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Apr 4, 2004 An amazing amount of space has been given these past months to how difficult the ‘occupation’ of Iraq as become. Seemingly every day we are bombarded with scenes of burning vehicles and dancing scum. Whether the news services do this for the good old reason that ‘man bites dog’ sells more soap than ‘dog bites man,’ or if they really want us to believe that we are losing, there is something that is being lost in the shuffle. When we look back at WWII, we tend to focus on the fighting and totally overlook the post war period. While the actual fighting obviously deserves the majority of our attention, we should remember that there was considerable uncertainty following victory. As a matter of fact, even without ‘insurgents’ taking potshots and trying to blow up our boys, it still took years before a central bank was established. With nearly 60 years of 20/20 retrospect on our side, it’s easy to just assume that everything turned up roses right after the white flag went up. Most likely, in another 60 years (and assuming that Iraq is successful in holding onto some sort of democratic rule) people will overlook the rough times directly following cessation of ‘major military action.’ The important things here are twofold. First, we must do what we can to ensure that people remember the sacrifices of our men and women both during our military victory and afterwards. Second, we should do everything in our power to make people understand why our men and women are still being asked to endure time away from their families, their country and the potential of being maimed or killed. We must never forget WHY Americans are in harm’s way. The reason is simple. We have chosen to risk American lives for the sake of saving Iraqi lives. We could have made the decision to flatten their country. We could have razed each and every city to the ground. We have the firepower to do it. Instead, we took the high road. We refused to return fire when it was coming from within a crowd of innocent civilians and we did not truly unleash “Shock and Awe” upon Baghdad, to cite just two examples. Now our men and women in the Armed Forces and private security details pay the horrible price. Two very important questions remain: Will people finally recognize the inherent goodness of our actions? And… Was it worth it? ------------ About the author: Tom is a conservative medical student in liberal New England who probably spends too much time paying attention to politics and never lacks topics for friendly discussions. Email Thomas Carroll: carroll@student.uchc.edu Tell a friend about this site! ------------ |
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