Iraq who predict 170,000 more deaths of children under 5. These children will die of malnutrition and disease caused by the residual effects of U.S. bombing of Iraq's life-support systems and continued economic sanctions. A Washington Post article on June 23 detailed how, despite war-time claims of avoiding civilian casualties, Pentagon bombing strategy deliberately targeted Iraq's civilian infrastructure and wreaked the destruction that has directly led to the severe lack of clean drinking water, adequate food supplies, sewage disposal, and power generation now causing such suffering and death.

Add to that the enormous misery that befell the Kurds and Shiites in the aftermath of the war, a disaster exacerbated by U.S. failures to anticipate likely consequences and by George Bush's political missteps. Denying the casualties of war, while thanking God for our "light losses," is morally bankrupt and spiritually dangerous. The victims of war deserve our grief; we dishonor them with our gleeful celebration.

We seem also to be denying the fact that Saddam Hussein is still in power and shows no signs of departing soon. While our bombs hit everything and everyone else in Baghdad, they missed the dictator. The war didn't remove that problem. Now we hear that even some of his nuclear capacity survived the war.

Some of us were against Saddam Hussein before August 2, when the U.S. government turned against him. Most of us who opposed the war always condemned Saddam's invasion of Kuwait as an aggression that had to be reversed. What we opposed (and still do) was a massive American-led war to do it. We believed (and still do) that there were other ways to extricate Saddam from Kuwait and even from power altogether.

All the parade talk about "liberating Kuwait" also denies the reality of what has happened there since the war. The Emir and his ruling family have been restored but democracy, due process, human rights, and a free society are no nearer now than before the war. Neither are the prospects for peace in the Middle East, despite the non-stop shuttling by U.S. Secretary of State James Baker. The Israelis are more intransigent, the Palestinians more frustrated, the Arabs more divided, and the Middle East is as unstable as ever. Cheering a parade will cover up none of those realities.

LIKE THE WAR, no one knows exactly what the parades cost. We do know that while some $12 million was found for the DC extravaganza, the city was deciding to cut back summer jobs for youth by half. We also know that, with all its oil money, Kuwait will be rebuilt in five years, while the inner cities of Philadelphia, Detroit, Los Angeles, and Washington, DC will not. Feeling good about having whipped a small country halfway around the world helps us to deny how life is unraveling right here at home.

The rolling tanks, gleaming missiles, screaming warplanes, marching legions, and awesome displays of military hardware on the mall added to the unreality. Children climbing over tanks as if they were toys and cheering families giving thumbs-ups to Stealth bombers streaking overhead seemed likewise to deny the purpose of these weapons and what they really do to other children and families. The parade in Washington, DC was really a homecoming for the military-industrial complex more than for the young people who risked their lives. (Appropriately, defense contractors were major sponsors of the event.)

Days before the big parades, a full-page ad in The New York Times featured American servicemen and women, but the caption suggested that their homecoming was not really the focus of the upcoming celebrations. It read: "Who says winning isn't everything?"

That's what the parades are really about -- winning. We didn't get to do this after Vietnam. This time we won and we won big. Every other question, problem, and reality must be swept aside. America is winning again and expects to go on winning. That's what the "new world order" is all about.

But winning isn't everything -- that's what our biblical tradition tells us. It's not even the most important thing. Some things are far more important -- like morality, integrity, honesty, compassion, and genuine sorrow over suffering, even the suffering of one's so-called enemies. Though that voice wasn't heard in the parades, it's still there, and it won't go away.

Jim Wallis is editor-in-chief of Sojourners.