The Rev. Neil O’Farrell wonders why public officials find it impossible to say “I’m sorry” or “I was wrong.”
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Among the most important tasks of parents is to teach their children to tell the truth, especially when it’s difficult. That may mean even admitting to a lie afterwards, recognizing you have caused enormous, sometimes irrevocable hurt. In that situation, truth-telling and a deep, sincere apology are crucial. The truthful apology is vital, in the literal since of the word: giving life.
A good man takes responsibility. The apology must be proportionate to the offense, and it should include not only admitting specifically the wrong he caused, but how he hopes his apology might provide the beginning of healing. A good man will take the initiative to say “I’m sorry” when it is clear that he has caused grievous harm.
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“They believe the Iraqi war was unerringly necessary and worth the cost.”
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Recently we have been treated to countless interviews of the architects of the Iraqi war attesting to their perfect decision-making. This outpouring occurs as Iraq has probably passed the threshold of tribal civil war, already seeping over porous borders of adjacent nations, such as Syria and Lebanon. The violence has poured buckets of new blood into the sands of the desert. The news that several soldiers died by crucifixion because they weren’t fired-up enough crossed my digital threshold yesterday. How bestial.
Reporters have repeatedly interviewed people like Dick Cheney, Bob Kristol, and others—asking if they had only known back then what we know now, whether they would have advocated instead for peace. All have said they made the right decision to go to war, as they have been saying for over a decade. They believe the Iraqi war was unerringly necessary and worth the cost.
Vice-President Dick Cheney has been the worst. No surprise here. In word and print, he asserts he would have done it all over again without question. I have run out of words to describe the moral bankruptcy of Cheney. He seems not to mind a whit that his words have been absolutely proved false.
5,000 American troops dead, as well as at least 100,000 Iraqis.
3 trillion dollars wasted.
The longest war in U.S. history.
Countless refugees.
Iraq is an angrily divided nation existing inside a deep circle of hell. The “government” America put in place is making everything worse. Our troops tried their blessed hardest, but we lost the war even though. All of that, and still high public officials continue to assert without equivocation:
“I would have done it all over again, no matter what.”
How, in the name of anything holy, can one attest that? They stretch and dissemble morality and ethics out of anything recognizable. Lies corrupt public discourse. History will brand them almost demonically. Many believe they should be tried as war criminals. Their pariah status is universal except in their self-reverential minds.
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Teaching children to tell the truth (no matter how much it hurts) is not easy.” |
None of us has the right to be so shallow that we never look back to ponder whether we were right, particularly on such big things. Whether you’re comfortable with “sin language” or not, truth still should have precedence in our oral discourse. A lie cannot be made to appear like a truth just because you keep saying it over and over.
The media is complicit in this sick charade. Why would any responsible reporter ask to interview one of these morally-challenged stone-faces again, so that they might peddle their self-serving self-shriving? If we haven’t yet reached the boundary of socio-pathology, we’re very close. These are the worst public lies that most of us will ever be horrified to listen to. Their lies attempt to mask their profound culpability in the greatest human tragedy so far of our present millennium.
Teaching children to tell the truth (no matter how much it hurts) is not easy. It is not a lesson learned after only one admonition. Oftentimes we don’t learn until we realize how much harm our lies can cause, or the tables are turned on us. To euphemize by saying someone is merely mistaken, or has a differing valid point of view, rather than is lying, does none of us any good. “Mushroom cloud” wasn’t true a decade ago. It was always a lie, then and now. People knew it way back when. That truth was ignored.
I’m waiting to hear the first reporter to ask, “Tell us what part of what you said has any truth in it.” Putting a microphone in front of these trolls of the truth—well, we’re well beyond that. So are those whose loved ones lost their lives. We now are now sorely vexed by a humanitarian crisis that seems as intractable as it was predictable.
Dick Cheney and his neo-con cronies could admit the obvious and say, “Yes, we were wrong, and we never should have done it.” That would confer precious little healing in a mess that can never be mopped up, but it would be a start. It would show courage and offer a supreme teachable moment.
What we have now is not merely the tragedy in the Middle East. We have, instead, a generation of young persons who think that telling the truth isn’t crucial to serving in high public office. Truth in politics may be rare in any season. It is galling to be confronted today by what we knew were lies a decade ago.
What if those like Dick Cheney had a change of heart, said he was wrong, and apologized profusely?
His admission would put match to tinder box, unleashing copious anger for the carnage this terrible war has caused. Yet, it would be cathartic. As we go forward into the future, we know that the corrosion these lies have caused is likely irreparable. None of the thousands of dead will be brought back to life. Those trillions of dollars have been lost forever.
What have our children learned? How can we as parents un-do the damage? If the Dick Cheneys can’t tell the truth, then the rest of us must.
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–Photo: peebot/Flickr