tom tomorrow reminded me that right around now is the one year anniversary of the american invasion of iraq (have we come up with an official name for the conflict yet? most people seem to be using "the iraq war" or "the war in iraq," but occasionally i hear someone say "gulf war two." i'm still a big fan of "the blair-bush project," but somehow it hasn't seem to caught on).
there's been remarkably little "one year after" hype. maybe because the situation in iraq right now is so inconclusive and the usual people who would otherwise be hyping the anniversary (i.e. the bush administration) don't want to bring it up for fear of reminding people of the reasons we went there in the first place.
a few days before the war began last year, my wife and i had a party. after everyone left, it was probably around 2 in the morning, mrs. noz and i were cleaning up and, i guess, talking about the coming war. my wife remarked--partly as a joke: " i wonder if we will remember this party as the last hurrah of the pre-war days. you know, like in a movie, where people are dancing and partying right before hitler rolls into town and the world changes." it was a strange idea. i hadn't really thought of life at that moment in that way. were we, at that moment, antebellum?
a year later its pretty clear that the onset of the war in iraq did not cause any major changes in our day-to-day life. in some ways it's not that surprising. after all, unlike the characters in the movies my wife was alluding to, the fighting was not coming to our town. the iraq war was never about fighting were we lived (if it were i'm sure it would have been a lot less popular). but in other ways, it's very odd to reflect on how little is different. the war was a major undertaking for this country and still is today. a significant portion of our tax dollars are flowing into the country now, mostly via the pentagon or halliburton. thousands of americans are in iraq now, and a few are killed and wounded each week. but aside from my outrage over what i read in the newspaper each morning (or online), it barely causes a ripple in our daily lives. it's actually a little frightening just how easy and cost-free this war would seem if i weren't obsessively following what is going on there.
i don't really have a point to this post. i'm just reflecting on how the past year has been fairly good to me, my wife, my friends and family. but it's been a bad year for plenty of other people in the world. and they didn't even get to go to our party.
