There was a travelling Vietnam War memorial in town last weekend, and so I had already been thinking about what an Iraq memorial might look like when this cartoon came out. In this particular case, I think Tom's got it wrong-- his cartoon implies that either Iraq is another Vietnam, or that it is a continuation of that war. I don't know the entire history of the Vietnam War, but from what I can remember, the only similarities the two conflicts share are 1) we had no business being there in the first place, and 2) each will be perceived as a "lost" war.
However, even if the wars are not that similar, I think we have to somehow acknowledge that for a segment of the population the Iraq War will always be seen through the prism of Vietnam. In fact, for baby boomers the two may ultimately serve as bookends. If the Vietnam War was the defining event of their youth, then the Iraq War is the defining event of their elder years, or at least their time holding the reins of power (and y'all have done a stellar job so far).
I don't know what the geography of the Mall in Washington, D.C. looks like, but I think if I could design the Iraq memorial, it would have to be located with the Vietnam memorial somewhere in sight. It wouldn't be shaped like the Vietnam Memorial, because unlike that conflict we didn't slowly ease into the Iraq war. If it has names on it, they should be partially obscured behind some kind of frosted or smokey glass, to represent all the effort that has gone into hiding the cost of the war. Unlike other monuments, I think it should also be possible to move or alter the elements of the memorial, to highlight the constantly shifting rationale. Finally, the memorial should also have at its heart an Iraqi family, prisoner, or refugee to remind us that it's not only Americans who have paid for the conflict, but ultimately the Iraqis themselves.
Or we could just build something phallic and shiny.
Posted by Jason at October 11, 2006 07:31 PM