MIA or My Country the Crack Whore

There is an amazing story in the latest issue of Esquire magazine about the only American soldier missing in action (MIA) in Iraq.

The writer, Brian Mockenhaupt, brings out the full picture of what it means to be an American in Iraq. It is a place that is exhilerating yet terrifying, a place where patriots become mass murderers (and vice versa), a place where the only thing uglier than death is life itself.

The article recreates the April 2004 ambush during which Matt Maupin disappeared from the convoy which he was guarding. A few weeks later he showed up on Al Jazeera, surrounded by some insurgent group calling itself the Sharp Sword Against the Enemies of God and his Prophet. There has been no sign of him since.

His mother surrounds herself with angel figurines and yellow ribbons. She won't shake the belief that Matt will come home again. His dad has promised not to shave his beard until Matt returns.

Last spring, he met President Bush when Bush threw out the first pitch at a Cincinnati Reds game. "When are you gonna cut that thing?" Bush asked him.

Matt's dad answered, "When you bring home my boy."

In the hope and frustration I felt after reading the article, it occurred to me that this is how addictive war can be. War has to be the most addictive substance in the world. Compared to drugs, sex, or gambling, it is far more destructive, far more costly, far more pernicious.

Think about the new round of justifications for the Iraq War: somehow leaving would mean that the deaths of Americans there would have been in vain--so we sacrifice more of our men and women so that their deaths can someday be justified by more deaths; or there is the shrill talk of "victory" by the President and the mission "yet to be accomplished. My favorite one is the "untold" number of lives saved from terrorist attacks in the American homeland by the destruction of tens of thousands of lives in Iraq.

Compare this with addictions. I've worked with addicts in prisons and halfway houses, so I'm pretty experienced with this crowd. "I'm working on it," they will say before disappearing for another hit. Addicts can also paint wonderful pictures of what progress they will make "on the wagon" away from the gutter, and they like to pretend that they could be a lot worse off--even if it doesn't make sense to the observer.

Even now, as two wars go wrong, we hear whispers from the addicts in Washington calling for "one more war [against Iran]." All it will take is one more--that's all, then we can quit, we know we can.

Except war breeds only more war. One of the orphans created by Americans in Iraq over the last 2 1/2 years is destined to someday make orphans out of innocent American children. One of the methods used in winning the Cold War against the Soviets was the arming of mujahadin by the United States. We know how that turned out.

I think that people in other countries recognize how addictive war can be. Tell a German or Japanese about a "good war," and they will just roll their eyes. I think people in other countries now look at the United States with the same combination of fear and pity that use to view whinos and druggies.

Americans still see themselves as Lady Liberty, but to the rest of the world, our country looks like a Meth Addict, plastering its face with lipstick and stumbling around in high heels, fishnet stockings and miniskirt askew (as in the picture, right, of a meth addict).

It isn't a matter of if but when our country must recover from this addiction. I don't want to have to learn the hard way: the way the peoples of France, Germany, and Japan had to learn. I would like to do what I can to help my country kick the habit: no more blood, no more war, no more "addict answers" to problems that require cooperation and not violence.