A Fitting Memorial

Although it is probably premature, I have an idea for the memorial to the dead of the Iraq invasion and occupation, what some in the US call a war. In presenting this idea I am proposing a return to the simplicity of the Viet Nam Veterans Memorial, a black slash in the earth that symbolized the wounds that the war had caused in our country. My idea is a bit less abstract however.

Picture this: A statue of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, standing in their traditional hands clasped and raised pose from the 2000 Convention. Carved into and all over the bodies of the two are the names of those killed in the invasion and occupation of Iraq.

The goal of the memorial is twofold. The first, obviously, is to make note of those who were killed. The second, however, is to make clear that each and every one of those deaths is the result of the actions and decisions of these two men.

Some might think it crass to use the deaths of these men and women to make a political point. To which I can only ask, why is it any more crass to make political use of these deaths than to have had them caused in the first place by politics; cynical political adventurism not seen in this country since the President Polk provoked the Mexican War in 1846?

Debate may rage about whether or not Bush and Cheney consciously or intentionally lied, but there is and can be no debate concerning the purely political nature of the incursion, its mishandling and the general incompetence in its execution, and the disastrous effects that it has had upon US policy in the Middle East and elsewhere, most important, the effort - the military intervention at least reasonably justified by the events of 9/11/01 – to quell Al Qaeda in Afghanistan.

On a basic level all war is political, and each war is built upon the politics of the wars preceding it. But this war is the first in more than a century that has been predicated upon nothing but politics. This war arose from the neoconservative vision of a Pax Americana, of a hegemony of the "American way of Life" based upon the insertion of American style republicanism into a region with no precedent – historical or cultural – for such a political mechanism. Every person killed in Iraq has died in service to that political vision – regardless of the reasons that those people themselves may have agreed go there.

A memorial such as I describe would serve as a message to every politician as they contemplate making political wars in the future: you will not be able to hide from the damage that you will cause, the names of the dead will be engraved on your legacy.

An advantage of the structure of the memorial is that, should McCain be elected in November, and realize his vision of a new hundred year war, his likeness, with the deaths attributable to him engraved upon him, can be added.