Grinding On and On: Our illegal war
By Vern Nelson
OC Voice Columnist
It just grinds on and on, this endless illegal occupation of Iraq-five years now, 4,000 dead US troops, untold thousands physically and mentally maimed, and now they’re saying $3 trillion when all’s said and done. From day to day in the OC, as in most of the country, you wouldn’t know a war was on, but every now and then it swoops down like a bird of prey and takes one of us. Then there’s mourning, ceremonies, teary-eyed testimonials, and stories in the news media; but soon everyone except the grieving family forgets, the ocean washes over everything, and once again the Iraq misadventure no longer touches the happy Orange Coast.
But let them not go gentle into that good night. Let’s instead retell the story, on the second anniversary of his death in Al-Anbar province, of Huntington Beach’s own Marcus Glimpse, one of three marines this town has lost in Iraq.
In the innocent days before 9/11 Marcus was an easygoing high school dropout with a fuchsia Mohawk and fingernails painted black; you may have rented a film from him at the Blockbuster on Atlanta. Every Fourth of July he and his twin brother Michael would take a group of neighborhood kids on a walk across the Santa Ana River to Costa Mesa, where fireworks were legal, and treat them to a dazzling pyrotechnic display.
But after airplanes plowed into the Twin Towers, Michael volunteered to go defend his country and was sent to Afghanistan. Wanting to join his brother, Marcus signed up with the Marines, but boot camp took longer than expected, Bush and Cheney lost interest in “smoking Al Qaeda out of their caves,” and they instead sent Marcus off to the war they really wanted, the one on Iraq.
Marcus’ fellow Marines said he could find humor in any situation: “Every unit needs a Marcus Glimpse, an individual who can crack a joke under the toughest of circumstances, who never seems to be affected by the hardships around him.” Two years ago this Apr. 12, he was killed by an IED in Al-Anbar, killed by an Iraqi who didn’t want his country occupied.
I tell this story because it is so typical and emblematic-untold thousands of brave young men and women, from Marcus and Michael Glimpse to football star Pat Tillman, signed up to defend our nation from the barbarians who attacked us on 9/11, but most of them were instead diverted off to a pointless, illegal and unwinnable war approved by politicians whose reasons have been revealed as pretext and pretense and seem to be simple old-fashioned oil-based imperialism, combined with opportunities for war profiteering on a scale never before dreamed of.
All of this-the illegal invasion, the lies told to further it, the crimes committed to cover up those lies (e.g. Plamegate), and the betrayal of the patriotism of Pat Tillman and Marcus Glimpse-cries out for redress.
This Saturday, Apr. 5, 7 p.m., the League of Women Voters is moderating a forum at Goldenwest College entitled “Impeachment 101: How Impeachment Serves a Democracy,” featuring two distinguished Constitutional Law experts: National Lawyers’ Guild president Marjorie Cohn and former Southern California ACLU president Stephen Rohde.
I’ll be there, but I think it’s time that we start planning how to proceed if the meek 110th Congress continues to abdicate its responsibility to hold the Bush administration accountable. At this point it’s probably up to patriotic members of the next Congress, the 111th, to begin repairing this gang’s damage. Perhaps this Apr. 5 forum would be the appropriate place to begin figuring out what a program for “Restoring and Strengthening Our Constitution” would look like-a program candidates for the next Congress could sign on to.
“The Tipping Point” welcomes input on this topic from OC Voice readers knowledgeable in the law and the U.S. Constitution, as well as from the distinguished stable of challengers to our own sclerotic Bush-enabler Dana Rohrabacher. Let’s see how much thought and substance Debbie Cook, Tom Lash, and Dan Kalmick put into their anticipated oath to “uphold and defend the Constitution.”
Iraq is only the 800-pound bleeding ulcer of this administration’s crimes, just one part of the larger picture of their systematic evisceration of the Constitution in pursuit of Cheney’s dream of a “unitary executive” dictatorship. Just off the top of my head, the next Congress will need to:
- Restore habeas corpus (by revoking or drastically amending the Military Commissions Act?)
- Make Presidential “signing statements” explicitly illegal; the President must either sign or veto a bill and if he signs he must follow and enforce it.
- Restore the 4th amendment with an updated FISA bill that ensures our privacy, and investigate and prosecute illegal spying on Americans by this administration (the current Congress is actually showing some spine on this lately.)
- Restore the balance of powers so painstakingly crafted by folks like current HBO celebrity John Adams (e.g., automatic dire consequences for defying Congressional subpoenas.)
- Once again become a nation that doesn’t (officially) torture by re-passing the recently vetoed anti-torture legislation, closing Guantánamo, and re-committing to the Geneva Conventions.
There’s certainly much more, and I hope to hear from readers and our Orange Coast candidates. Ultimately maybe we can even achieve that pre-Vietnam Holy Grail where war can only be declared by Congress. We owe that to the 4,000 Marcus Glimpses.
Vern Nelson is a Huntington Beach composer and pianist; website www.vernnelson.com, e-mail vernpnelson@gmail.com. “The Tipping Point” will document the Orange Coast’s evolution from a den of apathy, materialism and xenophobia into a hotbed of progressive activism.
Lance Corporal Marcus S. Glimpse of Huntington Beach
killed at age 22, April 12, 2006, in Al-Anbar Province.
ocvoice
Extraordinary Kudos to Tipping Point’s Vern Nelson. For the longest time, I have been reading O.C.Voice with interest but something was lacking…a sense of understanding of the world and it’s effect on Huntington Beach. Vern Nelson has provided that with a viewpoint which reflects my “flaming liberal” proclivities. Pictures of our honored dead soldiers killed in Iraq returning home in their flag-draped coffins have been suppressed.
This does not make me proud to think that their deaths are no longer honored. Every effort is being made by this bestial administration to forget them. The carnage in Iraq is the result of just two “men” and a spineless congress to satisfy their lust for blood, bravado, and false honor. The deeply sorrowful convergence of the fifth anniversary of the Iraq war and the obscene event of the 4000th fallen U.S. soldier in Iraq has come and gone. Candles are lit and vigils held in thousands of homes across this country every evening. The meaning and value of sacrifice and the chorus of despairing whispers, wails, and anger are carried on the wind sweeping across the plains of our country.
All the new crosses of this war are silent witnesses to the failure of our “leader” thugs to protect our soldiers from egregious, wanton, and strutting war making. In cold silence, many a mother can be seen escorting their grandson or grandaughter to visit their father’s grave. The children somberly walk around the gravesite of their father trying to remember when he was alive and the fun they had. In their moment of transcendent visitation, no one can look at the children without great despair and aching love. No one can ever speak to them of the horror and lost hopes foisted on them in this criminally conceived war.