Letters to the Editor
-
Winning Hearts and Minds
If I were a Mideast resident, it would be really difficult not to despise the United States. For what reason -- just try to come up with one -- should the people of the Mideast not hate us?
Have we done anything to benefit them? We've killed far more Iraqis than the demonized Saddam Hussein killed. By what logic should this feat be appreciated by the people of the Mideast?
We turn cities to rubble, terrorize people in their homes, murder innocent civilians, imprison "suspects" without charges, and much more, all in the name of fighting "global terrorism" but we are global terrorists ourselves!
We kidnap people and fly them to unfriendly countries to be tortured. That kind of says it all right there. A great way to win hearts and minds, eh?
It's truly sickening. You thought Vietnam was bad karma? We're going to be paying a steep price for this for a long long time.
-
Um, why are we still dropping bombs at all???
We went to war to get rid of weapons of mass destruction. They didn't exist. So we decided, we're here anyways, we may as well free these people from the tyranny of Hussein. Now he's dead. So we've dropped 500,000 pounds of bombs on people who have no weapons of mass destruction and who we've freed from the tyranny of a dictator? That's hilarious. Who are we bombing exactly?? The innocent civilians getting killed are the people who are supposedly "grateful" for our intervention - and the "bad guys" are just terrorists who happen to be passing through and using Baghdad/Kabul/etc as their base. Since the only pseudo-government in Iraq is the one that we put there, it's impossible to make the argument that the government of Iraq is supporting the terrorists. Why aren't we bombing Queens in New York? We know that terrorists were based there too.
Never underestimate the government/industrial-war machines power and need to create perpetual enemies. After all, if there was peace we wouldn't need bombs. These are people who are trained in the language and technology of war, and have absolutely no clue how to radiate peace.
And we're still bombing Afghansitan? Oy, vey. These are people who had the misfortune to live in a place where terrorists figured they could train without being bothered. And now their already dilapidated country has been bombed back to the middle ages by a bunch of paunchy middle-aged American war-men with computer guided missiles sitting in an air-conditioned trailer counting women and children on a screen like bonus points on a video game. Another victory over hearts & minds? Not so much.
At least the media/government is no longer subjecting us to the degrading images of people in Iraq and Afghanistan thanking U.S. for coming and saving them - probably hard to find anyone willing to do that since they are all so busy burying their collateral damage, I mean friends and family.
My heart goes out to the Cheney's, Bush's, and all the confused people who still think war is a good idea, I truly hope and pray for them that light may enter their hearts and minds and let them see that Peace is the way.
-
I know why we drop thousands of bombs from the air
...because the death toll would be unbearably high if ground troops actually had to do some killing.
seems obvious, but my point is that we're transferring the sacrifice and hardship to the civilians we are supposed to be altruistically liberating.
-
This is a remarkably complex topic
And one that I must give kudos to the author for covering, and covering in what I would consider as close to an unbiased fashion as might be humanly possible.
I believe that the most important factor to be taken into account has perhaps been overlooked, however. The military forces of any country or alliance, from the USAF to NATO to the Taliban, all share a single purpose:
They visit violence upon their enemy with the intent of making the enemy's choice to pursue their goal too costly to continue.
That's a long sentence that can be boiled down further: military forces exist to kill people and destroy objects.
This should not be viewed as necessarily evil - although it could be, very easily. Contrary to what we are taught in schools, violence does quite often "solve problems," however distastefully. The uniformed members of our armed forces have as their job the delivery of violence upon targets with varying degrees of granularity, from the grand-plan strategic to the in-the-mud tactical.
Which brings me to the subject of the article - and what I view as the inflammatory image used as its cover. Yes, innocent civilians die in combat. Yes, the bombs we deliver kill them. This is a terrible thing, and we should never forget that.
However, the fact that we (yes, I'm a citizen of the USA) are attempting to utilize technology and methods to reduce overall civilian casualties should not be overlooked. The overall effort itself should be applauded. Criticism, when leveled, should be targeted at the choices made in the pursuit of this goal - and rather than being recriminatory, be constructive. By improving the techniques, collateral deaths and injuries will be reduced, which will reduce the overall negative impact in public opinion of our efforts (there is no way to turn civilian deaths positive, there is only reduction of their negative effect).
I will come forward with my own opinion that I find it abhorrent that we have launched a disastrous and unnecessary war in Iraq, and that this has cost the lives of tens if not hundreds of thousands of civilians. However, I also realize that from a pragmatic standpoint, our leg is in the trap now, and we have little choice but to fight while we remain there. I consider it both valiant and honorable that our commanding officers and troops in the fight are taking the effort and expense (in materials, time, and even their own lives) to reduce casualties among civilians, and particularly so given the frustrations they experience in dealing with an enemy that seems to be almost interchangeable with those very same civilians.
If there is a finger to be pointed, it should be pointed above the heads of the uniformed officers and troops fighting this war (with the possible exception of political "feel-good" mouthpieces such as Gen. Petreus), at the individuals and groups who have directed our nation to pull the trigger against a country and its population that had committed no wrong against us. I believe that the sentiment expressed in the "skull-and-crossbones" bomb image used in this article is best directed at them - the architects of this conflict, who are the true "baby killers" of this particular war.
T