Take a look at this page from the New York Times. For those of you who can remember, it may feel like Vietnam all over again. And it probably should.
When I was just five, my uncle Gizmo had returned from the Vietnam war and lived in the basement of our house. Gizmo and I would eat breakfast together in the mornings before I went to school. I'd drink tea with milk and have some toast and we would read the Washington Post together. We would always read the Roster of the Dead. Gizmo would check to see if there was a friend among those listed. Somedays there would be. And he would get angry and upset and in my five year old way I would try to understand what war meant, what the killing was about, why American soldiers were dying in a place called Vietnam.
Thirty-five years later, there's a new war. A war that by all accounts seems to have been waged on false pretenses. A war that does not seem winnable. To date, over 1,000 American soldiers have died. Not to mention 131 from the "Coalition" and over 13,000 Iraqi civilians whom our military considers collateral damage, but quite frankly, I consider murdered citizens.
Does anyone else find it ironic that as our President led us into this war, in his build-up of hysteria over weapons of mass destruction and the need to LIBERATE the Iraqi people from Saddam's evil rule, he kept using that word, LIBERATE? We would go on a mission to LIBERATE the Iraqi people and bring democracy to their nation. However, as soon as it was truly time to send in the troops, suddenly the effort was dubbed, Operation Iraqi Freedom. Not, Operation Iraqi Liberation. I suppose the PR team figured that acronym might just be a bit too obvious for the American people and they might just figure out the real reason we were so intent on dismantling Saddam's dictatorship.
Just as in Vietnam where we would never win because we entered into a war that wasn't ours to truly fight, Iraq has become more about military occupation to protect our oil interests than about preserving the rights and freedoms of the Iraqi people. Saddam is gone. There are no weapons of mass destruction. What exactly are we fighting for?
Meanwhile, the death toll on all sides continues to mount and with it the grief of two nations. The pundits say we'll be involved in Iraq for the next 10 to 20 years. And our President seems to believe that this war is good for the American and Iraqi people.
Tonight, while standing at a candlelight vigil to honor all those who have already died, I wondered just how much longer the American public would support this war. How many more soldiers will have to die? 100 more? 1,000 more? 10,000 more? before we collectively say, "Enough!"
1 more death is too many as far as I'm concerned. Enough is enough. Let's bring those troops home.
Army 1st Lt. Kenneth Michael Ballard Died May 30, 2004
