It was raining Wednesday evening when 60 or 70 people gathered in City Hall Park with candles to mark the death of the 2,000th American soldier to die in Iraq. The wind was blowing; candles kept going out, we kept turning to our neighbors to rekindle the flames, trying hard not to think of the experience as a metaphor.
It was raining in March of 2003, when we gathered with candles on the eve of the Iraq invasion, fearing the worst. The reality of the war has been, in many ways, worse than our worst fears. Most of us didn’t fear the conflict would lead to the release of nuclear, chemical or biological weapons – the UN inspectors satisfied reasonable people that Iraq did not possess the capacity for such weapons. Our worst fears have been outstripped by reports of indiscriminate arrest and torture, the leveling of cities, the fracture of Iraq into near-civil war, the lies we are told and told again.
It was raining in September 2004, when we gathered with candles to mark the death of the 1,000th American. It was 539 days from the beginning of the war to that death. It was 414 days from death 1,000 to death 2,000, an economy of 125 days. The death machine becomes more efficient the longer it runs.
Pentagon spokesperson Lt. Col. Steve Boylan sent a commemorative e-mail to the media on the occasion of the 2,000th death. He wrote: “It is an artificial mark on the wall set by individuals or groups with specific agendas and ulterior motives.”
Specific agendas? Ulterior motives? Who, in time of war, does not have a specific agenda? The Sunnis, Shi’ites and Kurds all have agendas. Halliburton and Bechtel have agendas. The Bush administration burned through several agendas – WMDs, links to al Quaeda, bringing democracy to the Middle East – before the 1,000th soldier fell. Now we’re just “staying the course” and “finishing the job.”
The “job” of forging a democracy in the hot furnace of Iraq looks as daunting as bringing peaceful co-habitation between the Israelis and Palestinians. That job, six decades on, is unfinished. Will the grandchildren of today’s high-school freshmen be still “finishing the job” in Iraq? How many rainy, candlelit nights will have passed by then?
What could be the ulterior motive of individuals or groups standing in the rain with candles? Honoring the fallen? Trying to stop a stupid, illegal war? Lt. Col. Boylan’s job cannot be easy, fronting for his chickenhawk commander-in-chief; his paranoia leaks out around the edges, betraying his fear.
If Lt. Col. Boylan really believes his press releases, that things in Iraq are “better than reported,” “turning the corner” and “moving toward democracy,” he might not be so worried about the agendas and motives of Americans standing in the rain.
The local section of the Burlington newspaper carried a few photos of the vigil this morning. The headline writers there and across the country look for one more way to say: Indictments in Plame Case Expected Soon. That case, superficially about political revenge, is really about the war, about 2,000 soldiers and tens of thousands of Iraqis who have died without reason.
In the last week, a storm surge of rumors from Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald’s investigation is lapping against Vice President Dick Cheney’s desk, threatening to overtop it. Perhaps Mr. Cheney was the original leaker, perhaps Mr. Fitzgerald will expand his inquiry to investigate the forged reports that Niger had sold uranium “yellowcake” to Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. The Valerie Plame case, ultimately, is not about venal acts of revenge by the Bush administration against Joseph Wilson, it’s about the war and deliberate acts of deception that led to it, what Lt. Col. Boylan might call “specific agendas and ulterior motives.” If there were justice, Mr. Fitzgerald would not contemplating a few charges of conspiracy and perjury, he’d be preparing to charge the top echelon of the Bush administration with treason against the United States of America.
Candle in the Wind
It was raining Wednesday evening when 60 or 70 people gathered in City Hall Park with candles to mark the death of the 2,000th American soldier to die in Iraq. The wind was blowing; candles kept going out, we kept turning to our neighbors to rekindle the flames, trying hard not to think of the experience as a metaphor.
It was raining in March of 2003, when we gathered with candles on the eve of the Iraq invasion, fearing the worst. The reality of the war has been, in many ways, worse than our worst fears. Most of us didn’t fear the conflict would lead to the release of nuclear, chemical or biological weapons – the UN inspectors satisfied reasonable people that Iraq did not possess the capacity for such weapons. Our worst fears have been outstripped by reports of indiscriminate arrest and torture, the leveling of cities, the fracture of Iraq into near-civil war, the lies we are told and told again.
It was raining in September 2004, when we gathered with candles to mark the death of the 1,000th American. It was 539 days from the beginning of the war to that death. It was 414 days from death 1,000 to death 2,000, an economy of 125 days. The death machine becomes more efficient the longer it runs.
Pentagon spokesperson Lt. Col. Steve Boylan sent a commemorative e-mail to the media on the occasion of the 2,000th death. He wrote: “It is an artificial mark on the wall set by individuals or groups with specific agendas and ulterior motives.”
Specific agendas? Ulterior motives? Who, in time of war, does not have a specific agenda? The Sunnis, Shi’ites and Kurds all have agendas. Halliburton and Bechtel have agendas. The Bush administration burned through several agendas – WMDs, links to al Quaeda, bringing democracy to the Middle East – before the 1,000th soldier fell. Now we’re just “staying the course” and “finishing the job.”
The “job” of forging a democracy in the hot furnace of Iraq looks as daunting as bringing peaceful co-habitation between the Israelis and Palestinians. That job, six decades on, is unfinished. Will the grandchildren of today’s high-school freshmen be still “finishing the job” in Iraq? How many rainy, candlelit nights will have passed by then?
What could be the ulterior motive of individuals or groups standing in the rain with candles? Honoring the fallen? Trying to stop a stupid, illegal war? Lt. Col. Boylan’s job cannot be easy, fronting for his chickenhawk commander-in-chief; his paranoia leaks out around the edges, betraying his fear.
If Lt. Col. Boylan really believes his press releases, that things in Iraq are “better than reported,” “turning the corner” and “moving toward democracy,” he might not be so worried about the agendas and motives of Americans standing in the rain.
The local section of the Burlington newspaper carried a few photos of the vigil this morning. The headline writers there and across the country look for one more way to say: Indictments in Plame Case Expected Soon. That case, superficially about political revenge, is really about the war, about 2,000 soldiers and tens of thousands of Iraqis who have died without reason.
In the last week, a storm surge of rumors from Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald’s investigation is lapping against Vice President Dick Cheney’s desk, threatening to overtop it. Perhaps Mr. Cheney was the original leaker, perhaps Mr. Fitzgerald will expand his inquiry to investigate the forged reports that Niger had sold uranium “yellowcake” to Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. The Valerie Plame case, ultimately, is not about venal acts of revenge by the Bush administration against Joseph Wilson, it’s about the war and deliberate acts of deception that led to it, what Lt. Col. Boylan might call “specific agendas and ulterior motives.” If there were justice, Mr. Fitzgerald would not contemplating a few charges of conspiracy and perjury, he’d be preparing to charge the top echelon of the Bush administration with treason against the United States of America.
© Mark Floegel, 2005