Let's Roll

Tuesday, July 22, 2003

Let's Roll

Let’s roll, let’s furl
Let’s puke, let’s hurl
Let’s scheme, let’s lie
Let’s scream, let’s die

Let’s bluff, let’s sex up
Let’s parse, let’s dress up
Let’s conquer, let’s spend
Let’s occupy, let’s pretend
Let’s stretch, let’s extrapolate
Let’s antagonize, let’s contaminate

Let’s dump toxins in their soil
Lest they think it’s just for oil
Let’s burn a perpetual funeral pyre
Let’s call it a plan and not a quagmire
Let’s trade in our freedom, abandon our reason
Let’s fade out dissent and replace it with treason
Let’s lie and lose and let’s kill and die
Let’s share our blood soaked apple pie

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NOISE

Today, we have the greater power to free a nation by breaking a dangerous and aggressive regime. With new tactics and precision weapons, we can achieve military objectives without directing violence against civilians. No device of man can remove the tragedy from war; yet it is a great moral advance when the guilty have far more to fear from war than the innocent.

President George W. Bush, in a televised speech from a U.S. aircraft carrier off the coast of California, May 1, 2003

I hope the use of force will not become necessary...Either the Iraqi regime will give up its weapons of mass destruction or, for the sake of peace, the United States will lead a global coalition to disarm that regime

President George W. Bush, Bush Signs Resolution Authorizing U.S. Force Against Saddam, American Forces Press Service, October 16, 2002

The Department of Defense announced today that Sgt. Justin W. Garvey, 23, Townsend, Mass., was killed on July 20 in Tallifar, Iraq. Garvey was patrolling in his vehicle when it was ambushed and struck by rocket propelled grenades. Garvey was assigned to Headquarters, Headquarters Company, 1-187 Infantry Battalion, Fort Campbell, Ky.

DOD Identifies Army Casualty, United States Department of Defense News Release, July 1, 2003

You, our builders, adopted that battle cry that Todd Beamer led the passengers on that flight over Pennsylvania. "Let's roll" is what he said, and "Let's roll" is what you said. And that's exactly what you've done. You've healed this wall, and in doing so, you are helping to heal our nation.

Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, United States Department of Defense, June 11, 2002

I don't believe you have heard me or anyone else in our leadership talk about the presence of 1,000 bodies out there, or in fact how many have been recovered...You know we don't do body counts.

General Tommy Franks, US Central Command, Bagram Air Base, Success in Afghan war hard to gauge, The San Francisco Chronicle, March 22, 2002

The U.S. combat death toll in Iraq hit a disheartening milestone Thursday as the Pentagon acknowledged its casualties from hostile fire reached 147, the same number of troops who died at enemy hands in the first Gulf War. The drumbeat follows its own grim rhythm: three U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq last week, two more shot this week. It echoes across this country, affecting military families who avoid the TV news and those arguing over the war and what comes next.

Robert Tanner, U.S. Death Toll in Iraq Equals Gulf War, The Associated press, July 17, 2003

Thank you all very much. Admiral Kelly, Captain Card, officers and sailors of the USS Abraham Lincoln, my fellow Americans: Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed...The Battle of Iraq is one victory in a war on terror that began on September 11th, 2001, and still goes on...

Operation Iraqi Freedom was carried out with a combination of precision and speed and boldness the enemy did not expect, and the world had not seen before. From distant bases or ships at sea, we sent planes and missiles that could destroy an enemy division, or strike a single bunker. Marines and soldiers charged to Baghdad across 350 miles of hostile ground, in one of the swiftest advances of heavy arms in history. You have shown the world the skill and the might of the American Armed Forces.

President George W. Bush, in a televised speech from a U.S. aircraft carrier off the coast of California, May 1, 2003