Shawn RiceEvents had been planned to recognize the one-year anniversary of the United States deploying troops into Iraq. The Bush administration has appeared on news programs to declare their message that the Iraq campaign and the anti-terror war are getting serious results, according to USA Today.
The intent of this weeklong campaign was to state the triumphs of the war in Iraq and to urge a quick resolution. While Bush and his staff made appearances on the networks, protestors took to the streets in an effort to rally against the war in Iraq.
Within the week of the anniversary, the Bush administration displayed one of its best success stories, the convincing of Libya to drop their nuclear, chemical and biological weapons program. Bush met with Dutch and Irish prime ministers, two strong allies for the war. The president also made a speech to military personnel and shared a lunch with the troops at Fort Campbell, KY. On the anniversary date, Bush spoke in the East Room of the White House about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, according to USA Today.
The weeklong campaign from a Democratic perspective appears to be an election driven effort by the Bush administration since the war on terrorism is one of Bush’s strong issues.
Hundreds of protestors took to the streets in San Francisco as one of the first antiwar protests of many to follow. Organizers hoped that holding a demonstration would bring attention to the negative effects that the war is having on both Americans and Iraqis. Protestors feel that the money being spent on the war could be more constructively spent on health care and education in America, according to the New York Times.
Violence continues in the east despite the efforts to end the war. March 18, the day before the anniversary, an explosion outside a hotel in the southern city of Basra began a series of attacks against hotels frequently in use by Westerners, according to the New York Times.
What can be Broken
The heart is the toughest part of the body.
Tenderness is in the hands.”
He is blindfolded when they break his finders
easily, bones brittle in this cold,
and he cradles that hand in the other,
huddled by the wall. Winds slip past soldiers,
moan in the counrtyards, and teh women
watch from behind second-floor slats,
rocking themselves silent.
Do not ask now have these hands
stroked her back, crooked fingers
between the blades, and have these hands
held – do not ask what they have held
in the first crossed light of morning,
wooden picking pole or basket, do not
ask about the string of beads, the pen.
The skin swells and blackens, the bones will ache
every winter but will hold, this you must know,
the rock or gun more firmly. Tenderness
is in the hands. It can be broken.
~Rachel Tzvia Back~
HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THE WAR IN IRAQ? VOICE YOUR OPINION.
GO TO The Loquitur
AND VOTE TO TELL US HOW YOU FEEL.
