Oh god

[DrBB]

An open letter to Tom Friedman:

This is a picture not featured in yesterday's blissful inauguration coverage, though it was run in a sequence on the BBC. The footage was of American soldiers firing on a car that turned out to contain a family--mom, dad, kids. This is the four year old daughter, covered in the blood of her parents and siblings after the attack.



I suppose a "conservative" would say, "How do you know they weren't terrorists or insurgents?" That's exactly the point, though. In this kind of war, this is what you end up doing precisely because you can't tell. That's what insurgency is about. That's the dynamic they rely on. It's not a mystery or rocket science or a surprise of any kind. Anyone who has paid the slightest attention to insurgencies in the past could and did see this coming. I did, and I'm not on any foreign policy thinktank payroll. If I was Saddam, or a Baathist, or a Sunni, or just an angry nationalist, I'd have been planning to turn it into a guerrilla war from the moment Bush & Co. started ramping up to war. That's how you defeat a superpower-- Viet Nam. The French in Algiers. The Russians in Afghanistan. Did we assume these people are ignorant morons over there, that this wouldn't occur to them? Flower petals, indeed.

All of which means--as rational, normal people everywhere used to understand--that you don't go blundering into someone else's country with bombs, troops and tanks unless you have a damn good reason, and maybe not even then. Because this is what you're going to end up doing. Not all of it, but an inevitable part of it. So you'd damn well better be sure you can say "Yes, this is horrible, but we had to because..."

Do you think you can answer, "Yeah, but we DID have to, because Saddam was a threat and everyone thought he had WMDs"?

No they didn't. "Everyone" DIDN'T think that. There were PLENTY of people during the build up to the war who cast doubt on whether there was anything real to worry about there, and they weren't all lunatic fringe people by a long chalk. The bloody CIA itself issued a report, leaked to the press, saying we'd create more problems than we'd solve if we went in there. Other people not under the sway of Ahmed Chalabi. Including several Knight-Ridder reporters, and the poor reputation-shattered John Ritter, who got attacked and smeared and discredited for saying that in his analysis there was very little if any WMD material left over there. "Whadda nutcase" the war-supporters and the media still say, but guess what: he was RIGHT. Add to that the number of overblown assertions that were exposed as such, sometimes within hours of their utterance, during the ramp-up. Most of Colin Powell's famous speech to the UN had been debunked within a week of his making it, well before the attack. Anyone with an internet connection and an interest in hearing something besides Bush Hype and Fox propaganda could find this out. I knew it. Lots of people knew it.

Didn't you know any of this? Because you should have. There were lies being told, and they were widely known to be lies. And there's a pretty simple rule here, one that you'd think would be clear enough not to need stating, but it goes something like this:

If you have to lie about your justification for war, and make things up and viciously smear anyone who disagrees in order to "sell" it, it's probably not good enough.

Because no matter how professional and well intentioned and highly trained your troops are, there's no way of avoiding the fact that THIS is part of what you're going to end up doing:

[Southpaw Bookworm]

1. As my BF said last night

Better bring your water wings, 'cause we're all swimming in this bloodbath.

[wtmusic]

2. Did this happen yesterday? n/t

[DrBB]

5. It ran on the BBC yesterday

Don't know when the actual incident took place. Hardly matters. More of 'em just like it every day.

[Gay Ranger]

8. My MP daughter was wounded in Bagdad...

When a car drove up and attacked them at a checkpoint. Two other MPs were wounded but luckily the only ones killed were Iraqis in the car.
My daughter and her squad held their fire a bit longer than they should have because they weren't sure.

Working a checkpoint in a combat zone is a harrrowing experience (I did it myself in Panama, Kuwait and Somalia) and a car not stopping is a huge danger. The soldiers have to consider the safety of themselves and unit first. When they don't, what happened to my daughter can happen all to easily.

[Oversea Visitor]

10. Is this what

the US army do now?

[Gay Ranger]

19. Soldiers aren't cops...

Completion of the mission and the unit's safety come before the rights of what is seen as the enemy. I am very sorry my daughter was injured, she will bear the scars and nerve damage forever. But I faced the same situations. In the mind of a soldier living another day is foremost.

Wheather the war is just or not, they are there now and have to protect themselves. Sometimes tragic thing like this happen. They are regrettable, but a quick finger on the trigger makes for a longer life span when working a checkpoint than trying to be PC.

I do not agree with the war. I believe we should get out. But I do not want to see US soldiers dying to prove a point or give reasons for I told you sos.

[bobbyboucher]

25. Regrettable?

Fuck you. The military dumbshits are more than a little responsible for having Bush in the White House to begin with. Taking innocent life because they are in the "regrettable" position of having to fight in an illegal and immoral war, one in which the enemy is hard to distinguish, is still murder. Manslaughter at best.

