For Whom They Toll
October 26, 2005 by Kathy Kelly
Today, in cities and towns throughout the U.S. and beyond, activists will gather to grieve and protest the carnage wrought by the unlawful and immoral war in Iraq. Thousands will gather to commemorate the 2,000 lives of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq and call upon U.S. people to stop funding the war. Others will focus chiefly upon the well over 100,000 Iraqi lives lost, and, in a campaign launched some months ago, will ring bells 100,000 times –1,000 chimes each in 100 different locations - as names of Iraqi civilians killed since the start of Shock and Awe are read aloud.
October 25th marked the 2,000th American service-member death in the Iraq war: October 29th will mark one year since The British Lancet, perhaps the world’s foremost medical journal, estimated from careful research that tens of thousands of Iraqi people had died due to this same horrific war. The demonstrations will overlap, but for once we can claim that separate demonstrations, held, simultaneously, can actually raise awareness and hopefully affect change. These protests are after all the same: One life, two thousand lives, one hundred thousand lives, or many, many more - are all too much to pay for the imperial ambitions of the few.
All over the world, people can see that the U.S. went to war against Iraq because the ruling elites in this country knew Iraq couldn't fight back. Enough madness. We are mired in a war that could last ten years or more, one that is already intensifying other, perhaps even more dangerous conflicts. Now, whatever security we might establish, as U.S. people or as people of the world, rests in seeking fair trade relations and raising vigorous opposition to the warmongers who run this country. Any other behavior would be madness.
Which is to say: if you see people gathered in your neighborhood this week, in anger or grief or guilt, with their bells or their candles, perhaps it’s best not to ask if it’s an observance for 2,000 Americans or for the well-over 100,000 Iraqi tragedies our government has not yet even seen fit to count. A life is a life, and the full tragedies of this cruel war are yet to be told. Advice I read in sixth grade remains true today: “send not to know for whom the bell tolls.”
It tolls for thee.
http://iraqmortality.org/for-whom-they-toll
The true extent of US casualties in Iraq are still unknown. This has fuelled suspicion that the administration may be hiding the true human cost of the war and its aftermath. Channel Four News has been allowed a rare opportunity to meet some of America's wounded soldiers.
President Bush may have declared major combat operations in Iraq over ten months ago, but fresh planeloads of wounded soldiers continue to fly into Andrews Air Force base every week, unseen by most Americans.
http://www.thememoryhole.org/war/coffin_photos/dover/page348.htm
http://www.channel4.com/news/2004/02/week_2/10_iraq2.htmlhttp://www.thememoryhole.org/war/coffin_photos/dover/page288.htm
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