Henri Reynard Speaks Out

Is The Journey The Point After All?

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Progress is such a great concept, as a young man it was so easy to believe that it was our destiny to build a better world. We are still out there trying in Iraq. More than a few of us think that there still might be a better way to do it than a war of conquest. Some of us even thought that our nation had eliminated war as an answer as short a time ago as thirty years back. That particular thirty years comprised half my life thus far. It went by with a speed that is frightening when I am contemplating the rest of my life. So I expect will the rest of whatever I get as my winnings in this survival game.

Thus far it has been an interesting journey. During my life we have fought wars all the way from WWII through Korea, thence through Vietnam into the Gulf then Afghanistan and now into Iraq. Along the way there was the Cold War, the War On Poverty, the War On Cancer, the War On Drugs, and now there is the War On Terrorism. So far we have only won WWII and the first Gulf War, 2/11 is not a great score. If it were a batting average we would be deep in the minors. The Cold War is still buzzing around in the background if your ears still work well enough to hear it. When both the USA and Russia get completely rid of their nuclear arsenals I will concede that it is finally over. Until then hot war is still only one stupid mistake away for both sides of that long-lived conflict. We declared victory in the Cold War, but I think this is only a breather between rounds. Russia has been down on the mat a lot lately because of the failure of Communism, but that doesn't mean we are done disagreeing with one another. Nations have long lives and longer memories. All Russia would need to do is declare a policy of preemptive war just as we have, and we will be at it again, colder than Siberia if we are both lucky. Or China may replace Russia as our evil empire of choice. Their version of Capitalistic Communism combines some of the worst of both systems. These are indeed interesting times!

We had a lot of help from other nations in both of the wars we won during my life. WWII was a war of survival, if we had lost that war our way of life would have vanished and the world would be vastly different. Everyone concedes that point, even me, and I will contend nearly anything at the drop of a word. The Gulf War is a little different case in point; perhaps we are really only in round two of that conflict. It was originally a limited war for the purpose of expelling Iraq from Kuwait and keeping them out of Saudi Arabia. Now it has become a war of conquest, our first since we finished off the Indian Tribes that opposed our Manifest Destiny. Our progress across this continent was quite a journey. We gradually took it away from the people that had occupied it for thousands of years. But that has often been the way that humanity has made progress, one small act of theft or conquest at a time. We bought some of it from people who had conquered their piece before we became a nation. We took some of it away from Spain and bought Alaska from Russia. Who gave those nations title to that land? Well there was no world court then, so to the victor went the spoils.

Now there is a World Court and a United Nations, a feeble attempt at a world government, but they do exist. That would qualify as progress in most people's eyes, even I might be tempted to agree if the biggest baddest nation of all were disposed to honor either of them. That would be US for those of you who might wonder. There are a lot of reasons why the structure of the international forum provided by the UN is flawed. One of them is the inequity of representation demanded by the rich nations that won WWII. The principle of a Security Council Veto has long served to make the UN only a paper moon, shining in the reflected glory of whichever permanent Security Council member kills a proposal regardless of general support. We also have a different consensus of what is allowable in war now. Bombings like those the Allies carried out against the civilian populations of Germany and Japan during the last years of WWII would be universally condemned today. Of course that could all change for the worse again, but it would be a shame to lose that bit of sanity that we have achieved in spite of our own worst impulses.

Anyway, here we are in the gulf again, fighting Iraq again, this time without as many allies or any significant support from the world community. Of course that isn't bothering those who brung us to this dance, they think we should let the whole world know that we are the top of this heap once and for all. The problem is that this heap stinks a lot. A lot of us suspect that it is really a pile of horse manure. I doubt that we will see the pony any time soon, but what do I know about international affairs? I do know just one thing, it is easy to start a war and hard to define when it is over unless you just kill everyone on the other side and burn their homes to the ground. This war looks like it may haunt us for a while, I hope not but the signs are there. Some conservative well-respected Islamic scholars, including many of those who condemned the destruction of the World Trade Center, are calling for a Jihad against the USA. That is one sign of bad consequences that could haunt us for a long time. This could become a war with religion as the focus, a war between civilizations. That is the worst kind of war because there might be no resolution possible without one subjugating the other.
Now I have read some history and remember somewhat less of it. I remember history class as the part of the day when I put my brain on idle and cruised through daydreams but some knowledge sunk in anyway. After that part of my life was over I had a friend who had read a lot of history and he encouraged me to read a few books. That was easy, there were no lectures attached, just discussions, and no tests at all. One thing I learned in reading history was that every generation has to learn the same lessons, over and over and over again. I repeat some of those lessons here for your edification. "Progress in things material is often offset through miscalculations by leadership about the human element which is usually beyond their control". Ask Alan Greenspan about our recent Internet stock market bubble and the aftermath we are living with today. "Wealth is a fleeting basis for security". Ask some of the investors in that bubble. "Every conquering nation eventually loses a war from which they cannot recover". Ask the Romans, or any of the other past imperial nations you can find to give you an answer. "Sometimes the war you win does more damage than the war you lose". Ask the Russians about the war they thought they had won in Afghanistan. In a little while we may be able to ask ourselves that same question about the war we think we have won in Afghanistan. And this is just my own observation; war is a stupid way to resolve any conflict unless there is no other option, none at all.

Now if that is all that I can conclude after living sixty years I guess that I may have wasted a little time along the way. I certainly happily remember enjoying a lot of the wasted parts. But, it has been an interesting journey after all. I intend for it to continue as long as I can drag it out, with good health as the one caveat I need in order to enjoy it. I have a great level of confidence in the people of this nation. I cannot believe that they will allow our current leaders to keep pursuing a war between civilizations without throwing the bums out after four years. I also have a great deal of trust in our system of government. Every four years we have a revolution called an election; that is a great good thing. Remember to participate in that revolution and all will eventually be well with our lives again. It may take a while to clean out these stables one more time, but there is always a pony at the end of our pile of horseshit in this nation. Even when we make big mistakes in selecting the President we let design the pile for a while. God bless and keep you safe in these trying times.