Lest we forget...

" In Flanders fields the poppies blow Between the crosses, row on row...".It's remembrance day here in Canada, a day to remember the men and womyn who have died for us in war. Though i do morn the death of these individuals i can't help but feel as though...i guess i'm unsure about using this day to remember soldiers that have fought in past and current wars.

Though it is a noble thing to fight for your country, would it be just as noble to fight a war that we should have never had in the first place? I think Micheal Moore said it best "We live in fictitious times," he said while receiving the award for best documentary for his 2002 anti-gun film, Bowling for Columbine. "We live in a time with fictitious election results that elect fictitious presidents. We live in a time when we have a man sending us to war for fictitious reasons..."

Without getting too deep into the political nature of that statement i wonder...can i still morn the death of those who died even if i dont agree with the reasons behind the war? As a Mulism, I've felt as though America went into Iraq, under the guise of "freeing" the citizens, and imposing Western ideologies of 'Democracy'  when all they really wanted was oil, minerals, and other such resources.  Now these countries are left in conditions so dire that it would be a greater threat for America to leave. 

According to a study conducted by Brown university, 132,000 civilians have died from 10 years of war in Iraq and Afghanistan, a conservative estimate, by even by the Institute’s own admission. The death toll is in fact much higher. The study only examined direct violence that killed civilians — bombings, gunshot wounds, missile strikes. It did not include the  indirect deaths that occur when war creates refugees that can’t find food, clean water or adequate medical care. Nor does it include the lost limbs and emotional suffering that are a part of every war..(wired.com) 

I guess as i write this what i'm recognizing is that what i'm looking for is not worship of those that have died for our country, but a recognition that there are womyn, children, men.....fathers, mothers, daughters, sons, that have innocently died because of this unreasonable war, who don't have their names written on a plaque... or even a cross in Flanders Fields. No one wears a poppy for these nameless individuals. So if you have time, please take a moment of silence for the civilians that have died in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, Israel, the Congo, Sudan....i could go on but you get the picture. Lest we forget....