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Ten years ago this month the United States invaded Iraq. How much do we forget, or simply choose not to remember, in a decade gone by? As a member of the Vietnam generation, I’ve been perplexed by the collective national amnesia that so often grips the American cultural mindset.
In February and March of 2003 in the weeks leading up to the invasion of Iraq by American troops, I was carrying a hand-made plywood sign up and down the main artery that goes through Taos. Spray-painted in red and blue letters, it read simply, “NO WAR.”
There were some who drove by and honked their horn in support of my efforts to question our governmental policy of a pre-emptive strike against a foreign nation. There were also those who turned their steering wheels as if they were about to either run me off the road or see how far I would jump from their implied threat. Some yelled at me and said, “go home.” I replied, “I am home.” And of course there were those who simply drove by, cursed and then flipped me off.
The political elite of 10 years ago decided that, even though Iraq had nothing to do with the attack on the twin towers, we would launch an invasion of the country, and three months later President Bush would announce form the deck of the aircraft carrier, USS Abraham Lincoln, “Mission Accomplished.”
FYI: 15 of the 19 hijackers that flew our planes into the towers that sad day in September were from Saudi Arabia, not Iraq. And there were no weapons of mass destruction as we were told.
Unfortunately, we too often succumb to a state of fear rather than reason when waving the flag and espousing patriotic propaganda mixed with hyperbole and nationalistic arrogance.
The sad reality is that 4,488 American service men and women were killed in action as a result of our war initiative. Untold thousands of Iraqi men, women and children died as well. Returning veterans continue to struggle with PTSD and other horrific injuries from the war.
Their service and sacrifice was often exemplary considering what was asked of them. On the financial side of this strategic blunder, billions of American taxpayer dollars were poured down a black hole of American hubris.
Yet today politicians continue to clamor on and on about our debt, all the while forgetting what created that deficit – waging two unnecessary wars for 10 years or more without raising the necessary revenue to pay for them.
I traveled to Washington, D.C., in March of 2007 to join with others from across the country in a demonstration against the war. As we walked toward the Pentagon and crossed the bridge near Arlington National Cemetery, I gazed at the thousands of white gravestones that line the beautiful hills of Arlington and reflected on the pain to families, service above and beyond the call of duty, and the ultimate sacrifice represented by each rounded stone.
When we gather on Memorial Day, July 4th, and Nov. 11, we need to remember the true cost of war and how and why we got there in the first place. And yes, there is that other war that continues in Afghanistan, now the longest war in our nation’s history.
Whether we’re schoolteachers, clergy, soldiers, citizens or taxpayers, we need to ask the hard and often unpopular questions that no one else may be asking before we send others to wage war.
Our Constitution and our collective conscience demand no less of us.
