While the American media hangs out along the Gulf Coast, sporting new raingear and baseball caps, and reporting in their typical single-issue myopic style,
5 American soldiers were killed in Afghanistan and
3 American soldiers were killed in Iraq today.
I suppose, in a way, I should be grateful that the media isn't reporting on the war. I found out about the soldiers dying in Afghanistan from my son, who called from Kandahar a few hours ago. Had I heard it in the media first, I would have sufferred the now too familiar sense of anxiety, panic, and dread until I heard from my son and was assured he was safely back from his patrol.
How ironic it is that on a day when 8 American soldiers are killed, progressives are wringing their hands over the "framing" of the anti-war message and worrying about the political ramifications that anti-war protests might have on the Democrats in power.
Eight parents will be burying their children due to an unnecessary war being fought in Iraq and an ineffective war being fought in Afghanistan. Regardless of their political perspectives, each of these families will have their lives irreparably torn - the holes blown through their hearts will never heal Each soldier and family member will have a painful story to tell, but who will report, who will tell, who will listen, who will care?
Here is just one of the 2,000+ families that have lost loved ones to Bush's wars in the past four years:
Ask the sideline patriots why my brother had to die
By DANTE ZAPPALA
...the White House announced, with little fanfare, that the two-year search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq had finally ended, and it acknowledged that no such weapons existed there at the time of the U.S. invasion in 2003.
For many, this may be a story of only passing interest. But for me and my family, it resonates with profound depth.
My brother was Sgt. Sherwood Baker. He was a member of the Pennsylvania National Guard deployed a year ago with his unit out of Wilkes-Barre. He said goodbye to his wife and his 9-year-old son, boarded a bus and went to Fort Dix, N.J., to be hastily retrained.
His seven years of Guard training as a forward observer were practically worthless because he would not face combat. All he needed to do was learn how to not die.
He received a crash course in convoy security, including practice in running over cardboard cutouts of children. We bought him a GPS unit and walkie-talkies because he wasn't supplied with them. In Iraq, Sherwood was assigned to the Iraq Survey Group and joined the search for weapons of mass destruction.
David Kay, who led the group until January 2004, had already stated that they did not exist. Former U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix had expressed serious doubts about their presence during prewar inspections.
In fact, a cadre of former U.N. inspectors and U.S. generals had been saying for years that Iraq posed no threat to our country. On April 26, 2004, the Iraq Survey Group, at the behest of the stubborn administration sitting safely in office buildings in Washington, was still on its fruitless but dangerous search.
My brother stood atop his Humvee, securing the perimeter in front of a suspect building in Baghdad. But as soldiers entered the building, it exploded; the official cause is still not known. Sherwood was struck by debris in the back of his head and neck, and he was killed.
Since that day, my family and I have lived with the grief of losing a loved one. We have struggled to explain his death to his son. We have gazed at the shards of life scattered at our feet, in wonder of its fragility, in perpetual catharsis with God.
I have moved from frustration to disappointment to anger. And now I have arrived at a place not of understanding but of hope -- blind hope that this will change.
The Iraq Survey Group's final report, which was filed in October but revealed only recently, confirmed what we knew all along. And as my mother cried in the kitchen, the nation barely blinked.
I am left now with a single word seared into my consciousness: accountability. The chance to hold our administration's feet to that flame has passed. But what of our citizenry? We are the ones who truly failed. We shut down our ability to think critically, to listen, to converse and to act. We are to blame.
Even with every prewar assumption having been proved false, today more than 130,000 U.S. soldiers are trying to stay alive in a foreign desert with no clear mission at hand.
At home, the sidelines are overcrowded with patriots. These Americans cower from the fight they instigated in Iraq. In a time of war and record budget deficits, many are loath to even pay their taxes. In the end, however, it is not their family members who are at risk, and they do not sit up at night pleading with fate to spare them.
Change is vital. We must remind ourselves that the war with Iraq was not a mistake but rather a flagrant abuse of power by our leaders -- and a case of shameful negligence by the rest of us for letting it happen. The consequence is more than a quagmire. The consequence is the death of our national treasure -- our soldiers.
We are all accountable. We all share the responsibility of what has been destroyed in our name. Let us begin to right the wrongs we have done to our country by accepting that responsibility. Link
So, I would ask that each of you stop and take a minute to reflect on the impact that each and every one of these soldiers' deaths are having on their loved ones.
Ask yourselves, "How would I feel if my husband/wife/brother/sister/mother/father/child were killed?" Then, ask yourselves, "What am I going to do to stop this cycle of needless death caused by Bush's failed leadership and flawed policies?"
Our soldiers swore an oath to defend each of us, our nation, and our constitution. It's time that we all do our part to defend them by forcing politicians to change policies - or else - regardless of their party.
If you're not working to end the war in Iraq, you're part of the problem. Complacence, cowardice, and political expedience got us into war; it will take moral conviction, courage, and civil disobedience to end the war.