McCain, Obama, and the word 'wasted'

On Wednesday's edition of the Late Show with David Letterman, Arizona Republican and future presidential candidate John McCain stated, "Americans are very frustrated, and they have every right to be. We've wasted a lot of our most precious treasure, which is American lives." McCain's use of the word 'wasted' recalled a similar statement from Illinois Democrat and declared presidential candidate Barack Obama, who in a speech said, "We ended up launching a war that should have never been authorized, and should have never been waged, and on which we've now spent $400 billion, and have seen over 3,000 lives of the bravest young Americans wasted." The uproar surrounding both comments was immediate. "Senator McCain should apologize immediately for his callous comments," opined Karen Finney, a DNC spokeswoman. After taking "heat" from both Democratic and Republican elements, Obama recanted by stating, "Their sacrifices are never wasted." McCain quickly offered his own mea culpa.
"I should have used the word, sacrificed, as I have in the past. No one appreciates and honors more than I do the selfless patriotism of American servicemen and women in the Iraq War."
However strident and sincere these subsequent apologies may be, one must ask whether the choice of the word 'wasted' is used inappropriately in these contexts and thus requires an apology. The American Heritage dictionary defines 'to waste' as to "use, consume, spend, or expend thoughtlessly or carelessly," while Merriam Webster offers the similar "to spend or use carelessly." Certainly no one likes to think of a human life being wasted, but we use this expression all the time in our daily lives--the addict or the criminal has wasted his life, we observe, with little thought of an obligation to apologize for our statements. Of course, in order to use the word waste in these cases, there must be some idea of what 'thoughtlessly' or 'carelessly' implies. Can an individual who has thought through his actions, however objectionable or detrimental they may be, be said to have wasted his life? 'Carelessly' presents a similar problem, as it variously means 'indifferent, unconcerned, unvalued' and 'negligent.' If an individual is indifferent towards his own well-being, has he wasted his life? Answering yes to these questions would seem to indicate that the word 'waste' functions in the same way as other value judgment words; that is, the observer can be the one charged with making the determination of the quality, much like one can say that a certain natural phenomona is 'breathtaking' or that a particular poem is 'stilted,' (This is not meant to imply that only the observer can make these value judgments, simply that it is within the accepted use of the word to do so). It seems that when using the word 'wasted,' a crucial question is from whose vantage point the determination is made.
Of course, one might note that it is improper to equate the concept of a 'wasted life' with the value judgment placed on an object, as with a 'breathtaking sunset,' even though both 'wasted' and 'breathtaking' are serving the same grammatical function. The major difference, lies, it would appear, in the ascription of responsibility. Who or what, in these cases, is responsible for attaching a particular value/quality to an object? In the case of a 'breathtaking sunset', it may be argued that the responsibility for the word breathtaking lies both with the observer and the object. The sunset, through its intrinsic qualities, presents itself in a certain way to the observer, who because of his particular value system, adjudges it 'breathtaking.' In the same way, the 'stilted poem' is a function of both the creator of the poem and its reader. Translating this discussion to the use of the word 'wasted' presents a problem, though, because people are different from sunsets and poems (we will address the obvious difference between a natural object and a created or designed object in due time). Saying that a soldier's life has been wasted is different from saying that the soldier wasted his life. The first statement implies an agent or an actor to perform the wasting, while the second statement implies the individual himself brought about the condition. Looking at the second statement, we see we have the same problem of vantage point introduced earlier. Who makes the determination--has the responsibility-for attaching the adjective 'wasted' to the soldier's life? If the soldier has properly thought through his actions and is not indifferent to his life, then he would be remiss to ascribe the term 'waste' to his life. That means the responsibility for the term 'waste' lies solely with the observer, who is free to make whatever value judgment he sees fit and others are of course free to agree or disagree. Of course, were the soldier to agree that he wasted his life, then the discussion would be moot since it would appear that his own perspective would be the most applicable one from which to make such a judgement.
The first statement, which is more relevant to the situations referred to by Senators McCain and Obama, presents an even greater difficulty for now there are at least three perspectives to consider: the agent who deployed the soldier, the soldier, and the observer (obviously the agent is an observer as well. The distinction is both for convenience and for the purposes of the discussion). Taking the agent's perspective first, it is debatable whether President Bush deployed the troops 'thoughtlessly' or 'carelessly.' Clearly some thought and some care went into the decision to go to war and the plan for executing it. Whether the amount of thought and care was adequate to the task is somewhat irrelevant to the discussion; surely President Bush believed the degree of forethought put into the plan was sufficient, so from his perspective he would not use the term 'wasted' in concert with the soldiers' lives. The soldier's position on the use of the word wasted is somewhat different from the discussion above because in this situation, the soldier is acting according the dictates of the agent's plan. His judgement of whether his life has been wasted would have to be made based on his judgement of the soundness and value of the plan he is being charged to execute. Certainly some soldiers have expressed their opposition to the war in Iraq, either overtly or covertly, and perhaps some of them would agree that their lives were wasted in Iraq. And it is also certain that a fair amount of soldiers do agree with the president's mission in Iraq; presumably these soldiers would not use the term wasted to describe their sacrifice. That leaves us once again with the judgment of the observer. But the crucial difference now is that the judgment here is not whether the soldiers' lives were wastes (as in something internal to the soldiers' lives is partly responsible for the use of the term), but whether their lives were wasted--meaning the actions of the agent cause the application of the adjective.
From this vantage point, it is clear that we are no longer discussing the soldiers as individuals with lives and dreams and goals. Instead, we are looking at the soldiers as the means to a particular policy end. This brings to mind Kant's famous injunction to see people only as ends and never as means. It may be argued that in the discussion of 'waste' above, the examples of the sunset and the drunk and the criminal all treat the objects of the adjective 'waste' as ends. The only considerations in deciding to use the term were the qualities inherent to the object and the perspective of the observer. But in the context of the Iraq War, the soldiers are most certainly a means. Returning to an earlier example, it would be mistaken to say that the 'stilted poem' was described as such due to the inherent qualities of the poem since the poem would have no inherent qualities without the agency of its author. It would, however, be apt to state that the poem was 'stilted' due to the decisions of its creator. Thus, the poem is not an end in this case, but the means by which the author expresses himself. Saying the poem is 'stilted' is actually saying the 'author created this particular poem in a fashion that I would describe as stilted.' Similarly, saying the soldiers' lives were wasted is not saying the 'soldiers wasted their lives,' but is instead saying something to the effect of 'President Bush is wasting the soldiers lives by using them as the means in a hopeless situation.' Viewed from this vantage point, it can be seen that the negative connotations of the word 'waste' apply to the ends that President Bush is pursuing, not the means--the soldiers--by which he is trying to achieve them. And it can also be seen that McCain's and Obama's use of the term 'waste' was merely a value judgement to which everyone is entitled. Thus, no apologies were necessary or even appropriate.