San Francisco Chronicle
Friday, December 10, 2004
Editorial: In the key of war
THE INJUSTICE and horror of the Port Chicago explosion reverberated through the hall in the debut of a jazz composition at San Francisco's Regency Center on Wednesday night.
Composer Marcus Shelby sought to use the power and nuance of brass and wind instruments to tell the story of how 320 men were killed and another 400 were injured when a munitions ship exploded in a spectacular blast on July 17, 1944, at Port Chicago Naval Magazine in Contra Costa County. Most of the casualties were African American. The injustice was compounded when the Navy soon ordered black sailors to resume loading operations, despite the inadequacies of training and safety precautions. Some 258 refused, leading to the mutiny convictions of 50 young black sailors in court martial.
Shelby pulled it off brilliantly. It was written as a ballet suite, but even without dancers, the composition brought abstract life to the aura of war, the tediousness of the physical toil, the jubilation of skipping out to jazz clubs during liberty, the awful explosion and the grim job of picking up the remains of fallen comrades.
It was not lost on Shelby, or others at the event, that American military personnel are again being put in untenable situations by their commanders. Shelby specifically mentioned the Army reservists who recently refused an order to transport fuel along a dangerous stretch of Iraqi road because their trucks were neither armored nor had an armed military escort.
Other speakers made mention of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's confrontation earlier that day with soldiers who complained of inadequate equipment and a "stop-loss" program that effectively turns volunteers into draftees.
Rumsfeld maintained a stoic front, but all Americans should be outraged that soldiers who are putting their lives on the line are left to scrounge through landfills for "hillbilly armor" -- such as scraps of metal and bulletproof glass -- to outfit their trucks in a war zone.
It is equal troubling to hear Rumsfeld disingenuously suggest to 2,300 Iraq-bound soldiers gathered in the Kuwait hangar, "You go to war with the army you have, not the army you might want or wish to have at a later time." The fact is, the invasion of Iraq was a war of choice -- this administration's choice, in defiance of many of our allies. It was not a response to an attack, or even an imminent threat to the United States.
Concerns about the adequacy of troop levels in Iraq have been widely aired -- and scoffed at by the Bush administration -- ever since the end of "major combat operations" evolved into a treacherous occupation.
It remains a war, by any other name.
"Support the troops" involves more than a congressional proclamations and bumper stickers. It means providing those in harm's way with the equipment and reinforcements they need. It means honoring the sacrifice of our veterans with a firm commitment to maintaining decent levels of disability and survivor benefits.
The Bush administration is falling short of these obligations. The voices from that hangar in Kuwait must be heard and heeded, before they become haunting notes for a requiem to this war, many years from now.
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URL: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2004/12/10/EDGSVA8SGK1.DTL
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