Seeing all the coverage of this shameful "anniversary" rips open the old mental wounds and makes them sting afresh. Too much of today's coverage stinks of cowardice replete with anemic words like "mistake," "flawed decision," "grave and costly error," and "a lesson in failed policymaking."  Pathetic platitudes as inexcusable as the crime itself, to commemorate that infamous point of no return, cowardly talk every bit as contemptible as the feckless media coverage 20 years ago, which was admittedly weakened by the silencing of dissenting voices, but nevertheless too easily cowed into cheerleading the unforgivable sin, endlessly parroting what the late Molly Ivins called The Two Great Lies (WMD and the nonexistent Saddam/Osama connection), and then later the Orwellian bait–and–switch of rhetoric to the revised and equally fallacious rationale of "spreading democracy." Millions dead, displaced, bereaved, disfigured, disabled, impoverished, terrorized poisoned. The graft. The torture. The continuing epidemic of stillborn babies and birth defects, many lethal, many merely debilitating, or excruciating, amid the aftermath that remains toxic to this day. The continuing epidemic of veteran suicide and Gulf War Syndrome. The blowback. The roots of ISIS. The PTSD. The loss of moral standing, the loss of treasure, the evil "gift" that keeps on giving. And the un–punished.

"A lesson in failed policymaking???" 

To be fair, not all coverage has been so disgracefully inadequate. John Walcott's piece recalling the events from his perspective working for Knight–Ridder is worth a read. Ditto for this piece by Matthias Schwartz, though the assertion that "it's time" to call Bush the liar that he is comes about 20 years late. Sinan Antoon's passionate contribution is rife with links to refresh our memories. 

It seems one Reuters article that got me particularly bent out–of shape has conspicuously disappeared from their site without a trace. The vast majority of the piece was dedicated to quoting Pentagon apologists championing a form of revisionism of which I had been previously unaware. In this alternate narrative, the Iraq catastrophe is... Obama's fault!  Whaaaa?
Oh yeah, Rampop, you didn't know they were doing that? No, I did not know, but I'm saddened to say I'm not terribly surprised. This re–writing of history rings with a lot of echoes from the same revisionist treatment of the Vietnam War: the problem was that we didn't go in hard enough, didn't commit enough soldiers, and pulled out before finishing the job. The war was winnable but for a lack of political resolve. All that shock and awe was just not shocking and awe–inspiring enough, or rather, was just wasted on the ineptitude of the following president (the one who oversaw the killing of Bin Laden). Mission accomplished.
Yes, that Reuters article has disappeared from the site's front page without a trace. Web pages change frequently, and can be influenced by the individual reader's search history (yes, I do my due diligence with privacy browsers and cache-clearing etc). Yet entering the term "Iraq" in the Reuters search engine yields numerous articles, but not that one. Did I really see it? Maybe it wasn't Reuters after all? Coulda sworn... and so the classic gaslighting, all–too closely associated with this ongoing atrocity, once again takes its familiar toll. I must have been far from the only one who objected to the spin. Is the removal of the article more satisfactory? Or more ominous?  The article that remains is of a vey different color, chronicling "the chase for WMD" and detailing the fairy–dust forgeries used to push the narrative of Nigerian uranium.
And if one scrolls down through the various search results about six days, a modicum of cold comfort can be had in the headline, No regrets from the Iraqi who threw his shoes at Bush.

Sadly, Sock and Awe, the game inspired by what came to be known as "The Shoeing" is no longer available. But our memories can't be taken away (yet).