Wednesday, May 12, 2004
Perspective
Much of the talk the last day or two has been of the American beheaded in Iraq. It's an awful, awful thing. It's an unspeakable atrocity, especially for his parents who probably didn't need a public airing of the horrific way their son died. That said, I'm getting sick of hearing all the public officials decrying what was done. It's understood that it's awful and something no one should have to suffer at any time, but as those same people have stated many times, we're at war.
They may try their best to stop certain images from coming to the public from abroad, they might put a ban on pictures of our dead soldiers returning, but that doesn't hide the fact that in wars people die and it's rarely clean.
Was what happened to that man something extreme? Of course it was, but in the same breath don't be under the mistaken impression that we're killing them in some nice, humanitarian way. We're not sneaking up on them at night, covering their mouths with chlorophorm soaked cloths and then killing them by means of the painless lethal injection. They are being shot, stabbed and blown up. Some die quickly, some linger in terrible pain and agony and some simply have the life slip away from them like a slow moving tide.
Should you feel sympathy for these people... that's up to you, but don't claim indignation with the way they choose to kill us. If this offends you, good. Go suit up, head over and try to stop them or maybe go to Washington and try to stop the war. Either way don't think that just because Fox News throws a nice patriotic musical medley behind our bombings or that because you don't see the bodies that they are all coming back looking peacefully unscathed and that this is a humane war.
This is not about humanity.
This is war.
They may try their best to stop certain images from coming to the public from abroad, they might put a ban on pictures of our dead soldiers returning, but that doesn't hide the fact that in wars people die and it's rarely clean.
Was what happened to that man something extreme? Of course it was, but in the same breath don't be under the mistaken impression that we're killing them in some nice, humanitarian way. We're not sneaking up on them at night, covering their mouths with chlorophorm soaked cloths and then killing them by means of the painless lethal injection. They are being shot, stabbed and blown up. Some die quickly, some linger in terrible pain and agony and some simply have the life slip away from them like a slow moving tide.
Should you feel sympathy for these people... that's up to you, but don't claim indignation with the way they choose to kill us. If this offends you, good. Go suit up, head over and try to stop them or maybe go to Washington and try to stop the war. Either way don't think that just because Fox News throws a nice patriotic musical medley behind our bombings or that because you don't see the bodies that they are all coming back looking peacefully unscathed and that this is a humane war.
This is not about humanity.
This is war.
