Repeat..........
The Five Hundred
By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Perspective
Thursday 8 January 2004
I am the enemy you killed, my friend.
I knew you in this dark: for so you frowned
Yesterday through me as you jabbed and killed.
I parried; but my hands were loath and cold.
Let us sleep now.
-Wilfred Owen, "Strange Meeting"
It will be upon us soon. Sometime, likely before January is out, the
500th American soldier to die in Iraq will fall. He will be killed by a
roadside bomb, or a mortar, or a rifle shot from afar, or a pistol to the
back of the head in a crowd, or a rocket-propelled grenade into his
convoy, or into his helicopter which will plunge, blazing, from the sky.
He will fall in Baghdad, or Tikrit, or Mosul, or some unnamed town in
between.
The 500th soldier will come to know what Luke Frist, age 20, knows
now. He will know what Justin C. Pollard, age 21, knows now. Michael
Mihalakis, who was 18, Stuart Moore, who was 21, Nathan Nakis, who
was 19, Kenneth Souslin, who was 21, Rian Ferguson, who was 22,
Jeffrey Braun, who was 19, Joseph Blickenstaff, who was 23, Jason
Wright, who was 19, Ray Hutchinson, who was 20, Arron Clark, who
was 20, Ryan Young, who was 21, Aaron Sissel, who was 22, Rel
Ravago, who was 21, Robert Roberts, who was 21, Joseph Lister, who
was 22, Scott Tyrrell, who was 21, Sheldon Hawk Eagle, who was 21,
Richard Hafer, who was 21, Paul Bueche, who was 19, Damian
Heidelberg, who was 21, Eugene Uhl, who was 21, Joey Whitener,
who was 19, Irving Medina, who was 22, Daniel Parker, who was 18,
Robert Wise, who was 21, Robert Benson, who was 20, Frances
Vega, who was 20, Benjamin Freeman, who was 19, Steven Acosta,
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who was 19, and Charles Sims, who was 18, all know what this 500th
soldier will come soon to find out for himself, in blood and anguish and
a gathering darkness.
It is better to be alive than dead, better to be young than gone,
better at least to die for one's country in a cause that is just than to be
spent, oath and uniform and all, as a chess piece in someone's cynical
power play.
Must that 500th soldier be a man? Ask Rachel Bosveld, who was
19, Kimberly Hampton, who was 27, Sharon Swartworth, who was 43,
Karina Lau, who was 20, Analaura Gutierrez, who was 21, Alyssa
Peterson, who was 27, Melissa Valles, who was 26 or Lori Ann
Piestewa, who was 23, what place gender has on the fields of the
dead. They would answer, if they could, but their voices were lost in
the grinding of the guns in Iraq.
The number of wounded American soldiers shipped home fails to
find a consistent count. Some say 2,000, others say 9,000, and still
others say 11,000 and rising. Another generation of shredded
American veterans has been born, honored when the country needs
heroes to inspire the next generation into enlisting, but forgotten the
rest of the time, left to pinch pennies and rub the stumps where their
healthy young legs used to send them running and leaping and
dancing through a life they surrendered in a blinding flash of pain and
light.
The number now stands at 487 Americans killed, according to
figures provided by the Department of Defense. The Army Times, a
reading staple for the enlisted ranks, had different numbers before the
New Year. Jimmy Breslin, columnist from Newsday, wrote on
December 30 that the Army Times said, "There were 506 killed by the
time the newspaper closed last Friday. Since then, another seven have
died. The newspaper has said this is the deadliest year for the U.S.
military since 1972, when 640 were killed in Vietnam." That makes 513
Americans killed before the ball dropped in Times Square. Add the six
who have died since then, and the number becomes 519. Even on this
most important tabulation, the numbers are fuzzy.
There is no accurate accounting of the civilians who have died, but
a cross-section of the math places their count in the tens of thousands.
They died in their homes, shocked and awed before the fire took them.
They died in the streets, fleeing the storm. They died in their beds from
wounds, or disease, or despair.
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How did it come to this?
It came to this because Dick Cheney said, "Simply stated, there is
no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass
destruction," on August 26, 2002.
It came to this because Ari Fleischer said, "We know for a fact that
there are weapons there," on January 9, 2003.
It came to this because Colin Powell said, "We know that Saddam
Hussein is determined to keep his weapons of mass destruction, is
determined to make more," on February 5, 2003.
It came to this because Donald Rumsfeld said, "We know where
they are," about these weapons. "They are in the area around Tikrit
and Baghdad," on March 30, 2003.
It came to this because George W. Bush said, "We have sources
that tell us that Saddam Hussein recently authorized Iraqi field
commanders to use chemical weapons," on February 8, 2003.
It came to this because George W. Bush said, "Intelligence
gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq
regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal
weapons ever devised," on March 17, 2003.
It came to this despite the fact that Colin Powell said, "Hussein has
not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of
mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against
his neighbors," on February 24, 2001.
The Washington Post on January 7th ran a lead story titled "Iraq's
Arsenal Was Only On Paper." The sub-headline reads, "Since Gulf
War, Nonconventional Weapons Never Got Past the Planning Stage."
