An old song about the war in the Gulf

I’ve just finished reading 100 Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez;s brilliant book about time and history set in a village and a family in Colombia. The central thesis of the book is that time is a circle.

Today I watch the war in the Gulf with the history of a person who was 25 when the US attacked Iraq in 1993. At that time Moxy Fruvous wrote a song, and it spoke to me then, and, as time is a circle, here it is again.

Gulf War Song

We got a call to write a song about the war in the Gulf, 
But we shouldn’t hurt anyone’s feelings. 
So we tried, and gave up, cuz there was no such song, 
But the trying was very revealing:

What makes a person so poisonous righteous, 
That they’d think less of anyone, who just disagrees? 
She’s just a pacifist, he’s just a patriot. 
If I said you were crazy, would you have to fight me?

Fighters for liberty, 
Fighters for power, 
Fighters for longer turns in the shower.

Don’t tell me I can’t fight ’cause I’ll punch out your lights 
And history seems to agree 
That I would fight you for me.

So we read, and we watched 
All the specially selected news, 
And we learned so much more about the good guys.

“Won’t you stand by the flag?” 
Was the question unasked, 
“Won’t you join in and fight with the allies?”

What could we say? We’re only 25 years old, 
With 25 sweet summers, and hot fires in the cold. 
This kind of life makes that violence unthinkable. 
We’d like to play hockey, have kids and grow old.

Fighters for Texaco, 
Fighters for power, 
Fighters for longer turns in the shower.

Don’t tell me I can’t fight ’cause I’ll punch out your lights, 
And history seems to agree 
That I would fight you for me, 
That us would fight them for we.

He’s just a peacenik, 
And she’s just a war-hawk. 
That’s where the beach was, 
That’s where the sea.

What could we say? We’re only 25 years old, 
And history seems to agree that I would fight you for me, 
That us would fight them for we. 
Is that how it always will be?