Candlelight Vigil Speech

The following is from the speech I gave at the Candlelight Vigil UIUC CAN held on Friday, April 4th, to commemorate the Americans and Iraqis killed in Iraq. It was also the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

We are here to commemorate those who have lost their lives in the Iraq Occupation, both US and Iraqi. However, I think it would be a gross oversight on our part if we did not also mourn the loss of another antiwar activist 40 years ago today.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated 40 years ago today in Memphis, Tennessee while he was working to help the city’s sanitation workers, both black and white, obtain fair living wages. Dr. King is best known as a leader of the civil rights movement, as well he should be. A magnificent orator, Dr. King was one of the most pivotal people in the struggle for civil rights, and arguable one of the most important people in American history. However, it is important to remember that Dr. King did not devote himself solely to the struggle for racial equality.

It is a strange coincidence of fate that today also marks the 41st Anniversary of Dr. King’s first public statement opposing the Vietnam War, in his famous “Beyond Vietnam” Speech. It is important to remember that in the last years of his life, Dr. King struggled not only for racial equality, but for social and economic equality, and was an ardent opponent of the war, although many of his former allies in the Civil Rights movement vocally criticized Dr. King for becoming involved. The fact that he stood firm in face of this criticism is one more reason he is rightly venerated, and his untimely death mourned.

But the primary reason we are here is to remember those who have been killed in the illegal occupation of Iraq, both American soldiers and Iraqis. As of Tuesday, the Defense Department has listed the total number of Americans killed in Iraq as 4,012 with another 29,628 wounded. Estimates on the Iraqi death toll range from 650,000 to over 1,000,000, with another 2 million displaced internally and a further 2 million displaced internationally. Thus, if we take the estimate that 1,000,000 Iraqis have been killed, approximately 1/5 of Iraq’s pre-war population has been either killed or displaced by the invasion and illegal occupation.

And the occupation is illegal. The United States has failed to uphold the duties of an occupying force. Its continuing presence is creating more chaos and destruction, and also an environment ripe for exploitation by the likes of corporations such as Halliburton, KBR, Bechtel and mercenary groups accountable to no one, such as Blackwater USA. These corporations receive enormous contracts from the United States government and then fail to fulfill those contracts, pocketing American taxpayers money to further their own corporate profits, to the detriment of both Iraqis and Americans. They also commit gross crimes – KBR, a former Halliburton subsidy, has been accused of using slave labor abducted from India, and there are currently two suites being brought against the company, alleging that they have covered up cases of rape of American citizens. Bechtel has failed to provide clean water or electricity for Iraqis, creating widespread and deadly outbreaks of dysentery. Blackwater USA is still being investigated for causing unwarranted carnage in Iraq.

There are currently as many foreign contractors in Iraq as there are American troops, yet we do not know how many of these contractors have been killed. Nor can we know precisely how many Iraqis have been killed, either directly by Occupation forces or by the toll that 5 years of occupation take on a country. We can, however, commemorate their deaths, and work to enact positive change by bringing our troops and contractors home now.

While we may not know the names or numbers of the slain Iraqis or contractors, we do know these things about our troops. We will now read the names and hometowns of the 143 Illinois soldiers who have been killed so far.