Whenever I see that some dismal general will testify to Congress regarding
the war against Iraq, I imagine the first paragraph of his Power Point presentation:
“All metrics show a downsurge in the violence in Iraq, and a continuing
improvement in indicators of the production of a better life. Next slide.
The Iranians are aiding the enemies of America, and must be bombed. This is
a recording.”
What solemn, fraudulent, emetic mummery. Congressmen will—do—ask
the General puffball questions, after which they will do whatever the President
tells them to do. I can make no criticism of this. It is the American way.
Still, may I suggest a few questions I would like to see the General, any
general, asked?
1) General, five years ago the Commander in Chief said that combat operations
in Iraq had ended. Since this isn’t true, the Commander in Chief was
either lying, delusional, or simply a fool. Which do you believe to be the
case?
2) You have said on various occasions that Iran is meddling in Iraq, that
it is supplying weapons, fighters, and training to the warring factions. Others
have charged that the United States is meddling in Iraq, that it is supplying
weapons, troops, and training in Iraq. Which of these assertions do you believe
to be the more accurate? Have you seen any evidence of American involvement?
3) You have expressed a commendable admiration for our soldiers, saying that
they are the finest young men of our nation. Would you let your daughter date
a black Pfc. with a GED? A kid named Gonzalez with tattoos?
4) Permit me a personal question, General. Have you ever said anything but
“yes” to anyone who could affect your chances of promotion? Can
you give us examples?
I have received a letter from a squad leader in Baghdad who suggests that
always saying “yes” qualifies you as a streetwalker but not as
a soldier. I am sure this isn’t true. That is, I am sure you could be
a soldier as well. Will you explain to us why the sergeant is wrong? Can you
give the Congress a reason to believe that anything other than your career
matters to you?
5) Excuse me, but I have a question concerning your health. I know the sun
is very bright in Baghdad. Might it be that when you were putting suntan lotion
on your face, you somehow missed your nose? It seems much darker. The country
cannot lightly afford to risk skin cancer in its officers.
6) General, years from now, when you loll in some sunny clime writing your
memoirs, perhaps having served as a handsome and chiseled Chairman of the
Joint Chiefs, tens of thousands of enlisted men will be living with colostomy
bags or white canes or missing legs or the ruins of faces. Does this in any
way bother you?
On second thought, I withdraw the question as irrelevant. Pardon my foolishness,
General.
7) I assume that you must have many qualifications for administering a counterinsurgency
operation in the Middle East. Here I mean things other than being photogenic
or a wizard with Power Point. For example, I am certain that you speak Arabic
well, as do the Commander in Chief, President Cheney, and Condo Rice. For
the record, will you confirm this?
8) Let me drop for a moment into the dry details of soldiering. No doubt
this will be boring shop talk to many in this chamber, but I believe we can
spare a moment.
A constituent who served in Viet Nam wrote me with the following account
of someone who has “taken a round” (that is the military phrase,
I believe?) through the face. He says that teeth shatter, the jawbone dangles
from the head with white stuff showing where it was attached, blood spurts
from the arteries in the top of the mouth, one eye bulges out from the concussion,
and the man jerks his arms strangely and says “Kuh-kuh-kuh”
until he dies from drowning in blood. This takes a few minutes, the sergeant
says.
Do you believe the Public Affairs Office of the Pentagon is right in saying
that squads should carry plastic bags for covering the man’s face? So
that reporters don’t take pictures and give the public a misleading
idea of the war?
9) Critics of the military say harsh and, I am sure, unjustified things,
such as that generals are simply hired murderers and have no more honor or
morality that hit men for the Mafia. I want you to understand that I do not
for a moment believe this. I am sure that you would not kill thousands of
people you don’t know on command of some nonentity, and then accept
strange-looking medals for doing so. To rebuke those voices that say such
ugly things, would you give us an example of a country you would not attack
if ordered to? Name something you would not do for another star?
10) Will you explain the surgical use of a five-hundred-pound bomb in a densely
populated suburb?
11) General, if an Iraqi army attacked your home state in an endeavor to
impose democracy on the United States, killed thousands of your fellow citizens,
and left your daughter of seven years screaming as she died of burns, what
would you do? Would you accept Islam with gratitude and embrace democracy?
Or would you fight the invaders? Would you spend the rest of your life trying
to kill as many of them as you could, in any way that you could? Just curious.
12) Some of your critics, sir—misinformed, I am sure—say that
you send kids from small Southern towns to die while you work on your Power
Point presentations. To put this foul canard to rest, would you tell us how
much time you have spent in combat as compared to a rifleman on his fifth
tour?
13) Finally, General, can you estimate the number of veterans in wheelchairs,
blind, gutshot, lacking genitals, on crutches, having nightmares of when Jim
Dog took a round through the lungs north of Vung Tau—guys of that sort,
in the Disabled American Veterans, in expat bars around the world, in upcountry
Thailand and the middle of Mexico—who hate men like you with a dark
intensity that makes them pull the arms off chairs when they think about it,
so that even their friends back away, a hatred that would make it most unwise
for you to be near?
Just asking. And thank you so much. For your testimony, I mean.
