The reflections come anyway

Someone sent me a list of victims of 9/11 in an email, so I sent a message back with a link to WaPo's Faces of the Fallen. Then I began to try to find the names of Iraqis and Afghans. I began to look for victims of bombings in London, Bali, Madrid, Istanbul, Delhi, and Amman. There was no list for dead Pakistanis, Afghans, or so many others. I found names of British soldiers, of journalists , of Iraqi policemen, of international contractors and security guards and translators and doctors. The names, so many names, so many still unidentified or memorialized. Soldiers and Seamen - not only US and British, but Italian, Polish, Canadian, Japanese, Aussie, Kiwi, Korean...the list is endless, senseless, so many people defenseless, so many cold, so many left alone, widowed, orphaned, on the street, nothing to eat, limbless, useless.

My heart breaks and I silently mourn the world we've lost. Look at the nationalities above. Americans who wave their flags and sing their patriotic songs are selfish, arrogant, oblivious if they think that our loss is more important than the others. This is a world war like none we've seen, a global Vietnam. But - did WWII ever really end? Tell me when we as a nation have known peace? One conflict flows into another, countries crumble like dominoes, more death, more destruction, leaders murdered by other leaders in the name of ideology, theology, psychology, mythology. They call it something other than war - conflict, struggle, whatever, but it is war, yes, it is war that becomes more violent and more brutal, with every new invention, new weapons, new metals, new germs and chemicals. Hot metal slices up human bodies in ways it never has before, slicing limbs neatly, slicing heads and hearts and humanity. And cheerleaders like Sandy the troll applaud that, applaud death and destruction and the utter disrespect for human life. Yeah, Sandy, those people bomb and maim, but must we stoop to their level? Must we lose our own sense of humanity, as citizens of a country that proclaims to be founded on the rights of people? You can't defeat an ideology, Sandy. You can't slaughter the thoughts of a man. You can slice up body after body, watch as rivers flow red with the crime of spilled blood, but there will be others, many of whom take up the thoughts of those they've watched perish at the hands of a military man. How can you not understand this, Sandy? It's so simple.

We are sitting at 2,984 "War on Terror" deaths today, more than who died in the attacks. Add the number of civilians who have been killed during the "War on Terror" and we are talking nearly 20K dead since 9/11/01. God bless the world. Yesterday, classified information was leaked saying we've lost Anbar, the Sunni part of Iraq, and there isn't much hope for the Shia part, either. Afghanistan has become a warzone again. Pakistan, a country with nukes, is losing control of some of its provinces to Al-Qaeda, and Musharraf isn't too far from a coup. If we ever needed true patriots to stand up and fight for their country, it is now.

I try to avoid the endless remembrances that cheapen the tragic day. It's a morbid obsession part of this country seems to be intoxicated by. Blame is slung across the country from both sides for political gain - it's sickening, and it's how national unity was squandered. I feel like this day has been made into a cheerleading day, where people stand on the sidelines, wave their little flags, and root for the country like war is just a sporting event. I wish people would instead take this day to reflect on what is happening to our world and acknowledge we are in a war and shouldn't go about our daily lives pretending everything is normal. I am happy that people choose to spend the day with their families and hope they will talk about how lucky they are to have been born in this country and how fortunate they are to have enough food on their tables and gas in their cars and a roof over their heads when so many on this Earth, including many who fight against us, do not.

I do not believe we need yet another day to honor the dead - that is what Memorial Day is for - but we should think about these things more often, not just on remembrance days, and instead of gloating in arrogance about how America is better than the rest of the world, we should just thank God or fate or destiny or coincidence that we were born here. Remember the victims, yes, but remember all of the victims from across the globe. We are not better because we are Americans, no, but we are a hell of a lot luckier than so many people on this Earth.