This is yet another brick in the wall between what we were promised
by the Bush administration, what we were told under the fearful and
deliberately-cast shadow of September 11 was in Iraq and worthy of
war, and what is actually there. The Post story reads, in part, as
follows:
"In public statements and unauthorized interviews,
investigators said they have discovered no work on
former germ-warfare agents such as anthrax bacteria,
and no work on a new designer pathogen -- combining
pox virus and snake venom -- that led U.S. scientists on
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a highly classified hunt for several months. The
investigators assess that Iraq did not, as charged in
London and Washington, resume production of its most
lethal nerve agent, VX, or learn to make it last longer in
storage. And they have found the former nuclear
weapons program, described as a 'grave and gathering
danger' by President Bush and a 'mortal threat' by Vice
President Cheney, in much the same shattered state left
by U.N. inspectors in the 1990s."
"A review of available evidence, including some not
known to coalition investigators and some they have not
made public, portrays a nonconventional arms
establishment that was far less capable than U.S.
analysts judged before the war. Leading figures in Iraqi
science and industry, supported by observations on the
ground, described factories and institutes that were
thoroughly beaten down by 12 years of conflict, arms
embargo and strangling economic sanctions. The
remnants of Iraq's biological, chemical and missile
infrastructures were riven by internal strife, bled by
schemes for personal gain and handicapped by deceit
up and down lines of command. The broad picture
emerging from the investigation to date suggests that,
whatever its desire, Iraq did not possess the wherewithal
to build a forbidden armory on anything like the scale it
had before the 1991 Persian Gulf War. David Kay, who
directs the weapons hunt on behalf of the Bush
administration, reported no discoveries last year of
finished weapons, bulk agents or ready-to-start
production lines. Members of his Iraq Survey Group, in
unauthorized interviews, said the group holds out little
prospect now of such a find."
George W. Bush and his administration promised us that Iraq
possessed 26,000 liters of anthrax, 38,000 liters of botulinum toxin,
500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX gas, 30,000 munitions to deliver
these agents, uranium from Africa for the development of a nuclear
weapons program, and al Qaeda connections. This last bit was the
key, for we were told that Saddam Hussein could hand these weapons
to al Qaeda, and al Qaeda could bring them to the United States. "It
would take one vial, one canister, one crate slipped into this country,"
said Mr. Bush, "to bring a day of horror like none we have ever
known."
None of it was there. The Washington Post story carried a
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photograph of a crudely-drawn sketch of a rocket, like a child's
musings of science fiction. That was the sum and substance of the
weapons program.
In the aftermath, the rhetoric for why all of this death has been
visited upon us has changed. We went to free the Iraqi people, and to
bring democracy to the Middle East. When Saddam Hussein was
hauled out of his hiding place several weeks ago, it was heralded as a
great victory. Yet the truth of the matter undermines the bloviating glee
from the Bush administration and a mainstream media that caters to
their story line. Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction,
no conventional military capabilities, no connections to al Qaeda, and
no connections to September 11. Was he worth all this?
The democracy promised by the Bush administration is equally
vacuous. The majority of Iraq's population are Shia Muslims, who are
seeking to establish a fundamentalist Shia government like the one
currently controlling Iran. Democracy means majority rules, and if
democracy is brought, that Iraqi majority will elect that fundamentalist
government and throw democracy out the back door. We knew this
going in, and knew as well that a Shia-controlled Iraq would align itself
with the Shia-controlled Iran on top of all that oil. So democracy, in
truth, was never on the table.
American forces will never leave Iraq. It was never about freedom,
or democracy. It was about the occupation of an oil-rich nation in a
world where petroleum stores are dwindling. Perhaps it was about
revenge for September 11, but if so, it was revenge taken on a virtually
defenseless civilian population that had no hand in these attacks. It
was also about profit. Nearly $200 billion has been spent to date on
this invasion and occupation. Most of that money has gone to massive
corporations like Dick Cheney's Halliburton, to George Herbert Walker
Bush's Carlyle Group, to weapons manufacturers, to other petroleum
companies. Once upon a time, that money belonged to you. Now, it
belongs to them.
So it goes for that 500th soldier, who may be the 550th soldier for
all we know. Not so long ago he, or she, raised a hand and swore an
oath to defend the United States of America, and pledged his, or her,
life to that cause. Implicit in that oath was a promise from the country
honored to receive that oath. That promise? Your life will not be spent
to no good end, soldier. Your life will not be wasted. The promise was
broken.
Lt. General Harold G. Moore, in his shattering memoir of the battle
of Ia Drang, Vietnam, in 1965, said this: "It was no movie. When it was
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over the dead did not get up and dust themselves off and walk away.
The wounded did not wash away the red and go on with life, unhurt.
Those who were, miraculously, unscratched were by no means
untouched. This is also the story of the suffering of families whose
lives were forever shattered by the death of a father, a son, a husband,
a brother in that Valley. This is our story and theirs. For we were
soldiers once, and young."
Wilfred Owen, the poet who wrote "Strange Meeting," knows what
that 500th soldier will come to know all too soon. Owen was a soldier
in World War I, and was cut down by a machine gun on November 4,
1918, just seven days before the Armistice that ended the butchery.
The church bells were ringing to celebrate the war's end in his home
town when his parents answered the door to find the telegram which
told them of their loss. Owen was 25 years old.
Before he died, he wrote a truth.
"If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,--
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori."
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William Rivers Pitt is the Managing Editor of truthout.org. He is a New
York Times and international best-selling author of three books - "War
On Iraq," available from Context Books, "The Greatest Sedition is
Silence," available from Pluto Press, and "Our Flag, Too: The Paradox
of Patriotism," available in August from Context Books
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