Five years too many.

Five years of blood and death.

Five years of lies, of deadly deceit.

Five years of hiding behind “the troops” instead of admitting failure.

Five years of demonizing all of us who have been brave enough to oppose this madness.

Five years of ignoring the warnings and advice of our own military.

Five years of incompetent planning, incompetent supply, and non-existent diplomacy.

Five years of fear-mongering, of bogus links between Iraq and 9-11.

Five years of changing the reasons that we’re supposedly in Iraq, from 9-11 to weapons of mass destruction to “democracy” to the pathetic goal of “less violence.”

Five years of war profiteering by contractors like KBR, ripping us all off, and especially the soldiers, while making huge profits and remaining unaccountable to oversight, with the collusion of the Bush administration.

Five years of atrocities. Five years of cover-up and denial of what’s really happening in Iraq, including American support of terror groups, the use of chemical weapons in Fallujah, the use of enriched uranium, the bombings and deaths of civilians, including hundreds of thousands of children.

Five years of torture, five years of arguments for torture by the Bush administration, five years of moving our country into a state of acceptance of such sickening perversions as Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, and the other torture sites.

Five years of Blackwater and other mercenary death squads, answerable for their crimes to no one.

Five years of cowardly politicians in both parties.

Five years of plummeting regard for our country in the world.

Five years of shame.

Five years of betrayal.

By conservative estimates: 700,000 Iraqi civilians dead.

4 million homeless Iraqi refugees fleeing the country.

The callous destruction of a country by a superpower, cynically using terror to justify its quest for oil.

4,000 American soldiers dead, not counting those who died later from wounds, suicide, or war-related illness.

At least 60,000 American soldiers wounded, not counting PTSD and trauma victims.

The sacking of the U.S. treasury by criminals posing as patriots, to the tune of $500 billion so far, and more to come, with the economic results evident today to everyone except the obscenely wealthy, blood-soaked perpetrators of this crime against humanity.

Five years. Five years too many.

Today I go once again to march in the streets. I hope you are joining me. Silence means acceptance. We must say No, again and again, for as long as there is breath in our bodies, to the murder and corruption and degradation, the destruction of what we stand for as a country and the commission of war crimes in our name.

Out of Iraq! End the War of Terror that is being waged on all of us. We must say No to a government of war and crime before we can say Yes to a meaningful future.