Meanwhile, 136 Iraqis were killed in February. In January, it was 177 killed. For 2012, the body count was 4,471 civilians killed. This week, a bombing in Baghdad killed four. A few days earlier, bombings in Baghdad and elsewhere killed 22.
In December of 2011, as the last combat troops were being brought home from Iraq, President Obama stood at Fort Bragg and declared, "The war in Iraq will soon belong to history." That may be true, but it's vital that our accounting of the failures that led to this tragedy not be relegated to the past. Does President Bush, while painting his pictures in Texas, ever look back and assess the worst decision of his presidency (and that's a pretty high bar)? It seems doubtful, but that doesn't mean the rest of us shouldn't.
No doubt there will someday, rightly, be a monument to those who bravely fought and died in Iraq. But for the 10th anniversary, let's also build online monuments dedicated to those who planned and provoked and fomented the war, so we can join in the struggle of memory against forgetting.
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