Five Years Later, Loss of Friend in Iraq Still Haunts

This past Tuesday marked five years since my friend Eric Slebodnik was killed in Iraq. We were good friends from college, drawn together by a number of mutual friends, but especially James Iman. We used to all eat lunch or dinner together several times a week (among lots of other things), and we'd have vigorous discussions about a whole range of topics, from evolution to politics to where the best food on campus was and to whether the social sciences or the arts was the best way to understand what it means to be human.

Eric had more integrity and sense of purpose than almost anyone else I've ever known. Even when we disagreed, I knew that his views were shaped by a sense of principle and righteousness that still resonates with me.

We didn't stay in touch very well after I graduated in 2004 and went to find my way in the world. But the news of his death hit me like a ton of bricks. Eric wasn't the first friend I had lost, but the others were accidents. The maliciousness of Eric's was entirely different.

I've gone back and forth on the wisdom of this conflict. In winter 2002/2003 I was part of the protests opposing the U.S. invasion (but was turned off by the socialist worldview of most of the others), and organized an interdisciplinary forum at my university to help students understand the context of the situation. It couldn't have been timed better--it was scheduled to and did take place on March 20, 2003.

While studying abroad in the subsequent months, criticism directed at the U.S. from my European friends stirred up stoked my patriotism in support of the efforts. I defended it as a just war (according to St. Thomas Aquinas' criteria) in a political philosophy final even though my excellent professor John Sitton had a different view, and I even expressed this to French reporters at a 2004 election party. And after Eric was killed, I wanted desperately to believe that his sacrifice wasn't in vain and because I wanted to honor his support for the mission, which he once expressed in a letter to the NY Times editor. The impulse remains but I can't do it.

This conflict doesn't make sense. It never did. So what if they had weapons of mass destruction (which they didn't)? We deter every other country with the threat of raining Hell down on them. Why was Iraq any different?

How about promoting democracy and freedom (which the Bush administration pivoted to when no WMDs were found)? Sure, they're free of a brutal dictator, but at what cost to them in lives, injuries, displacement, the tattered social fabric, and so on? Is Iraq anywhere close to being a functioning democratic state? Have other regimes in the region improved the treatment of their citizens?

What about us? What bounty has been won by the lives lost, the soldiers wounded and maimed, the vast expenditures, and the civil liberties encroachments? Has our geopolitical position improved as the result of Operation Iraqi Freedom or are we weaker as a result?

The Iraq mission was a mistake of historic proportions. Our politicians wasted Eric's life and the lives of many others with their incompetence over foreign policy and national security.

I miss Eric. He should be teaching history or doing military intel and thinking about starting a family. It sickens me that his fate was otherwise. It always will.

R.I.P. Eric Slebodnik, August 3, 1984-September 28, 2005.