Memorial Day

Five years ago on May 1st, 2003 President Bush made a historic speech on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln and declared that the majority of combat operations in Iraq were over.

"In the Battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed."

96% of casualties among coalition forces, Iraqi combatants, and civilians, have occured after this declaration was made.

Behind him was a large banner with the words: Mission Accomplished


We are now in the fifth year of a war that has turned out to be longer than WWII--Longer than any American involvement in a war except for Vietnam. This war is also the longest war fought by volunteer reserves since the Revolutionary War. It has also proven to be an extremely costly war...

"The Iraq war has already cost twice as much, in inflation-adjusted dollars, as World War I..."

(Before the war) "President Bush’s economic adviser, suggested that it might reach $200 billion all told, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld dismissed the estimate as “baloney.”
Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz went as far as to suggest that Iraq’s postwar reconstruction would pay for itself through increased oil revenues.
Rumsfeld... estimated the total cost of the war in the range of $50 to $60 billion, some of which they believed would be financed by other countries."

"For fiscal year 2008 the administration has asked for nearly $200 billion to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan"

And that's just 2008.

"As the total passed US$450 billion, the cost for the Iraq war reached approximately $1500 per person in the United States.^[9] If the Iraq war were to wind up costing 1.9 trillion dollars, the cost would be over 4.2 times higher ($6,300 per United States citizen.) This would put the expense at $25,000 for an average family of four, or $32,000 per family if Afghanistan is included.

As a comparison, with this money he estimates^[9] that one could have:

built 8 million houses

paid 15 million teachers

paid for the child care of 530 million kids

paid for the scholarship of 43 million students

offered Social Security during 50 year to Americans.

Stiglitz also said that United States help for Africa (an entire continent) is only $5 billion (per year), soon to be superseded by China.

$5 billion corresponds to the spending of only 10 days in Iraq by the United States."

That is to say nothing of the absolutely staggering and inestimable cost of human lives on both sides of the war.

4,000 American troops killed.

30,000 American soldiers wounded.

73,000 civilian bystanders killed.

Upwards of 600,000 Iraqi deaths due to lack of healthcare, starvation, displacement, etc.

Depending on the survey you look at, total deaths resulting from the war range from 150,000 to 1,300,000.

1 in 5 troops returning home will suffer from serious emotional/mental trauma.

That is at least 36,000 former soldiers who will suffer from post-traumatic stress syndrome, depression, alcoholism, become abusive to family members, or commit suicide.

Why?

Is this all because Iraq posed a threat to our national security?

Nope. Weapons of mass destruction were never found. It was concluded that Iraq had ceased it's illegal weapons program in 1991.

Was it because Iraq was responsible for the 9/11 attacks?

No again. Saddam Hussein held no ties to Al Qaeda.

Excerpted from a press conference August 21, 2006:

Pres. Bush: "Now, look, I -- part of the reason we went into Iraq: was -- the main reason we went into Iraq: at the time was we thought he had weapons of mass destruction. It turns out he didn't.

...Saddam Hussein was there, stirring up even more trouble in a part of a world that had so much resentment and so much hatred that people came and killed 3,000 of our citizens.

...The terrorists attacked us and killed 3,000 of our citizens before we started the freedom agenda in the Middle East. They were --"

Reporter: "What did Iraq have to do with that?"

BUSH: "What did Iraq have to do with what?"

Reporter: "The attack on the World Trade Center."

BUSH: "Nothing, except for it's part of -- and nobody's ever suggested in this administration that Saddam Hussein ordered the attack.

Nobody's ever suggested that the attacks of September the 11th were ordered by Iraq."

. . .

Even if Iraq had been responsible for 9/11, the math just doesn't add up.
Terrorists kill 3,000 citizens--so we decide to send 4,000 more of our troops to die and end up killing more than 70,000 innocent Iraqi civilians? All in the name of bringing down a country that in the end had nothing to do with the attacks? That does not make sense to me.

Are we in Iraq "fighting for our freedom"? Are we afraid that a disabled and destroyed country who cannot even provide basic healthcare, and in many cases shelter or sustenance for it's people should want to rise up and come halfway around the world in an attempt to conquer us?
Is it really necessary for us to spend an incomprehensible sum of blood and treasure to occupy Iraq for another 100 years as John McCain has suggested?

I think not.

This memorial day, we should honor and remember the brave men and women who have fought and died for our country and our freedoms.

We should honor them by promising them and ourselves that the country they fought for was not a country that was fought for in vain.

We can honor and remember them by putting an end to this war that has caused so much unecessary horror and bloodshed.

We can honor them by promising them that we will do our very best not to send more of their brothers to die on our behalves in an unjust war.

This is, after all, a life and death situation.

This is not theoretical.

Hundreds of thousands have already died.

It's time to put a stop to this madness.

Or:

We can choose to forget the mistakes of our past and the sacrifices of our forebearers and send more of our own (and others) into the carnage.

The choice is yours.