Strike On 5/1/08: Fifth Anniversay of "Mission Accomplished"

On May 1, 2003, exactly 5 years ago, President Bush stood on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln to mark the end of major combat operations in Iraq:

Thank you all very much. Admiral Kelly, Captain Card (ph), officers and sailors of the USS Abraham Lincoln, my fellow Americans, major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed.

More than 4,000 US troops have now died in Iraq, more than 97% after the President's speech. The number of injured US troops and injured and killed Iraqi men, women, and children follows the same relationship: the vast majority of the casualties occurred after the "major combat operations in Iraq [ ] ended."

Think Progress reports:

Today (4/30/08), reporter Helen Thomas asked White House Press Secretary Dana Perino how the president would “commemorate” the date tomorrow. Perino said the White House had “certainly paid a price for not being more specific on that banner”:

PERINO: President Bush is well aware that the banner should have been much more specific, and said, Mission Accomplished For These Sailors Who Are On This Ship On Their Mission. And we have certainly paid a price for not being more specific on that banner. And I recognize that the media is going to play this up again tomorrow, as they do every single year.

Does the White House seriously think we're so stupid as to believe that Bush wasn't really talking about the end of hostilities in Iraq? that he was talking about something else? Think Progress points out:

Just a month after his speech on the U.S.S. Lincoln, he also spoke to troops in Qatar: “America sent you on a mission to remove a grave threat and to liberate an oppressed people, and that mission has been accomplished.”

Chalk that up as just one reason why on May 1, 2008, I'm not working and why I'm participating in a one-day General Strike.

Need other reasons? How about torture, Gitmo, illegal extraditions, secret renditions, $3.67/gallon gasoline, sub prime mortgages, lack of universal health care, the recession, and on and on and on.

I'm striking. Please join me.