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Page 3 of 3 And let's remember, we're talking about a woman who most distinctly does not live on a fantasy planet. Here's how she describes Bush's newest reason to stay in Iraq -- to honor those who already died there: "Since the Freedom and Democracy thing is not going so well and the Iraqi parliament is having such a hard time writing their constitution, since violence is mounting against Iraqis and Americans, and since [George Bush's] poll numbers are going down every day, he had to come up with something." Put that up against the President comparing the ethnic and religious horse-trading inside Baghdad's Green Zone to the American Constitutional Convention.  To illustrate her language, I've taken two brief, recent passages she wrote around the time the President made his speeches in Utah and Idaho. The first is a mere 225 words on "Coming Back to Crawford"; the second, just over 1,000 words and entitled "One Mother's Stand". I've treated them as a single document. Place this set of words against the President's above: Son/sons (my, their, have been killed): 6
Daughters: 1
[Her son] Casey (Camp, love of): 7
Mother/mom (to feel the pain we feel, Gold Star, regular): 8
Parent/parents: 2
Children (lose their, my other): 2
Country (our, my, an innocent): 4
Grief (unbearable): 1
Pain (as much as I am, feel the, and heartache, feel their): 4
Heartache: 1
Love/loved (of Casey, peace and, ones): 6
War (senseless, George Bush's, his, insane): 4
Invade (an innocent country): 1
Monstrosity (of an occupation): 1
Lies (his): 1
Misuse and abuse (of power): 1
Killed/killing (in George Bush's war, Americans, continue the): 6
Died (Americans have, my son, others who have): 5
Death/deaths (sent him to, meaningless): 3
Responsibility (the president's): 1
Accountable (hold George Bush): 1
Cojones (I do have the… to tell the world that our "emperor" has no clothes): 1
It seems that George Bush was right. "You got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in." He (and his advisers and his speechwriters) simply forgot that others might also do the repeating. The Wordless Dead Offer Their Own Form of Testimony  Increasingly, the American, if not Iraqi, dead are entering our world and, after a fashion, making themselves heard. Their eloquence lies in their very names, which appear daily in our papers, as they have for two years now. Here, for instance, are the names of the American dead, all thirteen from Arcand, Elden to Seamans, Timothy, reported by the Pentagon for the three days beginning with the President's VFW speech and ending with his Idaho speech. These were presented in a little box on an inside page of the New York Times with the following explanation: "The Department of Defense has identified [number] American service members who have died since the start of the Iraq war. It confirmed the deaths of the following Americans yesterday:" August 23, 2005 BOUCHARD, Nathan K., 24, Sgt., Army; Wildomar, Calif.; Third Infantry Division.
DOYLE, Jeremy W., 24, Staff Sgt., Army; Chesterton, Md.; Third Infantry Division.
FUHRMANN, Ray M. II, 28, Specialist, Army; Novato, Calif.; Third Infantry Division.
SEAMANS, Timothy J., 20, Pfc., Army; Jacksonville, Fla.; Third Infantry Division.
August 24, 2005 ARCAND, Elden D., 22, Pfc., Army; White Bear Lake, Minn.; 360th Transportation Company, 68th Corps Support Battalion, 43rd Area Support Group.
CATHEY, James J., 24, Second Lt., Marines; Reno, Nev.; Second Marine Division.
MORRIS, Brian L., 38, Staff Sgt., Army; Centreville, Mich.; 360th Transportation Company, 68th Corps Support Battalion, 43rd Area Support Group.
NURRE, Joseph C., 22, Specialist, Army Reserve; Wilton, Calif.; 463rd Engineer Battalion.
PARTRIDGE, Willard T., 35, Sgt., Army; Ferriday, La.; 170th Military Police Company, 504th Military Police Battalion, 42nd Military Police Brigade.
ROMERO, Ramon, 19, Pfc., Marines; Huntington Park, Calif.; Second Marine Division. August 25, 2005 DÍAZ, Carlos J., 27, First Lt., Army; Juana Díaz, P.R., Third Infantry Division.
HUNT, Joseph D., 27, Sgt., Army National Guard; Sweetwater, Tenn.; Third Squadron, 278th Armored Cavalry.
LIEURANCE, Victoir P., 34, Staff Sgt., Army National Guard; Seymour, Tenn.; Third Squadron, 278th Armored Cavalry. Tom Engelhardt, who runs the Nation Institute's Tomdispatch.com ("a regular antidote to the mainstream media"), is the co-founder of the American Empire Project and the author of The End of Victory Culture, a history of American triumphalism in the Cold War. Recommend this article...
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