War Travesties

So the troops have finally made it into Baghdad, bombed a couple of palaces, ate a nice chicken dinner, and found some pesticides instead of the "smoking gun" sarin gas. Meanwhile, the hospitals in Baghdad are overwhelmed by wounded civilians and soldiers.

Our news media have made this war sound like a piece of cake, giving us day by day, hour by hour reports on the war, but rarely giving us a glimpse at the horrors that always result in warfare. This has forced many of us anti-war activists to search alternative news sources to find the travesties so we can expose this war for the farce it is and for the bloodbath it has been. However, I did manage to find one story in the USA Today that gives us a glimpse at some of the tough decisions our troops are forced to make every day in battle. It all started when Pfc. Nick Boggs, along with his troop division, was under heavy fire in Karbala, Iraq. They were being attack by RPGs. Boggs managed to shoot one Iraqi soldier who was about to launch one of these rocket-propelled granades. But what happened next will leave a scar on this soldier's psyche for the rest of his life. A ten year old boy runs out into the street and picks up the RPG. Boggs is faced with a tough decision: let the kid go and face someone else with this RPG, or kill the kid. He decides to kill the kid instead of risking more lives.

These are the situations about war that inflame me. Ten year old kids should be playing in the streets, not picking up weapons. And I can understand the difficult decision Pfc. Boggs had to make and why he made it. Neither that kid nor Pfc. Boggs should have been forced into that situation. Our men shouldn't be dying, getting wounded, nor killing children in the streets of Iraq. This war should never have happened in the first place. And if it hadn't happened, that ten year old would still be alive and playing with his friends, and Pfc. Boggs wouldn't have to live with the horror that he murdered a child.

You see, these are the kinds of travesties that Bush has never faced in his lifetime. He has never seen battle. He doesn't know the tough decisions our men have to make everyday. When it was his turn to serve in Vietnam, his father swindled a deal to get his son into the Texas National Guard; however, Bush never even finished his term in the Guard. Instead, he was absent for most of the last couple of years. For most Americans, this would have meant courtmartial for desertion. For Bush, however, he was eventually given an honorable discharge and released from his duty. And yet, we have men and women dying all over Iraq, following the orders of the man who when it was his time to serve, couldn't be bothered with it. Does this make me angry? Damn right it does! George McGovern once said: "I am sick and tired of old men dreaming up wars for young men to die in. I think it is sad, the country you and I have all believed all our lives was the greatest country on earth, is now regarded as a bully, is regarded as arrogant, is regarded as careless about war." And I am sick and tired of men who have never been to war sending our military to fight battles that they are too cowardly to fight for themselves.