This was definitely a weird dream. I guess I was thinking about the 50 British Citizens that were killed and I was - well the dream was this.
The President, Tony Blair and a few other European leaders were standing on a platform flanked by an Iraqi flag. They had set this day to be a world-wide moment of silence for the innocents who have died in Iraq. Not a "we're for the war" or "we're against the war" thing but a simple moment of silence that was actually authorized by the various leaders of this whole thing.
President Bush and Blair were going to give speeches about the Iraqi dead. They would offer their prayers from a stage in Iraq. Standing, or in wheelchairs, next to them or in the audience were the crippled, the widows, the orphans and a few top clerics. This was going to be televised world-wide. And the newly trained Iraqi forces were there for security.
President Bush: "We've come here today to pay tribute to and to remember the tens of thousands of innocent Iraqi citizens that have been killed and wounded during this war. I've asked for this day - for this moment - so that you know that we truly stand beside you and understand the horror of these last years. My friend, Tony Blair will also speak to you.
But this is really your day. And this is your moment of silence... I know that we have killed innocents as well but that is war. We never purposely... Well, this is about the insurgents who have been blowing themselves up both here and around the world. This about them, not us."
Of course, even in my dream it was hard to control the President's speech but at 12:00 Iraqi time, the President and the others on stage and in the audience and around the world bowed their heads...
And then I woke up.
"Every war when it comes, or before it comes, is represented not as a war but as an act of self-defense against a homicidal maniac. "
"All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome." - Both quotes by George Orwell
"On average, 34 ordinary Iraqis have met violent deaths every day since the invasion of March 2003," said Mr. Sloboda. "It remains a matter of the gravest concern that, nearly two-and-a-half years on, neither the U.S. nor the UK governments have begun to systematically measure the impact of their actions in terms of human lives destroyed." -
They note that 25,000 civilians have been killed since the start of the war. Here is a link to the story on CNN.
