:: Wog Blog ::
:: WHAT AM I THINKING ABOUT? ::
:: Saturday 8 February 2003 ::
If your head is buried in sand and your arse is windswept, how can any thinking person understand your position to be one of bravery?
Phillip Adams writes about how Howard would be bravest if he told the Yanks to take a hike and refused to participate in any activity to liberate Iraq.
That is Adams idea of bravery. Urggh. I think it was Paul McGeogh in the SMH (late cannot be bothered to find link) who asked real recently something like "If only there were one example of noble US action without gain, then I could support the war."
There is at least one. Kosovo. But McGeogh ain't going to actually find that out so he can truly challenge himself.
What a jackass.
But even without it, what does it matter what the US is in it for?
Think Iraqis. Think a life for Iraqis without Saddam. Not a contained Saddam who is contained from hurting the west. But a gone Saddam who is unable any longer to cause any harm to any person anywhere.
Think about that.
My father called me today, teary (he is getting older) about all this stuff. He is against war because he remembers Italy during the war. Remembers his sister throwing him down and her laying on him to protect her baby brother from a nearby bomb blast. He remembers lost family. My grandmother to her death would not countenance a word about the war. Not a word. Lost her father, her brother and a sister. Watching "Stalag 17", a favourite movie of mine, she would simply say "Turn it off" in a soft voice. All that hurt. For decades.
That is what is being contemplated here by Oz, UK and US for Iraqis. Bloody and awful. Broken skin, bones, lost family, damaged buildings. Roads that are not open. We all know really how bloody awful war is. Our parents and other family know it first hand. They tell us. Clearly. And in quiet tears and gentle requests for silence.
But we are not contemplating a war like Europe or even Vietnam. We are contemplating liberating a people who want it to happen. Against a disgusting foe who we have fought before. He plays dirty. Real dirty. If he would just resign we could all relax a bunch. But he has not.
It can be fought and won without devastation. Not without loss of life. This ain't Nintendo. But without massive loss of life caused by us. Our focus should be on supporting the men and women of armed forces to win it as clinically as possible with as many troops as they need and can get. Win it.
:: WB 5:27 am [link+] ::
