Ben Cooper: Honor Confederate soldiers not generals, politicians

Monuments erected in the South pay homage to the Confederate politicians and generals who championed the Civil War – men who knew the South could never win that war.

These men were alleged to be brilliant military leaders, and almost revered as gods, but a competent general would have known that to wage a war, a steady supply of weapons was needed. These not-so-competent men were aware the South had an abundance of cotton and many acres of tobacco but few factories to keep a supply of weapons to the army.

Men who lead other men to slaughter are not men to be praised. Ninety percent of soldiers killed in that war were poor, uneducated farm boys. Boys barely able to put food on the table and too poor to own slaves, but they died for the rich so they could keep their opulent lifestyles.

It’s so very much like our war in Iraq, where the poor and middle class in America went to a war based on lies.

Take down the flag, raze the monuments, but leave the Confederate soldiers alone. They are the ones we should honor. They paid the price for that folly, the Civil War.

This story was originally published July 11, 2015 at 2:00 PM with the headline "Ben Cooper: Honor Confederate soldiers not generals, politicians."