1115.org

On Memorial Day, Peter Pace appeared on CBS News Monday. Here’s what went down:

Smith: Almost 1,000 men and women have died in Iraq since last Memorial Day, and you know what the polls say in terms of support for this war. A lot of Americans are wondering this morning if their sacrifice is worth it. What would you say to that?

Pace: Well, I have great faith in the American people’s sense of balance and understanding. I think when we think about each individual death, as we should, for that family, it’s a total loss. When you take a look at the life of a nation and all that’s required to keep us free, you know we had more than 3,000 Americans murdered on 11 September, 2001. The number who have died, sacrificed themselves since that time is approaching that number. And we should pay great respect and thanks to them for allowing us to live free, and I think that when Americans think about that, they’ll understand that freedom is not free.

Raw Story was first on the scene. They have already documented that:
• Gen. Pace is wrong about the number of “Americans murdered on 11 September, 2001″. It’s less than 3,000. Much less. The correct number seems to be 2,996 total minus 209 foreign nationals = 2,789 Americans.
• Gen. Pace seems to have no idea that the number of Americans “who have died, sacrificed themselves” since 9/11 is well above 3,000. As of Memorial Day morning, it stood at 3,455.

It might be expected that when you show up on Memorial Day on national TV to pay tribute to the sacrifices of our troops in the central front of the war on terror, you at least have your facts straight. Apparently not in this administration.

Others have pointed out the dishonesty of invoking the number of Americans killed on 9/11 when asked to justify “whether the mission in Iraq is worth the fatalities”. The conflation of 9/11 and the war on Iraq is not only dishonest but widely acknowledged to be so. Nobody who is intimately involved in the Iraq war can be unaware of this. When such a person chooses to conflate these two things anyway, that has to be regarded as an act of deliberate dishonesty, with malice aforethought.

I want to just add one other perspective on Pace’s remarks. He was asked by Harry Smith if the almost 1000 American lives sacrificed since last Memorial Day have been worth it. No matter how you parse Pace’s reply, he seems to be saying: “Don’t ask if the sacrifice was worth it. These Americans sacrificed themselves. We should just be grateful. We should just honor and celebrate such sacrifice.”

Just one problem with that fine piece of flag-draped fluff. These Americans didn’t sacrifice themselves. They were sacrificed by Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz and Feith; and their enablers; and their successors, heirs and assigns; and their puppets. (And just in case you were wondering, Peter Pace looks like he makes a perfect puppet.)

When the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is asked to justify the sacrifice of these almost 1000 lives, and his only response is to say that sacrifice is always noble, sacrifice is always deserving of great respect, what more is there left to say about this dishonest, futile, misguided war? Even the generals charged with prosecuting it can no longer justify the price we are paying, can no longer pretend to point to any sign of progress that we are achieving.

Peter Pace knows perfectly well that these almost 1000 men and women have died in vain. He practically came out and said so. Maybe he’s not such a puppet, after all?