Taps Echo~ Sounding Taps
Here we are in 2009, mourning the loss of six years wasted in Iraq.
There was nothing to be won, no weapons of mass destruction to be found.
(Other than in the arsenals of the U.S Government.)
Every line that could be crossed ~ was.
Going against the United Nations.
Using pounding military air strikes in a preemptive occupation of a Sovereign Nation.
Gold Star family member Cindy Sheehan said it best, when she questioned former president Bush ~ "What is the noble cause?"
Gold Star family member Cindy Sheehan said it best, when she questioned former president Bush ~ "What is the noble cause?"
Bush never answered that question. Things had deteriorated to new lows of crimes against humanity. Torture, Rendition, abuse at Abu Ghraib.
Not only did the notion of installing Democracy at gunpoint fail, 7 years later, over Six hundred billion dollars spent, the invasion has simply spiraled out of control.
We were not greeted as liberators, this was not a slam dunk.
President Obama has inherited the Iraq & Afghanistan wars, and it is up to us to let him know we do not want more of the same. We the People have to stop allowing it.
When they look for budgets to cut, they need to see the elephant in the room- what this country spends on the Military. You have my full support to cut off all war spending, entirely.
Please take some quiet time to mourn the loss and suffering of all involved.
Also please think of ways you can become involved in being an activist for Peace.
Since the U.S. invasion of Iraq began on March 20, 2003
• 4,259 U.S. troops killed
• 31,089 U.S. troops injured (Iraq)
• 177 U.S. military suicides
• 1,123 U.S. contractors killed
• 151,00 Iraqi Civilian deaths
• 225 Journalists & media assistants killed
• $606 Billion ~ Cost of war
• May 1, 2003, MISSION ACCOMPLISHED was declared.
3 comments:
I did see where the contracts are stopping. At least that is one step in the right direction. I still have hope that we can get this all stopped soon. We just have to keep pushing.
This is a beautiful, but somber piece you have here. Very well done and very telling. I appreciate it.
It can't stop soon enough for me- or probably for those who have family members required to do multiple tours of duty, or having to continue to be in Iraq years after their contract with the military had expired (Stop Loss).
What saddens me too, is we don't get to really know the story from the Iraqi perspective. Embedded press are censored, and Independent press have treid to get the real story at great risk. More journalists have died in this war than any other.
The American Friends Service Committee (Quaker Organization) have a display called *EYES WIDE OPEN* it is a simple display of pairs of military boots, each representing 1 soldier who lost their life, with the name, age & state of the soldier.
They also added in the periphery, civilian shoes, to represent the number of people in Iraq who were killed.
The display became so large it was difficult to manage- to find enough space to display it.
The Iraqi civilian shoes were listed as 1 pair of shoes represents 10 people killed.
They began to have displays that just represented each state as well.
It was at one of these exhibits a single item really got to me. Amongst the representative civilian shoes, was a single infant sock.
The whole display was very overwhelming to begin with, but the thought that innocent babies had been killed too, just put me over the edge.
This incredible wave of sorrow hit me.
We see numbers on pages, and statistics, but they do not get to the core of the human suffering and loss- the pain of the loss.
So when I hear it will take years to get out of Iraq, and even then, talk of leaving 30,000 to 50,000 troops there, and the escalation in Afghanistan, and the new bombing in Pakistan.... it seems to me a pattern of endless war, I cannot accept, and I don't want my country perpetrating, not in my name.
fran
this is one of the biggest, if not the biggest tragedy in american history - and now it is a forgotten war - the lives, the money, the losses for what? the ego of two of the shittiest people to ever walk the earth
and we are paying a big price now and bigger one later
thanks for this
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