I think Prince said it best:

We dont give a damn
We just want to jam
Party up (party up, got to party up)
That army bag
Such a double drag
Party up (party up, got to, got to, got to party up)
(party) got to party down, baby
Revolutionary rock and roll
Goin uptown, baby,
How you gonna make me kill somebody
I dont even know?
They got the draft, uh, uh
I just laugh
Party up (party up, got to party up)
Fightin war is such a fuckin bore
Party up (party up, got to, got to, got to party up)

(party) uh, uh, got to party down, babe
Ooh, its all about whats in your mind
Goin uptown, baby,
I dont wanna die I just wanna have a bloody good time
Because of their half-baked mistakes
We get ice cream
No cake
All lies
No truth
Is it fair to kill the youth?
Party up
Party up

Revolutionary rock and roll

Party up - gotta party up
Party up - gotta party up {continues in background}
Youre gonna have to fight your own damn war
Cuz we dont wanna fight no more

Youre gonna have to fight your own damn war
Cuz we dont wanna fight no more



It's way past time to bring the boys and girls home.
It's way past time to stop calling them heroes to make us feel better about leaving them in a war that was illegal and immoral from the word go.

Of course, we could institute a draft, place several hundred thousand troops in Iraq for a decade or two and rebuild the country. The truth is, we owe Iraq that much. But that's not going to happen. Neither this nation nor any other nation can successfully fight a war unless the citizenry believe in it enough to make certain sacrifices. But that's the thing: no nation is truly willing to sacrifice its young for a political cause.

I've seen wars up close. I've seen mass graves, bombed cities, refugees. No, there's nothing heroic about war. In every case, they involve a young person killing another young person they have no real argument with. In every case, they result in blood and terror. And, in every case, the folks who started them did not have to fight them. And in the case of Iraq, the folks who started the war had never ever seen any battle in any war. It seemed so easy to them, and we let their delusions become our delusions.

And lemme get back to this heroism thing. We call these young people we send to fight heroes. There is a certain bravery in facing death like that. But as for heroism: if it's so damned virtuous to fight, then why aren't the young of every class in this country joining the army? If this heroism thing is so damned great, why aren't we all joining in? Calling people heroes is a cheap way out of accepting culpability for their deaths. We all let them go off to fight an ill-conceived, and poorly planned war against a country that was not threatening us.

Now of course the troops will tell you otherwise...that they're doing good work over there. How can we expect them to think anything but that? Do we expect them to get up every morning and face death without the hope that their efforts are good and just? No, that's way too much to ask.

If we really value them, bring them home now before they have to die for our President's ghastly and criminal war.

In Bertolt Brecht's play "Mother Courage and her Children" (a tale set against the 30 years war) the lead character makes the universally valid observation that whenever virtue is called for it means someone up top has screwed up. In the production I saw (Steppenwolf Theater a few years back) they replaced the word virtue with the word heroes.

Our "heroes" are in Iraq because the folks up top (few if any of whom have ever had to really fight for anything in their charmed rich lives) really screwed up. They should pay a price, but I'm pretty sure they won't. George W Bush will go back to Crawford and supervise his half-billion dollar library. Dick Cheney will get his blind trust Halliburton money and live his days in wealth. Condi Rice will return to academia, or go to the NFL.

I say that, if you think the war in Iraq is worth fighting, then sign up and go fight it. Or sign your children up to fight it. Otherwise, you have a moral obligation to bring our troops home, or at least to shut your mouths.

As I said, I've seen wars, and at the end of the day, they really are nothing but broken bodies usually left on the ground with eyes wide open, staring and mouths agape. In Iraq, we have hundreds of thousands of broken bodies...lives ended in their homes, with thousands more broken bodies shipped home in flag draped coffins.

We caused this mess. We aren't willing to fix it. We're part of the problem, not the solution.

God help us all.