No end in sight for endless Iraq war

Eighteen years ago tonite my wife and I held a St. Joseph’s Day celebration for a few friends. The hot topic was the impending Iraq war which we knew was about to begin.

Sure enough, word came of the murderous barrage of ‘shock and awe’, bombs raining down on Baghdad in the early morning hours there of March 20, 2003. The first of hundreds of thousands to die began piling up. The first of millions forced to flee American carnage were on the move.

I knew this dastardly day was coming for 7 months. Buried deep in the paper that August, 2002 day, was a report of the massive U.S. buildup of military infrastructure and personnel on Iraq’s doorstep. Along with the drumbeat of endless war propaganda from the government and its compliant media, war was coming as surely as every illegal, immoral and criminal war thruout history.

That day spelled the end to my 35 year absence from the antiwar movement in 1967, after 4 years of opposing the Vietnam War in college. I’ve spent a part of every day since writing, speaking out, occasionally acting out to push back against this abomination of senseless violence.

Today, 6,575 days later we still defile Iraq, bomb innocents and squander trillions in a futile effort justify our original sin there. Every American of peace and goodwill should pause on this sad anniversary and resolve to push back against perpetual war in Iraq and other hapless victims of imagined American exceptionalism.