Almost all of you saw the cemetery in the quad last week, set up by Una, the Center for Social Justice and SLU’s Chapter of Instead of War. The organizers claim it was a statement on the costs of war. There are several elements of this “statement” which lead me and many others to believe it is a thinly veiled political protest against American participation in the War in Iraq.

The memorial, according to the banner in front of it, represents only American soldiers and Iraqis. According to CNN, there have been 300 fatalities in Iraq among coalition forces [not including U.S. forces], with Australia, Britain, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, El Salvador, Estonia, Fiji, Hungary, Italy, Kazakhstan, Korea, Latvia, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Spain, Thailand and Ukraine, in addition to the United States, all having lost citizens in the Iraq war. Outside of Iraq, there have been 698 coalition casualties in Afghanistan, also according to CNN, as of Oct. 12, 2007. The Guardian, a publication in the United Kingdom, printed estimates of the number of civilian casualties resulting from the War in Afghanistan ranging from just over 1,000 to tens of thousands, as of May 2002.

This “statement” on the costs of war is nothing of the like. Rather, this is a political statement against the United States’ participation in one war, using the names of hundreds of dead people-without contacting their families to ask permission or even just to notify them of their use-to promote a political cause in which they may or may not have believed.

You may wholeheartedly support the war, or you may be one of its most ardent detractors. You may be serving our country’s armed forces, you may have served them in years past, or you may never wish to serve in them at all. Regardless of where you fall either politically or personally, I would hope that any rational person could see that this is not a “statement” on the costs of war, but rather an attempt to blatantly politicize the deaths of Americans and Iraqis to advance a political agenda. Fred Phelps’ Westboro Baptist Church would be proud of these radicals’ actions; the rest of America, I would hope, would be ashamed.

Philip Hayes
Senior