I have been watching the Operation Iraqi Freedom television coverage for some time now and have reached the conclusion that we are killing the people we are supposedly trying to save from the clutches of oppression. Indeed, I believe, there is no other conclusion, which can be reached. Whether by the tens or hundreds (the exact number won’t be known for months or years), innocent men, women and children are dying because of coalition bombing. And is this action is supposed to endear us to the Iraqi people? Imagine that you are an Iraqi whose child (mother, father, sister, brother, friend) is killed in one of these surgical strikes. Is this likely to make you welcome the coalition soldiers with open arms?
The military and the administration tout the use of precision weapons as being limited only to military targets. What seems to be ignored, however, is that any weapon destroys an area larger than the target. Bombs, missiles, etc. do explode outward, of course, affecting the surrounding area of residential buildings, hospitals, schools and other buildings occupied by civilian Iraqis. And, then, of course, Hussein is well known for moving civilians into military areas specifically for the purpose of trying to keep us from bombing them.
Make no mistake, I do not believe that Saddam Hussein is a nice guy. He is a ruthless dictator (I will not use the word evil here; it has already been much overused) who should be overthrown. But, I seriously question whether we are going about this correctly.
First, of course, is the pathetic attempt by the administration to connect al Queda to Iraq. The evidence was so slim that no one but the administration seems to believe it. Maybe an Iraqi official met an al Queda person in Chezh Republic; Maybe an al Queda person had medical treatment in Bhagdad and contacted Iraqi officials. And then, of course, interpreting the bin Laden tape, which encouraged the Iraqi people to rise up and overthrow (kill) Hussein, as proof of a connection.
Second, is the attempt to find weapons of mass destruction. Well, maybe they are there and they may be used in a last ditch effort by the Iraqi military, but that remains to be seen. The inspectors couldn’t find any, however, even though they went to sites identified by the CIA as containing these weapons. And then the connection (again using CIA supplied) evidence with Niger which proved that Iraq was buying nuclear (nucular?) material. Unfortunately, this proof was, apparently, faked. (Can’t the CIA do better than that?)
These connections were used to prove that the United States was in imminent danger of attack from Iraq, thus justifying this war (according to UN rules). Unfortunately, these connections failed miserably. I do believe that we will find WMDs after the war is over. Most likely these finds will be in places that the inspectors have already looked; thereby invalidating the inspections entirely. I also expect we will find proof that Iraq was buying Uranium from Niger, just like we said all along (probably in a FedEx envelope with a Niger return address). These finds will be highly suspect, however.
So, we have switched to our alternate justification, that of freeing the Iraqi people. Maybe this has more justification, but, it seems to me that killing the people we are freeing is a pretty drastic move. And while, I’m at it, the inability to get humanitarian aid into Iraq will surely kill more innocent people who no longer have food or water.
It seems that the military has totally mismanaged this war by assuming that Iraq would give up immediately. In interviews with injured soldiers it seems obvious that we thought that the Iraqi soldiers would just give up and we could march to Bhagdad with little, or no, opposition.
[sub]Posted only to get it off my chest, not to attract flames.[/sub]
