December 9, 2004 - “Why, Mr. Secretary?” the soldier asked. “I’m an old man and I’m gathering my thoughts,” the Secretary of Defense replied as he searched for an excuse. “You go to war with the Army you have, not the Army you might want or wish to have at a later time," was the best that he could do. So the boys from Tennessee will continue to raid the garbage dumps to build hillbilly armor from Kuwaiti junk and the boys from Illinois will continue to plant Flanders’ Fields in Fallujah while the Army we have fights the messy war we have, not the glorious war that Washington wished for. And the President of the United States costumed once again in the trappings of war – an Eisenhower jacket this time with Washington’s title embroidered on his breast – stood in the California sun to tell the Marines we would fight on to victory. Nobody embarrassed the President by asking. “Why, Mr. President?”

The tactics, they are a-changing in that civil war we made of Iraq with the Army we have, not the Army we might want or wish to have at a later date. The Iraqi resistance – we have trained the compliant media to call them “insurgents” or “terrorists” rather than what they are; the Iraqi resistance has shifted its targets from the Army of Occupation that we have to the easier prey of local lightly armed police forces and more Iraqis die in Mr. Bush’s civil war than do Americans – more than 70 last week.

While the trial process goes on and the West Virginia guardsmen face military justice because they caught themselves with pictures at Abu Ghraib the word leaks out that their pictures just showed the tip of the torture iceberg. What was happening in that one prison ward in that one prison camp wasn’t a surprise in Washington. The only surprise was that the pictures got out. Washington knew, the Pentagon knew, but it was hidden beneath the surface of the only war we have, not the war we might want and wish for and we justify it because of what They are – terrorists and murderers. Why. Mr. Secretary? Why, Mr. President, do we justify abuse by what they are rather than defining our conduct by what we claim to be? Has Abu Ghraib come to be the hallmark of a Christian nation?

Last week the Secretary told us that we would be in Iraq as long as it takes – that he hoped we could begin drawing down the troops by the end of the President’s term in Four More Years. So Illinois reservists caught in the backdoor draft will continue to die and Tennessee boys will continue to raid the junkyards for hillbilly armor while the Old man gathers his thoughts and the wardrobe mistress stitches up another costume for the President.

It is, after all the only war we’ve got and it promises to go on for at least Four More Years.