I suppose one way or another our troops will be brought home from Iraq, but in the meantime I'm getting awfully sick of hearing about the "brave sacrifice" being made every day by our youngsters in uniform.
Those kids are not "sacrificing" their lives. They are having them taken away from them against their will, and against the will of the American people, by the stubborn pig-headedness of our so-called leaders in Washington.
Furthermore, countless thousands of innocent Iraqis are also having their lives taken away, their country reduced to rubble, their homes and families and livelihoods destroyed. But they are apparently not making any "sacrifice." They and their broken country are merely unfortunate "collateral damage." What a bland, convenient euphemism for the appalling suffering we are inflicting upon that nation.
And what worries me most is that I never hear any mention of what we intend to do (other than attempt to secure Iraq's oil for our consumption) to rebuild the country we have shattered and reduced to ruins. Are we eventually just going to shrug and walk away and say, "Well, we offered them democracy and the American way of life. Too bad if they didn't want it?"
If we do that, a wall between Mexico and the U.S. won't be nearly enough. We'll need a wall—and a roof—enclosing the whole of America. And we still won't be safe from the ever-growing number of people who have good reason to hate us.
Diana Fassino
Ketchum
