Sunday, May 25, 2008

In Iraq, a Surge in U.S. Airstrikes

I'm not sure if I'll blog tomorrow, on Memorial Day. I hope to. But if I don't, I wanted to post this article I found in the Post on the increasing airstrikes in Iraq, particularly in Sadr City, a clerical stronghold in Baghdad. I always appreciate a good piece of war journalism, and this delivers. Anyway, when celebrating Memorial Day, it's important to take a moment to not only reflect on the sacrifices made by our military, but by the many unwilling sacrifices of others due to our foriegn policy. How many people killed in these air strikes, that are considered to be "collateral damage", actually welcomed our presence in Iraq? So all deaths should be memorialized tomorrow, not just those of "our troops."

Further reflection on this article: how come, after six years, we're still launching airstrikes to eliminate these so-called "terrorists"? Surely we've had more than enough time to work on the hearts and minds of the Iraqi populace to be able to maintain a significant ground presence in order to apprehend these guys? Rather than just launch missiles indiscriminately and kill more innocents. But that sounds like a winning strategy: limit our casualty rate by increasing their's.

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