Written by Nan Fandel-MacQueen   

I'd like to thank a young veteran named Ryan who stood last month behind a microphone on the mall in Washington, D.C. and proffered the grim and sad reminder about serving in the military in Iraq, beginning the first day of the invasion on March 19, 2003, and continuing. He awakened me again. His words relating first-hand the injustices of the Iraq War branded it harsh; his memories seared it raw, and sparked my own for other reasons. I had no "boots on the ground" in Iraq, but I remember March 19 eight years ago, as the day the world changed forever, and the day we buried my mother.

I remember walking into my sister's house, her husband turning on CNN, and all of us already shell-shocked family members looking at the beginning of the very thing we had protested against: the invasion of Iraq. To say we were stunned would be a lie; we knew that Bush would never listen to the people he served or the world; we knew he was a liar with his own hideous agenda, and that all of the people in his administration were the same, Cheney on down.

This was a day of tears for me for two strong reasons, but it was also the day I began to work as hard as I could to try my best to awaken the people of America and the world to the atrocities of the Bush administration. It had worked in the 70s when we protested in the streets against the Vietnam war. But this was another world, and I was now a known writer and college professor with tools at my disposal that could reach around the globe.

So I blogged on many sites, calling the Bush administration "Democracy Thieves," their actions "The Bush/Cheney Genocide: Death of a Nation" on OpEdNews.com, openly listing all their crimes and predicting in later works that a new kind of civil war would occur in America. I made films on You Tube under the name of TheyAreGuilty.My voice was heard by a small few; some agreed; some called me a traitor; some thought I was "a Pollyanna." The latter might have been right, for nothing changed. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. But I still kept going after them.

Then, along came Barack Obama, and I thought from his rhetoric during his campaign that one of the first things he would do would be to begin an investigation into the Bush/Cheney "organization," for that was what it was: organized crime at its worse. I championed this presidential candidate in blog after blog, and believed him when he said things would "change" if he were president.

But what did President Obama do? He pardoned Bush. Pardoned a criminal who admitted to torture and who started and sustained an illegal war. Again, I was stunned. Still am, actually. Then, when President Obama made a slight shift in what was going on in terms of our involvement in Iraq, I wrote again, questioning this "change," as it seemed to me that nothing short of getting OUT of Iraq was in order. Again, nothing really changed. Gitmo is still open. We are still in Iraq, and we are still shouting for justice to prevail against the war criminal George W. Bush and his crowd of thugs.

So I want to thank the people of IndictBushNow.org, who sponsored the event where Ryan spoke, for their ongoing hard work in trying to bring Bush to justice. And I want to thank others still in the trenches fighting for justice with their pens to end the wars and find ways to begin a new and true democracy in America. I pray that Eric Holder will listen to our pleas for justice, but although I have little hope that this will happen, you reawakened me, Ryan.

Sometimes a little hope can be enough.

Sometimes we have to believe the smoke from the fires of injustice will lift, and the mirrors of lies will be smashed by truth and honor if we work hard enough.

Sometimes...we should not go back to sleep because another world is possible.

Professor Nan Fandel