Five years ago today the war in Iraq began. Babies born five years ago have been weaned from bottle and breast, inoculated, potty trained and this year were sent off to Kindergarten. Teenagers just starting high school five years ago, today are close to finishing their first year of college. And in that time, in Iraq, there have been the deaths of countless numbers of Iraqi civilians and 3,990 American troops. Five years ago, we first heard the terms "Shock and Awe" and "Pre-emptive Strike", and now five years later I still stand in shock that this war goes on and am still in awesome wonderment as to what was being pre-empted.
Five years ago today the war in Iraq began. Babies born five years ago have been weaned from bottle and breast, inoculated, potty trained and this year were sent off to Kindergarten. Teenagers just starting high school five years ago, today are close to finishing their first year of college. And in that time, in Iraq, there have been the deaths of countless numbers of Iraqi civilians and 3,990 American troops. Five years ago, we first heard the terms "Shock and Awe" and "Pre-emptive Strike", and now five years later I still stand in shock that this war goes on and am still in awesome wonderment as to what was being pre-empted. How we were to know then that there were so many life's that were to be "pre-empted"?
I was against the war in Iraq early. As the now clichéd saying goes "I was anti-Bush before it was fashionable". I remember in late 2002, the news reports that first linked the words "Iraq" and "September 11" together and saying "Huh?". As Hans Blix and the UN weapons inspectors came back from Iraq and reported that there were no "weapons of mass destruction" and the Bushies kept saying "That's not true, go find some", I was in amazement and bewilderment that anyone could believe the administration's claims.
I demonstrated with half a million others on February 15, 2003 here in New York City. In the bitter cold, we jammed over twenty blocks of Second Avenue as the NYPD kept us away from the UN. We had to fight for peace that day.
On March 18, 2003, I attended a candle-light vigil with my sister and our children and sadly we cried for a war that had not yet begun. For the deaths that were forthcoming.
And five years ago, we stood with thousands of our fellow New Yorker's in Times Square in pouring rain on the day after the war began, chanting "No Blood for Oil". The crowd, a wonderful cross section of the diversity that this city is, my favorite memory of that night was a man in a three piece suit and raincoat holding his umbrella, pumping his briefcase up and down as we all yelled out "Impeach Bush".
Also, at the time, I was a long time "regular" of a chat room community. Not just due to realizing that the American public was being conned with the Bush administration's claims, but also because of what we experienced here in New York on September 11 (and not wanting to see any other people hurt the way we were..and still are), I zealously emailed, instant messaged and posted on message boards all the reasons that a war on Iraq was wrong. For this, I received mails from people I had never even heard of calling me "unpatriotic". "un-American". Being told that I should be shot and sent back to where I came from (ummm Brooklyn?). And from those people I had heard of, my fellow chatters, many of whom I had met off-line, more of the same. So, long time friendships were ended, long standing acquaintances were terminated and needless to say, I stopped "chatting". In the five years since, only one person was ever human enough to write me and admit that he was wrong and I was right. Seemingly, a viewing of Fahrenheit 911 turned him around.
For a long while, I tried to forgive people their delusions and stupidity, but now five years later, after the disgrace of this war, after the disgust of Katrina, I have found that though for the most part I can forgive, I cannot forget.