FINISHING THE JOB

The Rev. Dana Prom Smith, S.T.D., Ph.D. (3/22/08)

The current mantra concerning the end of the Iraqi War is “finishing the job,” but no one ever defines the meaning of “finishing the job.” A phrase from the construction trades, it means the completion of a job, as in building a house, concluding a project, finishing a highway, or closing up a surgery. It assumes a blueprint of some sort, even a drawing on a paper napkin, like people know where they’re going or know when they’ve arrived. As a phrase, it isn’t useful in rearing a child; however, a blueprint and a planned end-game are necessary if the phrase “finishing the job” has any meaning at all.

During World War I, George M. Cohan’s lyric said it best, “’till it’s over Over there.” Everyone knew what that meant, “Surrender of the Germans.” In Word War II, the official phrase was “Unconditional Surrender” which actually didn’t happen because there was a negotiated surrender with the Japanese. In the Korean War we were fighting the spread of communism as though we were fighting a plague, and we have found to our sorrow that we are still standing guard in Korea. In Vietnam, we were again stopping the spread of communism while we were looking for light at the end of the tunnel. We never found the light and left in disgrace. Now, we are stopping the spread of Islamic Extremism, a curious phrase for Republicans in light of Barry Goldwater’s famous phrase, “extremism is no vice.”

In World Wars I & II, we had a clear goal, surrender. In Korea, Vietnam, and Iraq we didn’t have clear goals, other than stopping an amorphous mass such as Islamic Extremism or Communism. We went in with no thought of getting out. We don’t even have a stalemate in view as in Korea. All we have is a meaningless phrase, “getting the job done” without a blueprint or end-game.

The fact is that we have a lot of damned fools running the country who are defending the indefensible and calling it patriotism.