Opinion

Don't follow a coward into war

Ellen Simonson
guest columnist

Considering the fact that I have a fully functioning cerebellum, I suppose itis not surprising that I have a lot of angry words to say about President Bushis State of the Union address Tuesday night.

I could take this time to scathingly deride, point by point, the mixture of misinformation and hypocrisy our fearless leader tried to feed the American people. But I think thereis a more important fact behind all the bloodthirsty rhetoric.

In case you havenit heard, the man whois about to send our sons to lose their lives in battle -- fighting the same "evil man" to whom his daddy once sold weapons, no less -- somehow just plain forgot to show up for his National Guard duty in 1972.

In fact, Dubya was missing for a whole year. And all that after his daddy made a special call to the Speaker of the Texas House of Representatives to get his name placed at the forefront of the list of National Guard applicants.

See, if you were in the National Guard, you werenit sent to Vietnam. Of course, if you were ordered to report for duty in the National Guard and then failed to show up, you were drafted to Vietnam (where an average of 350 American soldiers died each week). Unless, of course, your daddy was a senator.

If Bushis reasons for avoiding Vietnam were due to moral or ethical concerns, I might have a bit more respect for his desire to persuade other peopleis children to risk the ultimate sacrifice. But when his country called him, Dubya just didnit feel like showing up.

And now this physical and moral coward is leading an entire country into a war of his own fabrication -- and people are buying it?

I want to leave you with two quotes. The first is from Bushis State of the Union address: "Throughout the 20th century, small groups of men seized control of great nations, built armies and arsenals, and set out to dominate the weak and intimidate the world." He was speaking about Saddam Hussein, not himself, but I honestly didnit know that until the next sentence.

After all, Bush slid into office without being elected, is increasing military spending exponentially, and is now threatening to drop bombs on a sick, poor nation. And whatis "if youire not with us, youire against us" but an effort to intimidate the world?

The second quote is from Bob Dylanis "Masters of War": "Come you masters of war … You hide in your mansions/ As the young peopleis blood/ Flows out of their bodies and is buried in the mud."

Because, as Bush has so aptly taught us, the masters of war are never those who fight it.

Simonson, a Psychology Department employee, can be reached via dccampus@mail.uh.edu.