The real Memorial Day

Yesterday was Memorial Day, a day to remember the men and women who died in our nation's military service.

Casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan are now to the point where each of us is really only separated by one or two people before we can identify someone who has died there. I just learned today that the son of Lizbet's boyfriend has died in Afghanistan. She writes movingly in her blog of a father and son who left nothing unsaid. So, Joe, today I remember you. Today I remember all of you doing the nation's hard business in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. Do everything you can to stay alive; do what you need to do. Come home safe.

That sentiment doesn't mean I am letting Joe's civilian taskmasters off the hook. Support for the troops doesn't necessarily mean support for the mission or support for how the mission is led. Not when mistakes are measured in grief.

I supported the US intervention in Afghanistan. We had international support. We had evidence of state sponsored terrorism. But this administration toppled the Taliban, then all but abandoned our efforts there which very possibly let Al Qaeda regroup. Bush robbed Peter to pay Paul by siphoning off $700 million in post-9/11 emergency funds to prepare for war on Iraq. Bush, Cheney, Powell, Rice, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz weakened our international standing, and ultimately sacrificed their integrity to a haze of questionable evidence and outright lies... all to invade Iraq.

I opposed the Iraq war before it was a war and I oppose it now. As I said in an earlier essay, it is not that I am anti-war, I am anti-folly. The troops serve the nation and for that I am grateful. I remember and honor them. But for me, the real Memorial Day was not yesterday. The real Memorial Day will be on November 7, 2004. That is when I will remember Joe as I cast my vote for John Kerry.