(Freedom Walk) Walking the Wrong Way - NYT/ed. [View All]

[Catchawave]

August 21, 2005
Walking the Wrong Way
The Bush administration has announced plans for a Freedom Walk on Sept. 11, which will start at the Pentagon and end at the National Mall, and include a country music concert. The event is an ill-considered attempt to link the Iraq war to the terrorist attacks of 2001, and misguided in almost every conceivable way. It also badly misreads the public's mood. The American people are becoming increasingly skeptical about the war. They want answers to hard questions, not pageantry.

It is perfectly appropriate for the Defense Department to organize a memorial for Americans who died on Sept. 11, since many were Pentagon employees. It is also fine to pay tribute to the sacrifices being made by the troops in Iraq. What is disturbing is the Bush administration's insistence on combining the two in a politically loaded day of marching and entertainment.

Having failed to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, the administration has been eager to repackage the war as a response to Sept. 11. The Freedom Walk appears to be devised to impress this false connection on the popular imagination.

The walk will end with a concert by the country musician Clint Black. Mr. Black is a gifted entertainer, but his song about the Iraq war, "I Raq and Roll" - which contains such lyrics as "our troops take out the garbage, for the good old U.S.A." - sends a jingoistic message that is particularly out of place at a memorial service.

The Freedom Walk is being organized at a time when popular opinion has been turning against the war. In recent days, Cindy Sheehan, the mother of a soldier killed in Iraq, has attracted enormous attention with her protest outside President Bush's Crawford, Tex., ranch. The increasing war toll and the sad stories of multiple losses in some communities are reinforcing the message that the invasion of Iraq has not been pain-free for all of the country. The mother of a fallen marine, Lance Cpl. Edward Schroeder II - one of 16 Ohio-based marines killed in a recent three-day period - said last week that the president should either "fight this war right or get out."

More: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/21/opinion/21sun1.html?th=&emc=th&pagewanted=print