The military overwhelmingly wanted this murderous cabal to be installed and even helped them steal it the first time. They DESERVE the burden of having to perhaps die while they decide whether it is the enemy or not. They asked for it, they got it. Their "hair-triggers" and "itchy trigger fingers" will do the US more damage in the long run than one can ever calculate.

And in case you didn't know, we already lost this war.

[Oversea Visitor]

29. I think

Fuck You is too harsh a respond. I refuse to attack the US army, those guys are following order. If you want to fuck someone do it to the commander in chief.

[primavera]

26. Well, I'd have to say they're being successful

For every one US soldier flown home in a bag, a hundred innocent Iraqi civilian men, women, and children have perished. That's a pretty high price tag for the safety of US troops.

[geniph]

27. The problem in this case isn't the action of an individual soldier...

...it's that that soldier - and your daughter, Gay Ranger - shouldn't be over there at all, being put in that situation. It's so needless, so useless, such a tragic waste.

Blaming soldiers because they sometimes accidentally kill the wrong people is most definitely scapegoating the wrong people. Soldiers do as their training teaches them. There is a definite code of law and ethics, but there is sometimes a very thin line between self-defense and overreaction. Pointing the finger at a soldier who did not intend to kill noncombatants is only distracting from the real issue - asking why in the name of all the gods there are soldiers there AT ALL.

[DrBB]

12. Yup. That's exactly my point

That's how an insurgency of this kind works. It's obvious, predictable, inevitable, and plenty of us saw it coming before we ever started on this misadventure. And part of the horror is what it's doing to our own troops. I think of what that kid with the rifle and flashlight standing next to the girl is going to live with for the rest of his or her life, too. Assuming he/she gets out alive at all.

[wtmusic]

14. Wahh

"I think of what that kid with the rifle and flashlight standing next to the girl is going to live with for the rest of his or her life, too."

That just breaks my heart. At least he's alive. :eyes:

[DrBB]

18. Sorry you don't see it. But the point of the letter

...is that you don't go into this shit lightly or on the basis of lies, because this is what happens. And soldiers do come back from war profoundly damaged, even if their bodies are whole. That's part of the harm too, and it's real.

[wtmusic]

13. Oh really -- bullshit

So shoot first ask questions later, eh?

We're illegally occupying another sovereign nation -- their safety comes first. Sorry to hear about your daughter, but being a soldier is risky business. Especially when we have no right to be there.

[arcane1]

15. which is EXACTLY why they shouldn't be there

I would imagine that your average random Iraqi is terrified of these foreign troops in their country, and one's first instinct would be to flee, rather than stop at be at their mercy

especially with one's children in the car

I would do the same fucking thing

working a checkpoint in a combat zone is, indeed, a harrowing experience, but it's a picnic compared to LIVING IN A COMBAT ZONE

[Minstrel Boy]

17. living in a combat zone

US policy has made a combat zone of Iraq, and more than 100,000 Iraqis have perished in it. God knows how many more will. I try to keep a big heart, because the war makes victims on all sides, but most of my sympathies must go with those whose home has been made a battlefield, and who live under the humiliation of occuation.

Most Americans have no idea what life in a combat zone must be like, facing checkpoints of skittish foreigners who view you chiefly in terms of threat potential.

[radwriter0555]

20. Then your daughter shouldn't be on the payroll of a treasonous regime

unlawfully occupying a nation that was never a threat to the USA, under false pretenses.

She should find another job. One that applies ethics instead of murder.

The Iraqis have the RIGHT to attack and kill the unlawful invaders of their LAND.

[geniph]

28. Whoa, whoa, that's taking it a bit far

A lot of troops signed up during peacetime, before this regime started their endless wars. They signed up because the military was their best hope for a college education or technical training to lift themselves out of the working class. They didn't predict quagmires and stop loss and this bullshit. Desertion is a very serious thing to suggest.

[radwriter0555]

30. They don't have to go, and they don't have to stay. It's a question of

conscience. I have NO respect for ANY US soldiers in iraq.

none.
they all make me puke.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

33. Really, if I had signed up in peacetime, I'd be deserting and headed for

Sweden by now (as many of my contemporaries did during the Vietnam War) rather than participating in this unjustifiable war.

One always has the choice to participate or not participate. Even during the My Lai massacre, there was a soldier who shot himself in the foot rather than participate, and a helicopter pilot who airlifted some of the villagers to safety.

[bobbyboucher]

24. Tough shit.

It's our burden. If not, why don't we just nuke the place.

[Stephanie]

3. Scott Ritter, sweetie

Good letter - send it to Judith Miller too

[Willy Lee]

4. That is a great letter. So sad.

[HamdenRice]

6. How about flooding Friedman's mail with images?

I like your letter, but I am beginning to believe that like shrub, Friedman only wants to hear happy news. Maybe one way of reaching him is if everyone sends him an image like this a day, either email or paper, of an Iraqi civilian, killed, maimed or scarred for life.

