The question of consequences for the makers of bad or
questionable decisions who sent our soldiers into harms way for political gain
should be allowed avoid any lasting consequences is not a new one. Rudyard
Kipling, wrote Mesopotamia in 1917 after a military disaster in Iraq – the last
but one verse is particularly powerful and as relevant today as it was in 1917.
Mesopotamia (1917) – Rudyard Kipling
They shall not return to us, the
resolute, the young,
The eager and
whole-hearted whom we gave:
But the men who left them thriftily to
die in their own dung,
Shall they come with years
and honour to the grave?
They shall not return to us, the strong
men coldly slain
In sight of help denied
from day to day:
But the men who edged their agonies and
chid them in their pain,
Are they too strong and
wise to put away?
Our dead shall not return to us while
Day and Night divide—
Never while the bars of
sunset hold.
But the idle-minded overlings who
quibbled while they died,
Shall they thrust for high
employments as of old?
Shall we only threaten and be angry for
an hour?
When the storm is ended
shall we find
How softly but how swiftly they have
sidled back to power
By the favour and
contrivance of their kind?
Even while they soothe us, while they
promise large amends,
Even while they make a
show of fear,
Do they call upon their debtors, and take
counsel with their friends,
To conform and
re-establish each career?
Their lives cannot repay us—their death
could not undo—
The shame that they have
laid upon our race.
But the slothfulness that wasted and the
arrogance that slew,
Shall we leave it unabated
in its place?
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