Editor's Note

The war in Iraq is not over. The Minnesota Daily will continue to include the death toll in Iraq on its Editorials & Opinions page. To remove it would be to start the process of forgetting, and we as a nation are not ready for that — not yet.

The U.S. destroyed a country which was not a threat to us and which had nothing to do with the attacks of Sept. 11. We killed hundreds of thousands of people in an illegitimate, pre-emptive war waged because of false and manipulated evidence. We abducted people, illegally transported them to other countries and tortured them. Were we not in a position to prevent international bodies from doing their work, some of our leaders would have been tried for war crimes. We killed 4,801 of our own men and women — more than died on the attacks of Sept. 11 — and wounded many thousands more.

The Iraq war was a national tragedy. That&undefined;s not something one forgets about easily and relegates to history. We didn't put Sept. 11 behind us and move on immediately; we tried to hold those responsible for that crime to account.

In a war that was already disconnected from the general public — only 1 percent of the country fought in Iraq — we need that daily reminder of what our actions have cost the world and ourselves and of how we have not even begun to repay that cost. We can't — and shouldn't — move on from the war in Iraq until we do.