[TWiley]

7. We have to kill them.

They are not Christian, they are not white, they have burned our flag, and they are squatting on our oil.

Gawd says so!!! He is expecting a colder than normal year in heaven.

[CoffeeCat]

9. This administration is beyond words...

This administration has incessantly lied. They throw out outrageous claims. Then, we all spend hours debating whether or not they're lying. Meanwhile, their neocon war machine moves forward--taking one dangerous and horrifying step after another.

I'm sensing a desperate need for massive protest and action. I'm sick and tired of waking up in the morning, reading the news and being outraged beyond belief.

It's obvious these thugs lie on a daily basis--to further the PNAC agenda of global military and economic domination. They've got us caught on the hamster wheel. We're going nowhere--being outraged by their lies. They're laughing at us--as we debate, pontificate and emote about how awful they are.

We all look at sources who said there was no WMD--Daniel Kay, Scott Ritter, other UN weapons inspectors and the CIA reports--and we know these people were right. They tried. So...who will come forward in the near future--debunking and exposing the lies that this administration will tell as they shore up their next sickening invasion? Will it take us another two years for this country to realize, "Oh, the naysayers WERE right!"

We've got to be loud and visible with the next PNACer move. Otherwise, we'll be back a few miles arguing and being outraged--while these warmonger thugs destroy our country and continue their murdering.

[Oversea Visitor]

11. Free Merc to guard the interest of Oil corporation

Well hiring merc to protect the oil interest which is racing against the clock to drain the oil field in Iraq just too expensive and sure hurt the bottomline.

There no way US can hold Iraq in the longterm, so all this lives are wasted. But hey its big profit for the oil companies. Free protection while they hump away at the pump to drain the oil out of Iraq. Once its dried up they can have the country back.

Wonder how the troops will feel when they all shipped back home after this is all over?

[lawladyprof]

16. What makes me mad is that none of the MSM are

acknowledging that many, many people saw/predicted this before the war. There is no acknowledgement that "Gee, guess those folks were right afterall." Some opposed the war out of principle (pacifists and those who thought THIS war was immoral and illegal (disagreed with it the doctrine or pre-emptive or preventive war). Others protested because they were sure this war, regardless of its justification or lack thereof, was sure to be a disaster. Recognizing that these categories are not mutually exclusive. Just once I'd like to hear a reference to the phenomenal number of people (both experts and laypeople--ordinary folk) who tried to turn the tide and that they were right. Their predictions came true.

[Karenina]

21. This type of incident

has been occurring DAILY in Iraq for almost TWO YEARS NOW. Perhaps this particular child's cry will finally reach Americans' ears in whose names this ATROCITY is being committed.

[DrBB]

22. Somebody owes Scott Ritter a BIG apology

More than one somebody. A lot of somebodies. Not that he's holding his breath.

[American Tragedy]

23. If I hadn't seen this on DU, I would have never known of it.

Everybody in America should see this, not just a few political junkies online.

Of course, part of me wishes that I had never looked at that image at all.

There just are no words.

[Oversea Visitor]

31. A picture

can means a thousand words. It would not have come to this if the press has not do a blackout. Americans was deny their right to know, their freedom to chose and stand for what they believe is right or wrong by the intentional blackout. In short the administration fear the people. So dont ever feel you are weak cause you are not.

[HeeBGBz]

32. These pix break my heart

The trauma is gutwrenching. My grandson is about the age as the little boy. The absolute fear in his eyes brings me to tears.

[Malva Zebrina]

34. I cannot deal with this at all

I am sorry. I cannot find it within my brain to say I support the troops. I am sorry, I do not think the troops are brave at all. I am sorry, but Iraq had no military, no army, no navy, no air force and indeed, we simply walked in. What is brave about that? What is brave about bombing a city such as Fallujah to bits, to the ground killing so many children and so many innocent people? That is "brave"? NO it is not! It is time to stop this romanticizing. It is time to stop this good old boy military club, where sitting around talking about the good old days allows one to be in that club.

I am sorry, I do not think the brave troops are fighting for our "FREEDOMS" and many of them think that is exactly whast they are doing.

And anyone who has signed up after the election of George Bush, certainly is aware of what the mission is--and if they do not, then their age, their stupidity, their motives are NO excuse.

I am sorry. You may chastise and flame me, but this picture is unbearable. I simply cannot deal with this. The barrel of that gun held by an American soldier, is still visible in the photo, ready to shoot, as that little girl is screaming, not understanding why she is covered with blood, and why her parents were shot to death, in no doubt a million bullets aimed at them and that little boy--a candidate for mental illness in years to come.

The Bush doctrine of pre-emption sure has come a long way.