Over this Easter weekend, the 4,000th U.S. soldier was killed in Iraq. Monday at work I was listening to NPR as usual, and two different times I heard the journalists say the death toll reached a new high. I couldn’t believe the absurd misuse of language to say the death toll reached a new high. Well obviously every time someone dies, the death toll reaches a new high. It’s not like a death toll ever goes down. After a couple hours of contemplating this strange phrasing, I realized that the true absurdity of the story lies in the facts not the incorrect language used to convey them.
Bush’s March 24 remarks to the State Department (read or watch)included the phrase “every life is precious” and his assertion that one day there will be an “outcome that will merit the sacrifice.” If every life is indeed precious, why did he ever persuade us to use military force without international backing, without a strategy, and without a legitimate justification? And this “outcome that will merit the sacrifice”…has the outcome—the goal—ever been clear? Stop terrorists, hmm no connection between Saddam and bin Laden. Weapons of mass destruction, nope never found any. Establishing democracy, who decided that was our role in the world? He’s just hoping that whatever is going on when we leave is an okay thing, and he can give his little shit-eating grin and tell us it was worth it.
The other thing that continually strikes me and came up again from hearing this speech, was the general American acceptance of how things are going over there. Sure, an opinion poll shows that 70 percent of the population disapproves of the invasion or the war or how the surge is going, whatever. And I’ll admit I’m guilty of this too, but how are we showing our disapproval? Telling ABC, USA Today, CNN, or Facebook that we don’t like the war doesn’t change anything.