Senseless acts of bloodshed

President John F. Kennedy was noted for the impact of many of his speeches. A speech that focused on war and violence is the one I remember most vividly. In it, he spoke of the “senseless acts of bloodshed.”

When Kennedy was in office in the early 1960’s, U.S. military presence in Vietnam escalated and concern grew over the regime of South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem. American foreign policy after World War II had been based on the goal of containing Communism and the assumption of “the domino theory” — that if one country fell to Communism, the surrounding countries would also fall. That was a concern of the Eisenhower administration in the 1950’s.

SEATO — the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization — was formed in 1955 to prevent Communist expansion and Eisenhower sent some 700 military personnel, and military and economic aid, to the government of South Vietnam.

However, internal corruption and mounting successes by Vietcong guerrillas weakened the South Vietnamese government. Kennedy accelerated the flow of American aid and gradually increased American military advisers to more than 16,000. He pressed the Diem government for political and economic reforms, but the situation did not improve. In September of 1963 — two months before Kennedy was assassinated — he said that “in the final analysis, it is their war… the people of Vietnam against the Communists.”

Kennedy went on to say that the United States made this effort “to defend Europe” and it would be a mistake to withdraw. On Nov. 1, in a coup given approval by the Kennedy administration, the South Vietnamese government was overthrown. Diem, who refused an American offer of safety contingent upon his resignation, was assassinated.

Lyndon Johnson took over as president after the assassination of Kennedy on Nov. 22, 1963, and military aid to Vietnam increased. By 1968, U.S. forces surpassed 500,000. It was a difficult situation. The Vietnam War drug on as peace talks stalled — all the way through the first 3 1/2 years of Richard Nixon’s presidency. Finally, in January 1973, an agreement was reached and Nixon ordered an end to all U.S. offensive actions in North Vietnam.

In the spring of 1975, the North Vietnamese captured Saigon, the capital of South Vietnam, and the last Americans were evacuated from the U.S. embassy.

The American war in Vietnam was over. But 58,000 Americans had lost their lives — along with more than 3 million Vietnamese.

About 15 years later, along came the Gulf War. It was reported that U.S. forces suffered 148 battle-related deaths — 24 percent by “friendly fire” — plus another 145 deaths in out-of-combat incidents. There were an additional 65 deaths among coalition forces. There were nearly 500 Americans wounded. That’s just part of it. As of the year 2000, 183,000 U.S. veterans of the Gulf War — more than a quarter of the U.S. troops who participated in War — have been declared permanently disabled by the Department of Veterans Affairs.

According to the Project on Defense Alternatives study, 3,664 Iraqi civilians and between 20,000 and 26,000 military personnel were killed in the conflict.

The current war goes on in Iraq. Late last month, the death toll was more than 135,000 — 3,800 of those Americans. For every American soldier killed in Iraq, nine others have been wounded and survived — the highest rate of any war in U.S. history. And the loss of civilian life is staggering. The monetary cost of the war, so far, is approaching $500 billion.

U.S. Army Sgt. Ryan Kahlor, 22, of San Diego was quoted in the New York Times. In a letter to his parents, after the loss of a comrade in Iraq, Kahlor said, “No one understands why we are here and what our mission is. This war is lost. We aren’t helping these people. We are just dying and getting injured.”

In an Independent Media magazine article titled “A Matter of Conscience,” U.S. Army Sgt. Kevin Benderman said: “I have learned from first hand experience that war is the destroyer of everything that is good in the world, it turns our young into soulless killers and we tell them that they are heroes when they master the “art” of killing… Why do we tell our children to not solve their differences with violence, then turn around and commit the ultimate in violence against people in another country who have nothing to do with the political attitudes of their leaders?”

According to Reuters, the U.S. Army cemetery at Fort Riley in Kansas has run out of space after the burial of another casualty of the Iraq war. Two senators sent a letter to William Tuerk, the under secretary for memorial affairs at the Department of Veterans Affairs, urging for full funding for a new cemetery for Fort Riley. “We truly owe our military members a debt of gratitude and the least we can do is provide them with an honorable burial ground,” the senators wrote. Do we stop the killing or just build new cemeteries?

I commend those hundreds of thousands of American soldiers who are serving or who have served our country. So many of them have paid the ultimate price, giving their lives in the name of freedom. It’s the price we’re paying for peace. Unfortunately, the result is a senseless act of bloodshed.

Joe Sova is managing editor of the Hungry Horse News.