Being the Change I Wish to See

Veterans’ Day was honored on three continents this year: Asia, Europe, and North America.

President Barack Obama celebrated Veterans’ Day today with American troops and their families in Seoul, South Korea. Four military services are stationed in South Korea: the Army, Air Force, Navy, and Marines; a total of about 28,500 troops.

2010 Veterans' Day Celebration, South Korea

After speaking, the President laid a wreath at the Korean War Memorial in Seoul.

Traditionally, the President lays a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns in Arlington National Cemetery. Since the President is in South East Asia this week, Vice-President Joe Biden performed the President’s traditional duties at Arlington.

The right wing-nut press (News Corp) spun the story of the Vice-President performing the traditional ceremony by saying the President was ignoring Veterans’ Day while in Indonesia. The President flew to South Korea earlier this week for the G20 Summit, shortening his trip to Indonesia because of volcano ash moving toward his flight path. Shame on them for forgetting our troops in places other than Iraq and Afghanistan, and for disrespecting the President.

First Lady Michelle Obama spent Veterans’ Day with American troops and their families at Ramstein Air Force Base in Germany, and helped serve them dinner.

Photo credits:
The Guardian
The White House
MSNBC.com

The following map shows wounded troops by state sustained in Iraq. These are just injuries. There were 4416 American deaths in Iraq over the 7.5 year war. Data is from iCasualties.org.

The human toll of the Iraq war is unacceptable. There were thousands of American and coalition forces injured or killed, and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis injured or killed. To me, it should be known as the legalized mass murder of hundreds of thousands of people. I’m not even going to start in on CIA black sites, Guantanamo, and torture.

My biggest frustration is that no one will likely be held accountable for it. President Obama has had no stomach for going after war criminals. If he lets them off Scott-free, what does that say about committing war crimes as Americans? Nothing good or defensible, and history will not look kindly on this. It’s no way to earn the hearts and minds of the Middle East and Islamic world, the best way to protect our national security.

Iraq was a war of choice, a preventive war. Preventive war is also known as imperialism. For all our imperialistic actions, we spent a trillion dollars and lost many lives. In history, imperialists usually gain something for themselves by invading another country, not that it’s right or something we should have been doing. We’ve lost much and gained nothing.

Because of Iraq, we put Afghanistan on the back burner. The Afghanistan war was won and could have been over by 2003 at the latest. It’s 2010 and we’re escalating the fight. We’re about to hit year 10 in this war. So far, 1269 U.S. soldiers have been killed. Five U.S. soldiers died in combat today (Aug. 31, 2010, included in the total).

There is a map for Afghanistan, and I’ll post it separately when I discuss that war later.

Technorati Tags: Iraq war, Operation Enduring Freedom, Operation Iraqi Freedom, Operation New Dawn, U.S. casualties Afghanistan, U.S. casualties Iraq

\\ tags: Iraq war, Operation Enduring Freedom, Operation Iraqi Freedom, Operation New Dawn, U.S. casualties Afghanistan, U.S. casualties Iraq