Wednesday, September 08, 2004

News Item: "U.S. Iraq Death Toll Hits 1,000"

Hemingway wrote, "A defensive war, which must necessarily turn to aggressive at the earliest moment, is the necessary great counter-crime. But never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime. Ask the infantry and the dead."

War, like revolution, destroys and takes. We who are involved in any war or revolution, actively or on the sidelines, must face that truth and redouble our will to make sure that the good this war creates in the world will in the end far outweigh the hell it unleashes.




"In Iraq our national security interests and our national values converge. Iraq is truly the test of a generation, for America and for our role in the world. Faced with similar challenges, previous generations of Americans have passed such tests with honor. It is now our turn to demonstrate that our power, ennobled by our principles, is the greatest force for good on earth today. Iraq's transformation into a secure democracy and a force for freedom in the greater Middle East is the calling of our age. We can succeed. We must succeed."

-- Sen. John McCain





The marshlands that Saddam drained are being restored -- one of the greatest ecological success stories of the decade. Some 2,500 schools have been rehabbed by the coalition. Spending on health care has soared thirtyfold, and millions of Iraqi children have been vaccinated. Iraqi athletes, no longer terrorized by Uday Hussein, competed in the summer Olympics in Greece.





The Human Rights Center in Kadhimiya, Iraq, projected that if the invasion had not happened, Saddam would have killed 70,000 people in the past year. That's not counting the dead who would have continued under U.N. sanctions.





"I got to work and there I didn’t find a large difference although I missed those sensational moments when a child dies simply due to the lack of cheap medications and his mother’s cries and the reporters from all over the world who were always around would rush in to get a good shot and make a smashing report about the effects of the sanctions. Things are now very boring, we just treat people and a lot of them even get well!"

[A doctor in Baghdad, writing -- ironically -- about the changes since the liberation]





"I can`t tell you enough How heartsick I feel at just having heard the
news of the terrible bombing & loss 7 treasure guys. My heart bleed for them & their families God Bless them & all of you. On behalf of all REAL Iraqi people we will not stop praying for them as well as the innocent people of Iraq. May God save their friends in the militry & thier families & save you too. All Blessings with you.

Bana, age 21, Baghdad





"Nothing worth doing is completed in one lifetime; therefore, we must be saved by hope. Nothing true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore we must be saved by faith. Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore, we are saved by love."

Reinhold Niebuhr, "The Irony of American History," 1952