Give Me Another War

Come, give me another war To keep the terror at bay;
We'll keep them all out of our country By attacking them far away.
We'll kill their sons and their daughters And call it all necessary
(To bludgeon the neighbor who threatens Is good, right, and salutary).

Come, give me another war Like the one we waged in Iraq,
When first we went in for their weapons, In a righteous preemptive attack;
But when they weren't there we still clamored That they were Al Qaeda's friend,
Till soon the more accurate picture Brought that desperate story to end.

But there still had to be a good reason To send off our sons to die,
And so the cruel works of the tyrant Were postured to public eye;
But still all the many he murdered Is yet not as many as we
Have slain in our wars and embargoes To lay down democracy.

And then the Iraqi people Showed what their voting would do,
How Muslims aren't Western-enlightened; how jihad is nothing new.
Their democratic elections Have spurned all our children's blood;
Our democratic crusaders Have died for the enemies' good.

Come, give me another battle, A war that dispels every threat;
Come, marshal with borrowed money! Come, fight to increase our debt!
And don't you dare try to accuse us Of squandering our goodwill,
Or say that bad things will happen Because we meddle and kill.

Don't say this world's superpower Is shackled by codes of yore;
There can be no apologizing For what we have done before;
There can be no acknowledgment given For anything wrong that we've done;
There can only be the conviction That we ran our race and we won.

And the traumatized families and soldiers Are the price that we all must pay
To keep us a freer country While we peddle our rights away;
And if we would be patriotic We would certainly give more pow'r
To the very same people who fooled us Into letting them tax us more.

Come, give me another war, That keeps this old world in check,
That wards off from untold millions Inevitable ruin and wreck.
Come, be with me realistic, And see our worst enemies there
Where we have done nothing to hurt them; Where we have instilled no fear.

And if you don't give me this war, Then how can this world survive?
For only coercion and bloodshed Keep the free and the brave alive.
And don't you go talking naively Of defense that won't intervene;
For then we would truly be guilty Of wars that should never have been.