Is it real enough yet?

[kellinator]

I just dropped by CNN.com and was greeted by this headline in the red bar at the top of the screen:

"BREAKING NEWS: Heavy shelling reported in Fallujah. Details soon."

I sat there looking at the screen and for the first time in my life, I got the sinking feeling that this was how my mom must have felt watching Vietnam play out.

I remember how terrified I was when Iraq invaded Kuwait, how fearful I was of the United States going to war. And then the war actually happened, and we all know how that went, and I think part of the nation, perhaps, began to assume that all wars would be like that, and now we're learning the hard way that they're not, they're really not.

It's a bad situation that keeps getting worse. I wondered if last week was the week the war finally came home, between the publicity generated by the Pentagon's attempt to cover up photos of flag-draped coffins, both Doonesbury's B.D. and Get Fuzzy's Rob's cousin losing a leg in Iraq, and the tragic death of Pat Tillman. Well, it's finally coming home to me. All the emotions I've been feeling over the war -- anger, disgust, sadness, anxiety -- are currently being dwarfed by one big emotion:

Fear.

Comments

Here are my problems with this war:

[amai-unmei.livejournal.com]

I don't see any sinking. We have been trying to bring a just war to an enemy that sees pride in death, and that's a problem, so we've started not caring and just doing a job.

First of all, there is most definitely sinking. With the number of casualties, the numbers of reserve troops being kept months longer than expected (to fill in gaps in defense), the "surprises" that seem to meet our soldiers at every turn ... there is definitely a sense that this war was poorly-planned, and that's putting it mildly.

Iraq is right-smack-dab in the middle of the Islamic world, and anyone who believed that Americans could just waltz on in without considerable resistance really didn't do their homework. It is without question that many of the enemy that our soldiers are fighting are not even Iraqi; several countries with known terrorist cells (Jordan, Syria, and Saudi Arabia directly come to mind) are only a hop-skip-and-jump away. If you take one-twentieth of the populations of the surrounding countries and add them to the guestimated numbers of insurgents in Iraq, there's no question that American troops are heavily outnumbered. That's a recipe for disaster, especially in a part of the world where people are still fighting over perceived slights from 2000 years ago!

This war, on our side, has been engineered by businessmen and not generals. Generals would have handled this affair very differently (Bush the First made his point very clearly and very effectively on his watch, because he was the head of the CIA and his information was sound). This time around, there has been more emphasis on the business aspect of the war and a lot less on the tactical realities of dealing with that region, and soldiers have paid dearly for it.

It is my hope that America does try to put some order to this mess, but given the history of the region, that is highly unlikely.

Re: Here are my problems with this war:

[kurios-thanatou.livejournal.com]

It's true that this isn't an ideal situation, but what is there to do but give support to the troops even if we don't agree with the people making the decisions. The troops are much more likely to come home breathing and in one piece if they maintain good morale (a depressed soldier is a dead soldier). We're trying to plant democracy in Iraq. It's a bit like trying to plant corn in the Sahara. It's a lot of work. But if it takes root and spreads, it will be a good thing for the whole world.

The region isn't stable. Pulling out won't make it more stable. Ignoring it won't make it more stable. This is really the only way we can even begin to defuse a timebomb that *will* eventually blow up.

As far as the war being engineered by businessmen ... well, that's just kind of silly.