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The following is the manuscript of a speech I will give around 2:00 pm this afternoon during a war protest at Oklahoma City University commemorating the 5th ‘anniversary’ of the US occupation of Iraq.

Five years ago, riding the emotions of 9/11, ‘we the people’ collectively gave our government the benefit of a doubt. We were led to believe we should preemptively attack a sovereign nation in the name of justice and peace. We were given evidence, evidence and intelligence that we know now was manipulated and yes, even fabricated. We were told that not only was Saddam Hussein in possession of weapons of mass destruction, but that he was directly connected to the horrible events on September 11. We now know that was an outright, blatant lie. Our government appealed to our emotions and used a national tragedy as a pretext for an ulterior motive fueled by our addiction to oil and our compulsive obsession with the military-industrial complex.

Now, five long years later, we haven’t brought peace to Iraq or to ourselves. As a result of President Bush’s praised “troop surge,” 2007 proved to be the bloodiest year of the war both for US troops and for the Iraqis. And as we learned earlier this week 4000 of our young men and women have been killed fighting this God forsaken war, 71 of them from our state of Oklahoma. If we’re completely honest with ourselves, we don’t really know how many innocent Iraqi civilians have been killed because as one US general has said, “We don’t do body counts.” Conservative numbers estimate as few as 81,000 Iraqis have been killed since 2003 though that number could exceed several hundred thousand the equivalent to over 35 September 11’s. These are not armed combatants. These are civilians. An additional 2 million Iraqi civilians have been forced to leave the country and 2.5 million remain displaced as a result of our occupation. Almost 30,000 US troops, the number of those sent last year in the surge, have been severely wounded and over 7500 have sustained serious brain trauma. Upon return from the war over 100,000 of our troops have been diagnosed with some sort of mental illness or social disorder and the suicide rate of Iraq veterans had steadily risen since 2003. The average age of those veterans? Twenty-one.

Meanwhile, as our economy is in recession and the markets are falling, we continue to spend around $340 million per day to fund this unjust war, around $4600 per family and just over $1700 per person. And because of this “credit card mentality,” recent studies suggest that before it’s all said and done we will have spent $3 trillion, yes, that’s trillion with a “t,” bombing people in Iraq. But of course we shouldn’t be too worried, because we won’t bear the brunt of that debt. No, that will fall to our children, who’s future we have mortgaged to fund this debacle. Not for the sake of peace, justice or democracy, but for the sole purpose of hegemony, dominance, and the expansion of the American empire.

And so today we gather. ‘We the people’ gather to raise our voice against this glaring injustice and we stand in protest of this heinous atrocity. We stand united for the cause of peace and we stand in solidarity not only with our troops, but with the Iraqi people, who, as we speak are suffering under our occupation. We stand with those that have gone before us as a prophetic witness to ask, “How many more must be killed for a lie? How many more lives must be lost before our government takes responsibility admits they were wrong? How many more must be murdered before we admit that there never was a smoking gun to become a mushroom cloud? How much more death will we allow? How much more blood will be on our hands before we take responsibility?”

And so we have gathered today. We have gathered as ‘we the people’ to stand and affirm a lofty vision of healing, a vision of reconciliation, and above all, an audacious vision of hope. Hope that one day war will not exist as a normative form of public policy and conflict resolution. Hope that one say we will realize that war doesn’t bring true peace, but only the illusion of peace. Hope that one day we will not exploit the value of the weak so that the strong may become stronger. Hope that one day the many will not be oppressed so that the few can live as they wish. Hope that one day foreign lives will be said to have the same amount of value as domestic lives. Hope that one day we will indeed beat our swords into plowshares and our spears into pruning hooks. Hope that one day justice will roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream. And hope that one day we will walk this earth not as enemies and allies, but as sisters and brothers united in our humanity.

We have gathered. We have gathered as ‘we the people’ to stand and let our voices be heard because we believe it is our responsibility to actively resist the injustices done by our government in our name. And to our government we say this: you may represent some of us, but you do not represent all of us. You may wage war against innocents, but you may not do so in our name, you may not do so by our will, and you cannot do so in the name of peace and freedom to further your own political agenda. We will not and we do not comply. Not in our name and not in our country.

At the moment, we’re gearing up for our next election. And as the hype of this election cycle continues to grow many of us will be tempted to become apathetic about this war, to avert our attention and to coronate our new political messiahs, who we hope will change and save the world. Friends, in the midst of the tension that is a presidential election we cannot, we must not, forget about the ongoing suffering and oppression we are perpetuating abroad. We are in the middle of the great moral crisis of our time and we cannot be distracted by the glitz and glamour our election. We cannot be lulled to sleep as innocents are being murdered, whose blood is on our hands, for it is by doing so that we become no better than those that wage war itself. We must push this reality to the forefront of our collective consciousness and of those we elect. We must remain persistent. We must remain vigilant. And we must remain fervently indignant, unwavering in our commitment to prophetic truth, unwavering in our solidarity with the oppressed and the suffering, and unwavering in our hopeful affirmation peace with justice, and reconciliation through healing. We believe that another world is indeed possible. And right here, right now, today, in this moment, we pledge to make that world a reality. That is why we’re here. Thank you very much.