Now Begins Month 61 Since 'Mission Accomplished'

by Meteor Blades

Thu May 01, 2008 at 10:06:59 PM PDT

Fifty-two American military personnel deployed to the Iraq occupation went to premature graves in April. Male, female, black, white, Latino. The oldest was Colonel Stephen K. Scott, 54. The youngest was Lance Cpl. Jordan C. Haerter, 19.

Those 52 came from Ardmore, Oklahoma. From St. Paul, Minnesota. From Mesquite and Hull and Fresno and Buchanan Dam and College Station and El Paso and Magnolia and San Antonio and Hempstead and Cedar Park, Texas. From San Juan, Puerto Rico. From Littleton and Colorado Springs, Colorado. From Springfield and Perryville, Missouri. From Dover, Delaware. From Bakersfield and Culver City and Fort Irwin and Hanford and Lake Tahoe and San Diego, California. From Oakmont, Pennsylvania. From Boise, Idaho. From Zephyrhills and Clearwater and Jacksonville and Miami Lakes and Coral Springs, Florida. From Sauk Village, Illinois. From New Market, Alabama. From Cudahy and Waukesha and Racine, Wisconsin. From Lafayette, Louisiana. From Mount Airy and Apex and Teachey, North Carolina. From Commerce, Georgia. From Gaylord, Michigan. From Morris Plains, New Jersey. From Sag Harbor, New York. From Burkeville and Dublin and Norfolk, Virginia. For each of these departed, a candle.

If the past is any guide, for each of the Americans who died in April because of the war and occupation, between 50 and 350 Iraqis died. We can't be any more exact than that because every attempted count is called into question. The constraints of the software template for this site won't allow me to post enough candles to mark the passing of those Iraqis even using the lowest probable tally.

Whatever the number, it is horrendous. All the more so because the deaths of the Americans, of the Iraqis, of the other members of the coalition, have all resulted from a war of choice, an unnecessary war, a war of the new imperialism. A war founded and continued to this day on exaggerations, distortions, fabrications, concoctions and lies. A war which a smirking, strutting, absurdity of a president told us 60 months ago was Mission Accomplished.

Progressives should never declare our mission accomplished until justice is delivered to those who lied us into this war. Justice for the 52 Americans who died last month, for the 4065 who have died since March 2003, for the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who have also died. Without justice, they truly will have died in vain.