On May 1st there will be three anniversaries to mark. First, the International Worker’s Day (also known as May Day) originated in 1886 in Chicago and is a national holiday in more t
han 80 countries. The second marks the publication eight years ago of the Downing Street Memo in The London Times which provided the first solid evidence of Bush’s decision to invade Iraq regardless of any U.N. action. The last is the anniversary of President Bush’s arrival as the copilot in a Navy S-3B jet on the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln to announce we had won his war.
The selection of an aircraft carrier for Bush’s speech was brilliant. There was live TV coverage from the flight deck of the perfect tail-hook landing. The plane was labeled ‘Navy 1’ and ‘George W. Bush, Commander in Chief’ was printed under the cockpit window. At first hearing it seemed to be an important speech for the American people, indeed the world, for Bush announced, “In the battle of Iraq, the US and its allies have prevailed.” and “Major combat operations in Iraq have ended.” A massive banner proclaimed “Mission Accomplished.”
Until then, day 42 of the war, 138 American military personnel had been killed. One year later that number reached 734. Appearances gave way to reality as the killing continued. Baghdad, once called the Paris of the Middle East and the 5000 year old civilization it represented has been nearly obliterated.
As the situation in Iraq continued to degrade the “Mission Accomplished” banner became an embarrassment. The administration tried to blame the carrier crew for creating and raising the banner. But the banner and the live televised photo op were not the products of enthusiastic crew members. Professionals, a former ABC producer, a former Fox news producer and an NBC cameraman and lighting specialist had been on board for days creating the spectacle. Everything was accounted for: the lighting, the crew arranged in coordinated shirt colors, the now infamous “Mission Accomplished” banner positioned so it was captured by the camera focused on the president.
Bush’s strutting on the carrier deck was a theatrical promenade that served only to mark the start of his re-election campaign. There was nothing else of significance; everything since continues downhill. Within two weeks of the fall of Baghdad, April 14, the administration admitted there were no WMD, confirming years of negative reports from the U.N inspectors.
Afghanistan was lost in the spring of 2002, almost one year before the Iraq invasion, when key personnel and material were being transferred to the Iraq theatre in preparation for war. This void allowed Osama bin Laden to escape. The Taliban had not been defeated, only beaten back but allowed to regroup. Afghanistan had been effectively abandoned and we are now paying for those poor decisions.
Our new strategy, the “Surge,” was supposed to turn around our expensive, bloody and failing efforts. Realistically it was a cover for genocide and the ethnic cleansing of Sunni and Shia. Now there are 2.3 million Iraqis living in strange houses and neighborhoods. And about 2.2 million Iraqi refugees in Syria and Jordan.
Mayday, the international code word for distress, is appropriate for this anniversary. It will remind us of the perfidy of the Bush Administration and the needless deaths of more than 4,450 of our children and grandchildren, the crippling, maiming, blinding of over 32,000 others, the untimely deaths and wounding of over 100,000 Iraqis and the creation of thousands of orphans and widows.
T. F. Kelley
1500 Providence Hwy
Norwood 02062
