This post is under the election category 'cause we were brought this war by GW Bush and Co.
I was reading some commentary in the London papers yesterday and this morning about the murder of Nicholas Berg. The thought came to me: how is this any different from the murder of some 22 prisoners in American care at Abu Ghraib (and other facilities in Iraq)? They didn't die of natural causes. They were tortured to death. At least Berg died relatively quickly (as opposed to being beaten and suffering for hours).
While I deplore Berg's murder and would love to see his killers caught and punished, I can see why the Muslim/Arab world sees this as nothing more than "payment in kind".
Don't get me wrong. I'll all for hunting down and exterminating terrorists. But I feel like this war has drifted very far from any claim that we are in there to "help Iraqis set up a democracy" (my words). We are now an occupying force, unwanted by the vast majority of Iraqis. Since they are relatively blameless in the regime of Sadaam Hussein (indeed, we kept him in power as long as it served our interests) we should leave their country to them.
Except of course for those lovely oil fields.
Posted by artandscience at May 13, 2004 02:44 AMI agree. Scan the comments I've been getting lately from folks who are full of anger but somehow not angry enough to enlist nor clueful enough to step back and see this mess for what it is.
Posted by: paul at May 13, 2004 07:22 AM