Five Years Is Too Many

This week marks the five-year anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq - and we are still there. There was never any justice in starting this war for even one day - five years is an abomination.

Yesterday, the Lone Star Girl and I stood with our peace signs and a few other witnesses to protest the war. There will be more events this week marking the invasion's anniversary and we will help raise awareness as we can.

We've stood so often now with our signs in these past five years, watching how citizens react to us as they drive or walk past. As a social scientist, I know that you cannot really judge the mood of the nation by the reactions you get at one busy intersection, but it feels like you can when you are standing there. You watch the children, straightening up in their seat belts to peer at you curiously, their parents either trying to get past you before they ask questions or pointing you out and encouraging the kids to wave. It feels like you can taste and smell the shifting attitudes...sense somehow the national zeitgeist.

I didn't like what I was tasting yesterday.

When the war began, most people supported it. We protesters got angry gestures and nasty epithets from people more than anything else. People would walk up to us and scream things - they would even harangue our children. The mood was clear - our views were a definite minority. Those reactions changed over time, though - the people who saw us holding vigil became gradually more silent and thoughtful, uncertain and troubled, rather than angry and defensive. Gradually more people started honking and waving, nodding and smiling, holding up peace sign fingers as they passed. As recently as a year ago, things had shifted so much that almost all the responses to our presence that I saw were positive.

Now I feel things shifting again.

Yesterday, I would say our presence generated many more openly positive responses than openly negative ones, but most responses were neither. Most were that quiet, troubled thoughtfulness, that quick avoidance of eye contact. While once such responses signaled a sea change that rolled against the war, I fear that the tide is creeping backwards a bit now. I hope not.

We are so close. We could get the troops home so soon. I hope we don't lose the chance before January, or even before November.

Please witness in what ways you can...remind our nation that this war is still real and still wrong. Pray for peace. Vote. Hold on.