On Monday we will celebrate Memorial Day, the one day of the year when President Bush actually has to acknowledge our otherwise officially-invisible war dead.
We memorialize the names and faces of our dead to remind us that every one of them was an individual just like us, who valued his or her life no less than we do, and whose death is a tragedy for those left behind no less than ours would be for our loved ones. Recognizing our shared humanity brings home to us the size of the tragedy in every single life lost, and - ideally - teaches us that in a real "culture of life" the decision to go to war is never taken lightly. As Israeli Knesset Member Yossi Sarid put it, on contemplating the deaths of Palestinians and Israelis alike in the current intifada:
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It is precisely because Memorial Day brings home to us the uniqueness and value of every life that one group of war dead will be conspicuous by their absence from all our commemorations: and that is the many thousands of Iraqis we have killed since March 2003. Because who really wants to be reminded that at least 20,000 and perhaps as many as 100,000 Iraqis - people just like us - are dead today because of a war we should never have started?
Their names will never be engraved on the Mall, and their faces will never warrant a spread in the Washington Post, but I will commemorate here 100 or so of those Iraqis who, thanks to us, made the "ultimate sacrifice" whether they wished it or not.
Booman Tribune
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