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July 1, 2003

Welcome to the occupation

A BBC account (6/28/03) of a hit-and-run incident in which an 11-year-old Iraqi boy was apparently killed by a vehicle in an American convoy.

A Yahoo! News general story (6/29/03) that among other things describes an incident in which a U.S. soldier at a checkpoint shook down an Iraqi citizen for 600 bucks. (See "The shaky relationship," about halfway down the column.)

A This Is London story (6/19/03) describing the disturbingly brutal mindset combat brings ordinary soldiers down to.

A Washington Post story (6/27/03) about how a few more soldiers died, and a remembrance from a friend of one of them (6/26/03, on, of all things, Howard Dean's Blog for America).

Say what you will at this early moment about how right it was to invade a country based on selected reports, allegations, hearsay, and forgeries. It's possible that those of us who opposed the war will one day eat our words. In most respects, I would be happy to do so. But for now, such outcomes appear a long way off. Americans and their representatives were lazy about examining Mr. Bush's lazy arguments for war, and military and administration officials appear to have been lazy about planning the phase in which we are now bogged down. Now we're slowly, steadily, unavoidably learning again what war is: Bad men dishonoring their uniform; regular men making mistakes; average men becoming killers; good men dying; and everywhere, everywhere, families suffering.

I am not a sunshine patriot complaining because this war is not a cakewalk. I opposed this war because I knew it would not be, and because our leaders dishonestly claimed that it would. Even if the American fantasy version of Iraqi Freedom is somehow, someday sold to and established by the people there, this administration's inability to properly articulate its reasons for going to war made concerns about its ability to properly finish it entirely justified. I am anxious to be proven wrong.

Thanks to Billmon at Whiskey Bar for a lot of these links.

Comments

Posted by: thp at July 3, 2003 6:21 AM