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Doesn't Take Much and That's Messed Up - 2004-03-15 |
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Jay Elias | You can take it with you
"I have wasted Time, and now doth
Time waste me"
- Richard II
2003-02-06- 12:28 a.m.
Pop Goes The World
I’ve spent quite a measure of time lately considering and debating with friends and family the pros and cons of military action against Iraq, which after Colin Powell’s address to the United Nations seems all but inevitable. I hardly want to repeat all those arguments here, or even my own position on the matter; my opinion is hardly worth much, as I am not a military or political expert, and even if I could convince you, there doesn’t seem much possibility that anything is going to change what is going to happen. Since this is my journal, though, I imagine that I can get away with saying this much: I am distinctly troubled by the seeming ease of the American government’s willingness to send men and women into harm’s way, but think that the forcible removal of Saddam Hussein would make Iraq, and the world, a safer place.
One thing that I know for certain is that it has been my good fortune that the accident of my birth has resulted in my being an American. Nothing at all about my life has avoided the influence of my citizenship. There is simply no telling who I might be or what I might be like if I had simply been born instead in Russia, or Yemen, or Rwanda, or even Canada. But one thing is certain: I wouldn’t be anything like I am today, assuming I would have even lived this long. As I’m writing this, I can’t keep myself from wondering about all the other people around the world who were born on October the 28th, 1976. How many of them are still alive today?
On tonight’s episode of The West Wing, the character of the President asked one of his staffers why American lives meant more to him than the lives of people of other nations. The staffer replied, “I don’t know, sir, but they are.” I do know the answer to the question: it is because the lives of my family mean more to me than the lives of my friends, and because the lives of my friends mean more to me than the lives of my acquaintances, and because the lives of my acquaintances mean more to me than the lives of strangers. And because it is also true that I care more about what happens in New York City than in the rest of the state, and I care more about what happens in the state of New York than about what happens in Wisconsin, and that I care more about what happens to the United States than I care about what happens to Canada, and by extension, Uzbekistan. And I accept as a matter of consequence, that a person in Uzbekistan, Canada, or Wisconsin care a whole lot less about me than my neighbor in apartment 4D who I still have never met.
There are so many stories of people like my great-grandparents, who emigrated to the United States as young men and women, who left behind mothers and fathers and siblings. So many people in the last two hundred years have desired the freedom and prosperity and opportunity that America offers that they abandoned not only their friends and their homes but their families, who many never saw again. Even today, thousands more come under similar circumstances. And tens of thousands, perhaps even millions more, wish to come but cannot, due to poverty or an American desire to keep them away. How many mothers on this planet, I wonder, would be willing to never lay eyes on their child again, if they could send that child to America? I cannot imagine an answer to that question, except to say that I don’t believe it would just be a few.
I don’t know what I think anymore of the coming war in Iraq. I don’t know if it is for good or evil, if in fact anyone can know the answer to that question before the event. But I do know that I am very lucky; I am an American, and for good or ill, I am one of the very small percentage of people in the world whose opinion will have some influence, however small, in that decision. But I do know that there is a chance, if myself and my fellow citizens care enough, that the armies of the United States can be a force that helps bring order and peace and opportunity to places and people in the world whose accident of birth was not as fortunate as mine. I don’t know if that will happen in Iraq, or in any of the other places of desperation in the world, current or future. But I hope it does. That is an army I would be proud to pay for, and proud to serve.
Because I’m an American, I have the luxury of being able to know that the will of good men and women is enough, sometimes, to make the world a better place.
Copyright © 2001, 2002 - EoZ
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Older
Doesn't Take Much and That's Messed Up - 2004-03-15
Like Water Under Bridges - 2003-09-08
Jesus On The Dashboard - 2003-08-13
An Administrative Announcement - 2003-08-11
Don't Worry, It's Coming - 2003-08-02
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