Accountability and healing seem to be natural outcomes and processes that America must go through after these last eight years. These themes are all encompassing and a major part of it focuses on the war in Iraq. The issue of torture is forefront today, and the premier query, is whether we can move on as a society if we do not demand accountability for the permitting of torture of prisoners and violations of the Geneva Convention.
But I submit it goes deeper than just the issue of torture. One question I continually have about this war is: Who are the unnamed "invisible" non-combatant innocent people of Iraq that have been killed or affected by this war? The question of the invisibility of humans was raised in the Civil Rights movement, and is comparative to the Iraq war. Ralph Ellison, for instance, in his book The Invisible Man, brings out this notion of the nondescript, almost non-existent Negro human being. In a poignant illusionary analysis, Ellison, describes his protagonist a "Negro" man being required to put 10 drops of black paint in a discolored can of paint. It appears the paint is only made visible once it is stirred and turns "pure white." , This to me is analogous to the invasion of Iraq. Advocates of the invasion appear to believe Iraq could only be made whole if we dropped our metaphoric 10 drops of democratic paint into that country of otherwise invisible people. "[T]he president's messianic vision, to bring democracy to Iraq," states Professor Noam Chomsky in a 2005 interview with Democracy Now.
Secondly, in his book about the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., author and scholar, Taylor Branch refers to the notion of "invisible souls." In On Canaan's Edge, Branch quotes Dr. King as saying, "The Ghetto Negro has been invisible for so long and has become visible through violence." A prescient statement I think and perhaps apropos. Unfortunately, after the fall of Sadaam Hussein, only growing violence and the possibility of Al Qaeda in Iraq drew attention to the likely decaying country and in a growing Civil War.
But nevertheless, the suffering innocents in Iraq remain invisible. We barely know the names of the American soldiers who have died, been injured, crippled or maimed in the war, but as to the innocent non-combatants in Iraq, we know even less. Illustrative of the point, something called the Iraq Body Count reports over 90 thousand casualties of non-combatant deaths since the fall of Saddam's regime.
Others, however, estimate that anywhere from 400 to 1 million non-combatants have been killed since the Iraq invasion.
And so, I challenge the so called "Main Stream Media," or as my HuffingtonPost friends like to call it, the MSM to do some stories on these Invisibles who have suffered in Iraq. Bring out the facts about this war so that we can face up to the truth and begin to heal. Introduce us to some of these families who have lost loved ones; tell us an accurate body count of noncombatants. This is not the first difficult truth we have had to live up to in America; we have had to live up to slavery, the intermittent of Japanese Americans during World War II, the Tuskegee experiment, the treatment of Native Americans and so forth, so we can face this truth as well. America is a strong nation, and our strength comes in large part from our ability to right the wrongs of the past. Ellison's invisible hero reminds us of our duty to speak up for the "Invisible Man" when he says,.""And it is this which frightens me: Who knows but that, on the lower frequencies, I speak for you?"