The Evansville Courier-Press has a column by Martin Schram for the Scripps Howard News Service entitled Diminished coverage. It’s 3:40 a.m. and my 18 month old daughter has been crying for the last half hour, so maybe it’s just my muddled, sleep-deprived head, but I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around why the press is calling Obama’s statement that “we now have spent $400 billion and have seen over 3,000 lives of the bravest young Americans wasted” was a gaffe. The Schram column just says “Wasted?” He does not try to explain how U.S. foreign policy has used those lives well. If someone would explain how those lives were used to achieve a benefit commensurate with the cost, perhaps I could be persuaded that Obama was somehow incorrect in his statement. Instead, all I get is some sort of semi-articulated (from Schram and elsewhere) notion that Obama has somehow belittled the dead servicemen and women through this statement.
Noting that the Iraq War has been wasteful of American lives does nothing to diminish the sacrifice of those who sacrificed their lives. Seems to me that it makes the sacrifice that much more indicative of their love for their country. In any event, the situation reminds me a bit of The Charge of the Light Brigade:
1.
Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
“Forward, the Light Brigade!
“Charge for the guns!” he said:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.2.
“Forward, the Light Brigade!”
Was there a man dismay’d?
Not tho’ the soldier knew
Someone had blunder’d:
Their’s not to make reply,
Their’s not to reason why,
Their’s but to do and die:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.3.
Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
Volley’d and thunder’d;
Storm’d at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell
Rode the six hundred.4.
Flash’d all their sabres bare,
Flash’d as they turn’d in air,
Sabring the gunners there,
Charging an army, while
All the world wonder’d:
Plunged in the battery-smoke
Right thro’ the line they broke;
Cossack and Russian
Reel’d from the sabre stroke
Shatter’d and sunder’d.
Then they rode back, but not
Not the six hundred.5.
Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon behind them
Volley’d and thunder’d;
Storm’d at with shot and shell,
While horse and hero fell,
They that had fought so well
Came thro’ the jaws of Death
Back from the mouth of Hell,
All that was left of them,
Left of six hundred.6.
When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made!
All the world wondered.
Honor the charge they made,
Honor the Light Brigade,
Noble six hundred.
