Soldier's Report

Soldiers Report on Iraq.
The War as We Saw It

This is one of the best articles I have read in a while: coherent, well-thought out, and very well informed. This really captures the war for me:

"Four years into our occupation, we have failed on every promise, while we have substituted Baath Party tyranny with a tyranny of Islamist, militia and criminal violence...In the end, we need to recognize that our presence may have released Iraqis from the grip of a tyrant, but that it has also robbed them of their self-respect. They will soon realize that the best way to regain dignity is to call us what we are — an army of occupation — and force our withdrawal."

And this as well:

"This suggestion [partial withdrawal] is not meant to be defeatist, but rather to highlight our pursuit of incompatible policies to absurd ends without recognizing the incongruities."

wow

This is from 1994. What happened? Did Cheney think the quagmire was going to be scourgified away by a wave of Bush's wand?

Cheney in 1994

If we had known.

If we had known this is what would happen to Baghdad, would you have still authorized the war, Mr. President ?

Inferno

Yet he did know. This was not only suspected, but predicted, by the CIA, by many thinking persons who grasped the complexities of invading a country unprovoked, a country only held together by the strength of a dictator for 50 years. Woe the arrogance of men and their guns! Woe upon those who use power to enforce their will! Woe to all humankind for violence begetting violence, for those believers who forget the words of our master. "All who live by the sword die by the sword."

Imagine

I was watching TV today, still overcome by the tragedy at Virginia Tech, when I noticed that there had been bombings in Iraq today. Almost 200 people were killed today there. Iraq is a nation of 26 million people. As a percentage of the population, if that were to happen in the United States, it would be equivalent (population wise), to 2,315 people dying.

Since the beginning of this year, a minimum 6213 people (non-U.S.) have died in Iraq. Two million people have fled the country for other lands since the start of the war. Imagine if 71,500 (the equivalent) people had died in the United States this year and 22 million people had sought refuge in Canada or Mexico. Heck, imagine if 6213 people in the U.S. had died because of madmen like the one at VT, shooting and blowing up random people.

What happened at Virginia Tech was horrible, gruesome beyond description. I have friends who work there, and it is truly an unspeakable tragedy. We are right to consider and to justly look for answers, for healing, for prevention of such madness in our society.

Yet the question must be asked: How do you help a society where hundreds and hundreds of people are willing to over and over again blow themselves up to kill innocents??? Why do we expect that adding more guns will stop those who have no thought for their own death and the death of others?

How can we expect to end that kind of insanity with force?

I know of only one person who can end that kind of hate.

He was hung on a cross.

He didn't carry a gun.

-James