The ceremonies commemorating the 3000 souls lost on 9/11/2001 were deeply moving. Especially the images I saw of folk in Pakistan and India grieving and honoring the American civilians who died five years ago.

I still feel sad knowing so many died and that so many still grieve their loss, and afraid when I acknowledge we live in a world where such actions are planned and exectuted by people I don’t know that want to see me, an american, dead.

But even more, I feel great pain thinking about the 30000(probably more like 50000-100000) Iraqi civilians that have died since the US government decided to “liberate” Iraq. Where are the ceremonies, the garlands, the speeches for those innocents, who didn’t ask us to liberate them, who just wanted a decent life like the 3000 lost five years ago? Great pain because making such an event of 9/11 without acknowleging the 30000+ deaths that the US is directly or indirectly responsible or at least accountable for, in response to 9/11, leads me to the conclusion that so many of us must value american life over that of Iraqis. And at better than a 10-1 ratio!

I’m unwilling to value our lives and not value theirs!
I proclaim today 9/13!

This day, we acknowledge 30000+ innocent civilian deaths in Iraq, based on at least mistaken information, more likely outright deceit. Will you join me in wailing for the mothers, fathers, sons and daughters of innocent people who have been killed by people they didn’t know, these people who have invited no violence upon them?