Opportunity to Reflect

This being Memorial Day in the U.S., I thought it appropriate to address the complexity of the acts meant to be highlighted on this day. In short, it is a day for remembering those who have fallen in the liberation and defense of this nation.

Liberation is an easy thing to justify as it specifically deals with the acquisition of freedom. That is, in my opinion, the only reason for which any of us should ever take up arms: our own freedom. While people around the world have too often taken up arms to acquire their freedom only to have one despot replaced by another, this country enjoyed the fruits of an enlightened few who put forth a system under which freedom could be retained, at least for a short time. These founders even had the foresight to guard against the slow decay of freedoms they saw as inevitable.

Defense is a different subject entirely. The term itself opens the discussion to subjectivity. Against what have we defended ourselves? After all, other than 1812, Pearl Harbor and September 11, 2001, there have not been any direct attacks on U.S. soil. Yet we have engaged, almost continuously, in some conflict or other.

Now I am not arguing against engagement without direct provocation. We all know that Nazi Germany would have continued its pursuit of global domination had the U.S. and other remotely interested countries not joined the fight, almost preemptively, against them. Sadly, it is arguments such as this that are leveraged to justify other engagements. According to many at the time, Vietnam became a mission for the same reasons that WWII required our involvement in the European theater: the spread of communism. However, the domino theory ignored the very fact that the communist system against which we were to take up arms had little hope of sustaining itself. So many Americans died defending a system of democracy and capitalism against an idea that has no potential in reality. While we should memorialize their individual sacrifices, we should also take this opportunity to understand the pointlessness of the overall action.

Today we find ourselves in a similar position. While our dispute with The Taliban and their protection of Al Qaeda warranted a response, the continued nation building exercises hardly garner the same justifications. Had Iraq indeed proven to be a source of weapons, our involvement there would have had some substance, particularly in light of the goals of entities such as Al Qaeda. However, using the spread of democracy and the freeing of a nation is hardly the same as claiming defense. As each American who dies in these conflicts earns the remembrance designated for this day, we who remain must make a better effort to ensure that future sacrifices are made only in the name of defending the liberty to which we so tenuously cling.