Ritter's Argument Leaves Too Many Behind

NOTE: This was originally posted on a site for the participants of the Walkin’ To New Orleans march that included Vietnam Veterans Against the War, Iraq Veterans Against the War, Military Families Speak Out, Gold Star Mothers, Katrina survivors and community groups along the Mobile to New Orleans route.
The Veterans and Survivors Walkin' to New Orleans march took place March 14, 2006-March 19,2006 along a 150 mile course of the worst hit areas of the Gulf by Katrina. It ended in New Orleans at a rally commemorating the beginning of the 4th year of the illegal war in Iraq.
Scott Ritter’s “essay” about the “anti-war” movement was posted on that site for discussion, also.

Ritter’s Argument Leaves Too Many Behind

While I highly respect Scott Ritter for taking on the military establishment against the illegal war in Iraq, I don't agree with his argument of creating a one tune movement against the war.
Didn't we just go from Mobile to New Orleans to connect the war to the continued neglect of Katrina survivors? Didn't we connect the costs of war to the lack of social programs, the abuse of immigrants in the workforce, poor educational opportunities for marginalized communities and the continued oppression of these communities?
I do think the veteran, above all, knows the horrors of war in a foreign land but there's more to the story than just the killing fields of Iraq and Afghanistan.
Here in Denver there's cuts in mental health, drug and alcohol treatment programs, schools are closing, education in the black and Hispanic/Latino/Chicano communities is criminally lacking, poorly trained police have killed mentally disabled kids and on and on in an extensive laundry list of abuse and neglect.
The common denominator in this is lack of attention and funding. Billions of dollars are drained from "we the people" to perpetuate the meat grinders in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Those billions take away from all the things Scott Ritter proposes we forget about while we just focus on the war with "laser like precision". This view seems not only limited in perspective but dangerous in the long run.
I think a lot about my friends lost in Vietnam. Probably a day doesn't pass I don't have some thought about them.
That said, I'm a father and grandfather who knows it doesn't matter if your son or daughter or grandkids are killed in combat or at the end of a syringe or a crack pipe. Who's to say that a mentally disabled kid shot by police is any less important than Casey Sheehan, for example?
I won't say it because whether killed in an insane war or by poorly trained cops or by untreated addictions, we've lost a part of our future. We've lost part of our greatest resources, our children.
I understand the single focus argument but won't endorse it. The people of this nation need to be told over and over again Katrina survivors are casualties of that fucking war going on in Iraq and Afghanistan.
They need to connect the damn dots that the costs of war aren't just some kids who voluntarily joined the military or the thousands of innocent Iraqi dead and wounded.
I have great love and respect for our young veterans but I can't forget the stories I heard from Katrina survivors. I can't forget the lost generations imprisoned for addiction and possession.
If we look at the peace movement, as Ritter did, we have to keep in mind the great majority of that movement is white European.
We've struggled to have the marginalized communities of poverty and color joins the peace movement.
With hungry children, two to three jobs or no jobs it's not high on the priority list to join a movement that seems to think holding a rally or march or being symbolically arrested is the way of effecting change.
When the young men of a community are constantly rousted each day, writing a letter to a congress person isn't high on their list.
When the same young men and their young female counterparts drop out of schools at almost a fifty percent rate, it's unlikely they'll focus in on the war as a cause to take up.
I think we fail as a movement if we don't continue the struggle to connect the military industrial complex to a nation addicted to violence and consumption of natural resources.
I think we fail if we don't connect the violence we've inflicted on nature and our planet with our perpetual warfare. What the hell is Agent Orange and depleted uranium if not environmental disasters?
Scott Ritter deserves respect for his willingness to speak up but I'm not persuaded to throw out all the sheet music just to hum one note.

WM. Terry Leichner, RN
Vietnam Veterans Against the War
Denver, Co
USMC Vietnam combat veteran