3000 Deaths, and Nothing (Everything) Changes on New Year's Day

The 3,000th death in the U.S. military's campaign in Iraq came on New Year's Eve. It is unlikely that the White House, Pentagon, or anyone else behind this abomination will do anything to get us out. Or, to borrow a rather rusty U2 reference: "Nothing changes on New Year's Day."

I am not really equipped to write about this kind of thing in any length at this point (I have my own troubles to attend to at the moment). I believe I am in accord with what Jimmy Higgins at Fire on the Mountain has already written on the significance of the grim milestone -- and later on stresses the particular opening that the conversation on "3,000" (U.S. military KIA) gives to us to discuss the much greater (but much less publicized) "600,000" (Iraqi deaths).

But to distill the essence of Jimmy's post, the task of the activist and anti-imperialist Left must make a New Year's resolution is this: to be realists and demand the impossible -- that everything change with 3,000 dead on New Year's Day, whether it is the anti-war movement's relative isolation or the relative obscurity that G.I. resistance is happening in.

Military Families Speak Out and Iraq Veterans Against the War have each issued statements on this grim occasion. It is worth mentioning that in addition to taking on the symbolism of the black armband or ribbon for civilians to bear witness to our opposition to this atrocious war (and the threat to widen it), this time also calls for anti-imperialists to unite with those sections of the military and military families that are sponsoring the Appeal for Redress that will hopefully break things open for the G.I. resistance in the month of January.

Social bookmark this with BlinkList // Blogmarks // Connotea // del.icio.us // Digg it // Furl // ma.gnolia // Netvouz // RawSugar // reddit // Shadows // Simpy // Spurl // Yahoo MyWeb