WASHINGTON — The White House said Wednesday that President Bush has paid a price for the "Mission Accomplished" banner that was flown in triumph five years ago but later became a symbol of U.S. misjudgments and mistakes in the long and costly war in Iraq.

Thursday is the fifth anniversary of Bush's dramatic landing in a Navy jet on an aircraft carrier homebound from the war. The USS Abraham Lincoln had launched thousands of airstrikes on Iraq.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/04/30/mission-accomplished-5-ye_n_99534.html

The Left had a hay-day misrepresenting what took place there. The ship's mission was accomplished. They were headed home. The banner was not Bush's or the Pentagon's idea. Yet Bush-bashers have rode that house so long they cherish it and will not admit they are wrong until Jesus Christ Himself explains to them the error of their ways in glory.

Shane,

I suspect explaining that is not high on Jesus priority list... At least you are conceding that Bush-bashers are glory bound!

The truth is you are simply wrong. All the evidence contradicts the Bushite spin on this. Unfortunately the Bush Administration and its resolute fans prefer to live in their alternate reality...

Tom

Let's see...who had control of the press at the time?
If Mr. Bush did not want the world to see that banner [and wanted to exercise his humility], I am sure there was room on that ship to simply turn the microphones around so that HE saw the banner, and the reporters and cameras, having their backs to the banner, simply saw him .

No, they saw it and said to themselves, "this will make a great back drop!"

Personally I'd prefer to leave the symbolism aside and just take a hard-eyed look at the reality on the ground in Iraq now. It's an on-going disaster, that this president initiated, and has not been able to resolve. Those are the undisputed facts. The banner is beyond irrelevant. (IMO)

Why is it the one of 'our' lives seem more important than one of 'theirs'?

The Price of Loss
How the West values civilian lives in Iraq

Comment by Lily Hamourtziadou

12 November 2007

The American military has expressed regret “that civilians are hurt or killed while coalition forces search to rid Iraq of terrorism,” after the 11 October killing of 15 women (one pregnant) and children in an air raid near lake Thar Thar.1 The civilian death toll by US fire was 96 in October, with 23 children among them, while in September US forces and contractors killed 108 Iraqi civilians, including 7 children. In August US troops killed 103 civilians, 16 of them children, and in July they killed 196. In fact, during the last five months US forces in Iraq have killed over 600 Iraqi civilians. Regrettably, as always.

It is the ‘price to pay’, the ‘sacrifice’ that has to be made as we fight terrorism, the ‘cost’ of this war against evil forces. That is what we say to justify these killings. But those of us who speak of this price to be paid, this sacrifice to be made, do not pay this price, do not make this sacrifice. Our own country is not being destroyed, attacked, occupied. Our own children are not being blown up, our civilians are not becoming homeless by the millions. Those who speak of the necessity of this sacrifice, would they be prepared to pay such a price? In their own country? With the blood of their own families?

1 Iraq strike 'kills 15 civilians' BBC, 12 Oct 2007. IBC record k7704

2 'Army Bates 550 - 554' 13 Feb 2006 (via ACLU) IBC record d1910

3 'Army Bates 762' 18 Feb 2006 (via ACLU) IBC record d1908

4 'Army Bates 342 - 343' 1 Jan 2006 (via ACLU) IBC record d1904

5 'Army Bates 1149 - 1152' 1 Jan 2006 (via ACLU) IBC record d1905

6 Knowing the enemy difficult in Iraq Katarina Kratovac, AP, 7 Oct 2007. IBC record k7615

How much easier it is to sacrifice others, to let others pay with their lives. The value of those lives is hardly high enough to trouble us. It is nothing our military cannot afford. Here is an example:

“A fisherman was fishing in the Tigris river in the early morning, when a Coalition Forces (CF) helicopter flew over and shone a spotlight on him. The fisherman began to shout in English, ‘Fish! Fish!’ while pointing to his catch. A patrol of Humvees arrived, and as the deceased bent down to turn off the boat’s motor, CF shot and killed him. CF did not secure the boat, which drifted off and was never retrieved.” Compensation for death denied due to combat exemption; compensation for boat granted: $3,500 US.2

The US Army paid $7,500 to two children whose mother they killed inside a taxi that ran a checkpoint — both children were also in the taxi, and were shot and injured; they also paid $6,000 for killing a child looking out of the window, while a raid was on-going in the house across the street.3 4 They refused, as they do in the majority of cases, to compensate the child whose father they killed as he drove home, but agreed to make a ‘condolence payment’ of $1,500.5 More recently, the US military is reported to have paid $2,500 to each family of the three men they killed near Abu Lukah, as they guarded their village.6

