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You Know It Was Going To Happen
by James Glaser
Three years in and other than the torture and sexual humiliation of a few hundred prisoners, the rape of a few score of female American soldiers, and the murder of several Iraqis, we have been pretty lucky so far in this war. America hasn't had any massacres on the scale of My Lai yet. Oh there was that wedding party massacre:
Of course the American media kept that off the front page, and there was that dispute, just because all the dead were dressed for a wedding, doesn't make it a wedding party. Those dead children could have been really short terrorists. So we have been lucky. Most of the trials of the 260 Soldiers and Marines convicted so far in this war, for what the rest of the world would call War Crimes, were low ranking peons, and there were only a couple in any one unit. What I am trying to say is that nothing has blown up in our faces in the war in Iraq.... yet. It's been three years and we have been lucky, but I think maybe that luck has run out.
It is always bad when the victims of a massacre are unarmed and first tied up before they are killed. That makes everything so sinister. It has taken three years, but the insurgents have caught on. Having a massacre in a church is even worse. This one was in a Mosque. That is what a Muslim Church is in Iraq.
It does not matter if this report of 37 unarmed tied up Iraqis killed by American troops is true or not. It doesn't matter if the Americans were just there and it was really the Iraqi Army who killed these people. What matters is what the people of Iraq believe. First off you know every Iraqi we have tortured, along with their families and loved ones are going to believe we did this. All of the tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis who we have rounded up and put in prison over the last three years are going to believe. Every one who had American troops kicking in their door in a middle of the night raid is going to believe, and every Iraqi who has lost a mother, or father, sister, brother, son, daughter, or best friend will believe. Three years in an intense war is going to put a lot of bad blood between you and the people you attacked. George Bush can talk about Liberty, Democracy, Freedom, anything he wants to, but more and more Iraqis are turning a deaf ear to the President. Three years is a long time. By now every Iraqi knows that we are building permanent bases. Every Iraqi family has lost something or someone. It's time to leave! Every day the chances increase that something big is going to blow up in our face, and now it doesn't matter if we actually do the foul deed, because we are going to be blamed, and the Iraqi people are going to believe what ever it is.
The only reason I believe the military is that I was in the Marines, and there is something about killing people tied up in a church that doesn't sit too well with our troops. I must admit that some American troops in some of our wars have done far worse than that, but for right now I'm not buying this massacre story. But remember, it doesn't matter what Americans think, what matters is what the Iraqi people think. George Bush has LOST this war, and he has ruined our country's reputation. On top of that he has put us so far in debt we are going to be in trouble over that for decades to come. Think about this too. It won't be long before America has the same kind of labor riots France is having today. George Bush has really screwed things up. |
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