Here’s a short piece from Arab News with another street-level view of what it’s like in Baghdad these days: ‘We came, we saw, we conquered’. An excerpt:

The Marines appear to be very edgy, even terrified, following the human bombing on Thursday. And there are also those among them who are plain arrogant. When one discovered a bag of raisins in this reporter’s carry-bag while conducting a body search, and was offered some of them, he replied: “If I want them, I’ll take the whole bag. We came, we saw, we conquered.”

A brief digression: I’m not posting this to be critical of the Marines. I actually buy into that whole “support the troops” stuff, as far as it goes. But it doesn’t go as far as some would like to take it. Or maybe it’s that I actually take it farther than some would like it taken.

These young men and women are wholly honorable. They are sacrificing their freedom, and in many cases their mental and physical health, even their lives, to defend this country, including me and my loved ones.

Marines don’t have the luxury of questioning the motives and judgement of their leaders. They have to believe that their chain of command, all the way up to the commander in chief, is wise, thoughtful, and just. They have to believe that they are being sent in harm’s way for the best of reasons, that their sacrifice is justified, that they are not having their lives thrown away for stupid reasons. They have to believe, because otherwise they couldn’t do the things they do. And anyway, they have willingly surrendered that kind of questioning; that’s not their job.

But it is the citizen’s job. The people who founded this country knew that greedy, evil people, people without honor, would inevitably try to usurp the power of the military. It is the duty of every citizen to guard against that.

The Marines in Baghdad are paying a terrible price. They are paying that price willingly, out of a sense of honor and duty. In return, I owe them this: To play my own part, as a citizen, to make sure that this country’s civilian leadership honors their commitment and sacrifice. To make sure we have leaders who will spend the lives of brave young men and women only when the nation is in the utmost need, when all other options have been exhausted. Leaders who will go to war reluctantly, somberly, after careful reflection, doing everything in their power to minimize the attendant horrors that war always brings.

In other words, leaders who are pretty much the opposite of George Bush.

This entry was posted by jbc on Friday, April 11th, 2003 at 6:21 pm and is filed under war. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.