lost

somewhere along the way you learn the lessons of history, of right and wrong, of the lies you were told to believe before the clocks struck thirteen. when we ignore these lessons for the spoils of war, for private gain, for the feel-good slogans of paid-off politicians, we tell our children and grandchildren a lot about ourselves, and we burden them with the responsibility to right our wrongs, to pay our debts, to deal with the consequences of our mistakes. i was visiting home that day, had just walked in the door, when dad asked me "have you seen the news, son?" beaming off the tv were apocalyptic images of a u.s. military plane inching down a kabul runway with people clinging to its wheels. this was not hbo. it was cnn, fox, and msnbc, all airing the latest episode of a new season of american empire: u.s. troops fleeing a faraway land in the eleventh hour of a long and costly war. a preventable war. perpetrators of injustice and terrorism must face their due, but the lies and creep to occupation? to nation-building? to twenty years of blood and treasure? for a ruling class so able, so learned, and so experienced, it baffles even the mind of a child that our leaders continue to ignore the limits of force and the lessons of history: cuba, vietnam, iran, iraq, and now afghanistan. one begins to wonder if they know better, if they've gone fishing in the potomac again, smiling with their donors, baiting and switching our love of democracy and human rights for the profits of corporations that fund their re-elections. a strong military is vital to our security, but using it recklessly makes us weaker. by now, surely, we know how this movie ends, so let us pause the tape to read the credits of those complicit in these wars; to remember the brave and innocent souls whose families are asking why; to sear into our memory the scene of these choppers above our embassies, to lay bare the blunders and the burdens we have forced on the next generation—the first-graders, the sixth-graders, the high schoolers swiping up upon tiktok, the millennials shaking their heads. something tells me they might change course if we show them the costs we keep shackling to their future. some pictures speak a thousand words. this one should remind us of trillions of dollars, of four decades astray, of millions of lives lost