There are more:
Al Matasan Street, Samarra, Iraq

Claim on behalf of Iraqi [Redacted] by son. [Redacted], who was deaf, was shot and killed by US forces near the Samarra museum. Two eyewitnesses corroborated the story. Finding: denied for lack of evidence and combat exception. Condolence payment granted: $500 US.7
Samarra, Iraq

7 'Army Bates 0952 - 0958' 4 Nov 2005 (via ACLU) IBC record d3353

8 'Army Bates 588 - 591' 28 Apr 2005 (via ACLU) IBC record d3352

9 'Army Bates 889 - 892' 27 May 2005 (via ACLU) IBC record d3348

Claim on behalf of Iraqi [Redacted] by parent. [Redacted], a four year-old girl, was playing in her front yard when she was killed by Coalition Forces’ (CF) fire. The CF and a Humvee were trying to cross the road and they shot to clear the traffic. A bullet ricocheted off of a wall and hit [Redacted]. Army memo: “A SIGACTS investigation revealed no activity meeting” the incident’s description, and “the claim is too old to verify.” Finding: denied due to lack of evidence. Condolence payment of $2,500 US granted.8
Tikrit, Iraq

Claim on behalf of Iraqi [Redacted], an ambulance driver. [Redacted] was on his way to the scene of an accident with an IED when he was shot and killed by a US soldier. Finding: negligent fire; Compensation: $2,500 US.9

Reading through the Army compensation reports, it is fairly clear just what the value of an Iraqi life is, of how the loss of a beloved child, parent and sibling is valued, priced. A few thousand dollars (if that) is how much they are worth, and no more. Their loss covered by a shockingly low monetary compensation. No further consequences, punishment, no further accountability.

Those of us who opposed this war and the long occupation that followed hold our political leaders responsible for the horrors of Iraq. We sometimes blame our soldiers. We always blame the terrorists. But we are reluctant to blame our nation or ourselves. “We can continue to blame the Bush administration,” writes Frank Rich, “but we must also examine our own responsibility for the hideous acts committed in our name in a war where we have now fought longer than we did in the one that put Verschärfte Vernehmung on the map.” We cannot simply ‘look the other way.’10

10 The 'Good Germans' Among Us Frank Rich, New York Times, 14 Oct 2007.

We, who have lost very little, who have sacrificed very little, who have paid very little, we ‘turn the page,’ to use Rich’s phrase, and we continue to speak of ‘our’ war, of ‘our’ fight against the terrorists, ‘our’ ideals, ‘our’ kindness, ‘our’ courage; things that we value far more than the lives of millions of others, people whose deaths do not hurt us, whose loss does not affect us, and whose sacrifice we do not see bloodying our own hands.

Just thought I would post this....It is a stark reminder that civillian casualties happen, but what can you say to make it ...right? The answer is...you can't....

Saddam had been removed from power when Bush landed on the aircraft carrier. The ship already had the banner because their mission was complete. Seeing the banner, General Franks thought it would make a good back drop. Many of our allies were not committed to helping rebuild Iraq until we had defeated Saddam. So we needed to proclaim victory.

Furthermore the Pentagon did not expect the insurgency to be as big as it was. They did not factor in how Iran would play a role in keeping civil unrest in Iraq. So without their crystal ball or prophet dreams, there was no way for the Pentagon to know the extent of the combat operations in front of them other than to speculate.

The US defeated Saddam in a march to Bagdad unlike any other in the history of the world. That itself was an unprecedented military victory worthy of all the glamor and glory the aircraft landing. President Bush looked magnificent in the flight suit. It looked like it belonged on him.

The truth is that the anti-war crowd was unhappy about the invasion from the first day it started. They were looking for anything they could find to criticize the President and the war effort. I see all this ado about this landing as a shameless attempt to paint the President and the military offices in a bad light.

All lives are important and the loss of any life is a tragedy. One might also ask why the world is more concerned about the loss of life in Iraq than in Darfur. Is not the loss of an innocent life at the hands of a drunk driver as much of a tragedy as the loss of a civilian life in Iraq, if not more? Over 15,000 Americans dies at the hands of drunk driving each year. And what about the lives of those that die from staph infections they gut while in a hospital? Is the lose of those souls anything less than to be sorrow.